Top 200 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Criminals - Page 3

I started rooting - you know, sticking up joints - with some older guys. By now I had gotten a taste of what the racket world really was - the glamour, the way they dressed, the way they always had a pocketful of money.

In fact, I was welcomed. There were movie stars and rock stars. I became a pot star. I glorified in that. And of course as time wore on the business began to expand and grow. It went from more or less a college fun thing to a serious business. As the money grew, the power grew.

The FBI and the NBA did a thorough investigation, and they both concluded that I did not fix games in the NBA.

I got caught up with gambling at the golf course, the backroom card games at the casinos with buddies there, and eventually betting on sporting events. I think it became a situation where I got consumed by it and loved every minute of it.

Judges,lawyers an politicians have a license to steal.We don't need one.

I was a target. There was a guy who took a paint roller extension pole and blasted me in the knee a few times. I had to have surgery to relieve the pain when I got out of prison.

Life is full of surprises, some good, some not so good.

Public service is my motto.

When you decide to be something, you can be it. That's what they don't tell you in the church. When I was your age, they would say we can become cops or criminals. Today, what I'm saying to you is this: when you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?

When you see an article it always has 'disgraced NBA referee.' It's embarrassing and it's never going to be okay. Unfortunately, I have to move forward and just make things different moving forward.

I don't even know what street Canada is on.

We been on the road for 18 hours... I need a bath, some chow... and then you and me sit down, and we talk about who dies,eh?

I knew there were certain relationships that existed between referees and players, referees and coaches and referees and owners that influence the point spreads in games.

There are two hundred million idiots, manipulated by a million intelligent men.

I started stuffing wads of cash into my socks and underwear and quietly passed by the T.S.A. agents with a grin on my face and a sigh of relief.

We only kill each other

A smile can get you far, but a smile with a gun can get you further.

I'm the strongest advocate you can imagine for doing things honestly and paying your taxes. Take advantage of every tax break you're legally entitled to. But I follow the letter of the law, because the consequences are severe if you're caught. I was a perpetrator at one time and suffered severe consequences. It is difficult in some places, but if you live in places like California, move somewhere else to save some money.

Strange thing, when they arrested me for the pot, the federal agents, they said, "We're sorry, we really don't want to bust pot people but this is tied into a heroin operation and we have to arrest you."

So in the end, was it worth it? Jesus Christ. How irreparably changed my life has become. It's always the last day of summer and I've been left out in the cold with no door to get back in. I'll grant you I've had more than my share of poignant moments. Life passes most people by while they're making grand plans for it. Throughout my lifetime, I've left pieces of my heart here and there. And now, there's almost not enough to stay alive. But I force a smile, knowing that my ambition far exceeded my talent. There are no more white horses or pretty ladies at my door.

The only way to find out is to find out.

I wouldn't be in a legitimate business for all the money in the world.

At some point, you're going to see the ability for a fan sitting in a seat to bet, swiping his credit card, whether James Harden is going to score ten 3-pointers or not that night.

My rackets are run on strictly American lines and they're going to stay that way.

I had a great job, living a great lifestyle... and just started doing the wrong things, getting a little bit cocky.

Hell must be a pretty swell spot, because the guys that invented religion have sure been trying hard to keep everybody else out.

If you're fixing a game, you're making calls up against star players to get that star player to the bench so that team is at a major disadvantage.

I do believe Allen Iverson knew this, and I believe all the players know this: that certain referees treat them much better than others.

After a while, the cocaine - I didn't have any friends. I was just alone and I didn't even like myself.

All my life I wanted to be a bank robber. Carry a gun and wear a mask. Now that it's happened I guess I'm just about the best bank robber they ever had. And I sure am happy.

Sometimes I am God, if I say a man dies, he dies that same day.

The war on drugs was an ideology the government came up with, and there never really was a war on drugs. I mean, to stop the importation of drugs into the United States of America is an impossibility.

The craft of officiating is taught that people come and pay top dollar to see people like Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, all the stars, and you have to make sure when you blow the whistle against those individuals that it's a foul that you basically can't let go.

You can do more with a kind word and a gun than with just a kind word.

I've lost a million and a half on the horses and dice in the last two years. And the funny part is, I still like 'em, and if someone handed me another million I'd put it right in the nose of some horse that looked good to me.

When I sell liquor, it's bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on a silver tray on Lakeshore Drive, it's hospitality.

You can learn a lot, watching things eat.

It's a racket. Those stock market guys are crooked.

All good things must one day be burnt to the ground for the insurance money.

Did I go out and make calls in those games that the NBA wanted me and the crew to call? Absolutely. Did it put a team at an advantage and a disadvantage? Absolutely and that's how I was able to win the bets so easily.

Joe Kennedy is one of the biggest crooks who ever lived.

I think there's a lot of successful referees to come out of the Philadelphia area because the basketball is so good.

Before you rob your first bank, knock off a couple of gas stations.

I have built my organization upon fear.

I've had so many great experiences in my life, of living total free will, that I wouldn't change it for all the gold in the earth.

All I can say is that my ambition far exceeded my talent.

When you decide to be something, you can be it.

All I ever did was supply a demand that was pretty popular.

I suddenly began to realize that to become an entrepreneur in the marijuana business would make me fairly well off. And I also liked the lifestyle, my own working hours.

If you're part of a crew, nobody ever tells you that they're going to kill you, doesn't happen that way. There weren't any arguments or curses like in the movies. See, your murderers come with smiles, they come as your friends, the people who've cared for you all of your life. And they always seem to come at a time that you're at your weakest and most in need of their help.

I'm a decent man who exports flowers.

Danbury wasn't a prison, it was a crime school. I went in with a Bachelor of marijuana, came out with a Doctorate of cocaine.

Never trust a woman or an automatic weapon.

You can't micromanage. People who try to do that often fall on their faces. Incentivize those who work with you so you get the best work you can. Every career is a team effort, even if you're the one in front.

I thought heroin was evil and morally, myself, I thought that pot was okay. That it wasn't a bad thing and so therefore thought I wasn't doing a bad thing. I knew I was breaking the law but I thought that the law was wrong also. So I morally justified what I was doing.

I hope there's a life after life - and maybe I can even come back again and get on another train, and ride and gain some more wisdom.

I felt that there was nothing wrong with what I was doing because I was supplying a product to people that wanted it and it was accepted. I mean nobody really was making any negative statements about marijuana.

That's a terrible price to pay because you loved life so much, with the intensity of a thousand suns, and the women and all of it - and then it's all taken away from you. You end up walking the hallways of always to a place called tedium and apathy, day after day after day. Years go by.

I knew it was wrong, but I thought gambling was a venial sin. That's why I didn't confess it to a priest until after I was caught.

I thought cocaine was a fantastic drug. A wonder drug, like everybody else. It gave you [an] energy burst. You could stay awake for days on end, and it was just marvelous and I didn't think it was evil at all.