Top 364 Quotes & Sayings by Mike Tyson - Page 4

How dare these boxers challenge me with their primitive skills? It makes me angry.

I just don't have the desire no more, I don't have the stomach to do it no more. I don't even kill insects in my house. I just don't kill anything no more. I used to kill pigeons, rip their heads off, 'You dirty rat pigeon!' I don't even have the heart to kill an animal no more. I just changed my whole life in general. That probably could have changed the way I fight.

If you're a professional, you'll make it work. You can be like, 'I'm not going to do that, I'm going to do it where I'm satisfied.' But I'm very comfortable being uncomfortable so I just go for it.

He didn't have no respect as a professional fighter should, no class. I was going to make him pay with his health for everything he said... I wanted to do it very slowly. I wanted him to remember this for a long time.

I'm not a good-looking guy. I don't care if my nose gets mashed.

I'm doing what great artists before me did, like Judy Garland, Sammy Davis, Eddie Cantor. I'm doing what they were doing, not at their level yet, but one day I will be. I'm just happy to be in their company.

I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian.

I know at times I come across like a Neanderthal or a babbling idiot, but I like that person.

For what I get paid to get into the ring, I owe it to my fans to uphold the institution of sportsmanship.

I didn't know how to be any other way. I felt like one of those barbarian kings just coming to conquer the Roman Empire.

I live for the moment to hit people.

It doesn’t faze me what anyone says about me. It doesn’t matter what anyone says about me. I’m a totally different entity to what other people think. Michael and Tyson are two different people. I’m Tyson here.

If you can't remember the small things, how are you going to remember the big things? The mind is a real dangerous neighborhood to travel by ourselves.

I never saw my mother happy with me and proud of me for doing something: She only knew me as being a wild kid running the streets, coming home with new clothes that she knew I didn't pay for. I never got a chance to talk to her or know about her. Professionally, it has no effect, but it's crushing emotionally and personally.

We wanna believe that we're different than the average guy that's working 9-to-5, that our thoughts are different than his. Our inspirations and desires are different than his, that's why we succeed and he didn't cos we wanna believe we're different, but he just didn't get the break that we had...or he wasted it on something else.

Whatever my situation, I'm a strong disciplinarian; I can do what I hate to do but do it like I love it.

I probably have a 20,000-word vocabulary. I'll match my wits with anyone on literature, science and the arts.

Everyone in boxing probably makes out well except for the fighter. He's the only one that's on Skid Row most of the time; he's the only one that everybody just leaves when he loses his mind. He sometimes goes insane, he sometimes goes on the bottle, because it's an intensive pressure sport that allows people to just lose it.

People look at me as some bruiser, but I want to entertain people. I want people to applaud. I want to be the cause of people being happy, their emotions changing, to tell me I did a good performance.

If my children will live a better life than I did by my getting brain damage, by my being brain dead, then let it be.

My intentions were not to fascinate the world with my personality.

[Cus D'Amato] told me, 'You're the type of guy who has to be hurt to learn.' I'm pissed off today because he was right about everything.

I'll fight anybody my trainer puts me in with because I'm confident I can beat any fighter in the world. If anybody can see I'm almost a master at evading punches coming at me.

Box gap is not a thing. If you need to back up to a mirror and bend over to find out how you look, you are playing to the wrong audience.

Boxing is an ego-driven sport. The idea is to not get too personal or emotional with it. You just know when it's over, it's over, and that's it.

You have to have a bunch of dimensions [of yourself]. You have to be able to adapt in this world. You can't be a nice guy living in a world of savages.

Greatness is not guarding yourself from the people, Greatness is being accepted by the people.

I like horror movies. Nightmare on Elm Street is my favourite. I even get scared a little bit watching horror.

I had to persevere because this was my life. This championship, this was the stuff I dreamt of all my life, and I wasn't gonna be denied.

Five heads are definitely better than one when they're thinking in the same perspective. I think that you really need to have people that you trust. And for me, trust comes from that synchronizing, that same-mindedness.

I'm a good friend, but I'm a hell of an enemy. As your enemy, I want your demise. When I feel that in my heart it burns till I die.

People tell me I'm a comedian, but I don't approach acting from that perspective. I do know that everything in life has to do with your timing and perception. You have to be comfortable with the rhythm that you're in. You can't just jump into a fast rhythm if yours is slow. You might have to pick up the pace but in your own particular way. It has to do with personality, too.

I just did what I did in my era, basically because of my admiration for the guys who came before me. That's how I've always looked at it. I never thought of boxing like, I'm going to be the greatest fighter ever and make a lot of money. Instead, I thought I was going to win because I learned from the best. I carefully studied the videotapes of all the fighters from the past, dissected their styles, and entered the ring with their spirit.

I'm just a guy that is basically depending on my responsibility skills. I'm really responsible with my children and my wife and my family life. Things have changed with me. I'm not a night person anymore. I've got too many responsibilities to play.

There are not many regrets that I have. There are a few things that I wish I'd changed in my life, but they are not so dramatic that I'd go out of my way to change them. But I go back and think about my life so far periodically in my head.

I felt Holyfield was using his head illegally. I told the referee I wasn't getting any help, so I went back to the streets. I cannot defend it, but it happened.

I tried to stay away from King. You can't do it. It's like staying away from taxes. Sooner or later, he'll get you.

I'm a vegan. I lost 150 pounds because of being a vegan.

I like entertaining people. I like being on stage. I like being in the life. This is what I do. This is the only thing I know how to do besides rob people and fight. Even when I was robbing people, I was entertaining them. But that's just what I love doing.

At times, I come across as crude or crass, that irritates you when I come across like a Neanderthal or a babbling idiot at times. But I like to be that person. I like to show you all that person because that's who you come to see.

God, it would be good to be a fake somebody rather than a real nobody.

Sometimes they laugh at things I don't think are funny, but I believe if they're laughing at me, it's a good show.

I don't have to be that gentleman ["baddest man on the planet"] anymore. Now I have to be "this" guy. And in order to be "this" guy, I have to be smiling, I have to be gregarious, I have to be entertaining, and I have to be friendly. This is what my career needs now. I've adapted. But 20 years from now, I may need a different persona.

It's the emotional punches that you can't see that are just overwhelmingly devastating to your heart - your moral fiber.

Cus was my father but he was more than a father. You can have a father and what does it mean?—it doesn't really mean anything. Cus was my backbone . . . . He did everything for my best interest . . . . We'd spend all our time together, talk about things that, later on, would come back to me. Like about character, and courage. Like the hero and the coward: that the hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It's the same thing, fear, but it's what you do with it that matters.

I was blessed with speed and a good punch. Everybody thinks I'm the hardest puncher ever. But I just think I was really fast, and my punches got to the target faster. That's what made my knockouts always seem spectacular.

I don't want to be remembered. As long as my kids remember me, I'd rather be forgotten by everybody else.

Nietzsche's my favorite. He's just insane.

If Mike Tyson is in your courtroom and you don't send him to jail, it's an injustice. Everyone knows he's a bad guy. So if he is in your courtroom, he should go to jail.

Fear and the thought of failure . . . But we don't really know what fear is. Fear is something that we create in our own minds. Fear could be like fire. You can use it to heat you up, keep you warm, cook your food. There are so many things you can use it for. But if you allow it to go out of control, it will destroy you and everything around you.

I don't want anyone to have to interview me. I wish I didn't have to talk too much about myself.

Everybody in America is so money-hungry. It's like a rat race and even when you win you're still a freaking rat.

Anything that helps pay the bills, I love it. Anything that makes people happy, I'm happy with that.

I'm not a Republican, but I have some conservative views on certain things. I'm not a Democrat, either. It's just very difficult that these people hate each other over a belief. I think it all comes down to ego and competitiveness.

Whatever you want, especially when you’re striving to be the best in the world at something, there’ll always be disappointments, and you can’t be emotionally tied to them, cos’ they’ll break your spirit.

If you did everything your mind told you to do, you do some really strange stuff. You'll probably be in jail, you'll be in trouble. But, it's all about control. We all have to control our feelings. That's the thing that separates us from animals.

If he's not dead, it doesn't count.

On stage it's just a wild setting - we have a big screen - hecklers, I'm fighting. It's entertainment, but I want to pierce [the audience's] souls and have them think about what I have to say.

I want someone to attack me. No weapons. Just me and him. I like to beat men and beat them bad

The one thing I know, everyone respects the true person and everyone's not true with themselves. All of these people who are heroes, these guys who have been lily white and clean all their lives, if they went through what I went through, they would commit suicide. They don't have the heart that I have. I've lived places they can't defecate in.