Joe Jamail quotes:

I spent a year at Southwestern Louisiana Institute, then transferred back to the University of Texas, where I majored in English and history.

I love the system. Let me tell you why. People love it... The people, by and large, have great respect for our law and our system... Why do you think they go to that courthouse instead of killing each other in the streets, taking the law into their own hands?

It's not a bad thing fighting for equality and helping the poor. It's not a bad thing to have on your professional tombstone: 'He believed in equality and he helped the poor.'

I didn't know who she was, but I knew she was hungry, so I started handing out $100 bills and called the office and told them to bring me a bunch more. Then I had my cousin's store deliver a bunch of smoked ham and turkeys. I mean, these people are hungry and living under a bridge.

When Frank Broyles coached at Arkansas, he used to have a golf tournament each year for all the Southwest Conference coaches.

I don't think the trial practice is dead. But it is very ill. There are some days you could throw a hand grenade down the hall of the Harris County Courthouse and not hit anybody.

If you start comparing my practice of law to what I could have been - selling bananas - you'll know why I gave money to the University of Texas.

The feeling of being accepted and acknowledgement and recognition and fame - I'm vain like everybody else. The feeling of achievement that I've helped the poor or somebody in need far outweighs the money.

The Depression did more to me than being a little Lebanese kid did.

Your attitude will go a long way in determining your success, your recognition, your reputation and your enjoyment in being a lawyer.

It's a great feeling knowing you've helped someone. That's what I've spent my life doing and my practice.

I love my wife. She had money when I didn't.

I think Wallace Hall is an imbecile.

Medical research is needed, and I just saw there was a need for help that the government - state or federal - was not spending the taxpayers' money on helping people get through college.

I didn't do too well until my second year, when I realized that there were no right or wrong answers and that my professors were interested only in how well I could develop an argument.

I happen to have a giant ego, an admission that will not shock my close friends or critics. I am not uncomfortable in saying that because the ego of a man often gets great things done.

If you are not emotionally involved, your client is not getting your best effort.

The money doesn't really matter. I've been a multi-millionaire for a long time. My sons are rich.

Any good trial lawyer knows that if you've got one credible expert or scientific study, then you can let the jury decide.

We've got some well-run corporations by some well-intended people who do it right.

You had to have a unanimous jury verdict, and one percent of contributory negligence barred all recovery. It was so satisfying to realize I could do it. And I'll tell you what motivated me: competitiveness. I was betting on me. That's what a contingent-fee lawyer does.

Do you know what the root of mediation is? Mediocrity!

For every dollar we have given to athletics, we have given about 27 to higher education or medical research.

I was taught that a lawyer was supposed to be a custodian of the community's legal and ethical sense.

I think the average American has forgotten the great feel for liberty and accountability that the framers of the Constitution believed.

By not trying the small cases, the lawyers don't get the courtroom experience. So when the huge, bet-the-company cases come along, there are only a handful of trial lawyers who can handle it. That's why these big corporations still call us old-timers every day.

I sent people to the penitentiary as fast as I could, never thinking about whether they deserved it.

I don't think I'm a good ol' boy. Honestly, the last thing I am is a redneck. I like silk sheets, fancy cars, beautiful women, good whiskey.

We've got some real greedy hogs who own no interest in the company they're running, whose sole interest is in whatever it takes to be able to get to the point to fly out on their golden parachute and milk the shareholder and take risks that they shouldn't take.

There are more pompous, arrogant, self-centered, mediocre-type people running corporate America who should be sent out on some postal route delivering mail.

We can still do good for others and do good for ourselves. I would wither and die, truthfully. I need to be somewhere where the light's on me.