Mike Tyson Quotes

“When I fight someone, I want to break his will. I want to take his manhood. I want to rip out his heart and show it to him.”

“Fighting is all about calmness and relaxation. My appearance was all an illusion. My appearance is of a mad man, but I'm really calm and collected. Even though I'm fighting, I'm calm and relaxed as possible, despite my displays, because once you get excited, you can't fight at the highest level of your ability.”

“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.”

“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.”

“In order to be a friend to anybody, you have to be a friend to yourself. If you're not a friend to yourself, there's no way you're gonna have any friends.”

“I know why they don't like me because they want the money I have.”

“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 always had a lot of responsibilities. I just didn't take them. I just decided to take care of my responsibilities, live up to them. That's a pretty interesting job. It's harder than being heavyweight champion of the world.”

“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 don't understand why people would want to get rid of pigeons. They don't bother no one.”

“I intend to fight and I want to win. But my priorities are basically to be a good Brother and a strong one, and to try to be a good father one day.”

“There's no way I would want to hurt him or bust him up. That's why, for the sake of the family as well as himself, I will take him out in the opening round.”

“Treat the world the way you want to be treated.”

“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.'”

“I'm the biggest fighter in the history of the sport. If you don't believe it, check the cash register.”

“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 respect the media. But periodically things come up. Like the guy in Toronto [CP24 Interview]. This is what I run into, also. Everybody that helps you is not necessarily your friend. And everybody that fights you is not necessarily your enemy. So you always have to be on guard.”

“I'm not used to sensitivity any more. When I see people cry when I lose, save your tears. I don't know how to handle people crying any more. I lost my sensitivity like that. Please, you embarrass me when you cry because I don't know what to do when you cry. I don't know what to say.”

“Some people are faster than others; I'm just figuring it out later, that's all. I'm getting smart too late and old too soon.”

“Ten years ago, if you asked me where I'd be now, I'd have said F-ing dead. But I'm not dead. I have an awesome life. And I'm just very grateful. That's the one thing I try to convey. Gratitude.”

“My power is discombobulatingly devastating.”

“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 earned that the strong will always beat the weak, but the smart will beat the strong. Boxing is a tough guy sport. But in the end, the tough guy gets to clean the streets and be a bodyguard. In the ring, the tough guy is going to get hurt; at the end of the day, he's going to talk funny. Only the smartest win. So, I know it's cliché, but power - real power - comes from knowledge, comes from smarts.”

“The most important thing in the world for show business, really, you know everything's a high-tech business, but what people want now is what they can't get - exclusivity.”

“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.”