Welcome to our collection of quotes by Damon Runyon. We hope you enjoy pondering them and please share widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Damon Runyon
Alfred Damon Runyon (October 4, 1880 – December 10, 1946) was an American newspaperman and short-story writer.
He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from Brooklyn or Midtown Manhattan. The adjective "Runyonesque" refers to this type of character as well as to the type of situations and dialog that Runyon depicted. He spun humorous and sentimental tales of gamblers, hustlers, actors, and gangsters, few of whom go by "square" names, preferring instead colorful monikers such as "Nathan Detroit", "Benny Southstreet", "Big Jule", "Harry the Horse", "Good Time Charley", "Dave the Dude", or "The Seldom Seen Kid". His distinctive vernacular style is known as "Runyonese": a mixture of formal speech and colorful slang, almost always in present tense, and always devoid of contractions. He is credited with coining the phrase "Hooray Henry", a term now used in British English to describe the upper class version of a loud-mouthed, arrogant twit.
Runyon's fictional world is also known to the general public through the musical Guys and Dolls based on two of his stories, "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" and "Blood Pressure". The musical additionally borrows characters and story elements from a few other Runyon stories, most notably "Pick The Winner". The film Little Miss Marker (and its three remakes, Sorrowful Jones, 40 Pounds of Trouble and the 1980 Little Miss Marker) grew from his short story of the same name.
Runyon was also a newspaper reporter, covering sports and general news for decades for various publications and syndicates owned by William Randolph Hearst. Already known for his fiction, he wrote a well-remembered "present tense" article on Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Presidential inauguration in 1933 for the Universal Service, a Hearst syndicate, which was merged with the co-owned International News Service in 1937.
Always try and rub up against money long enough, some of it may rub off on you.
The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong -- but that is the way to bet it.
A free-loader is a confirmed guest. He is the man who is always willing to come for dinner.
I'm inspired by love, by the moments that we commit to something with all our heart -- be it a person, a project, an animal, anything really. It's undeniably inspiring, that acknowledgment of existence, that I love, that I care. That fills me with purpose.
Damon Runyon. A day-coach boy in a parlor car seat.
In my opinion turkey is the most over-rated critter for eating purposes in kingdom come but the most striking example we have of the power of propaganda.
I came to the conclusion long ago that all life is six to five against.
He hardest obstacle for me has been to find a father. I am the product of three fathers, and my connection to each of them has left me wanting. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses, but I've always been in competition with them in some way.
She has a laugh so hearty it knocks the whipped cream off an order of strawberry shortcake on a table fifty feet away.
Life is tough, and it's really tough when you're stupid.
New York is the place where everyone will stop a championship fight to look at an usher giving a drunk the bum's rush.
I long ago came to the conclusion that all life is 6 to 5 against.
Always try to rub up against money, for if you rub up against money long enough, some of it may rub off on you.
The race may not always be to the swift nor the victory to the strong, but that's how you bet.
You can keep the things of bronze and stone and give me one man to remember me just once a year.
I once knew a chap who had a system of just hanging the baby on the clothes line to dry and he was greatly admired by his fellow citizens for having discovered a wonderful innovation on changing a diaper.
You can become a winner only if you are willing to walk over the edge.
The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.