JIMMY HOFFA

I may have many faults, but being wrong ain't one of them.

All my life I have been under investigation.... I will just have to hire 200 more lawyers to keep me out of jail.

I can tell you this on a stack of Bibles: prisons are archaic, brutal, unregenerative, overcrowded hell holes where the inmates are treated like animals with absolutely not one humane thought given to what they are going to do once they are released.

We like to keep an eye on the rascals.

What Mr. [Robert F.] Kennedy says lacks only the merit of being true ... Bobby Kennedy can jump off the capital dome or whatever else he has to do to get the attention of the American people.

I love to bug the little bastard.

Our rooms were bugged, our phones were tapped, and our lawyer's rooms were broken into and their files stolen. We finally had to hire armed guards with pistols to be able to maintain our records. It was hard to believe we weren't in Russia.

I do to others what they do to me, only worse.

We never had any silk sheets in our family...

In the ten years I was president of the Teamsters, I had raised the membership from eight hundred thousand to more than 2 million and made it the largest single labor union the world.

I don't need bodyguards.

But because we are financially solid, because we do have an organization that is equipped to handle any situation that comes in front of us, we are successful in getting from the employers what are members want and need without strikes.

I've said consistently that no employer ever really accepts a union. They tolerate the unions. The very minute they can get a pool of unemployment they'll challenge the unions and try to get back what they call managements prerogatives, meaning hire, fire, pay what you want.

Sure, we loaned money to build hotels and casinos in Las Vegas. So what? Las Vegas borrowers were good customers.

I don't need a bodyguard.

Power leads to more power, no matter what your racket, and not only were they rich and influential but they were smart as hell, too.

You almost had to live through it to really know the gut ripping misery of the depression during the early thirties which led to labor's bloodiest and most violent days.

I've told you before and I'll tell you again. The strong survive and the weak disappear. We do not intend to disappear.

Hell, I'm not saying I'm an angel, but when it came to dirty tricks I couldn't hold a candle to the Irish Mafia.

It has to be considered damned unusual that no other union was ever investigated.

To the best of my recollection, I must recall on my memory, I cannot remember

They all know I'm back, very much back, and that I will be the general president again come hell or high water.

But to hear Kennedy when he was grandstanding in front of the McClellan Committee you might have thought I was making as much out of the pension fund as the Kennedys made out of selling whiskey.

When you go to prison they forget it's your Constitution, too.

A slab of bread "buttered" with lard and, if you were lucky, seasoned with salt and pepper, was a luxury.