152 Quotes by Pete Hamill

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

There are human beings who will be helped in understanding our times through the diaries of Edward Robb Ellis.

As a reporter, going around, you hear stories you can't prove, which means you can't put them in the newspaper. But they're good stories, and I would jot them down thinking maybe one day I could write that as a short story.

Boxing is one of those leftovers from a more primitive past that should be finished off and killed. I don't love it anymore.

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.'

At the beginning of writing fiction, too much of the newspaper style was getting into the prose, so I thought, 'Gee, I should try writing longhand. Maybe I can tap something that goes back to the point before I could type.'

Everybody needs an editor.

If you ask me, I think 12-step programs are perfectly valid, can be an enormous help. But it depends on the individual.

I don't think enough journalists read enough - literature, history. You've got to keep reading all through your career.