The Hustler's Handbook Quotes

“Promotions are not without their drawbacks. For one thing, they cost money. That's deplorable. The cost itself, however, can become part of the promotion. There is something about the crisp, crackling sound of money being thrown away that brings the color back into the cheeks and brings back memories of those happy boyhood days down on the farm. Why, people will come from miles away just to see money being thrown away.
A hustler should always be scrupulous about having somebody else on hand to pick up the check.”
― Bill Veeck, The Hustler's Handbook

“When Bob Hope tells a joke, his audience enjoys it far more than if it were being told by a comedian of lesser stature, not simply because Hope tells a joke exceedingly well but because his audience expects him to be funny, wants him to be funny and is rather flattered that he is being funny for them.”
― Bill Veeck, The Hustler's Handbook

“Show business and politics, being run by practical, cigar-smoking businessmen, manufacture personalities on an assembly line. Baseball, fighting for its life, has been stifling them as fast as they appear.
What makes it so sad is that the athlete has a role in our society that reaches even beyond showmanship. The athlete is one of the last symbols of that superfluity of our society, the physical man. The average man finds that although the instincts of his primitive forebears may beat a tomtom in his blood, his own daily conflict has been reduced to the drive downtown, the paper work in the office, the return trip. The conflict is undefined, the enemy is indistinct, the battle remains permanently unsettled. He doesn't really know whether he has won or lost; there is only the vague feeling that he is somehow losing.”
― Bill Veeck, The Hustler's Handbook