Quotes from Amir Khan

I've always known that to have anything, you've got to work hard at it.

If you start throwing eight or nine shots, you're going to get caught - bang - and the fight could be over.

When you drop weight, the closer you come to the fight, the more your muscles tighten up.

I know people didn't think I'd become a world champion - even people probably in my own camp, my own team, didn't think I'd become a world champion this quickly.

Of course I will turn professional at some stage. Then I want to be a world champion and finish up a legend and be out of the sport by the time I am 27.

I've won the world title - what I've dreamt of since the age of eight.

I want people talking about me as a great fighter - from being a prospect with the big pressure as soon as I turned professional, then going on to win the world title.

I want to thank Kotelnik for letting me have a shot at the title. I'm so confident I'm going to beat him. He thinks that me moving up a weight, I won't be as strong, but I'm very strong. I'm a hard-hitting fighter.

You have to be confident when you've got someone in front of you who wants to beat you and take the title from you. But I think people mistake my confidence for arrogance or cockiness.

I've come back from losses and won world titles.

I'm an orthodox fighter, relaxed, fast, and powerful. And I've got good footwork.

I grew up in a loving household.

It's dangerous to talk too much about future fights.

I respect other religions and other cultures.

Straight after the Prescott fight, people were saying, 'He's finished. He's not going to come back.' There were only racial remarks made. But, you know what, it made me stronger. It made me come back even stronger. It made me a better fighter.

People forget that boxing is the art of self-defence - ideally, hit and not be hit - and maybe we should all think about that a bit more.

If I spend silly, it's going to look bad, in a way, because I do all this charity work as well.

I used to eat what I want, on a junk diet, and used to think I could make my weight easy and kill myself over the last four or five days.

We grew up in a nice house in a very middle-class area in Bolton and had a very happy childhood. My mum, Falak, who was also brought over from Pakistan by her parents as a kid, devoted herself to bringing up me and my younger brother and sister, Haroon and Tabinda, and my elder sister Mariyah.

There were no Asian lads boxing when I started.

The Prescott fight made me change from a boy to a man: it took me out of my comfort zone because when you lose a fight, you look at the mistakes and everything. That is what happened. I've changed from a boy to a man.

Religion was very influential because when it got really bad, and you don't know who to turn to, but I turned to God and was praying and meditating, that really helped.

I've been to so many dos and presentation dinners and TV shows. I've been among all the top stars - soap stars, people from music - it's been brilliant. But I've kept my feet on the ground.

Boxing changed my life twice.