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

“Let's punk this bitch. - Nisha”
― Sara Shepard, quote from Cross My Heart, Hope to Die


“I fought to stay awake and keep the car on the road. And I thought back to texts I had read from the British Army in India, during the Raj, at the height of their empire. Young subalterns trapped in junior ranks had their own mess. They would dine together in splendid dress uniforms and talk about their chances of promotion. But they had none, unless a superior officer died. Dead men's shoes was the rule. So they would raise their crystal glasses of fine French wine and toast "bloody wars and dread diseases" because a casualty further up the chain of command was their only way to get ahead. Brutal, but that's how it's always been, in the military.”
― Lee Child, quote from Persuader


“He went absolutely still for a split second, an error message flashing wildly in his brain. Another second passed before he resumed breathing, then another before he concluded that the conversation about procreation at lunch was to blame for his bizarre thoughts.”
― C.C. Gibbs, quote from Knight's Mistress


“Desire followed the glance, pleasure followed desire”
― Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, quote from Venus in Furs


“Because I’d wanted to touch him more than I’d wanted my next breath.”
― Sarina Bowen, quote from Him


Interesting books

Tower Lord
(32K)
Tower Lord
by Anthony Ryan
Helvetti
(116.8K)
Helvetti
by Dante Alighieri
The Girl I Was Before
(2.1K)
The Girl I Was Befor...
by Ginger Scott
Odin's Ravens
(2.7K)
Odin's Ravens
by K.L. Armstrong
Captive Prince: Volume One
(33.3K)
Captive Prince: Volu...
by C.S. Pacat
The Three Theban Plays: Antigone / Oedipus the King / Oedipus at Colonus
(52.3K)
The Three Theban Pla...
by Sophocles

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.