Budd Schulberg Quotes & Sayings

I thought of Sammy Glick rocking in his cradle of hate, malnutrition, prejudice, suspicions, amorality, the anarchy of the poor; I thought of him as a mangy puppy in a dog-eat-dog world. I was modulating my hate for Sammy Glick from the personal to the societal. I no longer even hated Rivington Street but the idea of Rivington Street, all Rivington Streets of all nationalities allowed to pile up in cities like gigantic dung heaps smelling up the world, ambitions growing out of filth and crawling away like worms. I saw Sammy Glick on a battlefield where every soldier was his own cause, his own army and his own flag, and I realized that I had singled him out not because he had been born into the world anymore selfish, ruthless and cruel than anybody else, even though he had become all three, but because in the midst of a war that was selfish, ruthless and cruel Sammy was proving himself the fittest and the fiercest and the fastest. — Budd Schulberg

Fights can be dumped in a dozen ways. Sometimes everybody but the fighter knows. Sometimes only the fighter knows. — Budd Schulberg

As much as I love boxing, I hate it. And as much as I hate it, I love it. — Budd Schulberg

When Kit called me for the next meeting I was either not myself or too much myself. — Budd Schulberg

I don't like the country. The crickets make me nervous. — Budd Schulberg

I suppose it's too bad people can't be a little more consistent. But if they were, maybe they would stop being people. — Budd Schulberg

I coulda' had class. I coulda' been a contender! But instead I got a one way ticket to Palookaville. — Budd Schulberg

Hey, you want to hear my philosophy of life? Do it to him before he does it to you. — Budd Schulberg

When we left, the sun was taking its evening dip, slipping down into the ocean inch by inch like a fat woman afraid of the water. — Budd Schulberg

The principal furniture in Billie's mind was a good-sized bed. — Budd Schulberg

Boxing is a mental sport. Think of a prizefight as a chess game of mind and body, and you are a little closer to it than if you compare it to a bloody brawl in an alley. — Budd Schulberg

You can't eat your friends and have them too. — Budd Schulberg

Most of us are ready to greet our worst enemies like long-lost brothers if we think they can show us a good time, if we think they can do us any good or if we even reach the conclusion that being polite will get us just as far and help us live longer. — Budd Schulberg

It's queer to think how many little guys there are like that, with more ability than push, sucked in by one wave and hurled out by the next, for every Sammy Glick who slips through and over the waves like a porpoise. — Budd Schulberg

Living with a conscience is like driving with the brakes on. — Budd Schulberg

First, no qualms. Not the thinnest sliver of misgiving about the value of his work. He was able to feel that the most important job in the world was putting over Monsoon. In the second place, he was as uninhibited as a performing seal. He never questioned his right to monopolize conversations or his ability to do it entertainingly. And then there was his colossal lack of perspective. This was one of his most valuable gifts, for perspective doesn't always pay. It can slow you down. — Budd Schulberg

Never talk to waiters like that," Kit said.
"Can I help it," he said, "if I only went one year to finishing school?"
"It isn't manners," she said like a sensible schoolteacher quietly disciplining a small boy, "it just isn't smart."
I thought of the time I first told him not to say ain't. He took this the same way, a little peeved but making mental notes. I noticed he was never too much of an egotist to take criticism when he knew it would help. It was part of his genius for self-propulsion. I was beginning to see what Kit had for Sammy. Of course she stood for something never within his reach before. But it was more than that. Sammy seemed to know that his career was entering a new cycle where polish paid off. You could almost see him filing off the rough edges against the sharp blade of her mind. — Budd Schulberg

They looked at each other until they weren't acquaintances any longer. — Budd Schulberg

You either go along with the system - conform to what is expected to be a hit - or you have very tough going. — Budd Schulberg

Silence is the sure sign that you're on your way out in Hollywood. — Budd Schulberg

Very few fighters get the consideration of racehorses, which are put out to pasture to grow old with dignity and comfort when they haven't got it anymore. — Budd Schulberg

There was a lull. Sammy was staring across the room at George Opdyke, the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. I was about to say he was lost in thought, but Sammy was never really lost, and he never actually thought, for that implied deep reflection. He was figuring. Miss Goldblum edged her undernourished white hand into his. Sammy played with it absent-mindedly, like a piece of silverware. — Budd Schulberg

Isn't everyone a part of everyone else? — Budd Schulberg

I'd like to be remembered as someone who used their ability as a novelist or as a dramatist to say the things he felt needed to be said about the society while being as entertaining as possible. Because if you don't entertain, nobody's listening. — Budd Schulberg

The Pastor had spent his boyhood in the old country and was not at all sure that hot water, stall showers and the like were necessary to salvation. In fact it was one of his notions that Americans were too clean. Rub all the natural protective oils off their skins, they do for a fact. — Budd Schulberg

Unless we know people well, we sit around with our words and our minds starched, afraid of being ourselves for fear of wrinkling them. — Budd Schulberg

I believed him because the truth is never hard to recognize. Nothing is ever quite so drab and repetitious and forlorn and ludicrous as truth. — Budd Schulberg

He was one of those magnificent fakes who could overwhelm himself with his own sincerity. — Budd Schulberg

Tell Papa I admire him but from now on I plan to admire him from as far away as I can get. — Budd Schulberg

You know what's wrong with our waterfront? It's the love of a lousy buck. It's making the love of a buck, the cushy job, more important than the love of man. It's forgetting that every fellow down here's your brother in Christ. — Budd Schulberg

Jesus had many lovers of the kingdom of heaven but precious few bearers of his cross. Father Barry read on: ... Interrogate — Budd Schulberg

I could have had class. I could have been a contender. — Budd Schulberg

Very much on the defensive, I admitted that I liked to read.
"Sure," Sammy said, "I never said I had anything against reading books ... "
"The publishers will be relieved to know that," I tried to insert, but Sammy was too quick for me and was already rounding the bend of his next sentence. — Budd Schulberg

Conscience. That stuff can drive you nuts. — Budd Schulberg

Work hard, and if you can't work hard, be smart; and, if you can't be smart, be loud. — Budd Schulberg

In English the expression 'ancient Greece' includes the meaning of 'finished,' whereas for us Greece goes on living, for better or for worse; it is in life, has not expired yet. — Budd Schulberg