I live for the moment to hit people.
I'm a Muslim, but I think Jesus would have a drink with me. He would be cool. He would talk to 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.
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 felt Holyfield was using his head illegally. I told the referee I wasn't getting any help, so I went back to the streets. I cannot defend it, but it happened.
People look at me as some bruiser, but I want to entertain people. I want people to applaud. I want to be the cause of people being happy, their emotions changing, to tell me I did a good performance.
God, it would be good to be a fake somebody rather than a real nobody.
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 don't do nothin' unless I risk humiliating myself and really embarrassing myself. When I have that hanging over my head, it allows me to rise to the occasion.
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.
You can't stay married in a situation where you are afraid to go to sleep in case your wife might cut your throat.
Being a champion opens lots of doors—I'd like to get a real estate license, maybe sell insurance.
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.
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.
If my children will live a better life than I did by my getting brain damage, by my being brain dead, then let it be.
I just want to be humble at all times.
I don't want anyone to have to interview me. I wish I didn't have to talk too much about myself.
On stage it's just a wild setting - we have a big screen - hecklers, I'm fighting. It's entertainment, but I want to pierce [the audience's] souls and have them think about what I have to say.
When I'm on stage, I'm not me playing me. I'm somebody else doing me. I could never go on stage and be like, "Hey, I'm Mike Tyson. My mother and father was in the sex industry." That's the politically correct way to say it, but I would really say, "My mother and father were pimps and whores. This is my life." I could never do that as Mike Tyson. Because I'd feel sorry for myself. But if I could be objective about it and be somebody else, portraying Mike Tyson, saying this story, then it's easy sailing.
I didn't come from a household where my mother dragged me outside and said, "You'd better fight." My mother wouldn't let me fight. I was not an aggressive kid.
My father was a pimp before he became a deacon or something. These people know how to handle women. I'm the worst guy in the world with women. They run circles around me.
I know I'm going to blow one day. My life is doomed the way it is. I have no future.
It's nothing personal, but I'm going to kill this guy
Don't be surprised if I behave like a savage. I am a savage
I want to throw down your kid and stomp on his testicles, and then you will know what it is like to experience waking up everyday as me. And only then will you feel my pain.