A biography for Pete Hamillhasn’t been written yet.
“The background of any artist is shaped by the first 15 years of his or her life.”
“Every reporter inhales skepticism. You interview people, and they lie. You face public figures, diligently making notes or taping what is said, and they perform their interviews to fit a calculated script. The truth, alas, is always elusive.”
“Just like that. Gone forever. They will not grow old together. They will never live on a beach by the sea, their hair turned white, dancing in a living room to Billie Holiday or Nat Cole. They will not enter a New York club at midnight and show the poor hip-hop fools how to dance. They will not chuckle together over the endless folly of the world, its vanities and stupid ambitions. They will not hug each other in any chilly New York dawn. Oh, Mary Lou. My baby. My love.”
“I always make a distinction between nostalgia and sentimentality. Nostalgia is genuine - you mourn things that actually happened.”
“What would Chaucer have written about if men were perfect?”
“Say what you will about him Ed Koch is still the best show in town.”
“Writers are rememberers.”
“I like to say that journalism is the graduate school from which you never graduate.”
“My parents were Belfast Catholics.”
“The Irish fought the Italians until they started marrying them. And then they both fought the Jews until they started marrying them.”
“For years, the defenders of television have argued that the networks are only giving the people what they want. That might be true. But so is the Medellin cartel.”
“Travel at least erodes some of the narrowness that exists in each of us.”
“New York and Dublin are now suburbs of each other.”
“Sinatra's endurance has become a rallying point for many people who feel that their sacrifices and hard work are no longer honored.”
“Ezra Pound was a crackpot on social and political issues, but he knew what he was talking about in matters of the written language.”
“The replenishing thing that comes with a nap - you end up with two mornings in a day.”
“One thing I learned in this world? Things don't last. People say they do. They don't. Your friends, they die. The wars go on and on and on, then they end. People say they will love each other for the rest of their lives, and they don't.”
“I'm not interested in stories about movie stars. I couldn't care less what Steve Martin has on his mind.”
“Boxing is one of those leftovers from a more primitive past that should be finished off and killed. I don't love it anymore.”
“The spookiest thing I can remember about John Gotti is his eyes.”