"I want to be a missionary. I think I could do that while keeping my dignity without letting people know they chased me out of the country." (Who knew that after everything, Mike still has dignity?)
"If you saw a (police) lineup and saw Tyson and Dahmer and they asked, 'Who killed and ate those people?' you would pick me and not Jeffrey." (That's true; people tend to forget that Evander Holyfield is still alive, only somewhat gnawed upon.)
"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."
"My biggest fear now is to go to a New York state penitentiary - then I'll see all my demons," he says. "My family, people I know, put me in that den of iniquity. I could easily be right there with them because, really, I am one of them." (What could be more rational?)
"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."
In the face of all that, Mike keeps his eyes on the prize. In his weigh-in with upcoming opponent Kevin McBride, he offers this clever quip.
"I'm gonna gut him like a fish."
Mike Tyson just keeps on giving. He is the Mark Twain of the criminally insane; the Oscar Wilde of the violently deranged. He is truly the Will Rogers for the new century. He never met a man he wouldn't bite.
