Mike Tyson Quotes

“In order to succeed greatly, you have to be prepared to fail greatly. If you can't do both of them, you've got a problem.”

“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.”

“I did my time for the rape. I paid my money to Las Vegas. I paid my dues.”

“Another thing that freaks me out is time. Time is like a book. You have a beginning, a middle and an end. It's just a cycle.”

“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.”

“That equals to being a fool, having fame and no fortune. A lot of guys out there have fame doing this and doing that, but they are broke.”

“To be successful in sports or business, you really have to live the lifestyle. Success is about lifestyle. Just because I was training and working hard, that didn't make me champion or a good fighter. My lifestyle made me a good fighter. In my mind and my daily life, I was the heavy weight champ when I was 15 or 14. I lived the life of the heavyweight champion, and that's who I became. And that is so much more than just training. So, when the time presented itself, that's who I already was. I was ready. I was already there.”

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

“[Sometimes I] put on a ski mask and dress in old clothes, go out on the streets and beg for quarters.”

“I want to rip out his heart and feed it to Lennox Lewis. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs out and eat their children.”

“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've been a prima-dona. I was taken care of since I was 13. That's why I am the way I am today. I was spoiled, like a brat. I had anything I wanted. That's crazy to be that way all your life. Everybody's taking care of you, but manipulating you at the same time. Very few people have a life like that. Most people have to work like slaves their whole lives. I've never had a job in my life. What I know how to do is hurt big, tough men - in the street and off.”

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

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

“I just have this thing inside me that wants to eat and conquer. Maybe it's egotistical, but I have it in me. I don't want to be a tycoon. I just want to conquer people and their souls.”

“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.”

“You have to be a friend to yourself. You know, 'cause if you're not a friend to yourself, you're an enemy to yourself and if someone's a friend of everybody they are an enemy to themselves.”

“You never lose until you actually give up.”

“Man is not meant to be humble, he’s meant to be humbled.”

“I'm happy because - I'm not doing anything deceitful, I think, to my family. I'm successful because I don't have to sleep with one of my friends' girlfriends or wife or something. That's why I'm successful, that's success to me. I'm not dead, I'm not in the gutter - that's success to me.”

“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 are going to say what they say. I know sometimes I say things; I offend people.”

“Destroy or be destroyed! I just love that way of life!”

“I don't care how much you love each other, if you have secrets, it'll never work. That's why she's your loved one, because it's the love of one. Togetherness, you are one.”

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