Remorse for what? You people have done everything in the world to me. Doesn't that give me equal right?

Daytona has some of the greatest fans in the world and many remember me from some of the things I've done in this wonderful country.

There's no way in the world any of the guys who have beaten me would have thought I could do what I've done. I just kept persisting with it.

I get excited to create things that don't exist in the same world as 'Hamilton' because that world is really well done and doesn't need me to inform it anymore.

But it's true, when you see some television, you carry it with you. It's like 90210. Tell me what young shows were being done then... We were thrilled about the ratings around the world.

I live in such a free-lance world and I've done 'Trek' so infrequently, when you really think about it, that continuity really isn't an issue to me. I live in a much more undetermined, gypsylike world.

To be honest, I still feel like I haven't scratched the surface of where I want to be. If someone asked me for an autograph, I'd be like, 'Me? I haven't done anything yet !' I have much more to offer the world.

To me, serving wasn't uncommon, and my service paled in comparison to so many of my friends who had done so much more. In my world - as a citizen soldier - I was surrounded by other soldiers just doing their jobs.

And when I was saying I want to become number one of the world and I was 7, 8 years old, most of the people were laughing to me. Because you know, it seemed like I have one percent chances to do that. And I've done it.

Everybody has done something about Marco Polo. It's the tiredest, most trite and worked-over subject in the world, and that was why it appealed to me, because I wanted to do something really new and different about something that had been worked over all these centuries, and I think I did.

I don't know how much more what I've done is any more important than what Ella Fitzgerald did. Ella crossed those lines, as did George Benson before me. There've been lots of people who brought a pop audience to jazz because they were able to link the two and give people easy access to the world of jazz.

It makes me very, very happy to get someone a world title shot, which I've done with a few fighters, or a European title shot or a British title, and I see them lift that belt above their waist and they come to me and say 'Thanks Ricky. I've just paid my mortgage off with that.' That's what its all about.

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