Precious was one of a large number of people on the street, many of whom appeared to be women; some, like Precious, actually were.
Newspapers are so boring. How can you read a newspaper that starts with a 51-word lead sentence?
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.
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.
Don’t call me a journalist; I hate the word. It’s pretentious!
I became a copy boy. Not for long. I started writing stories.
The number one rule of thieves is that nothing is too small to steal.
The test of a good idea is its ability to last through a hangover.
I’m on my high school football team and MUST show how much I know.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Football is a game designed to keep coal miners off the streets.
Politics: where fat, bald, disagreeable men, unable to be candidates themselves, teach a president how to act on a public stage.
Marvelous Marv was holding down first base. This is like saying Willie Sutton works at your bank.
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.
Why something in the public interest such as television news can be fought over, like a chain of hamburger stands, eludes me.
The professional arsonist builds vacant lots for money.
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.