Scoundrels Quotes

“Make not, when you work a deed of shame, The scoundrel's plea, 'My forbears did the same.”

“Honest men cannot be expected to anticipate the actions of scoundrels.”

“They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings steal a little and they throw you in jail. Steal a lot and then they make you king.”

“I write about scoundrels; my specialty is generally scoundrels. If somebody's done a bad thing, I just talk about it. I don't prettify it or anything. My characters, a lot of them are disgusting — what they've done in the past. Somebody described them once as "last-ditch attempts at justification." And sometimes that's what my characters or my personae are doing: they're saying, "Yes, I did this and that thing, and perhaps it was evil. It was bad — maybe it wasn't even evil — but this is why I did it. You don't know the circumstances surrounding it." And this is the telling; they're almost retelling what happened from their point of view .... I use "bad words" whenever I feel the need, you know, I just put 'em in there — if it's true to my character. I always like to think that I'm doing things that are true to my charcter. And I hope that, when I'm dealing with violence, for example, that it's not gratuitous, that it's coming out of character that requires that .... I usually start with character, rather than a concept or an idea. If I do want to deal with an idea, I must create a character, in order to work from there, from that angle.”

“Truth made you a traitor as it often does in a time of scoundrels.”

“Man is a logical machine run by the scoundrels of emotions.”

“Scoundrels will be corrupt and unconcerned citizens apathetic under even the best constitution.”

“Fiction wouldn't be much fun without its fair share of scoundrels, and they have to live somewhere.”

“A minority group has 'arrived' only when it has the right to produce some fools and scoundrels without the entire group paying for it.”

“In fame's temple there is always a niche to be found for rich dunces importunate scoundrels or successful butchers of the human race.”