Mike Tyson
Former American heavyweight boxing champion.
"I lost my soul as a human being. I lost my self-respect. I'm not a lovable guy, so it's really not hard for people to dislike me."
"I think I'm a pig. I have this uncanny ability to look at myself in the mirror and say, 'This is a pig. You are a f***ing piece of s**t.'"
"My intentions were not to fascinate the world with my personality."
In a 2004 interview with This Is London, Tyson announces that since declaring bankruptcy he has been sleeping in homeless shelters and living off handouts: "I've got nowhere to live. I've been crashing with friends, literally sleeping in shelters. Unsavoury characters are giving me money and I'm taking it. I need it. The drug dealers, they sympathise with me. They see me as some sort of pathetic character."
"I wish that you guys had children so I could kick them in the fucking head or stomp on their testicles so you could feel my pain because that's the pain I have waking up every day."
"[Cus D'Amato] told me, 'You're the type of guy who has to be hurt to learn.' I'm pissed off today because he was right about everything."
"Every shot was thrown with bad intentions." This has often also been quoted as, "Every punch was thrown with bad intentions."
"I still can’t believe [ Muhammad Ali] knows my name. It astounds me he knows who I am. I first met Ali in 1976. I was locked up in a juvenile home and he came to visit. I’ve never forgotten it."
"I'm not eloquent or distinguished. You guys won't allow me to ever be that, so just bring it on."
"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."
"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."
"People are trying to force me to redeem (myself) — certain women, certain mentors. Nobody's going to change me. I'm going to fight that. You can't change me; you can't tame me. When you say that, I'm going to bite you even harder. I'm more ferocious, more complicated. I'm not going to let anybody win a popularity contest off my conduct. You have to understand. It is a pervasive (belief) that I'm an animal — undomesticated as well. But regardless of the bizarre (stuff) I've done, I'm a very rational individual. But everybody still thinks I'm crazy and stupid because that's what they want to believe."
"Do you want to talk to me? Or what do you want to do with me? Watch my eating techniques here? How I gorge the chicken? How I eat like a barracuda?"
"I know I was a tough, bad-ass talking fighter, but I ain't no mob figure. I did my time for the rape. I paid my money to Las Vegas. I paid my dues. I ain't the same person I was when I bit that guy's ear off."
"I got a imam, I got a rabbi, I got a priest, I got a reverend — I got 'em all. But I don't want to be holier-than-thou. I want to help everybody and still get some (sex)."
"My life has been a total waste."
"You guys would rather be with someone else who's equal to your status in life. Tiger Woods, or somebody. I comes across as crass, a Neanderthal, a babbling idiot sometimes. I like to show you that person. I like that person. He makes you want to come and listen to me."
1988: "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 just don't have the desire no more, I don't have the stomach to do it no more. I don't even kill insects in my house. I just don't kill anything no more. I used to kill pigeons, rip their heads off, 'You dirty rat pigeon!' I don't even have the heart to kill an animal no more. I just changed my whole life in general. That probably could have changed the way I fight."
"I probably have a 20,000-word vocabulary. I'll match my wits with anyone on literature, science and the arts."