Quotes by Pete Hamill

“He was a very quiet guy, unlike the rest of the rabble, ... He had a low-key, wicked sense of humor. I had no idea that he was writing anything until someone called me up and said, Frank McCourts written this amazing book, which turned out to be Angelas Ashes. ”

“If youre going to write about things that are as old as mankind, youve got to find a new, fresh way to write about them, to make people interested. Winchell found a way.”

“He became out of step with the basic audience, because they didnt believe it. And I think that was the beginning of the end of Winchell. I think it was a self-inflicted wound.”

“This is truly marvelous work: full of mystery, nostalgia, joy, The Color of Whimsy.”

“Its a good demonstration of will for any terrorist outfit to consider. If they knocked out every subway line and all the bus terminals, New Yorkers would leave the house, moaning, and find their way to work. Thats our tribe.”

“The best newspapermen I know are those most thrilled by the daily pump of city room excitements; they long fondly for a good murder; they pray that assassinations, wars, catastrophes break on their editions.”

“Say what you will about him Ed Koch is still the best show in town.”

“There is something elegantly sinister about the Rolling Stones. They sit before you at a press conference like five unfolding switchblades; their faces set in rehearsed snarls; their hair studiously unkempt and matted; their clothes part of some private conceit; and the way they walk and talk and the songs they sing all become part of some long mean reach for the jugular.”

There are 10,000 books in my library, and it will keep growing until I die. This has exasperated my daughters, amused my friends and baffled my accountant. If I had not picked up this habit in the library long ago, I would have more money in the bank today; I would not be richer.

One thing I learned in this world? Things dont last. People say they do. They dont. Your friends, they die. The wars go on and on and on, then they end. People say they will love each other for the rest of their lives, and they dont.

A half-century later, Mark Twain would say that the gold rush drastically changed the American character, ending the tradition of patient apprenticeships, the gradual mastery of self, talent, and money. Gold created the get-rich-quick mentality that has been with us ever since, most recently during the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s.

I dont ask for the meaning of the song of a bird or the rising of the sun on a misty morning. There they are, and they are beautiful.

Just like that. Gone forever. They will not grow old together. They will never live on a beach by the sea, their hair turned white, dancing in a living room to Billie Holiday or Nat Cole. They will not enter a New York club at midnight and show the poor hip-hop fools how to dance. They will not chuckle together over the endless folly of the world, its vanities and stupid ambitions. They will not hug each other in any chilly New York dawn. Oh, Mary Lou. My baby. My love.

That was it. To be a rolling stone. In the romantic places of the earth. Ready for a fight, a frolic, or a feed. And since I was Irish, since I was Billy Hamills son, since I was from Brooklyn: a drink too.

Besides, skin color was skin color, right? It was just the color of your goddamned skin. There was nothing anybody could do about that. You were born with it. Like some people were born with big feet or blue eyes. You didnt make the choice. Your parents did. Or God did.

The only way to fight nostalgia is to listen to somebody elses nostalgia

Usually, I work every day, seven days a week. When I go three days without writing, my body aches with anxiety; my mood is irritable. My night dreams grow wild with unconscious invention.

All good sports reporters know that the best stories are in the losers locker room.

As a master of graphic creation, as teacher, historian, and roving ambassador of comics, Jerry Robinson has ensured that future generations of talented kids will continue to imagine and then put marks on paper.

Vietnam should have taught us that nationalism, with its engines of independence and self-determination, is a more powerful force by far than Marxism and must be understood and respected.