Jimmy Breslin
Trump survives by Corum's Law. This is a famous, well-tested theory and is named after Bill Corum, who once wrote sports for the Hearst papers when they were in New York.Collection: Famous
The number one rule of thieves is that nothing is too small to steal.
As far as getting publicity whenever he wants it, Trump is the white Al Sharpton.
Trump, in the crinkling of an eye, senses better than anyone the insecurity of people, that nobody knows whether anything is good or bad until they are told, and he is quite willing to tell them immediately.
Politicians attend dinners at hotels with contractors. Bankers discuss interest rates at lunch.
Media, the plural of mediocrity.
You can get some work, some jobs that will bore you until you're dead. So you better look for something that's got a little tingle to it.
The financial people, who lead such dreary lives, believe what they read and see on television.
Never use your own money. Steal a good idea and say it's your own. Do anything to get publicity. Remember that everybody can be bought.
I'm the best person ever to have a column in this business. There's never been anybody in my league.
Trump is larger than life.
Donald Trump handles these nitwit reporters with a new and most disgraceful form of bribery.
I played football. I played trumpet. I could draw.
Speaks cheerful English and in the past has written this language with a paintbrush that talks.
Newspapers are so boring. How can you read a newspaper that starts with a 51-word lead sentence?
The first funeral for Andrew Goodman was at night and it was a lot of work. To begin with they had to kill him.
Politics, where fat, bald, disagreeable men, unable to be candidates themselves, teach a president how to act on a public stage.
The trouble with Trump's father was that he was a totally naive man. He had no idea that you could buy the whole news reporting business in New York City with a return phone call.
When you stop drinking, you have to deal with this marvelous personality that started you drinking in the first place.
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.
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.
Why something in the public interest such as television news can be fought over, like a chain of hamburger stands, eludes me.
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.
Complainant received immediate lacerations of the credibility.
Football is a game designed to keep coal miners off the streets.
The professional arsonist builds vacant lots for money.
Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers.
I became a copy boy. Not for long. I started writing stories.
Don't try to tell Namath's people on First Avenue about Babe Ruth, because they don't even know the name. In fact, with the young, you can forget all of baseball. The sport is gone. But if you ever have seen Ruth, and then you see Namath, you know there is very little difference.
Don't call me a journalist; I hate the word. It's pretentious!
I don't know any other columnists, and I don't know what they do. I work the single! And nobody does what I do, anyway.
If you gather a lot of stuff, then you write it, write in scenes with dialogue. Somewhere in the middle, rising from all this research like strong metal towers, is your opinions.
Pick up any newspaper in the morning. Count the words in the lead sentences. There will be at least 25 in all of them: Guaranteed. The writers just want to tell you how many degrees they have from this college or that university.
Some time ago, I made a basic decision about the way in which I was going to live the little of life available to me The idea was to place myself in the presence of only those people who give off the warm, friendly vibrations which soothe the coating on my nerves. Life never was long enough to provide time for enemies.
You get a little picture that reflects the whole. You can get readers interested in the life of one guy, and he can reflect the whole life around him. And it's a better picture than the politicians give you.
A politician finds anything to do with racial problems far more frightening than a gun.
The only people I don't answer are bill collectors.
Don't trust a brilliant idea unless it survives the hangover.Collection: Hangover
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 newspapersCollection: Writing
The office of president is a bastardized thing, half royalty and half democracy that nobody knows whether to genuflect or spit.Collection: Office
You see, the Mets are losers, just like nearly everybody else in life. This is the team for the cab driver who gets held up and the guy who loses out on a promotion because he didn't maneuver himself to lunch with the boss enough. It is the team for every guy who has to get out of bed in the morning and go to work for short money on a job he does not like. The Yankees? Who does well enough to root for them, Laurence Rockefeller?Collection: Baseball
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.Collection: Beautiful
When you leave New York you ain't going anywhere.Collection: New York
Politics: where fat, bald, disagreeable men, unable to be candidates themselves, teach a president how to act on a public stage.Collection: Men
A job on a newspaper is a special thing. Every day you take something that you found out about, and you put it down and in a matter of hours it becomes a product. Not just a product like a can or something. It is a personal product that people, a lot of people, take the time to sit down and read.Collection: Jobs
The test of a good idea is its ability to last through a hangoverCollection: Hangover
Anything that isn't writing is easyCollection: Writing
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.Collection: Writing
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.Collection: Fun
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.Collection: New York