Quotes by Pete Hamill

There is a growing feeling that perhaps Texas is really another country, a place where the skies, the disasters, the diamonds, the politicians, the women, the fortunes, the football players and the murders are all bigger than anywhere else.

In my experience, growing up in Brooklyn and all that, the real tough guys didnt act tough. They didnt talk tough. They were tough, you know? I think about these politicians who try to pose as tough guys - it makes me laugh.

Travel at least erodes some of the narrowness that exists in each of us.

The Mafia exists in the American imagination because we want it to exist.

For those without money, the road to that treasure house of the imagination begins at the public library.

In 1962, I wrote a series about 42nd Street called Welcome to Lostville. One result was that the young Bob Dylan read it and invited me to his first concert at Town Hall; the result was a kind of friendship that years later led to my liner notes for Blood on the Tracks.

The most powerful force in American politics is not anger, its nostalgia.