They, that unnamed "they," they've knocked me down but I got up. I always get up-and I swear when I went down quite often I took the fall; nothing moves a mountain but itself. They, I've long ago named them me.

Now, twenty years old, I come out and I go back to Greenwich Village. Now, of course, I'm a wealthy man.

I remember the people I knew in prison; I was very fortunate to know them - they came from 1910, 1920, 1930.

The lucky thing was that I was Italian; when the other Italians saw me fight back, they came to my defence.

Anyway, I lived on the streets and did pretty good until I got caught stealing, what was it? I kicked in a restaurant window, went in and took all the food that I wanted, and while coming out I was grabbed.

Now the Tombs, like the name says, are so horrible that they had to close it down. Today it doesn't exist and people go in the electric chair and all that.

I moved up over Lower East Side and I was adopted by eight foster parents; I lived all over New York City with these parents, man, till I was about ten years old.

The judge said I was a menace to society because I had put crime on a scientific basis.

The other guy I dug a lot was Burroughs because he was a smart man already; he learned it through the druggie pool - the street scene of an old aristocratic kind of man.

My father went into the armed service and I never saw my mother - I don't know what happened to her.

I just trust people and they sense everything's gonna be alright.

They, that unnamed "they," they've knocked me down but I got up. I always get up-and I swear when I went down quite often I took the fall; nothing moves a mountain but itself. They, I've long ago named them me.

I was what? - twelve years old - and I was thrown in the cells with these people, so I learned fast.

You see, I went to the sixth grade and that was the highest I ever went.

My background did not start with the East Side; it started with Greenwich Village, which is West Side.

My father took me back home, back to Greenwich Village, and he thought by taking me out of the orphanage he'd be out of the World War too. But no way - they got him anyway. He went in the Navy and then I lived on the streets.

They, that unnamed 'they,' they've knocked me down but I got up. I always get up-and I swear when I went down quite often I took the fall; nothing moves a mountain but itself. They, I've long ago named them me.

Standing on a street corner waiting for no one is power.

Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.

The present contains nothing more than the past, and what is found in the effect was already in the cause.

There are those, I know, who will reply that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is. It is the American Dream.

Well, after I had the heart attack, it was a very simple choice. What the doctor told me I did and I did it religiously. I ate nothing but lean turkey breast or chicken breast or a piece of fish that was very lean. I mean I stayed away from everything.

My life is so full of surprises, nothing surprises me any more.

Excuses change nothing, but make everyone feel better.

It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.

They haul you up there for, you know, week after week in this kind of star chamber proceeding. Then at the end of it they say, well, we found nothing, but now it's time for special counsel.

Why are there beings at all, instead of Nothing?

Always, your work is the same: You have to tell a story, you have to make a character. It doesn't matter if there are thousands of dollars, millions behind it, or if there is nothing.

For years the Trio did nothing but play for musicians and other hip people. We practically starved to death.

There's nothing worse than talking about yourself to find out that you're not that interesting.

In the kingdom of heaven it is His work that will be crowned, not yours. Anything in you that He has not wrought Himself will count for nothing.

If nothing is to be done in the given situation, he must invent plausible reasons for doing nothing; and if something must be done, he must suggest the something. The unpardonable sin is to propose nothing, when action is imperative.

There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the Establishment - and nothing more corrupting.

There is sometimes a peculiar confusion in the West that equates progress to whatever is recent or whatever is new, and it is time we understood that progress has nothing to do with the chronology of an idea.

I think I had a more European outlook about the body and sex. The body is in no way dirty, and sex is something beautiful to give to and share with a lover. It has nothing to do with promiscuity, because I only believe in being in love with one man at a time.

Nothing is ever guaranteed, and all that came before doesn't predicate what you might do next.

There ain't nothing from the outside that can lick any of us.

Love is seeing without eyes, hearing without ears; hatred is nothing.

Nothing is harder to direct than a man in prosperity; nothing more easily managed that one is adversity.

Religion has caused more harm than any other idea since the beginning of time. There's nothing good I can say about it. People use it as a crutch.

There's nothing better than good sex. But bad sex? A peanut butter and jelly sandwich is better than bad sex.

I'd rather attempt to do something great and fail than to attempt to do nothing and succeed.

Bright light is injurious to those who see nothing.

Tomorrow night is nothing but one long sleepless wrestle with yesterday's omissions and regrets.

You either love or you hate. You live in the middle, you get nothing.

If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

I don't know nothing about communism. But I know the Albanians loved me. Same reason as anyone else loves me. Because I made them laugh.

Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge.