Quote

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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Jimmy Breslin
Age: 88 †
Born: 1928
Born: October 17
Died: 2017
Died: March 19
Journalist
Jamaica
Queens
James Earle Breslin
Half
President
Royalty
Thing
Spit
Office
Nobody
Democracy
Politics
Whether

More quotes by Jimmy Breslin

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Designed by architects with honorable intentions but hands of palsy.
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I became a copy boy. Not for long. I started writing stories.
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Don't trust a brilliant idea unless it survives the hangover.
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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.
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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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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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The first funeral for Andrew Goodman was at night and it was a lot of work. To begin with they had to kill him.
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Anything that isn't writing is easy
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Speaks cheerful English and in the past has written this language with a paintbrush that talks.
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Baseball isn't statistics, it's Joe DiMaggio rounding second base.
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I always react to news immediately. That's my business.
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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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The test of a good idea is its ability to last through a hangover
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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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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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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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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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Football is a game designed to keep coal miners off the streets.
Jimmy Breslin
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Complainant received immediate lacerations of the credibility.
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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