Evel Knievel died in 2007 at the age of 69. He spoke to Esquire in 1999, at the age of 60, from his home in Kalispell, Montana. This story was originally published in the July 1999 issue. You can read Esquire's entire 90-year archive at Esquire Classic.
You can fall many times in life, but you're never a failure as long as you try to get up.
Loving someone doesn't mean that you can love her for six days and then beat the crap out of her on the seventh.
Women are the root of all evil. I ought to know. I'm Evel.
This country has become a nation of the government, by the government, and for the government. Our politicians are destroying us. We need a revolt!
When you're mad at someone, it's probably best not to break his arm with a baseball bat.
Heaven is a place you can go and drink a lot of draft beer and it don't make you fat. You can cheat on your wife and she don't get mad. You get a beautiful female chauffeur with nice, hard tits -- real ones. There are motorcycle jumps you never miss. You don't need a tee time.
Anybody can jump a motorcycle. The trouble begins when you try to land it.
The Internal Revenue Service is more ruthless than the Gestapo. Abolish the IRS! Stamp out organized crime!
I don't believe in hell. I don't believe in gods or Jesus Christ or sacred cows. I don't believe in that big, fat-assed Buddha. Show me one piece of Noah's ark. Show me one piece of the tablets that Moses was supposed to have brought down from the mountain. People need a crutch. They need to make up stories. I don't want to do that.
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. You can be the guy with the smallest penis. Whatever it is, enjoy it. It don't last forever.
One day you're a hero, the next day you're gone.
People say they take responsibility for their own actions all the time, but that don't mean they really do.
I think that all of these so-called born-again Christians should ask their preachers why they don't hand out organ-donor cards. If you donated a kidney or a heart or an eye or whatever to your fellow man to keep him alive, you couldn't be closer to God than that.
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.
If God ever gives this world an enema, he'll stick the tube in the Lincoln Tunnel and he'll flush everybody in New York City clear across the Atlantic. And that would just be a start.
We must tax the churches. Freedom of religion is bullshit when it's tax-free.
You are the master of your own ship, pal. There are lots of people who fall into troubled waters and don't have the guts or the knowledge or the ability to make it to shore. They have nobody to blame but themselves.
I've done everything in the world I've ever wanted to do except kill somebody. There are a couple of guys I know who need shooting. They represent the rectums of humanity.
If you don't know about pain and trouble, you're in sad shape. They make you appreciate life.
Everything in moderation is okay, except Wild Turkey.
If a guy hasn't got any gamble in him, he isn't worth a crap.
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