Bagels and blinches: they will catch up with you, you know?
Read more Richie Roberts QuotesFrom: American Gangster
The most important thing in business is honesty, integrity, hardwork... family... never forgetting where we came from.
The man I worked for, he had one of the biggest companies in New York City- he ran it for more than fifty years. Fifteen years, eight months, nine days- I was with him every day. I looked after him, took care of him, protected him... I learned from him. Bumpy was rich, but he wasn't white man rich, you see he wasn't wealthy. He didn't own his own company. He thought he did, but he didn't. He just managed it. White man owned it so they owned him. Nobody owns me, though. Because I own my company. And my company sells a product that's better than the competition at a price that's lower than the competition.
His name is Frank Lucas, originally from Greensboro, North Carolina, he has a couple of arrests years ago for gambling and for carrying an unlicensed firearm. For fifteen years he was Bumpy Johnson's driver, bodyguard and collector. Hhe was with him when he died, he has five brothers, he's the oldest and a lot of cousins, they're all living up here now, spread out in the five boroughs and New Jersey. His brother's businesses are the distribution and collection points of Frank's dope and his money. Everything about Frank's life seems unpretentious and broadly legitimate, he starts early, gets up at 5am, has breakfast in a diner in Harlem usually by himself, then he starts work, takes a meeting with his accountant and with his lawyer. At nights he usually stays at home, if he does go out, it's only one of two clubs or a handful of restaurants with his wife, ball players, musicians and his friends and never organized crime guys. Sundays he takes his mother to church and changes the flowers on Bumpy's grave, every Sunday no matter what.