Evel Knievel

I've always been concerned about kids - not just my own three, but all kids - what kind of an image I'm providing for them, what kind of inspiration. I don't know now. Maybe I'm leading them down the path to self-destruction.

You can't say you're going to jump the Grand Canyon and then jump some other canyon.

A motorcycle coming down from 30 feet at 70 mph gives you a terrible jolt.

There's just no stopping me. I went through life big-bang-banda-boom-bada-boom.

I always wanted to live to about 70. I thought that'd be a good age.

If there is a heaven, I don't know anything else I can do to get there - and neither do you.

God made us. He's in charge of everything, right? If He didn't like us, why didn't he change us?

The saddest thing is when a guy is paying so much attention to the world and everything going by that he can't take the time for his own mother.

I wish there was such a thing as reincarnation.

I don't know what in the world happened. I don't know if it was the power of the prayer or God himself, but it just reached out, either while I was driving or walking down the sidewalk or sleeping, and it just - the power of God in Jesus just grabbed me... All of a sudden, I just believed in Jesus Christ. I did, I believed in him!

I'm better than P. T. Barnum and Colonel Parker put together.

I want to be the first. If they'd let me go to the moon, I'd crawl all the way to Cape Kennedy just to do it. I'd like to go to the moon, but I don't want to be the second man to go there.

The most important thing in life is, if you have a dream, I mean a real good dream, follow it.

Marty Stanovich was an honorable man.

Titanic Thompson and Amarillo Slim would have run from a game with Marty Stanovich. Marty could really play, and he didn't cheat.

My life has been being a daredevil. I am Evel Knievel. I am a daredevil.

All my life people have been waiting around to watch me die.

I went through life big-bang-banda-boom-bada-boom.

I always knew how to draw a crowd.

I created Evel Knievel, and then he sort of got away from me.

People pay a million dollars to be recognized, but nobody cares about them. They cared about me because I did things other men were afraid to do. That's why my fans identified with me.

I can't keep track of my hospital time. It all sort of blurs together.

You can't forbid children to do things that are available to them at every turn. God told Eve, 'Don't give the apple to Adam,' and look what happened. It's in our nature to want the things we see.

The Internal Revenue Service is more ruthless than the Gestapo. Abolish the IRS! Stamp out organized crime!

Nothing's worse than a guy who loses fair and square and then whines about it.

You'd think a guy who has broken 35 bones in his body would have a high pain threshold, but mine is pretty low. I got hit in the shin with a golf ball once, and it almost brought tears to my eyes. I've had broken bones that didn't hurt as bad.

My grandpa got me a set of Wilson clubs, Sam Snead models, when I was 12. Many years later, when I'd become well known, I got to know Sam, and we played a lot of golf together.

The finest compliment you can pay a man is that his word was as good as gold.

I'm not only the best-known daredevil on the face of the earth, I'm the oldest.

I play golf five days a week. I find that if I play seven days a week, I get stale.

I guess I'm like any other concerned father, except that nobody else's son guns a cycle over 17 pickups without holding on to the handlebars.

I am a guy who is first of all a businessman. I'm not a stunt man. I'm not a daredevil. I'm - I'm an explorer.

You can be famous for a lot of things. You can be a Nobel-prize winner. You can be the fattest guy in the world.

Kids come up to me all the time and say, 'Once I was going through a really bad time, and I saw you crash and get up, and it inspired me.'

My failures had a lot to do with my fame. I created Evel Knievel, and then he sort of got away from me.

It's easy to be famous today. People pay a million dollars to be recognized, but nobody cares about them. They cared about me because I did things other men were afraid to do. That's why my fans identified with me. They were mostly working-class.

I can still crack a safe with one hand tied behind my back. I'm not proud of it. But I was always against society.

Those extreme-sports kids today are good, but they have it easy. Try falling off of a motorcycle going 70 or 80 miles per hour on asphalt. Believe me, nothing equals it.

I am not, never have been, and never will be a politician. But I want to tell you the United States has always been proud of having the support of the United Kingdom, of keeping Britain in Europe. We need Britain in Europe.

I went through high school, but I didn't graduate.

Prison was tough on me. I saw people in prison that made me ashamed I was a human being. Some make Qaddafi and Idi Amin look like Sunday-school teachers.

Breaks your heart when your son doesn't love you.

I did everything by the seat of my pants. That's why I got hurt so much.

In the old days they, the promoters, wanted more and more from me. They wanted me to jump or spill my blood and break my bones. Every time they wanted me to jump further, and further, and further. Hell, they thought my bike had wings.

If you look at the Bible almost everything that was predicted, maybe everything, has come to pass.

I guess I thought I was Elvis Presley but I'll tell ya something. All Elvis did was stand on a stage and play a guitar. He never fell off on that pavement at no 80 mph.

There are a lot of myths about my injuries. They say I have broken every bone in my body. Not true. But I have broken 35 bones. I had surgery 14 times to pin and plate. I shattered my pelvis. I forget all of the things that have broke.

You know, I had a couple hundred jumps in my career, and I made most of them, but the ones they show over and over are the ones when I crashed.

I thought I was bulletproof or Superman there for a while. I thought I'd never run out of nerve. Never.

Sometimes I keep a car for only a week or two. I like the newest and the flashiest.