Making a million legally has always been difficult. Making a million illegally has always been a little easier. Keeping a million when you have made it is perhaps the most difficult of all.
Honest Graft
What at first was plunder assumed the softer name of revenue.
I didn't defraud the government by taking money that was not mine.
To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe.
To try and nick a few quid off the income tax... Why? I am not into that. I don't need that.
I want no money raised by injustice.
In some respects, inside information is a form of financial steroid. It is unfair: it is offensive; it is unlawful; and it puts a black mark on the entire enterprise.
The best way to rob a bank is to own it.
Commenting on the 1989 savings and loan scandal:
Wherever there's opportunity, the mafia will be there.
Playing the game, and unfortunately, playing the gangster game is very profitable.
My father was a fish market porter. So I grew up on fish, because he used to steal one a day, I grew up on the very best fish that money could buy, 'cause he only stole the good stuff.
Give me a man who steals a little and I can make money
We could live like counts. ... If all that money is out there, I might as well hack a little on the side and put the novel off.
If I had a picture of two handcuffed criminals being booked, I would cut the picture in half and get five bucks for each.
One of the biggest lies in the world is that crime doesn't pay. Of course, crime pays.