There's a certain type of character that you can't help but come

The words of Steve Buscemi resonate with the grit and soul of the places that shaped him: “There’s a certain type of character that you can’t help but come in contact with growing up and living in Brooklyn and Long Island. A certain mixture of moxie, heart, and a wise guy sense of humor.” In these few words, Buscemi captures an entire world — a way of being forged not in luxury or ease, but in the fires of resilience, loyalty, and laughter. His statement is not only a reflection on geography, but on spirit: it speaks to the universal truth that every place has its archetype — the kind of person that embodies the rhythm, the humor, and the courage of its streets.

To live in Brooklyn or Long Island, as Buscemi did, is to grow among contrasts — the rough and the tender, the loud and the loyal, the dreamer and the skeptic living side by side. The character he speaks of is not defined by wealth or education, but by essence: a mixture of toughness and tenderness, a refusal to be broken by hardship, and an ability to meet life’s trials with a grin. Moxie, that word so old it almost feels like brass itself, means courage with style — the kind of courage that laughs in the face of adversity, that doesn’t just endure but endures with flair. It is the soul’s swagger, the human spirit in its most defiant form.

Yet Buscemi is careful to add heart to this mixture, for moxie without heart becomes arrogance. Heart is what grounds the boldness, what gives warmth to the wit and compassion to the edge. The people he describes are not hard simply to survive — they are hard because they care. Their loyalty runs deep, their laughter hides struggle, and their humor becomes a kind of grace. It is the wise guy sense of humor that keeps despair at bay, the ability to laugh at life’s absurdities, even when the laughter carries a touch of sorrow. This humor is not cruelty — it is resilience turned into art.

In every culture, there are people born of the same spirit Buscemi describes — those who meet hardship not with complaint, but with wit. Consider the ancient Greeks, who, though surrounded by war and ruin, built comedies alongside tragedies. Aristophanes, one of the great comic playwrights, mocked kings and gods alike, not because he lacked reverence, but because laughter was his rebellion against despair. He knew, as Buscemi’s Brooklyn knows, that laughter is power — a weapon for the powerless, a balm for the weary, and a reminder that dignity cannot be stolen from those who can still find humor in the storm.

Buscemi’s Brooklyn humor and Long Island heart are the children of working-class struggle, of immigrant dreams, of people who found identity not in what they had, but in how they carried themselves. The corner shop owner who greets every customer like family, the firefighter who jokes in the face of danger, the mother who scolds and smiles in the same breath — these are the characters of his world. Their wise guy humor is their poetry, their way of saying: “We see the world clearly, and still, we laugh.” This kind of laughter is not ignorance — it is enlightenment, earned through sweat and survival.

The lesson here stretches far beyond the streets of Brooklyn. It tells us that to live fully, we must cultivate our own mixture of moxie, heart, and humor. Have the moxie to face your challenges without fear, to speak truth even when it trembles on your tongue. Keep heart, even when the world tries to harden you. Let compassion temper your strength. And above all, keep humor — for the one who can laugh in the darkness is never truly defeated. Humor does not make pain disappear, but it transforms it into wisdom, into endurance, into connection.

So, dear listener, take Steve Buscemi’s words as a torch for your own path. Wherever you live — whether in the hum of a great city or the quiet of a small town — find the character that life has given you, and let it shine. Be bold, but kind. Be strong, but human. Speak with moxie, live with heart, and laugh with the defiant humor of those who refuse to be crushed by circumstance. For this is the mark of those who truly live: they stand tall not because life has been easy, but because, through every trial, they have kept their courage, their compassion, and their laughter — the three pillars of an unbreakable soul.