A City on a Hill Quotes

“It's one thing to do it. It's another thing to go around testifying in court about it.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“It's like playing Monopoly in this town. Nobody's using real money. It's all a fight between expense accounts.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“But that is just another way of saying that government, at its best, has never managed more than a marginally survivable diet for those who would otherwise starve, hasty and meager medical treatment for those who would otherwise die a little sooner, perhaps without pain, without treatment, moderately efficient sewage disposal, garbage removal and excellent fire protection, and a few circuses to amuse those alert enough to seek out or invent their own amusements. There is no limit on the amount of misery.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“Now I'm getting old," Franklin said. "I'm not old, but I'm getting old, and many of the people I've cherished are dead, or very old. The people I told you about, who were disappointed, have been using up their days as inexorably as those who never even hoped, bearing the burden of the illusion that things in this country are of infinite perfectibility, and the weight, heavier still, of the knowledge that they acted upon that illusion, expecting better things, and did not get them.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“Again let me emphasize," Franklin said, "that we speak not of things as they are, but of things as they are perceived. Our practice obliges us to satisfy the semipublic and public predilection for selecting real leaders by comparison of the height, breadth, and symmetry of the shadows they cast, and not upon the assessment of their actual stature.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“Why the hell is it that the first thing you do, if you're a Wasp and you got principles, is scowl all the time?”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“You told me to use my own judgment," Cavanaugh said. "Jess is like the rest of the horses: they're getting thirsty, but they won't drink till they're ready.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“They're worse'n mixed doubles for causing divorces.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“Yup," Richmond said, nodding. "he's got an actual record. They've arrested him in two states for writing bad checks. Never did any time, of course. He made restitution. It's not as though he needed the money. But he was convicted, and now he's running one of those fake ego-massage parlors for guys that think a felony conviction's some kind of distinction that makes them better human beings than us pedestrian types.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“He doesn't run my life," she said. "I run my life. I work for Springer in New York because I like being in New York and working for Springer. I also like being married to you. In small doses.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“Then you have to keep your mouth shut,' I said, 'everywhere you go. You either keep track of the talk,' and he started telling me he didn't think half of it was true anyway, and I said: 'Yeah, but you don't know which half, and there's no way to find out unless you want to specialize in all that dirty gossip. So you either don't talk, or you get in trouble because you keep forgetting that people that're going to bed with each other still have time to say something now and then, even though their clothes are off at the same time.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“I once thought Utopia was just a matter of harnessing all the manpower and money that a fourth-term Senator pisses away.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“He pretends he invented integrity, when all he is is a natural-born prick that cultivated his congenital advantage.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“When Howard Davidson meets his Maker, he'll be content to burn in hell, just as long as the lord says: 'Senator Davidson, go to hell.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“Sooner or later, I know human nature, he's gonna take a bath and it's gonna take the business to get him out of it.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“I give you guys credit: when you're liberal, you're liberal as hell, except if it's whether we oughta sell some more Phantoms to a warmongering nation that mongers with UJA money, but when you decide that you're gonna be bigots, there isn't another group in the world that can touch you for it. You're the best believers there is.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“He's very, very conservative, which I guess happens to you if you spend twenty years of your life running the electric company.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill

“Has it occurred to you recently, Sam," Hammer said, "that the net effect of what we're doing is stroking a guy's ego, and that's all?"
"No," Barry said, "as a matter of fact, Steve, it hasn't."
"Well, Sam," Cavanaugh said, "maybe it should.”
― George V. Higgins, A City on a Hill