I did think for many, many years that because of my ability I could beat the system. And I was wrong. Mickey Rourke More Quotes by Mickey Rourke More Quotes From Mickey Rourke I grew up in a gym in Miami, the one where Muhammad Ali trained. I had 142 amateur fights and lost three. Mickey Rourke miami three fighting I don't mind getting punched in the nose by a guy standing in front of me. It's getting stabbed in the back that I can't handle. Mickey Rourke guy noses mind Comeback is a good word, man. Mickey Rourke good-words comeback men I'm an old broken down piece of meat and I deserve to be all alone . . . Mickey Rourke pieces meat broken I had a lot of anger inside me and that came out at times that were not particularly advantageous to me career-wise. Mickey Rourke anger careers wise People are always afraid of the truth. Mickey Rourke people Hey, baby, nobody suffers like the poor. Mickey Rourke hey suffering baby I always knew I'd accomplish something very special - like robbing a bank perhaps. Mickey Rourke robbing accomplish special I behaved worse than anybody for 15 years, and you have to pay the price for that. I used to blame other people, then therapy made me realise I had to change. Mickey Rourke pay-the-price people years I had achieved so much success in my career and then had this spectacular fall from grace that left me unemployed and living in a town, Los Angeles, that is built on envy. Once you fall, people don't really root for you to come back again. I'd go to restaurants where I always had the best table and half the time they wouldn't even let me pay. And then when I stopped making movies, the same places wouldn't even give me a lousy table, never mind the best one! Mickey Rourke careers roots fall I spent a lot of years trying to beat the system and, in the end, the system kicked my behind good. Mickey Rourke beats trying years I've been with a lot of women, but who's counting? It's nothing I'm proud of. It's a physical need. Sometimes afterwards I just want to blow my brains out, it's so meaningless. Mickey Rourke blow brain needs Actors should shut up about politics. They tend to be ill-informed finger-pointers who just cosy up to some flavour of-the-month liberal. Mickey Rourke shut-up actors months Women are much stronger than men. When a woman says enough is enough, which means enough is enough. Man will always lie at her feet in the hope of return. I was lying. And somehow happy. Mickey Rourke men mean lying A reputation is really hard to live down. Mickey Rourke reputation hard Julian Schnabel painted a picture that he dedicated to my character in Rumble Fish. It was called The Motorcycle Boy. I remember when he brought it over to me at the Mayflower Hotel [in New York] years ago. This is when you and I knew each other. Mickey Rourke new-york character boys Where I come from, being a hard man is being able to take a good beating and then get back up again and carry on fighting. Mickey Rourke able fighting men I don't care what Tom Cruise says about therapy. Mickey Rourke cruise therapy care Change for me was really hard because I had built myself up to be a certain kind of man my whole life, as men are where I come from. I thought I got to handle things different that's gonna make me feel like a real pussy. For me it was hard to turn the other cheek. Even though it's a stronger choice. It was very hard to make the change, but I had to in order to survive. Otherwise they would have won. Mickey Rourke trust real men When I did Sean Penn’s movie, I think I was living in, like, a $500-a-month room, and someone called me up or bumped into me and asked me if I’d come up to work for a day. That sort of got me going a little bit. But it wasn’t until Sin City [2005] that I kind of got back into the game. Mickey Rourke sin-city games thinking