All life is 6 to 5 against.

In Runyon’s gambling-inflected idiom, “6 to 5 against” is the language of odds: a bet that is slightly more likely to lose than win. Read as an aphorism, the line compresses a hardboiled, streetwise worldview into a bookmaker’s fraction—life is not impossibly stacked against you, but the house has a small edge. The phrase suggests a temperament of wary realism rather than despair: you may still win, but you should expect setbacks, price in risk, and keep your nerve. It also reflects Runyon’s broader literary signature, translating everyday experience into the argot and logic of gamblers, where hope and calculation coexist.