Quotes from Wiseguy

Nicholas Pileggi ·  320 pages

Rating: (10.9K votes)


“By birth, certainly, they were not prepared in any way to achieve their desires. They were not the smartest kids in the neighborhood. They were not born the richest. They weren’t even the toughest. In fact, they lacked almost all the necessary talents that might have helped them satisfy the appetites of their dreams, except one—their talent for violence.”
― Nicholas Pileggi, quote from Wiseguy


“On one occasion Jimmy is said to have given the elderly, impoverished mother of a young hood five thousand dollars. The woman’s son was said to have owed his mother the money but had refused to pay her. Jimmy was apparently so incensed at this lack of regard for motherhood that he gave the woman the five thousand in the morning, claiming it was from her son, and then allegedly killed the woman’s son before dusk.”
― Nicholas Pileggi, quote from Wiseguy


“Henry was never able to help McDonald crack Lufthansa—the”
― Nicholas Pileggi, quote from Wiseguy


“Of course, no matter how Henry tried to rationalize what he had done, his survival depended upon his capacity for betrayal. He willingly turned on the world he knew and the men with whom he had been raised with the same nonchalance he had used in setting up a bookie joint or slipping a tail. For Henry Hill giving up the life was hard, but giving up his friends was easy.”
― Nicholas Pileggi, quote from Wiseguy


“The federal prosecutors were asking him about his role in the $6 million Lufthansa German Airlines robbery, the largest successful cash robbery in American history.”
― Nicholas Pileggi, quote from Wiseguy



“I had a drugstore wholesaler who had discount stores all over Long Island.”
― Nicholas Pileggi, quote from Wiseguy


About the author

Nicholas Pileggi
Born place: in New York, New York, The United States
Born date February 22, 1933
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“This looks like one of those unwelcome social summonses which call upon a man either to be bored or to lie.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, quote from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes


“But people will do anything rather than admit that their lives have no meaning. No use, that is. No plot.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from The Handmaid's Tale


“In the English language there are orphans and widows, but there is no word for the parents who lose a child.”
― Jodi Picoult, quote from My Sister's Keeper


“All I know is this: nobody's very big in the first place, and it looks to me like everybody spends their whole life tearing everybody else down.”
― Ken Kesey, quote from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest


“I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of the throat and I'd cry for a week.”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from The Bell Jar


Interesting books

An Instance of the Fingerpost
(19.5K)
An Instance of the F...
by Iain Pears
Midnight Rising
(29.5K)
Midnight Rising
by Lara Adrian
Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume I
(20.3K)
Sherlock Holmes: The...
by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Hero With a Thousand Faces
(23.2K)
The Hero With a Thou...
by Joseph Campbell
The Eternity Cure
(31.7K)
The Eternity Cure
by Julie Kagawa
The Time Paradox
(68.2K)
The Time Paradox
by Eoin Colfer

About BookQuoters

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.