When I get finished with fighting, I hope they ask the same questions. It’s not my purpose to answer them. Boxing is the art of self-defense. I knock ’em out the first chance I get. – Gerry Cooney
It’s like you always think that when you get to a goal, you’ll be happy. But then there is always something else that interests you. – Gerry Cooney
I don’t care what you say about me anymore! I don’t care what you write about me anymore. I don’t care! This is my life. I can’t have anybody messing with my life. I just want to be Gerry Cooney, doing what I want to do. I want to be what I am. A fighter. – Gerry Cooney
I was a left hooker, and I loved hooking. I also really liked to jab and mix it up right away. – Gerry Cooney
I’ve spent most of my life in prison. I was a prisoner of my fear and my low self-esteem. – Gerry Cooney
I don’t want anybody guarding me. I want to be free; I want to be left alone… I would like to go out there and have no one know me, but at the same time, it would bother me, y’know. – Gerry Cooney
I either had to concentrate on fighting, or I had to help my family. I chose my family. I love my mom; I love my family. – Gerry Cooney
I was lucky. I held on to some of my money. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do after boxing. But I found what I wanted to do. – Gerry Cooney
I’ve just had some bad luck. I’ve had every injury known to man. I understand how people think, ‘How can this be happening all the time to Gerry Cooney?’ But it did. – Gerry Cooney
If my son wants a boxing career, I won’t stop him, but I definitely won’t push him. It’s bad for a kid to be pressured. – Gerry Cooney
Boxing was a way to express my anger. All of a sudden, I was expressing anger, and I was good at it. I was like a Jekyll and Hyde. Boxing helped me because I was fighting the anger out. I was knocking guys out. – Gerry Cooney
I don’t care about the critics. I took a lot of nonsense. I got stuck with silly labels like ‘White Hope.’ What about other guys like Tex Cobb – they never had those labels? – Gerry Cooney
I want to win. For myself first. And for all those people who stuck with me and understood. – Gerry Cooney
Joe DeGuardia, I love that guy. He’s not a superstar promoter yet, but he will be. He was a fighter himself; he’s staying the course with these guys. He’s developing some good fighters out there. I really applaud him whenever I get a chance to. – Gerry Cooney
After every fight, I knock myself down. I start from scratch again. I say, ‘I’m not as good as I thought.’ It makes you work harder. It makes you push harder. It’s more than money. It’s more than the title. It’s my pride, and it can be scary thinking about it. I could lose. It’s scary. – Gerry Cooney
My father never once told me he loved me. I told him I loved him only one time – that was when he was sick. It was hard, the way he showed his love. I didn’t understand what he was trying to teach me. Now I know, but it came too late for him to see it. After he was gone, I realized he was trying to strengthen my mind to make me better. – Gerry Cooney
I saw my brother have an altercation one time. He hit a guy with a left hook to the body and a right hand to the chin. He not only knocked the guy out, but out of wind. That stuck with me. It scared me. – Gerry Cooney