Quotes from Jimmy Breslin

Media, the plural of mediocrity.

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.

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.

Some time ago, I made a basic decision about the way in which I was going to live the little of life available to me The idea was to place myself in the presence of only those people who give off the warm, friendly vibrations which soothe the coating on my nerves. Life never was long enough to provide time for enemies.

The only people I don't answer are bill collectors.

I'm the best person ever to have a column in this business. There's never been anybody in my league.

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

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

A politician finds anything to do with racial problems far more frightening than a gun.

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

The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight

Designed by architects with honorable intentions but hands of palsy.

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

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

As far as getting publicity whenever he wants it, Trump is the white Al Sharpton.

Trump, in the crinkling of an eye, senses better than anyone the insecurity of people, that nobody knows whether anything is good or bad until they are told, and he is quite willing to tell them immediately.

Politicians attend dinners at hotels with contractors. Bankers discuss interest rates at lunch.

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.

Complainant received immediate lacerations of the credibility.

You can get some work, some jobs that will bore you until you're dead. So you better look for something that's got a little tingle to it.

You get a little picture that reflects the whole. You can get readers interested in the life of one guy, and he can reflect the whole life around him. And it's a better picture than the politicians give you.

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

The trouble with Trump's father was that he was a totally naive man. He had no idea that you could buy the whole news reporting business in New York City with a return phone call.

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.