Quote

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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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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When you leave New York you ain't going anywhere.
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.
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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.
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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.
Jimmy Breslin
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I became a copy boy. Not for long. I started writing stories.
Jimmy Breslin
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The number one rule of thieves is that nothing is too small to steal.
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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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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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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The first funeral for Andrew Goodman was at night and it was a lot of work. To begin with they had to kill him.
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 office of president is a bastardized thing, half royalty and half democracy that nobody knows whether to genuflect or spit.
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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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.
Jimmy Breslin
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I always react to news immediately. That's my business.
Jimmy Breslin
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Rage is ... This is Breslin's full quote: Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers
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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Media, the plural of mediocrity.
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