Quotes from Pete Hamill

When I was in the navy, I wanted to go to Paris and the Academie Julian. I never did. Mexico City took me instead.

The background of any artist is shaped by the first 15 years of his or her life.

Mick Jagger's fans bought records with their allowances. Sinatra's people bought them out of wages.

I usually wake up at 7, 7:15, without an alarm. I hate the sound of an alarm.

The Huffingtonpost.com does not pay its writers. Tina Brown's thedailybeast.com does pay its writers. You have to be paid because this is not a hobby. You have to keep that standard. You can't ask grandpa to loan you money because you have to go to Afghanistan. I walked the picket line for that to continue.

If it's a beautiful day, I love taking walks. The walks are always aimless.

My parents were Belfast Catholics.

Nothing surprises me, particularly men and their propensity to be fools.

For those without money, the road to that treasure house of the imagination begins at the public library.

Don't tell me about the world. Not today. It's springtime and they're knocking baseball around fields where the grass is damp and green in the morning and the kids are trying to hit the curve ball.

I don't ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.

It's odd being an American now. Most of us are peaceful, but here we are again, in our fifth major war of this century.

The most powerful force in American politics is not anger, it's nostalgia.

For those without money, the road to the treasure house of the imagination begins at the public library.

Viewers can't work or play while watching television; they can't read; they can't be out on the streets, falling in love with the wrong people, learning how to quarrel and compromise with other human beings. In short, they are asocial.

My father lost his leg in 1927 playing soccer. A kick broke his leg; gangrene set in. They sawed it off. So he didn't get what a lot of Irish immigrants got, which was a job on the Waterfront - he didn't get that.

'The Daily News' and 'Post' gave me my life, and I want to see them survive.

In my experience, growing up in Brooklyn and all that, the real tough guys didn't act tough. They didn't talk tough. They were tough, you know? I think about these politicians who try to pose as tough guys - it makes me laugh.

Ezra Pound was a crackpot on social and political issues, but he knew what he was talking about in matters of the written language.

For me reading a book is what I like doing, curled up in a corner in a comfortable chair.

The Tammany guys, many of them were corrupt. They were still around when I was a boy. You knew the Tammany guys' name.

There's no way that any tabloid can survive if it doesn't get women to read it.

In the newspaper business, I was in the last generation before the arrival of the personnel manager. You were hired by editors - and editors who would take a chance on what they perceived to be talent and not hire a resume.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez was a newspaperman originally in Colombia. He talked about - and I agree - how everybody has a public life, a private life, and a secret life.