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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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Jimmy Breslin
Age: 88 †
Born: 1928
Born: October 17
Died: 2017
Died: March 19
Journalist
Jamaica
Queens
James Earle Breslin
Men
Page
Chesterfield
Glasses
Obituary
Street
Folded
Pages
Coat
Streets
Uniform
Wall
Coats
Times
Uniforms
Black
Retirement

More quotes by 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
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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.
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The test of a good idea is its ability to last through a hangover
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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.
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Designed by architects with honorable intentions but hands of palsy.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I became a copy boy. Not for long. I started writing stories.
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The other feature is a gymnasium named after another dead politician who was gifted with fast and extremely sure hands.
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The number one rule of thieves is that nothing is too small to steal.
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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.
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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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I'm on my high school football team and MUST show how much I know.
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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.
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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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Speaks cheerful English and in the past has written this language with a paintbrush that talks.
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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.
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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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