In my experience, growing up in Brooklyn and all that, the real tough guys didn't act tough. They didn't talk tough. They were tough, you know? I think about these politicians who try to pose as tough guys - it makes me laugh.

I was born in 1935. But my mother and father - who were immigrants from Ireland - and everybody that I knew growing up in Brooklyn came out of the Depression, and they were remarkable people.

I don't think enough journalists read enough - literature, history. You've got to keep reading all through your career.

My father lost his leg in 1927 playing soccer. A kick broke his leg; gangrene set in. They sawed it off. So he didn't get what a lot of Irish immigrants got, which was a job on the Waterfront - he didn't get that.

Legends are all to do with the past and nothing to do with the present.

Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away.

I went out as a free agent in Boston and had a great year and I priced myself out of there market, at the time.

First of all, it was such an honor to be chosen. You had to be voted in by players and coaches that time. But having it in Hawai'i was a brilliant idea.