Sammy Quotes

“I thought of Sammy Glick rocking in his cradle of hate, malnutrition, prejudice, suspicions, amorality, the anarchy of the poor; I thought of him as a mangy puppy in a dog-eat-dog world. I was modulating my hate for Sammy Glick from the personal to the societal. I no longer even hated Rivington Street but the idea of Rivington Street, all Rivington Streets of all nationalities allowed to pile up in cities like gigantic dung heaps smelling up the world, ambitions growing out of filth and crawling away like worms. I saw Sammy Glick on a battlefield where every soldier was his own cause, his own army and his own flag, and I realized that I had singled him out not because he had been born into the world anymore selfish, ruthless and cruel than anybody else, even though he had become all three, but because in the midst of a war that was selfish, ruthless and cruel Sammy was proving himself the fittest and the fiercest and the fastest.”

“There was a lull. Sammy was staring across the room at George Opdyke, the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner. I was about to say he was lost in thought, but Sammy was never really lost, and he never actually thought, for that implied deep reflection. He was figuring. Miss Goldblum edged her undernourished white hand into his. Sammy played with it absent-mindedly, like a piece of silverware.”

“As he watched Joe stand, blazing, on the fire escape, Sammy felt an ache in his chest that turned out to be, as so often occurs when memory and desire conjoin with a transient effect of weather, the pang of creation. The desire he felt, watching Joe, was unquestionably physical, but in the sense that Sammy wanted to inhabit the body of his cousin, not possess it. It was, in part, a longing--common enough among the inventors of heroes--to be someone else; to be more than the result of two hundred regimens and scenarios and self-improvement campaigns that always ran afoul of his perennial inability to locate an actual self to be improved. Joe Kavalier had an air of competence, of faith in his own abilities, that Sammy, by means of constant effort over the whole of his life, had finally learned only to fake. ”

“Afterall, trust is greater than love, and to truly trust another humanbeing is rare. Love can exist without trust, but trust cannot exist without love. Antonio; Hidden Mountain”

“You know what you need?”“What?”“You need to think about what a badass bald man would do in this situation”“There are no badass bald men. By definition.”“What about Dwight D. Eisenhower?” Carlos suggested.“President Eisenhower?”“Doesn’t he qualify as a badass?” Carlos insisted.“Look, he may have been president, but he doesn’t exactly come to people’s minds when you ask them to think of a badass.”“All right. How about Kojak?” Carlos asked.“That police detective show with Telly Savalas?” Sammy asked.“Yeah, Kojak. He was a badass. Always cool under pressure.”“All right,” Sammy replied. “Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that Kojak was a bald badass. So what?’“So you have to imagine how Kojak would deal with this situation we have in front of us. He wouldn’t be worried about whether this girl digs bald guys. He would just walk right up to her, knowing that he’s a badass and just take care of business. You see, it’s all in the delivery.”“The delivery?”“Yeah, the execution”

“My situation is different from Mark's. I'm not looking for home runs, I'm looking for the playoffs.”

“All he cares about is going out there with his Jack Daniels bottle. Nothing has changed. That's kind of sad. If David was doing better than he used to be, then that would be different. But it was a joke and he made it that way.”

“Every year on your birthday, you get a chance to start new.”

“Every song, the title dictates the architecture of the song.”

“Don't compare me to Babe Ruth. God gave me the opportunity and the ability to be here at the right time, at the right moment, just like he gave Babe Ruth when he was playing. I just hope I can keep doing what I've been doing - keep taking care of business.”