Fear is the greatest obstacle to learning. But fear is your best friend. Fear is like fire. If you learn to control it, you let it work for you. If you donโt learn to control it, itโll destroy you and everything around you. Like a snowball on a hill, you can pick it up and throw it or do anything you want with it before it starts rolling down, but once it rolls down and gets so big, itโll crush you to death. So one must never allow fear to develop and build up without having control over it, because if you donโt you wonโt be able to achieve your objective or save your life.
Mike TysonWhen I was young, I thought I was a god. Now, I just basically work on staying humble. My priorities changed. Just to be able to try to change them - that was frightening to me.
Mike TysonYou come home, and you party. But after that, you get a hangover. Everything about that is negative.
Mike TysonWhat really amazed me was when I sent a suit out for cleaning, forgetting that $700 was in the pocket. They sent the suit back to me. If that happened in New York, both money and suit would be gone.
Mike TysonI like the hip writers: Fitzgerald, the guy who committed suicide, Hemingway, all those guys. Some of them were alcoholics and drug addicts but they had fun. They were real people. They formed the culture of American literature. Hemingway admired Tolstoy, Tolstoy admired Pushkin, and Mailer admired Hemingway. It all flows down. The greats are all connected. One day I'm gonna write a book myself. The first chapter will be about what a rough deal my momma got. She believed in you guys and your society.
Mike Tyson