Bryan Burrough · 640 pages
Rating: (4.7K votes)
“To the generations of Americans raised since World War 2, the identities of criminals such as Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, "Ma" Barker, John Dillenger, and Clyde Barrow are no more real than are Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones. After decades spent in the washing machine of popular culture, their stories have been bled of all reality, to an extent that few Americans today know who these people actually were, much less that they all rose to national prominence at the same time. They were real.”
― Bryan Burrough, quote from Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34
“History is written by the victors, they say, and there was no one alive who would come forward to dispute Hoover’s fabricated story. Never mind that there was no indication whatsoever in Bureau files that Ma Barker had ever fired a gun, robbed a bank, or done anything more criminal than live off her sons’ ill-gotten gains.”
― Bryan Burrough, quote from Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34
“Art has now done for Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow something they could never achieve in life: it has taken a shark-eyed multiple murderer and his deluded girlfriend and transformed them into sympathetic characters, imbuing them with a cuddly likability they did not possess, and a cultural significance they do not deserve.”
― Bryan Burrough, quote from Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34
“an odd-job detective agency with fuzzy lines of authority and responsibility.”
― Bryan Burrough, quote from Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34
“When one looks back across a chasm of seventy years, through a prism of pulp fiction and bad gangster movies, there is a tendency to view the events of 1933-34 as mythic, as folkloric. To the generations of Americans raised since World War II, the identities of criminals such as Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, “Ma” Barker, John Dillinger, and Clyde Barrow are no more real than are Luke Skywalker or Indiana Jones. After decades spent in the washing machine of popular culture, their stories have been bled of all reality, to an extent that few Americans today know who these people actually were, much less that they all rose to national prominence at the same time.”
― Bryan Burrough, quote from Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34
“Hoover viewed the Dillinger case as a potential quagmire and long resisted being drawn into it.”
― Bryan Burrough, quote from Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34
“Hands up! Hands up! Everybody on the floor!” The effect was akin to three wild-eyed berserkers storming a prayer meeting.”
― Bryan Burrough, quote from Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34
“But there was no denying Purvis’s ineptitude in the Dillinger hunt. Suspects were found then lost. His informants were hopeless. He raided the wrong apartments. He built no bridges to the Chicago police while annoying other departments. He’d had his car stolen from in front of his house.”
― Bryan Burrough, quote from Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34
“By mid-summer only Ma Barker remained in Chicago, lost in her jigsaw puzzles. Karpis drove over to visit her one weekend and found she was doing surprisingly well. He and Dock took her to see a movie. To their horror, the film was preceded by a newsreel warning moviegoers to be on the lookout for Dillinger, Nelson, Pretty Boy Floyd, Karpis, and the Barkers. Karpis scrunched low in his seat as their pictures flashed on the screen. “One of these men may be sitting next to you,” the announcer said. Karpis pulled his hat low over his forehead.”
― Bryan Burrough, quote from Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34
“Clarence Hurt was driving, and he got lost. “Does anyone know where the Post Office Building is?” Hurt asked at one point.
“I can tell you,” Karpis said.
“How do you know where it is?” asked Clyde Tolson, who sat in the backseat with Hoover.
“We were thinking of robbing it,” Karpis said.”
― Bryan Burrough, quote from Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34
“The first recorded U.S. bank robbery, actually a nighttime burglary, came in 1831, when a man named Edward Smith snuck into a Wall Street bank and made off with $245,000. He was caught and sentenced to a five-year term in Sing Sing.”
― Bryan Burrough, quote from Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34
“the Bureau acquired the nickname “The Department of Easy Virtue.”
― Bryan Burrough, quote from Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34
Bryan Burrough
Born date August 13, 1961
See more on GoodReads
“I’m not going to be like my mother. You’re maniacs. You’re mad.
“Yes,” said Kate. “I know it. And so you won’t be. The best of luck to you. And what are you going to be instead?”
― Doris Lessing, quote from The Summer Before the Dark
“Ishmael was looking at him through narrowed eyes. “This is very important to you, this box.”
“It’s important to the world.”
Ishmael said: “The sun rises, and the sun sets. Sometimes it rains. We live, then we die.” He shrugged.
He would never understand, Wolff thought; but others would.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Key to Rebecca
“I hate patience. Slows everything down.”
― J.D. Robb, quote from Witness in Death
“Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu'il m'en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine
Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
des éternels regards l'onde si lasse
Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
l'amour s'en va comme cette eau courante
L'amour s'en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l'Espérance est violente
Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure
Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Vienne la nuit sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont je demeure”
― Guillaume Apollinaire, quote from Alcools
“When a problem threatens to engulf you, there's nothing like irrelevant detail to keep your head above water.”
― John le Carré, quote from The Russia House
East of Eden
Me Talk Pretty One D...
Miss Peregrine’s Hom...
The Martian
Waiting for Godot
Everything Is Illumi...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.
