“Boxing never hurt me at all.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I wasn’t born to be a fighter. My hands are too small, and look at these short arms.”
― Jake LaMotta
“You have to treat everybody the right way. Otherwise, you’ll have a short life. God bless.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I had such a crazy life. How I got away with it, I don’t know.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I hypnotized myself so in my subconscious, I believed I couldn’t get hurt. And I don’t mean ‘believe’ – I mean believe believe believe.”
― Jake LaMotta
“God’s been pretty good to me. He made me duck all those punches that were supposed to land.”
― Jake LaMotta
“The world knows me as the Raging Bull.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I don’t know how to back up.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I fought Sugar Ray Robinson so many times, it’s a wonder I don’t have diabetes.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Fear is unnecessary.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Most of the time, husbands and wives argue about stupid, foolish things. If it doesn’t mean that much to you, give in to your wife.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Lot of guys can take punches. The idea is not to take unnecessary punishment.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Most people aren’t good or bad. They’re naive.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I’m no angel.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I purposely lost a fight to Billy Fox because they promised me that I would get a shot to fight for the title if I did.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I play solitaire and wait for something to happen.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I forget stuff. Guess I took a few too many punches.”
― Jake LaMotta
“There’s a lot of people all over the world that talked about me.”
― Jake LaMotta
“You can’t go into the ring and be a nice guy.”
― Jake LaMotta
“You can’t fight if you have any compassion or anything like that.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I used to psyche myself out. Only, back then, we didn’t know the word ‘psyche.’”
― Jake LaMotta
“I fought Sugar Ray six times. Pound for pound the greatest fighter who ever lived.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I been in jail twice. The first time was reform school: they got me for carrying burglar’s tools, something like that. The morals charge was a frame-up.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Forward, always moving forward, from the time I can remember – a kid. I was short, and the big guys would take advantage; I had to turn myself into a body puncher. By that time I was in reform school, they’d have a boxing match every week; they’d bring guys in from outside to fight me.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Something’s bound to happen to you in a tough fight: cut eye, broken nose or broken hand or something like that. So you could make excuses out of anything, you know, but you got to keep on going if you’re a champ or you’re a contender.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I guess God blessed me with a hard head, because I really didn’t feel punches.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I conditioned myself many years ago that nobody could hurt me.”
― Jake LaMotta
“All my life I made a living out of hurting people. Now, I make a living out of making people laugh.”
― Jake LaMotta
“You know what’s the greatest sin in the world? Hurting your fellow man.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I was able to convince my body that I could take it and nobody could hurt me. I might’ve gotten cut, stitches over my eyes. Broken nose. Broken hands. But I never really got hurt.”
― Jake LaMotta
“The three toughest fighters I fought were Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Sugar Ray Robinson.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I never went to church. The priests couldn’t scare me with all that crap about hell, but somehow I knew, inside of me somehow, I knew that I’d pay for it.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I wanted to get punished, and I took unnecessary punishment when I was fighting.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Subconsciously – I didn’t know it then, I realize it today when I know a little bit more about the mind and the brain – I fought like I didn’t deserve to live.”
― Jake LaMotta
“When you break bones, they heal up and come back even stronger.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I’m the Godfather of Boxing. Everything is out in the open with me. What you see is what you get.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I ask for personal appearance fees because I’ve earned them. I deserve them. My presence at events is what they need, so they ought to pay for it.”
― Jake LaMotta
“There was only one thing I wanted out of life. That was to be the champ.”
― Jake LaMotta
“There’s no pensions for old prize fighters.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I made a million, and I lost a million.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I’ve learned a lot about life besides how to take a punch. And I’ve taken quite a few in and out of the ring.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Ask most guys what their ambition is, and they’ll say they want to get rich. But when they get rich, they discover it’s not what they wanted at all. I don’t want to be rich.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Big money causes me too much trouble with my ex-wives and the government. All I want is to keep busy and to be comfortable.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Whenever I did have a lot of money, I got in trouble.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I fought in Detroit 23 times.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Counting amateur fights, I have over a thousand bouts.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I fought from the time I was eight years old, sometimes three, four fights a night. We did it to eat, and we did it because we were just tough kids.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Sugar Ray Robinson was the greatest, pound-for-pound, ever. He fought most of his career with just one loss, and that was to me. He had 131 fights with one loss.”
― Jake LaMotta
“You don’t compare a guy with 30 or 40 fights with a guy who had 200 fights and fought over 25 years.”
― Jake LaMotta
“If I got a beating for something, I usually deserved it.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I always needed money when I was younger. I had different ways of getting it. A lot of the ways I don’t like to talk about.”
― Jake LaMotta
“My nose was broken six times, my hands six times, a few fractured ribs. Fifty stitches over my eyes. But the only place I got hurt was out of the ring.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Besides being a slum kid with no great education in anything except how to fight and stay alive and steal, I also had this temper.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Everybody has a temper, but mine was set on a hair trigger.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I was a no-good bastard.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Punches never bothered me that much.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I lost a lot of money, lost my wife and kids.”
― Jake LaMotta
“People get in auto accidents, they’re paralyzed for life. I got hurt worse getting married.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I was a sick animal. I was jealous. I was vicious.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Cooking’s my hobby.”
― Jake LaMotta
“When you’re No. 1 contender for five years, and you know who’s controlling things, you’ll do something you’re not proud of.”
― Jake LaMotta
“All my life, I wanted to be champion.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I waited all those years for a title shot, and when I finally got it, I had to pay $20,000 for the opportunity. My purse was only $18,000. So to make money, I had to bet $10,000 on myself at 8-5. That was how it was in those days.”
― Jake LaMotta
“I was tough at a very young age, where I was just fighting all the time.”
― Jake LaMotta
“You can’t think about the past anymore.”
― Jake LaMotta
“My greatest defense was my offense. Very few guys did that.”
― Jake LaMotta
“Even when I was hurt, I was always the aggressor, no matter what.”
― Jake LaMotta
“When I was a kid, I wanted to fight Joe Louis. But I think if I had seen Mike Tyson at that time, I would have said, ‘Nah, I don’t want to fight him.’ He’s deadly. He could have been one of the great heavyweight champions. But he goofed.”
― Jake LaMotta
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