Jimmy Breslin Quotes & Sayings

The other feature is a gymnasium named after another dead politician who was gifted with fast and extremely sure hands. — Jimmy Breslin

The first funeral for Andrew Goodman was at night and it was a lot of work. To begin with they had to kill him. — Jimmy Breslin

True New Yorkers do not really seek information about the outside world. They feel that if anything is not in New York it is not likely to be interesting. — Jimmy Breslin

Complainant received immediate lacerations of the credibility. — Jimmy Breslin

The professional arsonist builds vacant lots for money. — Jimmy Breslin

Media, the plural of mediocrity. — Jimmy Breslin

Men in the uniform of Wall Street retirement: black Chesterfield coat, rimless glasses and the Times folded to the obituary page.. — Jimmy Breslin

I intended to concentrate throughout the summer on matters of extreme urgency: ocean waves breaking in the sunlight and swirls inside oyster shells and the mystery of the sound of ice hitting the sides of a glass. In the afternoon, the ice makes only this gentle, clicking, almost tinkling sound. Yet at night it sounds like gravel being poured into a barrel. Why is ice louder at night than it is in the daytime? Let me put on my shoes and we'll go out and investigate. — Jimmy Breslin

Speaks cheerful English and in the past has written this language with a paintbrush that talks. — Jimmy Breslin

Out in the ocean, a rope is put around the man's neck. The other end of the rope is attached to an old jukebox and it is thrown overboard. The man invariably follows. — Jimmy Breslin

Don't call me a journalist; I hate the word. It's pretentious! — Jimmy Breslin

So the Mets are a bad ball club. All right, they're the worst ball club you ever saw. So what? The important thing is they are in the National League and they are familiar. — Jimmy Breslin

Pointing to the mutual envy of businessmen and politicians who are often out of their field in each other's area,, the author quotes the wisdom, A wise shoemaker sticks to his trade and maintains a mouthful of nails. — Jimmy Breslin

Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers. — Jimmy Breslin

When you stop drinking, you have to deal with this marvelous personality that started you drinking in the first place. — Jimmy Breslin

You see, the Mets are losers, just like nearly everybody else in life. This is a team for the cab driver who gets held up and the guy who loses out on a promotion because he didn't maneuver himself to lunch with the boss enough. It is the team for every guy who has to get out of bed in the morning and go to work for short money on a job he does not like. And it is the team for every woman who looks up ten years later and sees her husband eating dinner in a t-shirt and wonders how the hell she ever let this guy talk her into getting married. The Yankees? Who does well enough to root for them, Laurence Rockefeller? — Jimmy Breslin

When you leave New York you ain't going anywhere. — Jimmy Breslin

I'm on my high school football team and MUST show how much I know. — Jimmy Breslin

I busted out of the place in a hurry and went to a saloon and drank beer and said that for the rest of my life I'd never take a job in a place where you couldn't throw cigarette butts on the floor. I was hooked on this writing for newspapers and magazines. — Jimmy Breslin

Don't trust a brilliant idea unless it survives the hangover. — Jimmy Breslin

The office of president is a bastardized thing, half royalty and half democracy that nobody knows whether to genuflect or spit. — Jimmy Breslin

Life never was long enough to provide time for enemies. Nor is it long enough for people who bore me, or for me to stand around boring and antagonizing others, or for all of us, the others and me, to get into these half-friendly, half-sour fender-bumpings of egos and personalities and ideas, a process which turns a day into a contest when it really should be a series of hours serving your pleasure. — Jimmy Breslin

The number one rule of thieves is that nothing is too small to steal. — Jimmy Breslin

I played football. I played trumpet. I could draw. — Jimmy Breslin

If a man, for private profit, tears at the public news, does so with the impatience of one who thinks he actually owns the news you get, it is against the national interest. — Jimmy Breslin

The auditorium, named after a dead Queens politician is windowless in honor of the secrecy in which he lived and, probably, the bank vaults he frequented. — Jimmy Breslin

People born in Queens, raised to say that each morning they get on the subway and "go to the city," have a resentment of Manhattan, of the swiftness of its life and success of the people who live there. — Jimmy Breslin

The test of a good idea is its ability to last through a hangover — Jimmy Breslin

Shoelaces are the first way society ties up the individual. — Jimmy Breslin

Why something in the public interest such as television news can be fought over, like a chain of hamburger stands, eludes me. — Jimmy Breslin

What you want to do is not go to work. You're not missing a thing. The worst thing I did was start work young. — Jimmy Breslin

The Mets lose an awful lot?
Listen, mister. Think a little bit.
When was the last time you won anything out of life? — Jimmy Breslin

Marvelous Marv was holding down first base. This is like saying Willie Sutton works at your bank. — Jimmy Breslin

Politics, where fat, bald, disagreeable men, unable to be candidates themselves, teach a president how to act on a public stage. — Jimmy Breslin

I don't know any other columnists, and I don't know what they do. I work the single! And nobody does what I do, anyway. — Jimmy Breslin

Reporting is all about legwork, getting out and finding the story. But all the stories are on the top floors, so you have to learn to climb stairs. That's what reporting is all about, climbing tenement stairs. — Jimmy Breslin

Football is a game designed to keep coal miners off the streets. — Jimmy Breslin

That's the horrible thing starting out, you get distracted a lot because anything is easier than writing. It's just the same enemy - blank paper. — Jimmy Breslin

If you gather a lot of stuff, then you write it, write in scenes with dialogue. Somewhere in the middle, rising from all this research like strong metal towers, is your opinions. — Jimmy Breslin

Designed by architects with honorable intentions but hands of palsy. — Jimmy Breslin

Anything that isn't writing is easy — Jimmy Breslin

Don't try to tell Namath's people on First Avenue about Babe Ruth, because they don't even know the name. In fact, with the young, you can forget all of baseball. The sport is gone. But if you ever have seen Ruth, and then you see Namath, you know there is very little difference. — Jimmy Breslin

All political power is primarily an illusion. Illusion. Mirrors and blue smoke, beautiful blue smoke rolling over the surface of highly polished mirrors, first a thin veil of blue smoke, then a thick cloud that suddenly dissolves into wisps of blue smoke, the mirrors catching it all, bouncing it back and forth. — Jimmy Breslin

Those of Manhattan are the brokers on Wall Street and they talk of people who went to the same colleges; those from Queens are margin clerks in the back offices and they speak of friends who live in the same neighborhood. — Jimmy Breslin

A job on a newspaper is a special thing. Every day you take something that you found out about, and you put it down and in a matter of hours it becomes a product. Not just a product like a can or something. It is a personal product that people, a lot of people, take the time to sit down and read. — Jimmy Breslin

Pick up any newspaper in the morning. Count the words in the lead sentences. There will be at least 25 in all of them: Guaranteed. The writers just want to tell you how many degrees they have from this college or that university. — Jimmy Breslin

Precious was one of a large number of people on the street, many of whom appeared to be women; some, like Precious, actually were. — Jimmy Breslin

I became a copy boy. Not for long. I started writing stories. — Jimmy Breslin

Newspapers are so boring. How can you read a newspaper that starts with a 51-word lead sentence? — Jimmy Breslin