Mike Tyson Quotes

I could never stop drugs, I could never stop drinking, until I received my spiritual awakening.

I hate to cry and I hate to sound like sour grapes, but no one ever listens to me. No one ever hears what I have to say.

Don't be surprised if I behave like a savage. I am a savage

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

Discipline is doing what you hate to do, but nonetheless doing it like you love it.

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

Hard times fall upon everybody. Whatever it is, we're going to get out of it.

I'll never be happy. I believe I'll die alone. I would want it that way. I've been a loner all my life with my secrets and my pain. I'm really lost, but I'm trying to find myself. I'm really a sad, pathetic case. My whole life has been a waste. I've been a failure. I just want to escape.

I think the average person thinks I'm a nut and I deserve whatever happens to me.

I'm a dreamer. I have to dream and reach for the stars, and if I miss a star then I grab a handful of clouds.

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

I just love to fight. I like to hurt people. I haven't lost that. I didn't lose it when I first got a bit of wealth and I haven't lost it now. The nature of my business is to hurt people.

Mr. Arthur Ashe, he was good. I read some of his books. He knew about everything, but he was real quiet and didn't talk much. I never met him.

I know I'm going to blow one day. My life is doomed the way it is. I have no future.

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.

There's no future in our past. Just experience. We want to return to it, but we don't want to close the door on it either.

Unfortunately, sometimes you can't have fun accomplishing your goals. Sometimes people don't have the determination, the will, the steadfastness, the tenacity, they give in under the slightest struggle.

I'm not much for talking. You know what I do. I put guys in body bags when I'm right.

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

Everybody you fight is not your enemy and everybody who helps you is not your friend.

The tempt for greatness is the biggest drug in the world.

I never look at a high point in my career. Everyone thinks about the Spinks fight, but that fight only lasted 91 seconds, so it's hard to say it defined my career.

I'm just a sucker even talking to you guys. I should be ready to rip your heads off your necks. But it's just not the right thing to do

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.

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 like strong women - not necessarily a masculine woman - but I like strong women...say a woman who runs a C.E.O. corporation. I like a strong woman with confidence - massive confidence - and then I want to dominate her sexually.

I'm trying to figure things out in the world. No one knows what this life thing is all about - there's no manual. Just trying to figure it out.

I paid a worker at New York's zoo to re-open it just for me and Robin (his wife). When we got to the gorilla cage there was 1 big Silverback gorilla there just bullying all the other gorillas. They were so powerful but their eyes were like an innocent infant. I offered the attendant $10,000 to open the cage and let smash that silverback's snotbox! He declined.

You can't be everybody's friend, you can't save the world, I learned this word: self-preservation. Once you do that, you can be friends with people, but how would you be a friend to anybody if you're not a friend to yourself.

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.

I think the reality of prison is you don't get anything unless you want it in there. Whatever happens to you in prison, this is what you asked for. Nothing happens to you if you don't give that vibe.

At one point, I thought life was about acquiring things. But as a I get older, life is totally about losing everything.

When you have something in life that you want to accomplish greatly, you have to be willing to give up your happiness…I’ve lost all my sensitivity as far as being embarrassed, being shy, you just have to lose that.

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.

I was hittin' him with body punches and I hurt him. Actually he was cryin' in there, makin' woman gestures like

To some people the ego is evil. It gives you so much. It gives you everything you want. But it takes back too much in return. It gives you everything: money, riches, women, glamour, everything you want. But in return it takes back so much, and you're soulless. That's its goal. The ego's goal is to leave you soulless.

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.

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.

I'm just protecting my children and making sure I pull them in the right direction so they don't end up like me with having to go through all that hardship. They may not survive so it's all about putting them on the right track.

I could feel his muscle tissues collapse under my force. It's ludicrous these mortals even attempt to enter my realm.

I ain't the same person I was when I bit that guy's ear off.

This is a weird feeling in my life I have to deal with, not being a violent man anymore when my whole life's reputation was built on being extremely violent. I just don't know how to deal with that right now. I don't even go to strip clubs no more. I don't know who I am sometimes, but I am not the guy I used to be. I'm not an angel or anything. I'm still lascivious, periodically. I'm just looking for some balance in my life.

I'm just like you. I enjoy the forbidden fruits in life, too.

I got a imam, I got a rabbi, I got a priest, I got a reverend - I got 'em all. But I don't want to be holier-than-thou. I want to help everybody and still get some (sex).

I was an emotional manipulator of fighters . . . You have to know how to be cold, you know? Just have no -emotions, no feelings. It takes time, though, to develop that. I'd been working on that since I was 12 years old. It doesn't happen overnight.

[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.

My career has been over since 1990.

I was in handcuffs. I was under arrest. I remember there was this old lady looking at me, and I could tell she felt real sorry for me, and she did'nt know but all I wanted to do was take her purse.