“To the ruling class, Larry Davis is society's nightmare, a horror-film monster who keeps coming back every time you think you’ve put him away for good. But to the powerless, Davis is a resistance fighter ... ”

“His office’s apparent mishandling of solid BCCI leads is fair crit­icism of him whether he did or did not know about it: he missed a golden opportu­nity to examine the so-called Bank of Crooks and Criminals”

The fundamental question about the Koch administration is no longer why the mayor gave power to so many crooks, but exactly what happened years ago when whistleblowers, law enforcement investiga­tors, and private citizens first tried to warn him

“Everybody wanted to know where Tom Wolfe had sprung from, this brilliantly talented, seemingly ubiquitous, altogether mysteriously third-person journalist”

“My mother is an urban peasant and I am my mother’s daughter. The city is our natural element. We each have daily adventures with bus drivers, bag ladies, ticket takers, and street crazies. Walking brings out the best in us.”

“The 34-year-old millionaire developer weaned on Brooklyn Democrat­ic politics was once again going after a spectacular tax break”

“The arrogance of the Nixon administration has been so successful at angering the government’s most conservative and loyal workers that it just might provoke more desperate acts”

“I do this for a living,” he said once. “This is my life, not my hobby!” That attitude was at the heart of the system that later destroyed him and will almost certainly survive him.

“I’m scared,” says a Federal investigator of Brooklyn boss Meade Esposito. “We’ll work our ass off for the next six months to make a case. We’ll work 18 hours a day. But I admit it. I’m afraid of what happens after that. This guy Meade has more power than the Pope.”

“An 'Emergency Committee Againt Harassment of Lenny Bruce' was formed over the weekend as a result of the arrest”