WT Sharpe

“The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. —Charles Darwin (1871)”
― Frans de Waal, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

“During the slow times in the summer, I would be invited to sit with Gaspipe or gangsters like Roy DeMeo, Anthony Senter, Joey Testa, and Frank Lastorino, a kind of Murderer’s Row of gangsters, like the 1950s Yankees batting lineup, only these guys really were murderers. This was when I first heard the name Roy Cohn, the infamous New York attorney who worked for Senator Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare and later was a lawyer for many mobsters—including Donald Trump.”
― Michael Cohen, Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump

“Business in New York has always been hard-edged, with the opening bid in negotiations typically starting with an exchange of “fuck you” and the threat of litigation. No tactic or ruse was too low, including preying on the weak or vulnerable—in fact, that became Trump’s business model, perhaps because he’d gone broke so many times himself, only to be bailed out by his Daddy, that he knew just how defenseless the insolvent really are.”
― Michael Cohen, Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump

“Ben is a businessman through and through. When a businessman decides that the time has come to give charity, he views it as a business proposition. He is buying kovod, honor. And naturally he wants to get the most for his kovod dollar. If he uses the money to build a chapel—say the Goralsky Memorial Chapel—who will see it? Who will know about it except the folks here in Barnard’s Crossing? But,” he lowered his voice, “suppose he were to donate a laboratory to Brandeis or even to Harvard? The Goralsky Chemical Research Laboratory? Eh? Scientists and scholars from all over the world would get to hear of it.”
― Harry Kemelman, Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry