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Politics: where fat, bald, disagreeable men, unable to be candidates themselves, teach a president how to act on a public stage.

Jimmy Breslin

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Jimmy Breslin
Age: 88 †
Born: 1928
Born: October 17
Died: 2017
Died: March 19
Journalist
Jamaica
Queens
James Earle Breslin
Men
Fats
Candidates
Stage
Public
Teach
Politics
Bald
President
Disagreeable
Political
Unable

More quotes by Jimmy Breslin

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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.
Jimmy Breslin
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I always react to news immediately. That's my business.
Jimmy Breslin
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Journalism schools are good to get a job, but I don't know what else they are good for. I don't like the word journalism to begin with. It's news reporting, and that consists of using your two feet. The only lesson, then, that you could give people is how to climb stairs, because there are no stories on the first floor.
Jimmy Breslin
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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.
Jimmy Breslin
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I'm on my high school football team and MUST show how much I know.
Jimmy Breslin
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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.
Jimmy Breslin
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Men in the uniform of Wall Street retirement: black Chesterfield coat, rimless glasses and the Times folded to the obituary page.
Jimmy Breslin
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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.
Jimmy Breslin
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All political power is primarily an illusion. Illusion. Mirrors and blue smoke, beautiful blue smoke rolling over the surface of highly polished mirrors, first a thin veil of blue smoke, then a thick cloud that suddenly dissolves into wisps of blue smoke, the mirrors catching it all, bouncing it back and forth.
Jimmy Breslin
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Speaks cheerful English and in the past has written this language with a paintbrush that talks.
Jimmy Breslin
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Newspapers are so boring. How can you read a newspaper that starts with a 51-word lead sentence?
Jimmy Breslin
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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.
Jimmy Breslin
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What you want to do is not go to work. You're not missing a thing. The worst thing I did was start work young.
Jimmy Breslin
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Journalism should be truthful and entertaining. You know, with news and important facts you can entertain people too. Have a little humor. Life isn't all that deadly all the time, but while you're having fun, tell the truth. If every word of a column is deadly serious, I can't read it. It makes me throw up.
Jimmy Breslin
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Baseball isn't statistics, it's Joe DiMaggio rounding second base.
Jimmy Breslin
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The other feature is a gymnasium named after another dead politician who was gifted with fast and extremely sure hands.
Jimmy Breslin
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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.
Jimmy Breslin
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Marvelous Marv was holding down first base. This is like saying Willie Sutton works at your bank.
Jimmy Breslin
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The test of a good idea is its ability to last through a hangover
Jimmy Breslin
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Complainant received immediate lacerations of the credibility.
Jimmy Breslin