Mike Tyson Quotes - Page 6

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 a good friend, but I'm a hell of an enemy. As your enemy, I want your demise. When I feel that in my heart it burns till I die.

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

Guess I'm going to fade into Bolivian.

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.

Cus was my father but he was more than a father. You can have a father and what does it mean?—it doesn't really mean anything. Cus was my backbone . . . . He did everything for my best interest . . . . We'd spend all our time together, talk about things that, later on, would come back to me. Like about character, and courage. Like the hero and the coward: that the hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It's the same thing, fear, but it's what you do with it that matters.

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.

My objective was to hurt the other fighters. I wanted to hurt them. I wanted to be merciless. Man, I was a wild thing. It's kind of a drug, a rush.

The drug dealers, they sympathize with me. They see me as some sort of pathetic character.

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.

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

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.

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 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'm a vegan. I lost 150 pounds because of being a vegan.

Most writers, in my opinion, are dysfunctional derelicts.

If you did everything your mind told you to do, you do some really strange stuff. You'll probably be in jail, you'll be in trouble. But, it's all about control. We all have to control our feelings. That's the thing that separates us from animals.

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.

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'm just happy I'm not a phoney.

If you can't remember the small things, how are you going to remember the big things? 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.

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.

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.