“I long ago came to the conclusion that all life is 6 to 5 against.”

“Always try to rub up against money, for if you rub up against money long enough, some of it may rub off on you.”

“New York is the place where everyone will stop a championship fight to look at an usher giving a drunk the bum's rush.”

“Much as he is opposed to lawbreaking he is not bigoted about it.”

“The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong - but that's the way to bet.”

“Damon Runyon. A day-coach boy in a parlor car seat.”

“He was, however, unable to give much prolonged or continuous thought to anything that evening , or to concentrate on any one idea; and anyway, even if he had been able to, he would not have found h...”

“Nature can counsel nothing but crime.”

“A criminal remains a criminal whether he uses a convict's suit or a monarch's crown.”

“As long as there have been women." Mom told me, "there have been ways to punish them for being women.”

“In their silence they continued both to protect me and to punish me. The memory of that night was now the only tie between us, eclipsing everything else.”

“I'm more haunted by how what I've said and the things I've done have caused harm to myself and others than I am worried that God will punish me for being bad. Because in the end, we aren't punished...”