Lorenzo Carcaterra > Quotes

“The night and the streets were ours and the future lay sparkling ahead.
And we thought we would know each other forever.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Sleepers

“We do many things we shouldn’t in the course of a life. It doesn’t make them right or wrong, just a part of who we are.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Street Boys

“Live then, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that, until the day God deigns to reveal the future to man, the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words; Wait and Hope.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Sleepers

“I was now well prepared to be a career criminal. I had the proper training and a natural feel for the business. I had a respect for the old-liners like Angelo and Don Frederico. I had been a witness to both murder and betrayal and had my appetite whetted for acts of revenge.

I just didn't have the stomach for any of it.

I didn't want my life to be a lonely and sinister on, where even the closest of friends could overnight turn into an enemy who needed to be eliminated. If I went the way Angelo had paved, I would earn millions, but would never be allowed to taste the happiness and enjoyment such wealth often brings. I would rule over a dark world, a place where treachery and deceit would be at my side and never know the simple pleasures of an ordinary life. p368. ”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Gangster

“A true gangster can smell out a person's strenghts and weaknesses in a matter of minutes, but what they can sense most of all, what their bodies are most attuned to, is the scent of fear.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Gangster

“It's always better to like a gangster from a distance anyway. Like a tiger cub in a cage. They always look soft and cute and warm behind those iron bars. Everybody's happy, smilimg, waving, taking pictures. But you take away those bars and all that goes away. All that's left is the fear.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Gangster

“No gangster is ever happy when he's at peace. The main reason he's in the business is to eliminate his enemies.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Gangster

“The older you get, the deadlier you have to be and you use age to your advantage. You make it a strenght. Most of us are more dangerous the longer we live. If we didn't care about dying when we were young, we're not going to be too concerned about it when we have two feet in our grave.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Gangster

“A gangster must always be prepared to kill a friend. It is one of the many open secrets of the business, since it is the truest test of his ability to rule and command the respect of his crew. To eliminate a sworn enemy requires little more than opportunity, luck and the willingness to pull a trigger. But to end the life of someone once considered close, regardless of any previous betrayal, requires a determination that few men possess.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Gangster

“It’s time for quiet, Shakes,’ Michael said, staring down at the ground. ‘That I do know. Give things a rest. Find a spot where I can shut my eyes and not have to see the places I’ve been. Maybe I’ll even get lucky and forget I was ever there.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Sleepers

“Revenge. Sweet lasting revenge. And now it was time for all of us to get a taste.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Sleepers

“All money is blood money.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Gangster

“He had no tolerance for acts of betrayal or cruelty and lacked Angelo's taste for the minute details of a business deal. He was a man totally in the moment, who knew only to respond to the action with an action. He was a pure gangster.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Gangster

“I did my job,” the lawyer said. “The sworn oath of the mediocre,” Father Bobby said.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Sleepers

“I am the only one who can speak for them, and for the children we were.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Sleepers

“‎"What you want your life to be and what it becomes are never the same," I said. "It's only about what you end up with or what you settle for. And by the time that happens, it's too late for you to do anything else"

"What would you have changed?" she asked.

"The last twenty years," I said.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Gangster

“Gangsters live for the action. The closer to death, the nearer to the heated coil of the moment, the more alive they feel. Most would rather succumb to a barrage of bullets from a roomful of sworn enemies than to the debilitation of old age, dying the death of the feeble. A gangster becomes as addicted to the thrill of the battle and the potential to die in the midst of it as he does to he more attractive lures in his path. In his world, the potential for death exists every day. The better gangsters don't shy away from such a dreaded possibility but rather find comfort in its proximity.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Gangster

“Sto neprijatelja i jedan prijatelj ucinice te bogatim covekom u poslu. U bilo kom poslu.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Gangster

“Only risky plans have any chance to be great.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, The Wolf

“The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Gangster

“It was a gift,” Angelo said. “From a friend.” “A friend does not give a gun as a gift.” Angelo walked into the room and sat down next to his father. “This one does,” he said. “And what will you do with such a gift?” “It will remind me,” Angelo said in a near whisper. “Of what?” Paolino’s eyes searched the boy’s face. “Of what I am without it, Papa.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Gangster: A Novel

“Those cries can be heard through the thickest walls. They can cut through concrete and skin and reach deep into the dark parts of a lost boy’s soul. They are cries that change the course of a life, that trample innocence and snuff out goodness.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Sleepers

“We had nothing else - no money, no bikes, no summer camps, no vacations. Nothing, except one another.
To us, that was all that mattered.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Sleepers

“I don't know what kind of man I would have grown to be had I not served time at The Wilkinson Home for Boys. I don't know how those months and the events that occurred there shaped the person I became, how much they colored my motives or my actions. I don't know if they made me any braver or any weaker. I don't know if the illnesses I've suffered as an adult have been the result of those ruinous months. I'll never know if my distrust of most people and my unease when placed in group situations are byproducts of those days or simply the result of a shy personality.

I do know the dreams and nightmares I've had all these years are born of the nights spent in that cell at Wilkinson. That the scars I carry, both mental and physical, are gifts of a system that treated children as prey. The images that screen across my mind in the lonely hours are mine to bear alone, shared only by the silent community of sufferers who once lived as I did, in a world that was deaf to our screams.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Sleepers

“Tell me this,” Pudge would often ask me, as he sat and read about the exorbitant funeral of a rival. “If he was the guy with all the power, then how come he’s riding in the lead car, stuffed inside a coffin?”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Gangster: A Novel

“I had walked into Wilkinson a boy. Now, I wasn't at all sure who or what I was.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Sleepers

“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
--Benjamin Franklin”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Gangster

“It was our special night and we held it for as long as we could. It was something that belonged to us. A night that would be added to our long list of memories.
It was our happy ending.
And it was the last time we would ever be together again.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Sleepers

“My family has helped me escape from many of the pains of my past. But the haunting memories of childhood are always close at hand. My body is older than its years and my mind is filled more with horror than with the pleasures of life. The dreams I have are still vivid, the nightmares painful, the fears steady. The nighttime hours always carry a sense of dread.
I sometimes feel that the lucky Sleepers are the ones who died.
They no longer have to live with the memories.
They are free of the dreams.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Sleepers

“But, then, he's a doctor, and part of his job is to tell me to cut back on what I like to eat and drink.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Nonna Maria and the Case of the Missing Bride