Mike Tyson Quotes

I had it in my mind: to be confident, and to keep saying that until the confidence appeared. But I took it too far. Confidence did help make me champion, but, man, I took it to a whole different level. I was a megalomaniac. I was not humble and it eventually came back on me. So I want my kids to know, keep humbleness and kindness in their hearts. It will prevail.

You think the speed of your fingers can match the strength of my fists?

I feel like sometimes that I was not meant for this society.

I'm gonna make sure you talk about me, and your grandkids and kids after that gonna know about me ... your great grandkids will say "wow, wasn't that a bizarre individual?"

I just want to do what I do best, and that's fight. I love it.

Sometimes during a relationship, a friendship, a friend's gonna have to prove they're your friend, and you're gonna have to prove you're their friend.

My nature is to get instant gratification. On stage, I can feel everybody's anticipation. I know what they want, I know what I'm going to give them, I know when I'm going to give it to them, I know when they want it.

I fight for perfection

Our money is bait money, and bait money is not to be used.

I just want to try everything. I want to see how good I can be, the best I can be at what I'm doing. I want to do everything. You know? I want to be in a musical. I want to do everything. I want to try and sing.

We live in a society where we basically live and strive on what people think about us. We're more visual people so what we see is basically what we believe which is not necessarily true.

I'm going to gut you like a fish.

These books ain't window dressing. I think Machiavelli's the most sophisticated writer outside of Shakespeare. Way ahead of his time. Such a manipulative person. Everything he accomplished he did by kissin' ass.

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.

The mind is a real dangerous neighborhood to travel by ourselves.

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 have to always make sure I don't stay in one place and spend too much time one subject. I have my wife tell me [through an earpiece], "Come back! You're taking too long on that subject." I need to be reeled in.

When Jesus comes back, these crazy, greedy, capitalistic men are gonna kill him again.

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.

Things can change. Life is all a learning process.

Every punch I threw with bad intentions to a vital area ... I aimed for his ear ... I wanted to bust his eardrum ... Every punch had bad intentions ... My record will last for immortality, It'll never be broken ... I want to live forever ... I refuse to lose ... I would have to be carried out dead to lose ... I was coming to destroy and win the Heavyweight Championship of the World, which I done.

Confidence applied properly is the path of genius. You must always be in a state of confidence. And the way you sustain a state of confidence is by testing yourself. Difficult quagmires that may occur; there's always a test. You have to seek them out. You constantly have to test yourself to prepare for these quagmires. That's why I always put myself to the test.

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

If I was fighting myself, I always say that I would kill Mike Tyson but then again I don't know how hard a punch Mike Tyson can take and I don't know how hard Mike Tyson's punch is. I don't know. For me looking at me, I think I can beat me.

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

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.

God is not going to send someone to hell for my mistakes. So God and I have to deal with my own salvation.

I don't know that person anymore, that guy in '86, '87. I don't know that guy no more. I don't have no affinity for that guy no more. I have no affinity for the guy who said, 'I am the greatest fighter God produced.' I have no affinity for the guy who said he would try to push his [opponent's] nose bone up into his brain. I just don't know that guy. I don't know who he is. I don't know where he came from. I don't have no kind of connection with him no more

I haven't been with a woman in nine months.

I love acting. I love stage work, more than anything. It's just live. It's right there in front of you. If you make a mistake, they know it and you know it. I won't do anything where I feel like I'm just making a fool out of myself. By doing that, I'm able to rise to my highest potential.

You stand your ground and you perform your art. That's what the artist does. The artist is about perfection.

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 could have knocked him out in the 3rd round but I wanted to do it slowly, So he would remember this night for a long time.

My main objective is to be professional but to kill him.

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

No one wants to get up at 4 and run when it's pitch-dark, but it has to be done. The only reason i do it so early is because i believe the other guy isn't doing it and that gives me a little edge

Fighting is not physical, fighting is spiritual. It's the determination and the will in the guy.

Man is not mean to be humble, he's meant to be humbled.

I'm scared every time I go into the ring, but it's how you handle it. What you have to do is plant your feet, bite down on your mouthpiece and say, 'Let's go.'

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

I try my best to learn from other people's mistakes. I have a lot of respect for people who can change.

I've lived places these guys can't defecate in.

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.

MIKE WOULD LIKE TO THANK: Cus D'Amato, my mentor, friend, and general. Because of you, my life has reached heights I could never have imagined. Without you, I don't know where I would be today. My gratitude to you is immeasurable.

I never wanted to do anything else but fight, when I was a kid. I never had any broader perspective of my own perspective. I didn't know anything about anything else. I just wanted to fight until I could fight no more, and then I wanted to own a bar and drink and tell war stories.

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

Being a champion opens lots of doors - I'd like to get a real estate license, maybe sell insurance.

They called me a 'rapist' and a 'recluse.' I'm not a recluse.

King has big offices, houses, and he pays his fighters a lot of money. An, because he's black, the FBI figures he must be doing something crooked.

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.

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

Me? I see an old, broke-ass black guy taking care of a bunch of kids, living life, taking them to school, and all that stuff, who's asking himself: What the hell is this? But I wouldn't give it up for the world because I love my wife. I never expected to have a life like this. No chaos ... no confusion ... no lawsuits ... no violence ... no going to jail ...

I love to hit people. I love to.

Mike tyson made a prolific quote that I will never forget. It came when he was being interviewed by a reporter about another boxers plan for an upcoming fight... Mike said, "Everyone has a plan until you get hit in the face.

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 don't learn to control it, it'll 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, it'll crush you to death. So one must never allow fear to develop and build up without having control over it, because if you don't you won't be able to achieve your objective or save your life.

Fighting is a sport if you're not humble it's going to bring humbleness to you.

What was most important was the knowledge [aspect] of the fight. I learned this early on and just told myself to "upgrade my mind." That's just what I wanted to do my whole life.

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

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

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.

Everybody thinks this is a tough man's sport. This is not a tough man's sport. This is a thinking man's sport. A tough man is gonna get hurt real bad in this sport.

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 was hoping he would get up so I could hit him again and keep him down.

If Jesus was here, do you think Jesus would show me any love? Do you think Jesus would love me?

I'm the best ever. I'm the most brutal and vicious, the most ruthless champion there has ever been. No one can stop me. Lennox is a conqueror? No! I'm Alexander! He's no Alexander! I'm the best ever. There's never been anyone as ruthless as me. I'm Sonny Liston. I'm Jack Dempsey. There's no one like me. I'm from their cloth. There is no one who can match me. My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want his heart! I want to eat his children! Praise be to Allah!

Fighting is endurance, knocking a guy out in 10 seconds is not fighting, its beating him to the punch. But when you put in that time, that is fighting because you are thinking

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.

Every punch was thrown with bad intentions.

There's nothing like confidence.

I don't try to intimidate anybody before a fight. That's nonsense. I intimidate people by hitting them.

I can inspire people on how to use money, how to get economically powerful.

I sacrifice so much of my life, can I at least get laid?

You have to compete in life because if you don't have no competition - no competition, no spirit, you know, you'll fall under the slightest struggle ...

These pigeons have been living with each other for 10 or 15 years, but when I throw feed down, they kill each other to get it, and it's the same with the fighters. We love and respect each other ... but we need that money.

Even though I heard him say he doesn't believe, cuz' that's why from watching Ali gave me the great deal of confidence and deep-down inner belief to believe there's no man fighting that could beat me.

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 unnatural to fight somebody who has nothing against you and never did anything to you or to your family, who never stole anything from you. And now you've got to go and try to dismantle this guy.

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

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.

Being in the ring became my reality, and, in my reality, I'd think I was someone special.

I try to catch them right on the tip of his nose, because I try to punch the bone into the brain.

I ain't never loan friends money; I give it to 'em and I don't expect to get it back. Even when he says, "I'll pay you back," I never expect it. If he gives it back, then hey, that's a feather in his cap, but I don't expect to get it back.

I want your heart, I want to eat your children.

I can't change myself. I'm Mike Tyson. I'm a regular kid from the getto striving to do something positive with myself. I happen to fight well.

I'm a nut case, but that is what I believe.

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.

I'm a Muslim, but I think Jesus would have a drink with me. He would be cool. He would talk to me.

I felt the same fear in my first fight as I did in my last fight. It never goes away.

Fighting is spiritual. It appears to be physical from the layman's eyes. In my fights, I seemed to be angry and mad - all that stuff you saw me doing, the yelling and screaming and being mean in the ring - but I'm cool as a cucumber. I can hear everybody talking around me outside of the ring. I can see everybody. I know what is going on.

Everybody has a plan until they get hit in the mouth".

You need to learn independence. You have to be independent - it builds character.

I think I'll take a bath in his blood.

Every great general and warrior from the beginning of time was high.

People see it [boxing] as a physical contact sport, but it's not. It's really a spiritual one of will against will. Who wants it the most? How much is he willing to take - and dish out - to get it? It's like fighting is 10 percent physical and 90 percent emotional.

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

I'm just happy I'm not a phoney.

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.

Most fighters are the most humble people in the world because they've gotten their ass kicked before.

People love you when you're successful, but if you're not, who really cares about you?

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