On Boxing
"I try to catch him right on the tip of the nose, because I try to push the bone into the brain."
"Everyone in boxing probably makes out well except for the fighter. He's the only one that's on Skid Row most of the time; he's the only one that everybody just leaves when he loses his mind. He sometimes goes insane, he sometimes goes on the bottle, because it's a highly intensive pressure sport that allows people to just lose it [their self-control]."
"How dare these boxers challenge me with their primitive skills? It makes me angry. They're just as good as dead."
"My power is discombobulatingly devastating I could feel his muscle tissues collapse under my force. It's ludicrous these mortals even attempt to enter my realm."
Tyson: "It's interesting that you put me in the league with those illustrious fighters [Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Jack Johnson], but I've proved since my career I've surpassed them as far my popularity. I'm the biggest fighter in the history of the sport. If you don't believe it, check the cash register."
"Without discipline, no matter how good you are, you are nothing! One day, and I might not be around; you're going to meet a tough guy who takes your best shot. He'll keep coming because he's tough. Don't get discouraged. That's when the discipline comes in."
"I just want them to keep bringing guys on and I'm going to strip them of their health. I bring pain, a lot of pain."
On Tyrell Biggs
Tyson on Tyrell Biggs' complaining to him about low blows "Low blows? Low blows? Huh! Motherf**ker you're fittin' to die!"
"He was screaming like my wife."
On Evander Holyfield
“Tastes like chicken” [After biting his ear]
On Lennox Lewis
"Lennox Lewis, I'm coming for you man. 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!"
"My main objective is to be professional but to kill him."
"I want to rip out his heart and feed it to him [Lennox Lewis]. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs out and eat their children."
On His Wife
"I paid a worker at New York's zoo to re-open it just for me and Robin. When we got to the gorilla cage there was 1 big silverback gorilla there just bullying all the other gorillas. They were so powerful but their eyes were like an innocent infant. I offered the attendant $10,000 to open the cage and let smash that silverback's snotbox! He declined."
"Anyone with a grain of sense would know that if I punched my wife I would rip her head off. It's all lies. I have never laid a finger on her."
On Fans
"There are nine million people who see me in the ring and hate my guts. Most of them are white. That's okay. Just spell my name right."
"I think the average person thinks I'm a f**king nut and I deserve whatever happens to me. That's what I believe."
"When you see me smash somebody's skull, you enjoy it."
On His Time in Prison
"You have to understand, Frank Bruno would not have been champion if I had not been in prison. Oliver McCall would not have been champion if I had not been in prison. A lot of these guys would not have been champion. Michael Moorer would not have been champion. Those guys would not have been champion if I had been around. They would have had no legacy. None of those guys would have had a legacy."
"I would have been in shape. I would have been active. Holyfield, those guys wouldn't have been champion when I was around, but I went away for four or five years inactive and that made them competitive for a time."
On His Family
"No one gives a f**k about me. No one cares if my children starve, if they're on welfare. I have to support my children. I need more money."
Mike, on his mother who died in 1982: "I never saw my mother happy with me and proud of me for doing something: She only knew me as being a wild kid running the streets, coming home with new clothes that she knew I didn't pay for. I never got a chance to talk to her or know about her. Professionally, it has no effect, but it's crushing emotionally and personally."
On the Media
“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.”
[To a female reporter] "It's no doubt I am going to win this fight and I feel confident about winning this fight. I normally don't do interviews with women unless I fornicate with them. So you shouldn't talk anymore... Unless you want to, you know."
"People [are] going to say what they say. It has to be for a reason. It's just for a reason. I know sometimes I say things; I offend people. I ask this lady a lewd question because I'm in a lot of pain too. I have some pain I'm gonna have for the rest of my life. And Lewis, I'm trying to give some of that pain to ya'll."
"You gentlemen have no idea what it's like to be myself, no idea what it's like. I'm not interested in being humiliated anymore."
"Sometimes you guys have no pride, so no matter what I say, you guys ... it doesn't affect you because you don't care about nothing but money. So every now and then I kick your f**king ass and stomp on you and put some kind of pain and inflict some of the pain on you because you deserve to feel the pain that I feel."
"If I take this camera and put it in your face for 20 years, I don't know what you might be. You might be a homosexual if I put that camera on you since you were 13 years old. I've been on that camera since I was 13 years old."
On Religion
"All praise is to Allah, I'll fight any man, any animal, if Jesus were here I'd fight him too."
"I feel like sometimes that I was born, that I'm not meant for this society because everyone here is a f**king hypocrite. Everybody says they believe in God but they don't do God's work. Everybody counteracts what God is really about. If Jesus was here, do you think Jesus would show me any love? Do you think Jesus would love me? I'm a Muslim, but do you think Jesus would love me ... I think Jesus would have a drink with me and discuss ... why you acting like that? Now, he would be cool. He would talk to me. No Christian ever did that and said in the name of Jesus even ... They'd throw me in jail and write bad articles about me and then go to church on Sunday and say Jesus is a wonderful man and he's coming back to save us. But they don't understand that when he comes back, that these crazy greedy capitalistic men are gonna kill him again."
Stacey McKinley: "He sees a guy beggin' in the street and he gives him a hundred dollars. I'll say, 'Man, y'know the guy's just gonna spend it on crack!' But he says, 'I leave it to Allah to judge him.'"
"I'm a man. I lived it and I'm not afraid to die but when I die I'm going to paradise and I'm not worried."
On Himself
"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'm not Mother Teresa. But I'm also not Charles Manson!"
"Fear is your best friend or your worst enemy. It's like fire. If you can control it, it can cook for you; it can heat your house. If you can't control it, it will burn everything around you and destroy you. If you can control your fear, it makes you more alert, like a deer coming across the lawn."
"At times, I come across as crude or crass, that irritates you when I come across like a Neanderthal or a babbling idiot at times. But I like to be that person. I like to show you all that person because that's who you come to see."
"I'm the most irresponsible person in the world. The reason I'm like that is because, at 21, you all gave me $50 or $100 million, and I didn't know what to do. I'm from the ghetto. I don't know how to act. One day I'm in a dope house robbing somebody. The next thing I know, 'You're the heavyweight champion of the world.' ... Who am I? What am I? I don't even know who I am. I'm just a dumb child. I'm being abused. I'm being robbed by lawyers. I think I have more money than I do. I'm just a dumb pugnacious fool. I'm just a fool who thinks I'm someone. And you tell me I should be responsible?"
On His Mental Health
"I don't know if I'm mentally sick, but I have... episodes sometimes. I'm a depressant kind of dude. I have episodes, and I'm human. But no one cares about my health as a human because sometimes I'm in my episodes when I'm at work."
"Well, [contemplating suicide] goes through everyone's mind, I'm sure. And if it doesn't I really must be crazy. Everyone thinks about that because sometimes, you know what I mean, it's just tough being a ni**er and it's tough being a bad ni**er."
I don't react to a tragic happening any more. I took so many bad things as a kid and some people think I don't care about anything. It's just too hard for me to get emotional. I can't cry no more."
"I'm on the Zoloft [an antidepressant] to keep from killing y'all."
On America
"I'm just a dark guy from a den of iniquity. A dark shadowy figure from the bowels of iniquity. I wish I could be Mike who gets an endorsement deal. But you can't make a lie and a truth go together. This country wasn't built on moral fiber. This country was built on rape, slavery, murder, degradation and affiliation with crime."
Miscellaneous Quotes
“[He] called me a ‘rapist’ and a ‘recluse.’ I’m not a recluse.”
"I really dig Hannibal. Hannibal had real guts. He rode elephants into Cartilage."
"I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian."
"I like the British bikes. I like British people. They're real mellow."
"I can sell out Madison Square Garden masturbating."
"I have some pain I'm gonna have for the rest of my life. So every now and then I kick your f**king ass."
"I just want to conquer people and their souls."
