Quotes from 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.

I think it would be very good if writers and artists take a stand in electoral politics. They've got the ability to put words together that might reach the ears of the people of the city who vote.

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

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

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

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.

Trump survives by Corum's Law. This is a famous, well-tested theory and is named after Bill Corum, who once wrote sports for the Hearst papers when they were in New York.

Donald Trump handles these nitwit reporters with a new and most disgraceful form of bribery.

Trump is larger than life.

I played football. I played trumpet. I could draw.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Never use your own money. Steal a good idea and say it's your own. Do anything to get publicity. Remember that everybody can be bought.

The professional arsonist builds vacant lots for money.

Go around with your eyes like a camera. Don't lose it by talking. Go and listen. And work!

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

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

When you leave New York you ain't going anywhere.

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.

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