On Bret Hart as a wrestler:
"At a time Bret was a fantastic wrestler. But I've been in the ring with a lot of people. He ranks right up there with the exceptionally average. His brother Owen is ten times the talent Bret is."
-On Bret taking himself too seriously:
"The man's very different than I am. He sees the wrestling business very differently. He really believes he's a hero in Canada. We all love the feeling you get when you have the adulation of the fans, but you have to learn to control that. This is the wrestling business. This isn't real life. My god, get a grip."
On his personal relationship with Bret:
"I've never had a problem with Bret Hart. He mostly had a problem with me. There's nothing I can really do about that. I'm just having fun and trying to be entertaining and controversial. Bret is from the old school, which is fine, but obviously it doesn't mix. He takes it much more seriously than I do. You should be able to have fun at your job. I don't take things that seriously."
On the locker room fight with Bret:
"I didn't even have a problem when he attacked me in the dressing room. I just defended myself and that was it, I left. The situation got out of hand. At the time I needed to stay away - my good old 'fake' knee injury. Bret was harboring a lot of bitter, bitter feelings that were really his problems. He's the guy who had to work through them. not us."
On Bret's departure:
"The world should know this was not Bret Hart leaving, this was Vince McMahon asking him to leave. He simply didn't feel Bret was giving what he was getting. He was always late. He only did personal appearances in Canada when he felt like it. As WWF Champion I did everything. Mark (The Undertaker) still does everything. Steve does everything. There's a lot of legwork that comes with working in the WWF. Bret didn't want to do any of it. It wasn't convenient for him. He wanted, he wanted, but he wasn't willing to give."
Regarding Bret as a person:
"There are a lot of things about Bret Hart that people do not know because he's very good with the exterior. I don't worry about the exterior. Bret concerns himself about what people think about him. I don't worry about that. I have a very small, close-knit group of people who I'm close to and get to know me, and that's my personal life and I keep that very separate from my professional life."
Regarding his conduct behind the scenes in the WWF:
"People hear rumors about me throwing temper tantrums, and that's great, I love to hear it, but it actually doesn't take place. The way in which I conduct myself in my professional life is outlandish, and I know that. But that's what I'm supposed to be doing. That's my job. I learned a long time ago that if I did certain things, people would talk to get that big scoop, so I thought I would do more of it. But to be perfectly honest, I'm nowhere near the person people think I am. I would bet everything that I have that 95 percent of what is said about me is not even in the ballpark."
Regarding Bret Hart calling him a "pillhead"
"Bret can call me a 'pillhead,' but I bet you a hundred bucks that you can go through his bag....Why do you think that fight started in the dressing room ? Because I was hitting home with the things I was saying and it bothered him. He can say those things about me, and I don't get mad because I know it's not true. I face more stringent drug testing than any other superstar in this company, and it doesn't bother me one bit."
On showing his ass on Raw: "That was a taped show. I was just playing around there at the end. I just assumed they'd cut it. The next day I looked. I said, 'Oh my God, you guys are crazy.' I've been told to go as far out there as I want. This is me. I have a lot of creative input, but as far as what actually airs, they know I'm just having fun. I stopped dealing with it. That was a problem of Bret Hart's. Not Bret and Shawn's."
On his relationship with McMahon being shaky at times:
"That was all wrestling rumors, wrestling innuendo. Vince McMahon and I are very close. We get along fine. The differences that Vince and I had were of another situation. They had nothing to do with me leaving. The leaving only came up because of the other situation. I just asked him if it would be easier if I left. And that was the extent of it. I purposely feed the rumor mill because it's good for people to talk about. That's me knowing how the wrestling world works and using it to my advantage. Unless you grew up with me in San Antonio or unless you're one of the five guys I hang out with in wrestling, you don't know me. I guarantee it."
On how Bret will adjust to being in WCW:
"I think he's in for a rude awakening when he get's there. He doesn't have any friends there. When Flair left, he called him an old man. A few weeks ago, he said he chased Kevin Nash out of the WWF, and look where he's going now. You have to be very careful about what you say, and if your going to say it, you better back it. All that stuff I say about being the Icon and other things, that's part of the DX character. Bret walks around thinking he is the best, and can't accept that he's not."
On Bret ripping on Flair, saying his best days were over:
"Ric Flair loves this business. If he wants to stay around until he's dead, then he damn sure has that right. Bret should not be allowed to say he's too old to do something. Ric was my hero. I don't care what anybody says. I know who I saw when I was growing up. And I know the man who I briefly got to meet and got to know in the WWF, and he was never anything but nice and respectable to me. When it comes to our line of work, I think he's the tops. And I don't care what anybody says. And if he loves this business enough to stay in it, then dammit, good for him."
On reports of occasional friction between himself and fellow Clique members, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall and Sean Waltman:
"We all get along wonderfully and probably talk every week or every other week. What bothers people about us is that we're true friends, and true friends are very rare in this business."