Quotes from Budd Schulberg

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

Isn't everyone a part of everyone else?

Living with a conscience is like driving a car with the brakes on.

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

Living with a conscience is like driving with the brakes on.

I could have had class. I could have been a contender.

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

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.

As much as I love boxing, I hate it. And as much as I hate it, I love it.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

There's nothing like a rich man's son who's done a little starving, just enough to scare him into becoming a self-made man.

A one-way ticket to Palookaville.

I could've been a contender. I could've had class and been somebody. Real class. Instead of a bum, let's face it, which is what I am.

What Makes Sammy Run?

Living with a conscience is like driving a car with the brakes on.

You don't understand. I could have had class. I could have been a contender.

Isn't everyone a part of everyone else?

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

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.