“Well, actually I changed my name too, Richard. You know my real name is Carlos actually. And, you know, then when I went into the military I was in boot camp and a Hispanic boy said, ‘You know what the English word for Carlos is’ And I said, ‘Yeah, it’s Charles I think.’ And he says, ‘You’re right, and the nickname for Charles is Chuck, so I’m going to call you Chuck,’ and that’s how I got labeled with Chuck. But, you know, believe me there’s a lot of people like me out there. I mean, you know, it just depends on what you want to do, Richard, you know. The main thing for me, I believe, is whatever you want to achieve in your life you set your goals for it and overcome all the obstacles that are going to get in your way to achieve them, and determination and persistence is the key to it.”

When asked besides legally changing our name to Chuck Norris, how could we grow up to be just like him

“Thousands, oh my gosh, think about it, I’ve done 23 movies and I’ve done 203 episodes of ‘Walker, Texas Ranger’ and then 10 years of fighting in the ring, so you could imagine how many round kicks, roundhouse kicks I’ve thrown in that period of time. Plus, you know, not even counting the, my teaching of my students over the last 15 years. So you, you can put it in the high thousands.”

When asked how many people he has roundhouse kicked in his lifetime

“Yeah, I was the first one at that time. Yeah, there was more of them since them but I was the first to receive my eighth degree black belt. And ’cause, you know, I was, you know, I’ve been doing it now for 46 years now and so they… It was really an honor because I didn’t think the Koreans would ever let a non-Korean ever receive a Grand Master ranking and so it was really quite an honor and a surprise really when I was, when I received the Grand Master ranking.”

When asked if he really was the first person on the western hemisphere to be awarded an eighth degree black belt

“I don’t know how it all materialized and I’m really surprised it’s gone on as long as it has. I thought, you know, things like this here are faddish and, you know, and generally they last a few weeks and then they move on but doggone this thing’s been going on for, I think for eight months or so. But I, you know, I take it as a real compliment and I appreciate the fact that the kids, you know, will even take the time to do that.”

When asked about the phenomenon of the Chuck Norris facts on the Internet

“Yeah, Conan called me and says, ‘You know, why don’t you come down here and beat me up,’ you know, [unintelligible] with this. I said, ‘Well, OK, that sounds like fun.’ So you know, but I’ll tell you that’s been amazing too. That thing’s like gone forever, too. In fact, he called me and said I tried to switch it to ‘Knight Rider.'”

When asked about Conan O’Brien’s “Walker, Texas Ranger” lever