- Shubunka: [to Dorothy] You understood nothing. You're sweet, lovely, and good. You're also very young. Pay for my sins? You know what my sins were? I'll tell you. That I wasn't rotten enough. I wasn't mean and low and dirty enough. That's right, I should have smashed Cornell first. I should have hounded Jammy, kept after him, killed him myself. I should have trusted no one, never had a friend. I should have never loved a woman. That's the way the world is. Wait, live, find out yourself that's the way you have to be... the only way!
- Nick Jammey: My advice to you is 'get out!' They'll jump you when you least expect it. Get out of town, Shubunka. They're killers!
- Shubunka: Jammey, what did you do? What are you talking about? Did you sell me out?
- Nick Jammey: Who me?
- Shubunka: Did you go over to them?
- Nick Jammey: I wish I did! I wish I could! The trouble with me is I've got a conscience!
- Shubunka: [Opening lines of first person narration as the camera dollies back from an ugly expressionistic painting] That was what I was. I work the rackets... dirty rackets... ugly rackets. I was no hypocrite. I knew everything I did was low and rotten. I knew what people thought of me. What difference did it make? What did I care?
- [Lying in bed looking at his face in a mirror]
- Shubunka: I got scarred - sure! It can hurt a little when you fight your way out of a gutter.
- Dorothy's Father: Give him time, Dorothy. It just came over the radio. They might still be on the streets looking for him. They'll shoot him!
- Dorothy: I hope they do! I hope they kill him!
- Dorothy's Father: [Shocked] Dorothy!
- Dorothy: No, let him pay for his sins! You don't know him... the way he lives... the things he did. He's rotten! He's no-good!
- Shubunka: You listen to me. I came up out of a sewer. Out of the muck and the mud, I came up by myself. I went to work when I was six, six years old. I was doing jobs for gangsters when I was nine. I was bootlegging on my own when I was 14. Did anybody worry about me? Did anybody cry his eyes out over me? What do you want me to do? Worry about the whole world? Let them rot, every one of them. They don't mean a thing to me. Don't flinch at me. Don't dare look down at me. I'm no crumb, no Karty. I made something out of myself. I did it, and I'm proud of it.