David Simon Quotes

Money creates a power relationship between the payer and the payee.

I learned to think about religion, race and sex through the complex and often unattractive medium of jokes.

On streets where statesmen once strolled, a never-ending stream of money now changes hands—tying the hands of those elected to lead.

I never challenged control of the band. Basically, all I did was start asking questions. There's an old adage in Hollywood amongst managers: 'Pay your acts enough money that they don't ask questions.' And I started asking questions.

Money is at the root of most that is wrong in American politics.

Money talks at the end of the day.

I think pimp, therefore i am.

Capital dictates the fate of humanity.

Well, I guess in all honesty I would have to say that I never knew nor did I ever hear of anybody that money didnt change.

The remarks that [Steven] Lerner gave at Pace University: "'Unions are almost dead. We cannot survive doing what we do but the simple fact of the matter is community organizations are almost dead also. And if you think about what we need to do it may give us some direction which is essentially what the folks that are in charge - the big banks and everything - what they want is stability.'" So we have "'to destabilize the folks that are in power and start to rebuild a movement'".

People do things in the names of good, and in the name of ideals, but the world isn't that simple. So they end up doing things that aren't necessarily good. Even if they think they're doing the right thing, but when viewed from a different perspective they can look barbaric and crazy.

How that happened - how the money and the power arrayed itself and who got the share in that, who got cut out, who was exploited and who did the exploiting - that to me is a story of The Deuce that's more about almost the America that we inhabit today, more than just merely about pornography or prostitution.

You aristocratic ladies and your gold-plated twats. You always think it's such a honor for me to touch you." He surveyed her with mocking green eyes. "You think you're the first high-kick wench I've ever had? I used to have blue-blooded bitches like you pay me to do this. You've gotten it for free.

I think any time you deal with humans and the way they exploit one another and cause pain you are in the realm of politics, on some level.

I think it's important that we run that tension between the way things are, in terms of the way we're governed, and the way we sort of become complacent.

Scholars, who pride themselves on speaking their minds, often engage in a form of self-censorship which is called "realism." To be "realistic" in dealing with a problem is to work only among the alternatives which the most powerful in society put forth. It is as if we are all confined to a, b, c, or d in the multiple choice test, when we know there is another possible answer. American society, although it has more freedom of expression than most societies in the world, thus sets limits beyond which respectable people are not supposed to think or speak.

To limit money is to limit political power.

There is no castle so strong that it cannot be overthrown by money.

[T]hus one should not think that desire is repressed, for the simple reason that the law is what constitutes both desire and the lack on which it is predicated. Where there is desire, the power relation is already present: an illusion, then, to denounce this relation for a repression exerted after the event.

Social and political issues in general seem to me fairly simple; the effort to obfuscate them in esoteric and generally vacuous theory is one of the contributions of the intelligentsia to enhancing their own power and the power of those they serve.

To talk about something like prostitution, the other person then becomes the wild card that will have a response, and it may not be the response you want. Sometimes I think saying it would be selfish to tell them is still being under the illusion that you have all the power. You say it would be selfish to tell them, when in fact you're scared that in telling them, it gives them the power to do what they might want to do because once they know, they become somebody who could be reactive.

I don't want to paint myself as some kind of saint - that would be laughable - but I do think I've been able over the years to write humanely about subjects who are controversial and even contemptible. I've profiled pedophiles, stalkers, serial rapists, prison gang members and corrupt politicians.

The statesman must think in terms of the national interest, conceived as power among other powers. The popular mind, unaware of the fine distinctions of the statesman's thinking, reasons more often than not in the simple moralistic and legalistic terms of absolute good and absolute evil.

I have come to think that both sex and politics are a mistake and that any attempt to establish a connection between the two is the greatest error of all.

The president is the country's scapegoat more than the country's leader; the president has as much power as we think the president has. Whoever has the most money is the puppet master.