Mike Tyson
Former American heavyweight boxing champion.
"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."
"One morning I woke up and found my favorite pigeon, Julius, had died I was devastated and was gonna use his crate as my stickball bat to honor him. I left the crate on my stoop and went in to get something and I returned to see the sanitation man put the crate into the crusher. I rushed him and caught him flush on the temple with a titanic right hand he was out cold, convulsing on the floor like an infantile retard."
"I'm the best ever. I'm the most brutal and vicious, and most ruthless champion there's ever been. There's no one can stop me. Lennox is a conqueror? No, I'm Alexander, he's no Alexander. I'm the best ever! There's never been anybody as ruthless! I'm Sonny Liston, I'm Jack Dempsey. There's no one like me. I'm from their cloth. There's no one that can match me. My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want your heart! I want to eat his children! Praise be to Allah!"
"I've been a prima-donna. 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."
"I don't have the stomach for this anymore. I don't have anything to fight for anymore."
"I’m too stigmatized in this country, I want to do something that will have a tangible effect on people. I live in a world where I’m not too media-friendly, I would never be successful in this country."
"If it weren't for that old, Italian white guy, I would've been a bum. Cus D'Amato was a physical person like I am. He was impulsive and impetuous like me. If somebody upset him, he would just go after them — even at 75. God, the psychologists would've had a field day with him."
"I’m just trying to change my life because I’m not above killing any drug dealer for money."
"My whole life has been a waste - I've been a failure."
"There's no one perfect. ... Jimmy Swaggart is a lascivious creature, Mike Tyson is lascivious - but we're not criminally, at least I'm not, criminally lascivious. You know what I mean. I may like to fornicate more than other people - it's just who I am. I sacrifice so much of my life, can I at least get laid? I mean, I been robbed of my most of my money, can I at least get a blowjob without the people wanting to harass me and wanting to throw me in jail?"
"People say 'Poor guy.' That insults me. I despise sympathy. So I screwed up. I made some mistakes. 'Poor guy,' like I'm some victim. There's nothing poor about me."
"Every shot was thrown with bad intentions." This has often also been quoted as, "Every punch was thrown with bad intentions."
"[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."
"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."
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."
"My intentions were not to fascinate the world with my personality."
"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.'"
"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'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."
"There are nine million people who see me in the ring and hate my guts. Most of them are white. That's OK. Just spell my name right."