My parents were immigrants. And the place for all immigrants was the factories. They were the source of cheap labor.

I feel like an independent man, and I am. This is the kind of feeling I always wanted. You can rarely get that... Well, I could rarely get that in the early part of my life.

There was violence because first of all, there were ethnic differences and names. If you were small, they called you a runt, and you had to do something about that even if there were five other guys.

The average politician was crooked. That was my ambition, to be a crooked politician. I'd see them in these restaurants, and they'd all hold these conferences. I'd see politicians who were supposed to be on opposite sides of issues all together at one table.

I never duck out of a fight; I don't care what the hell the odds are, and I'm rough at times, but I try to be a decent guy all the time. That's the way I've always lived.

An artist has to be humble, an editor must be officious, and a publisher must be somewhere out in the galaxy enjoying godhood. It was a caste system, pure and simple. And it was accepted that way. Nobody thought of contracts, nobody thought of insisting on better deals.

Every father was his own man. He did what he wanted. If your mother went shopping, your father never went with her.