Stool Pigeon Quotes

Fear can be a first-rate stool pigeon, a precious safeguard or a wise counselor. If it overwhelms us, we would do well not to shrink back and sulk, but crystallize our potentials, think forward and objectify our goals. ("One could still feel the smell of fear" )

One becomes a critic when one cannot be an artist, just as a man becomes a stool pigeon when he cannot be a soldier.

She stared at him dully and said: “I don’t like crooks, and even if I did, I wouldn’t like crooks that are stool-pigeons, and if I liked crooks that are stool-pigeons, I still wouldn’t like you.” She turned to the outer door.

I was wrong. I knew I was wrong, and yet I persisted. If that is possible of any explanation it is this: From the day I left my father my lines had been cast, or I cast them myself, among crooked people. I had not spent one hour in the company of an honest person. I had lived in an atmosphere of larceny, theft, crime. I thought in terms of theft. Houses were built to be burglarized, citizens were to be robbed, police to be avoided and hated, stool pigeons to be chastised, and thieves to be cultivated and protected. That was my code; the code of my companions. That was the atmosphere I breathed. 'If you live with wolves, you will learn to howl.

Dittany hadn't lived in Lobelia Falls all her life without coming to realize that walls do in fact have ears and every little bird is a stool pigeon at heart.

I don’t like crooks, and even if I did, I wouldn’t like crooks that are stool-pigeons, and if I liked crooks that are stool-pigeons, I still wouldn’t like you.

I don’t like crooks, and even if I did, I wouldn’t like crooks that are stool-pigeons, and if I liked crooks that are stool-pigeons, I still wouldn’t like you.” She

Informers and stool pigeons are full of virtue, they should all be released and sent home—but how vile they are! Vile for all their virtues, vile even with all their sins absolved...Who was it who made that cruel joke about the proud sound made by the word “Man”?

You’ve read the story of Jesse James— Of how he lived and died; If you’re still in need Of something to read, Here’s the story of Bonnie and Clyde. Now Bonnie and Clyde are the Barrow gang. I’m sure you all have read How they rob and steal And those who squeal Are usually found dying or dead. There’s lots of untruths to these write-ups; They’re not so ruthless as that; Their nature is raw; They hate all the law— The stool pigeons, spotters, and rats. They call them cold-blooded killers; They say they are heartless and mean; But I say this with pride, That I once knew Clyde When he was honest and upright and clean. But the laws fooled around, Kept taking him down And locking him up in a cell, Till he said to me, “I’ll never be free, So I’ll meet a few of them in hell.

But that is a lie! Here we have been breaking our backs for years at All-Union hard labor. Here in slow annual spirals we have been climbing up to an understanding of life—and from this height it can all be seen so clearly: It is not the result that counts! It is not the result—but the spirit! Not what—but how. Not what has been attained—but at what price. And so it is with us the prisoners—if it is the result which counts, then it is also true that one must survive at any price. And what that means is: One must become a stool pigeon, betray one’s comrades. And thereby get oneself set up comfortably. And perhaps even get time off sentence. In the light of the Infallible Teaching there is, evidently, nothing reprehensible in this. After all, if one does that, then the result will be in our favor, and the result is what counts. No one is going to argue. It is pleasant to win. But not at the price of losing one’s human countenance. If it is the result which counts—you must strain every nerve and sinew to avoid general work. You must bend down, be servile, act meanly—yet hang on to your position as a trusty. And by this means . . . survive. If it is the essence that counts, then the time has come to reconcile yourself to general work. To tatters. To torn skin on the hands. To a piece of bread which is smaller and worse. And perhaps . . . to death. But while you’re alive, you drag your way along proudly with an aching back. And that is when—when you have ceased to be afraid of threats and are not chasing after rewards—you become the most dangerous character in the owllike view of the bosses. Because . . . what hold do they have on you? You even begin to like carrying hand barrows with rubbish (yes, but not with stone!) and discussing with your work mate how the movies influence literature. You begin to like sitting down on the empty cement mixing trough and lighting up a smoke next to your bricklaying. And you are actually and simply proud if, when the foreman passes you, he squints at your courses, checks their alignment with the rest of the wall, and says: “Did you lay that? Good line.” You need that wall like you need a hole in the head, nor do you believe it is going to bring closer the happy future of the people, but, pitiful tattered slave that you are, you smile at this creation of your own hands. The Anarchist’s daughter, Galya Venediktova, worked as a nurse in the Medical Section, but when she saw that what went on there was not healing but only the business of getting fixed up in a good spot—out of stubbornness she left and went off to general work, taking up a spade and a sledge hammer. And she says that this saved her spiritually. For a good person even a crust is healthy food, and to an evil person even meat brings no benefit.

The stool pigeon is the coming race.

So you memorize your brief script, and when you walk back through the door you will be wherever you are next needed: the restaurant bathroom, or the museum gift shop where your friend is waiting to meet you, or perhaps a bustling sidewalk where you are to be spotted arm in arm with another Actor. For the Beneficiaries, the back sides of all doors are constructed just before they enter; for the Actors, all the doors of the world are our portal into and out of this waiting room. We don’t know how the Directors dynamically construct the world, much less for what purpose. We are only told that our obligation here as Actors will eventually end, and then we will move on to a better place. You may decide you’re not willing to uphold this continuous lie to the Beneficiaries. You may yell into the Directors’ intercom that you won’t be their deceitful stool pigeon. This is a typical reaction. But very quickly you will relent and play your part earnestly. We don’t know much about the Directors, only that they are clever enough to get us to do something we don’t want to do.

Then he was told he couldn’t drive it. Such protection was licensed only for the cops and the FBI, and a few VIP commercial business concerns, which excluded working in murder and extortion, loansharking and staging successful stick-ups at newfangled theft-proof venues. Mickey Cohen was aghast. The bootlegger and bodyguard, purveyor of mayhem and mischief, followed through in the American way and in 1949 demanded his rights – his day in court. His legal team received a sympathetic hearing from the judge, who said he understood their client’s needs, given all the bombings and clattering shotguns aimed in the gangster’s direction. He’d make a deal. Mickey Cohen could drive his bulletproof Cadillac if he told the court who had given him permission to have the car tested at the gunnery range of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). But Cohen was no stool pigeon. He’d rather not say.

Riverside Drive was relatively quiet. Myron arrived at his Kinney lot on 46th Street and tossed Mario the keys. Mario did not park the Ford Taurus up front with the Rolls, the Mercedes, Win’s Jag; in fact, he usually managed to find a cozy spot underneath what must have been a nesting ground for loose-stooled pigeons. Car discrimination. It was an ugly thing, but where were the support groups? The

Did you know it was from up here they got the word sitting duck? It comes because commercial hunters used to take a live wild duck and put a collar on it and fasten it to a stool—this is also where they got the expression stool pigeon, because they did the same thing with a wild dove—lots of folks couldn’t tell the difference between a pigeon and a dove. They’d put the duck out at the edge of a marsh an’ when the big flocks go over, the fastened-down duck would call and the others would come in for a landing and get shot. Or a dove stuck out in a field would call its friends to help. They used to send barrels full of ducks and pigeons and geese to Chicago restaurants.

The typical department was shaped by its organizational culture more than by statutes, regulations or the lofty pronouncements of the mayor or the police commissioner. If officer A saw officer B struggling with someone on the street, he was expected to jump in and help his colleague without question. Anyone who failed to do so would thereafter be scorned by his peers. Informers too were despised, particularly in Irish-dominated forces with a folk memory of British spies in the old country. A cop who was labeled a coward or a stool pigeon would become an outcast.

Never thought about it much,” Beau said. “But if it keeps the ne’er-do-wells from causing mischief, I can live with it.” “Ne’er-do-wells?” Derek asked. “I read.” Beau looked slightly offended. “Ancient literature?” Ascanio inquired. “Did it have words like ‘dame’ and ‘stool pigeon’ in it?” “Do you make your deputies call you ‘copper’?” Derek asked. “Have you two ever thought of taking your show on the road?” Beau asked them.

Cherchez la enzyme, or look after the enzymes and the lieutenants J.G. will look after themselves ... He he he. A trade joke Carl ... You see every, uh, disorder, no matter how rarefied or seemingly completely over in the precinct of my uh psychically minded humph colleagues who have seen fit to put up a 'Dogs and Benway Keep Out' sign... This is our Live One. Advanced cases of lymphogranuloma, rank stool pigeons and 'Benway Keep Out' signs has its corresponding enzyme system and its characteristic odor, so that when the medicine man of a primitive tribe talks of smelling out the sickness, instead of a well-bred leer, we should emulate his example.