Edward Bunker > Quotes

“I believe that anyone who doesn't read remains dumb. Even if they know how, failing to regularly ingest the written word dooms them to ignorance, no matter what else they have or do”
― Edward Bunker, Education of a Felon

“Sono convinto che chi non legge resta uno stupido. Anche se nella vita sa destreggiarsi, il fatto di non ingerire regolarmente parole scritte lo condanna ineluttabilmente all'ignoranza, indipendentemente dai suoi averi e dalle sue attività.”
― Edward Bunker, Education of a Felon

“This was the Mecca of the American Dream, the world that everyone wanted. A world of sleek young women (allied with Slenderella to be so) in shorts and halters, driving 400-horsepower station wagons to air-conditioned, music-serenaded supermarkets of baby-sitter corporations and culture condensed into Great Books discussion groups. A life of barbecues by the swimming pool and drive in movies open all year. It did't appeal to me. Fuck health insurance plans and life insurance. They wanted to live without leaving the womb. It made me more alive to play a game without rules against society, and I was prepared to play it to the end. A tremor almost sexual passed through me as I anticipated the comming robbery.”
― Edward Bunker, No Beast So Fierce

“My letters seeking a job, though truthful, diminished the full truth. Face would blanch if the facts had been complete: "Dear Sir," I thought. "Do you have a position for a journeyman burglar, con man, forger and car thief; also with experience as armed robber, pimp, card cheat and several other things. I smoked marijuana at twelve (in the 40's) and shot heroin at sixteen. I have no experience with LSD and methedrine. They came to popularity since my imprisonment. I've buggered pretty young boys and feminine homosexuals (but only when locked up away from women). In the idiom of jails, prisons and gutters (some plush gutters) I'm a motherfucker! Not literally, for I don't remember my mother. In my world the term, used as I used it, is a boast of being hell on wheels, outrageously unpredictable, a virtuoso of crime. Of course by being a motherfucker in that world I'm a piece of garbage in yours. Do you have a job?”
― Edward Bunker, No Beast So Fierce

“I need a kid like I need a bad heart. A pretty kid is a ticket to trouble... and I'm too old to ask for that. Shit, I haven't even booked Tommy the Face in two years. I'm turning into a jack-off idiot.”
― Edward Bunker, The Animal Factory

“Life was precious. Life was all that mattered. Yet it meant nothing if you weren't living as you wanted.”
― Edward Bunker, No Beast So Fierce

“Your basic problem is emotional immaturity. You want life to be like in the movies, full of excitement. That's how a child's mind works, but the adults accept regularity, tedium, frustration.”
― Edward Bunker, No Beast So Fierce

“But the human mind, when it reaches the bottom of the abyss, must bounce back or disintegrate entirely.”
― Edward Bunker, No Beast So Fierce

“One of the best things in being a criminal is having no schedule.”
― Edward Bunker, No Beast So Fierce

“Hope is still ahead of you - but someday it will be behind you. That's really the point of children, to have someone to pin hope to.”
― Edward Bunker, No Beast So Fierce

“I believe that anyone who doesn't read remains dumb. Even if they know how, failing to regularly ingest the written word dooms them to ignorance, no matter what else they have or do.”
― Edward Bunker

“Chuck Berry, he got locked up for armed robbery. He changed. He changed. Barry White, he stole 300 tires. Can you picture big Barry White stealing 300 tires? He changed. You said... you said people don't change. People change Jack.”
― Eddie Bunker

“In three months Ron read more than he had in his entire previous life. He felt his mind widen, his perceptions become more acute, for each book was a prism refracting the infinitely varied truths of experience. Some were telescopes; some microscopes.”
― Edward Bunker, The Animal Factory

“That when it comes to truly behaving as a beast — to killing wantonly and without reason — it is our kind, not theirs, that is the fiercer of the two”
― Edward Bunker, No Beast So Fierce

“Everything in life stands on what has gone before. You do this or that because, at the moment, it seems what to do. You are faced with this or that because of what happened somewhere earlier in your journey of life. What happened earlier depends on what went before that. Who would dispute that nobody stands in a void or a vacuum?”
― Edward Bunker, Education of a Felon: A Memoir

“Après quatre mois d'emprisonnement, j'en sais plus sur la justice qu'après deux années d'université.”
― Edward Bunker, The Animal Factory

“It was several years later that Mrs. Wallis told me the story of her philanthropy, which was always personal and individual rather than as part of an organization. She never appeared in the photos of the women’s committee of this or that charity. She did her good works alone and quietly, although her obituary would be headed: “Angel of Hollywood.”
― Edward Bunker, Education of a Felon: A Memoir

“Ron fut frappé par le contraste qui régnait entre les coulisses de la justice avec leurs cages à barreaux d'arrière-cour et la solennité très digne de la salle du tribunal. Le public voyait l'édifice, pas les communs.”
― Edward Bunker, The Animal Factory

“Ron fut frappé par le contraste qui régnait entre les coulisses de la justice avec leurs cages à barreaux d'arrière-cour et la solennité très digne de la salle du tribunal. Le public voyait l'édifice, pas les communs.

- Installez-vous sur les bancs du jury, M. Decker, dit l'adjoint.

Ron s'exécuta et sourit, en songeant qu'il était passé du statut de "connard" à celui de "monsieur" par le simple fait de franchir une porte. Dans quelques minutes, il redeviendrait "connard".”
― Edward Bunker, The Animal Factory

“My purpose in writing is to transcend my existence by illuminating it.”
― Edward Bunker

“I felt as if I could ride the bus through eternity and be happy.”
― Edward Bunker, No Beast So Fierce

“The thief’s underworld, which is different from that of the mafiosi, gang bangers, and racketeers, has many adages and observations. If you can’t do the time don’t mess with crime is the best-known. Another is: A thief’s nerve is in direct proportion to his financial condition. Or: Hard times make hard people.”
― Edward Bunker, Education of a Felon: A Memoir

“During the interim, no matter how much agony the man may feel, he also experiences excitement, the excitement of learning how to cope with a closed society that reflects free society as a funhouse mirror reflects the human form: everything is there, but distorted.”
― Edward Bunker, The Animal Factory

“Reading taught me that prison had been the crucible that had formed several great writers. Cervantes wrote much of Don Quixote in a prison cell, and Dostoyevski was a mediocre writer until he was sentenced to death, commuted within a few hours of execution, and then sent to prison in Siberia.”
― Edward Bunker, Education of a Felon: A Memoir

“-Poor Jerry. He's giving all of himself to something he's got to loose.
-So does everybody...sooner or later.
-Freeze on that.
-On what?
-On all that heavy philosophy bullshit. I'm talking about here and now and everyday important things that people live by. If you extrapolate everything-nothing matters.”
― Edward Bunker, No Beast So Fierce

“Convicts on the main line sent me books from the library. I’ve always been able to make it if I could read.”
― Edward Bunker, Education of a Felon: A Memoir

“We shook hands. In prison, the gesture was more than empty ritual. It was the clasp of friendship.”
― Edward Bunker, No Beast So Fierce

“Gatsby was great, but most unlikely. Gatsby was too unreal. Although I thought Fitzgerald wrote as well as any American novelist in the twentieth century, Gatsby was as far from truth as Fu Manchu. He was too soft to be what he was storied to be. Gatsby might be a cat burglar, but Gatsby was definitely not a gangster. He lacked the force of will to compel tough men to his bidding simply by force of will. He failed another test; he was too weak for a broad.”
― Edward Bunker, Education of a Felon: A Memoir