Mike Tyson Quotes

My mom’s funeral was pathetic. She had saved up some money for a plot in Linden, New Jersey. There were only eight of us there – me, my brother and sister, my father Jimmy, her boyfriend Eddie, and three of my mother’s friends. I wore a suit that I had bought with some of the money that I had stolen. She only had a thin cardboard casket and there wasn’t enough money for a headstone. Before we left the grave, I said, “Mom, I promise I’m going to be a good guy. I’m going to be the best fighter ever and everybody is going to know my name. When they think of Tyson, they’re not going to think of Tyson Foods or Cicely Tyson, they’re going to think of Mike Tyson.” I said this to her because this was what Cus had been telling me about the Tyson name. Up until then, our family’s only claim to fame was that we shared the same last name as Cicely. My mom loved Cicely Tyson.

You can't give kids a fighting chance if you don't give them a fighting mind.

On Floyd Mayweather: "Greatness is not guarding yourself from the people, Greatness is being accepted by the people."

On Sarah Palin: "Sarah Palin met the wombshifter! Old Sarah and the wombshifter."

On Don King: "I found out that someone I believed was my surrogate father, my brother, my blood figure turns out to be the true Uncle Tom, the true nigger, the true sellout. He did more bad to black fighters than any white promoter ever in the history of boxing."

ESPN reporter: There were reports, Mike, that you were out partying in Vegas. Is that, in fact, the case? Tyson: This is not true. This is not true at all. Um, one day, I went out one day - because when somebody trains, you just get crazy and bored - and I went to a strip club because I gave a dancer a lap dance. Reporter: You gave HER a lap dance? Tyson: That's just what I like to do. I do what I want to do.

"You can set a good example that you don't have to throw blows or be belligerent to get your point across."

On a 2002 column by sportswriter Wallace Matthews: “[He] called me a ‘rapist’ and a ‘recluse.’ I’m not a recluse.”

The act of treachery is an art, but the traitor himself is a piece of shit.

I have to dream and reach for the stars, and if I miss a star then I grab a handful of clouds.

He was trying to scrutinize with my brain.

"You're smart too late and old too soon."

If they lock me up, at least I'll have a place to stay.

"It's good to know how to read, but it's dangerous to know how to read and not how to interpret what you're reading." Ebony September 1995.

What I want in a woman is protection. Loyalty. Companionship. Loyalty, friendship, companionship, ferociousness. I want her to protect me, and have my back to the bitter end. If I have a fight, I want her to jump in. Even if I'm winning; even if she's ninety pounds. I like strong women—not necessarily a masculine woman—but I like strong women. I like strong, say a woman who runs a C.E.O. corporation. I like a strong woman with confidence—massive confidence—and then I want to dominate her sexually.