JIMMY BRESLIN

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.

I became a copy boy. Not for long. I started writing stories.

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.

Media, the plural of mediocrity.

Football is a game designed to keep coal miners off the streets.

The professional arsonist builds vacant lots for money.

The first funeral for Andrew Goodman was at night and it was a lot of work. To begin with they had to kill him.

The number one rule of thieves is that nothing is too small to steal.

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.

Don't call me a journalist; I hate the word. It's pretentious!

I played football. I played trumpet. I could draw.

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.

Newspapers are so boring. How can you read a newspaper that starts with a 51-word lead sentence?

Speaks cheerful English and in the past has written this language with a paintbrush that talks.

Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers.

Complainant received immediate lacerations of the credibility.

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.

When you stop drinking, you have to deal with this marvelous personality that started you drinking in the first place.

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.

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.

Everybody came from somewhere here in New York.

Carey wants proper air cover in case of war with Vermont.

I don't know why people are always afraid of a nuclear blast.

When [Jimmy] Carter ran for President, he made many promises to people in big cities.... I never believed a word he said, and therefore did not believe he was lying.