The Best Maurice Tiffen Quotes

Maurice: [after receiving their share of the profits from the HUD scam from Silvio, referring to their financial disagreement] Listen, I've been wanting to say this: no hard feelings, huh?
Assemblyman Zellman: No, of course not
Maurice: You sure you're alright?
Assemblyman Zellman: I'm fine
Maurice: You're just being... awfully quiet
Assemblyman Zellman: I don't know, tired
Assemblyman Zellman: [while they leave The Bada Bing strip club] You ever feel bad about any of this?
Maurice: What'd you mean?
Assemblyman Zellman: When I think about when we started out...
Maurice: [amused, interrupts him] You know I used to think what I did made a difference: the anti-drug programs, the voter drives, but over the years, it's like "shoving shit against the tide", you know that?
Assemblyman Zellman: I guess
Maurice: Yeah, you cut corners but you help out: do the best you can. Hey, if it ain't us, it's gonna be somebody else. Really, I mean, what're we supposed to be? The only "honest men?"
Assemblyman Zellman: We were gonna lead a "revolution"
Maurice: [amused] Revolution? The revolution got sold

Assemblyman Zellman: [while in the sauna room] summer of sixty-seven we're both home on break. I was interning at the state legislature, what were you doing?
Maurice: East Newark Co-op
Assemblyman Zellman: Right but come July
Tony: The Newark riots
Ralph: What a fuckin summer that was
Assemblyman Zellman: Later that year Maurice and I have to organize one of the first all black voting drives
Tony: Maurice, were you around for Anthony Imperiale? The "white knight"?
Maurice: Around? Who do you think he was fighting against?
Assemblyman Zellman: Italian pride "keep Newark white"
Maurice: Spying Klansman: some of those boys
Ralph: So, this group you got now, the Urban Housing League, what's the story there?
Maurice: Like many non-profits, we've fallen on hard times. Republican administration plus proliferation of new charities post 9/11
Tony: Sounds like you three got a lot to talk about. I'm going to hit the showers. Maurice: nice meeting ya
Maurice: Same here
Assemblyman Zellman: I took the liberty of filling in Maurice on the broad strokes
Ralph: Ok we got a guy Dr. Fried, his an Urologist. We're going to give him half a million of our money, have him grab these four houses on Garside Street for a hundred and twenty-five a piece
Maurice: The old first ward
Ralph: Once we own the houses we got an appraiser who'll "play ball" and his going to appraise them in the three hundred thousand dollar range. What you do Maurice is you take the phony appraisals to HUD tell them the Urban Housing League will buy these shit holes and convert them into low cost housing for working families
Ralph: Once HUD guarantees the mortgage app you take it to the bank, they cut a check and we work it up nice
Maurice: At which I assume my organization fails to make the mortgage payments
Assemblyman Zellman: Unforeseen construction delays and repeated vandalism forced the project into disillusion. We all walk away from the houses
Ralph: Your cut will be in the ten percent of the profit range
Assemblyman Zellman: My office will write a letter in strong support of your application
Maurice: Sounds about right