Top 25 Quotes & Sayings by Joseph D. Pistone

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American public servant Joseph D. Pistone.

Last updated on December 21, 2024.

Joseph Dominick Pistone, is an American former FBI agent who worked undercover as Donnie Brasco, between September 1976 and July 1981, as part of an infiltration primarily into the Bonanno crime family, and to a lesser extent the Colombo crime family, two of the Five Families of the Mafia in New York City. Pistone was an FBI agent for 17 years, from 1969 until he resigned in 1986. The evidence collected by Pistone led to over 200 indictments and over 100 convictions of Mafia members—and some responsible for his infiltration were also killed by other mobsters.

American - Public Servant | Born: September 17, 1939

Source: Wikipedia

I left a lot of personal stuff out of 'Donnie Brasco.'

Joseph D. Pistone

I knew how wiseguys acted. I knew the mentality. I knew things to do and not to do. Keep your mouth shut at certain times. Don't get involved in things that don't concern you. Walk away from conversations and situations that aren't your business, before anybody asks you to take a hike.

Joseph D. Pistone

As a teen-ager I played cards, shot craps, played pool, went to the track, hung around social clubs. I knew that some card and crap games were run by the mob, and some social clubs were mob social clubs. Even as a kid I knew guys that were here today, gone tomorrow, never seen again, and I knew what had happened.

Joseph D. Pistone

With wiseguys, you don't know a guy by his name, only by his nickname. You never asked a guy for his last name.

Joseph D. Pistone

If you're an L.C.N. guy, you don't have facial hair and you don't have long hair. You have to be neat all the time. It's the rule.

Joseph D. Pistone

I had no sense of guilt. All during the course of the operation, I knew it was a job.

Joseph D. Pistone

I do a lot of lecturing, at colleges and police schools, and I always get the same questions: 'Do they really kill you? What do they do with the money? How do you become a wiseguy?'

Joseph D. Pistone

I like horses.

Joseph D. Pistone

In the actual story I got with the Bonannos, but I had dealings with other crime families and other criminals, using the Bonannos as my credibility.

Joseph D. Pistone

One thing I take great pride in is that my case was the one that started the decline of the Mafia.

Joseph D. Pistone

'Donnie Brasco' was 85 percent on the money. The only thing that they slanted was my feelings for Lefty and Sonny', and this idea that I didn't want to go through with seeing them in jail. I was never swayed. There was no conflict.

Joseph D. Pistone

I didn't try to be a tough guy. I didn't try to be a big mobster. I was who I was. I didn't stop doing what I normally did. I worked out. I lifted weights. I ran. That's what I usually did.

Joseph D. Pistone

What I learned about the mob wasn't through lectures at the academy.

Joseph D. Pistone

Watching the dailies and then watching the... episodes, it really hits you: 'Damn, I did that?' I must have been crazy to get into those situations.

Joseph D. Pistone

I grew up in a city, an Italian, knowing what the Mafia was.

Joseph D. Pistone

Unless you are absolutely positive that your wife has no connection to the Mafia, even three or four times removed, do yourself a favor and do not bet her in a poker hand.

Joseph D. Pistone

I was a street guy. I mean, I grew up in an Italian neighborhood with mob guys around. Where I grew up, you gambled, you shot dice, you played cards, you went to the track. So the mob to me was not strange, it was not like I was an F.B.I. agent from Salt Lake City.

Joseph D. Pistone

'Our thing' is turning into 'my thing' within the Mafia, just as the larger American society is facing the new realities of the 'me generation.'

Joseph D. Pistone

When you wear a wire, you're always in danger.

Joseph D. Pistone

You have to have faith and confidence in yourself, that you are better than the bad guys you're dealing with. You have to have a lot of patience.

Joseph D. Pistone

I rarely carried a gun undercover.

Joseph D. Pistone

I was Donnie Brasco, the Mafia guy, in character. But in my head, I was a special agent. I never lost sight of who I was or why I was there.

Joseph D. Pistone

'The Godfather' is a great movie, but it gives them too much credit. What you don't see is what really takes place: the in-fighting, the lying to each other, the scheming against each other to get power.

Joseph D. Pistone

A good undercover agent stays as close to the truth as possible, as close to your own personality and your own values as possible. This is the way you stay in character - you try to be yourself.

Joseph D. Pistone

I'm always leery about bumping into somebody. One time I was with my wife in a restaurant, I saw somebody from my undercover days, and I got up and we just walked out.

Joseph D. Pistone

Top 25 Quotes & Sayings by Joseph D. Pistone

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