Best 3651 quotes in «new york quotes» category

I grew up in New York State, not New York City, which is what everyone thinks when you say "New York".

I have never had the lust to meet famous authors; the best of them is in their books.

I have talked to many people about this and it seems to be a kind of mystical experience. The preparation is unconscious, the realization happens in a flaming second. It was on Third Avenue. The trains were grinding over my head. The snow was nearly waist-high in the gutters and uncollected garbage was scattered in a dirty mess. The wind was cold, and frozen pieces of paper went scraping along the pavement. I stopped to look in a drug-store window where a latex cooch dancer was undulating by a concealed motor–and something burst in my head, a kind of light and a kind of feeling blended into an emotion which if it had spoken would have said, “My God! I belong here. Isn’t this wonderful?” Everything fell into place. I saw every face I passed. I noticed every doorway and the stairways to apartments. I looked across the street at the windows, lace curtains and potted geraniums through sooty glass. It was beautiful–but most important, I was part of it. I was no longer a stranger. I had become a New Yorker. Now there may be people who move easily into New York without travail, but most I have talked to about it have had some kind of trial by torture before acceptance. And the acceptance is a double thing. It seems to me that the city finally accepts you just as you finally accept the city. A young man in a small town, a frog in a small puddle, if he kicks his feet is able to make waves, get mud in his neighbor’s eyes–make some impression. He is known. His family is known. People watch him with some interest, whether kindly or maliciously. He comes to New York and no matter what he does, no one is impressed. He challenges the city to fight and it licks him without being aware of him. This is a dreadful blow to a small-town ego. He hates the organism that ignores him. He hates the people who look through him. And then one day he falls into place, accepts the city and does not fight it any more. It is too huge to notice him and suddenly the fact that it doesn’t notice him becomes the most delightful thing in the world. His self-consciousness evaporates. If he is dressed superbly well–there are half a million people dressed equally well. If he is in rags–there are a million ragged people. If he is tall, it is a city of tall people. If he is short the streets are full of dwarfs; if ugly, ten perfect horrors pass him in one block; if beautiful, the competition is overwhelming. If he is talented, talent is a dime a dozen. If he tries to make an impression by wearing a toga–there’s a man down the street in a leopard skin. Whatever he does or says or wears or thinks he is not unique. Once accepted this gives him perfect freedom to be himself, but unaccepted it horrifies him. I don’t think New York City is like other cities. It does not have character like Los Angeles or New Orleans. It is all characters–in fact, it is everything. It can destroy a man, but if his eyes are open it cannot bore him. New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. But there is one thing about it–once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough. All of everything is concentrated here, population, theatre, art, writing, publishing, importing, business, murder, mugging, luxury, poverty. It is all of everything. It goes all right. It is tireless and its air is charged with energy. I can work longer and harder without weariness in New York than anyplace else….

I heaved into being, came out of the stone, the bricks, and other elements, and took form. (Dark City Lights)

I learned to keep my eyes open and my mouth shut.

I mean, it’s AWESOME, but it’s also a little bit “New York awe­some,” you know? How do I explain how I felt about it? I guess ... well ... in New York City people spend ten years making something amazing happen, something that captures the essence of an idea so perfectly that sud­denly the world becomes ten times clearer. It’s beautiful and it’s powerful and someone devoted a huge piece of their life to it. The local news does a story about it and everyone goes “Neat!” and then tomorrow we forget about it in favor of some other ABSOLUTELY PERFECT AND REMARKABLE THING. That doesn’t make those things un­wonderful or not unique ... It’s just that there are a lot of people doing a lot of amazing things, so eventually you get a little jaded.

Inevitably came the time when he angrily repudiated his former paladin Yasser Arafat. In fact, he described him to me as 'the Palestinian blend of Marshal Petaín and Papa Doc.' But the main problem, alas, remained the same. In Edward's moral universe, Arafat could at last be named as a thug and a practitioner of corruption and extortion. But he could only be identified as such to the extent that he was now and at last aligned with an American design. Thus the only truly unpardonable thing about 'The Chairman' was his readiness to appear on the White House lawn with Yitzhak Rabin and Bill Clinton in 1993. I have real knowledge and memory of this, because George Stephanopoulos—whose father's Orthodox church in Ohio and New York had kept him in touch with what was still a predominantly Christian Arab-American opinion—called me more than once from the White House to help beseech Edward to show up at the event. 'The feedback we get from Arab-American voters is this: If it's such a great idea, why isn't Said signing off on it?' When I called him, Edward was grudging and crabby. 'The old man [Arafat] has no right to sign away land.' Really? Then what had the Algiers deal been all about? How could two states come into being without mutual concessions on territory?

I slept badly that night, my vivid dreams populated by ghosts. As much as it revived ailing spirits in day light, the fizzy energy of NY seemed to feed on human frailty at night.

It encapsulates so neatly the lesson of expectation and reality that it could serve as a parable. The fact that tomatoes are good is beside the point. If you think you're getting an apple, a tomato will revolt you. That New York should be nicknamed the Big Apple, that an apple is the fruit of humankind's first error and the expulsion from paradise, that America and paradise have been linked and confused ever since Europeans first hit its shores, makes the story reverberate as myth.

It's bewildering to me how you can just start chatting with a complete stranger on Facebook, and - next thing you know - it seems as if there's some intense connection with the person - or at least you feel that closeness and hope it's mutual

It's that magnificent interlude in New York between winter and spring, when you feel the warmth stirring, and you remember that the dreadful naked trees will inevitably sprout tiny green buds, soon. Everyone rushes into the parks, the streets--and you even forget that, very soon , summer will come scorchingly, dropping from the sky like a blanket of steam...

It was a cruel city, but it was a lovely one; a savage city, yet it had such tenderness; a bitter, harsh, and violent catacomb of stone an steel and tunneled rock, slashed savagely with light, and roaring, fighting a constant ceaseless warfare of men and of machinery; and yet it was so sweetly and so delicately pulsed, as full of warmth, of passion, and of love, as it was full of hate.

It was October 2001 and I lived in New York City. I was twenty two. I, like many of my female friends, suffered from a strange combination of post 9/11 anxiety and height of Sex and the City anxiety. They are distinct and unnerving anxieties. The questions that ran through my ming were something like this: 'Should I keep a gas mask in my kitchen? Am I supposed to be able to afford Manolo Blahnik shoes? What is Barneys New York? You're trying to tell me a place called 'Barney's' is fancy?'Where are the fabulous gay friends that I was promised? Gay guys hate me! Is this anthrax or powdered sugar? Help! Help!

I understand, Bill. Because I tell myself a lot of stories to help me sleep at night. Stories about how Babe was my dearest friend, and I never betrayed her. Stories about how you and I had a great love, not just an occasional roll in the hay whenever she was out of town. Stories about how wonderful life was back then, when none of us told each other the truth, but so what? It was all so beautiful, wasn’t it? It was all so lovely and gracious. Not like it is now.

Love puts itself first, and makes its own plans. It maps you out instead. Maybe that's what makes it perfect

Many men have triumphantly exploited a minuscule talent through life only to ruin themselves by muffing their deaths. Missing their proper exit cues they have hung around like dreary guests at a party, repeating themselves until it is made clear to all how little they ever had to say.

Maybe the price of forgetting that even in America, even in New York City, when a man back home is talking, you better listen closely.

Meanwhile the temperature is getting hotter and hotter so no one can think clearly. No one perceives. No one cares. Insane madness come out like life is a terrific party.

My Best Friend and I have spent plenty of time together, despite me being in my First Ever Relationship. This is because friends should always come first.

New York City is a phoenix rising from the ashes.

New York is a glorious place for clearing your head and finding inspiration. Every time you step outside, you live a dozen lives.

New York este un oraș înfricoșător. Milioane de oameni se luptă bărbătește pentru viața lor. E un oraș cu prea mulți bani. Prea mulți la unii și prea puțini la alții. Și lucrul acesta aruncă o lumină tragică peste tot ce se petrece aici

New York was packed with writers, real writers, because there were magazines, real magazines, loads of them. This was back when the Internet was still some exotic pet kept in the corner of the publishing world--throw some kibble at it, watch it dance on its little leash, oh quite cute, it definitely won't kill us in the night.

New York was populated by the ambitious. It was often the only thing that everyone here had in common. Ambition and atheism: "Ambition is my only religion," JB had told him[...] Only here did you feel compelled to somehow justify anything short of rabidity for your career; only here did you have to apologize for having faith in something other than yourself.

Oh Paris From red to green all the yellow dies away Paris Vancouver Hyeres Maintenon New York and the Antilles The window opens like an orange The beautiful fruit of light ("Windows")

oh. she heard it too-no waters coursing, canyon empty, sun soundless- and the beast your life nowhere hiding (p. 103)

Oh. Well was this your first time painting a live model?” She nodded her head, with an almost guilty look on her face. “What’s it like?” “Hard,” she replied.

Paradoxically, the more Michael kept me at a distance, the more I trusted him - perhaps because he was always willing to help me with tips and introductions even though he wanted absolutely nothing from me (and never reciprocated my nosiness with personal questions of his own with me).

Pettiness often leads both to error and to the digging of a trap for oneself. Wondering (which I am sure he didn't) 'if by the 1990s [Hitchens] was morphing into someone I didn’t quite recognize”, Blumenthal recalls with horror the night that I 'gave' a farewell party for Martin Walker of the Guardian, and then didn't attend it because I wanted to be on television instead. This is easy: Martin had asked to use the fine lobby of my building for a farewell bash, and I'd set it up. People have quite often asked me to do that. My wife did the honors after Nightline told me that I’d have to come to New York if I wanted to abuse Mother Teresa and Princess Diana on the same show. Of all the people I know, Martin Walker and Sidney Blumenthal would have been the top two in recognizing that journalism and argument come first, and that there can be no hard feelings about it. How do I know this? Well, I have known Martin since Oxford. (He produced a book on Clinton, published in America as 'The President We Deserve'. He reprinted it in London, under the title, 'The President They Deserve'. I doffed my hat to that.) While Sidney—I can barely believe I am telling you this—once also solicited an invitation to hold his book party at my home. A few days later he called me back, to tell me that Martin Peretz, owner of the New Republic, had insisted on giving the party instead. I said, fine, no bones broken; no caterers ordered as yet. 'I don't think you quite get it,' he went on, after an honorable pause. 'That means you can't come to the party at all.' I knew that about my old foe Peretz: I didn't then know I knew it about Blumenthal. I also thought that it was just within the limit of the rules. I ask you to believe that I had buried this memory until this book came out, but also to believe that I won't be slandered and won't refrain—if motives or conduct are in question—from speculating about them in my turn.

I know you mean well, but you have to remember that things don't always work out like they do in your storybooks.

I’m going to drag you down to the basement, kneel at your feet, rip your jeans down and I’m going to make you come so hard with my tongue the whole damn pub will think you’re being murdered.

Isn’t it better just to make your own money, and then spend it how and when you want, and with dignity?

It felt like surfacing; the sounds and smells of the city hit her in a wave of sensory overload. A taxi peeled by. A horn blared. People milled past, on their way to countless destinations. Madi squinted into the late-afternoon glare and smiled. The hum of millions of separate lives, woven together, gave her a buzz she couldn’t explain. Here in New York she was faceless, unknown. Herself.

The wanderer in Manhattan must go forth with a certain innocence, because New York is best seen with innocent eyes. It doesn't matter if you are younger or old. Reading our rich history makes the experience more layered, but it is not a substitute for walking the streets themselves. For old-timer or newcomer, it is essential to absorb the city as it is now in order to shape your own nostalgias. That's why I always urge the newcomer to surrender to the city's magic. Forget the irritations and the occasional rudeness; they bother New Yorkers too. Instead, go down to the North River and the benches that run along the west side of Battery Park City. Watch the tides or the blocks of ice in winter; they have existed since the time when the island was empty of man. Gaze at the boats. Look across the water at the Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island, the place to which so many of the New York tribe came in order to truly live. Learn the tale of our tribe, because it's your tribe too, no matter where you were born. Listen to its music and its legends. Gaze at its ruins and monuments. Walk its sidewalks and run fingers upon the stone and bricks and steel of our right-angled streets. Breathe the air of the river breeze.

It seems so to me," said his wife, as if she were producing a new thought.

It's June and the city is ripe with meaningless fecal heat. It will be a different kind of hot in LA, the kind that made the Beach Boys all tan and giddy, a heat that doesn't harass you in the shade.

It was possible in this wonderful city for that nameless little boy -for any of its millions- to have a decent chance to scale the walls and achieve what they wished. Wealth, rank or an imposing name counted for nothing. The only credential the city asked was the boldness to dream. For those who did, it unlocked its gates and its treasures, not caring who they were or where they came from.

I was to grow used to hearing, around New York, the annoying way in which people would say: 'Edward Said, such a suave and articulate and witty man,' with the unspoken suffix 'for a Palestinian.' It irritated him, too, naturally enough, but in my private opinion it strengthened him in his determination to be an ambassador or spokesman for those who lived in camps or under occupation (or both). He almost overdid the ambassadorial aspect if you ask me, being always just too faultlessly dressed and spiffily turned out. Fools often contrasted this attention to his tenue with his membership of the Palestine National Council, the then-parliament-in-exile of the people without a land. In fact, his taking part in this rather shambolic assembly was a kind of noblesse oblige: an assurance to his landsmen (and also to himself) that he had not allowed and never would allow himself to forget their plight. The downside of this noblesse was only to strike me much later on.

Jack: Well, I've never been to New York, but I hear it's for assholes. Odile: It's not. Jack: Well, that's what I heard. Cool people don't live there anymore, They all live here. In Chicago.

Maybe the price of forgetting that even in America, even in New York City, when a man from back home is talking, you better listen closely. (Dark City Lights)

MIND YOUR OWN SOCIAL MEDIA BUSINESS

Moonlight does things to a street scene that no other natural or man-made phenomenon can effect. People walk slower, their smiles lingering on contended faces. Horses that usually move along fast enough to stir up the dust off the street plod lazily in the clear, cool night. And in dark corners where people forget to look, the goons come out.

Most of the streets in Manhattan go in just one direction. Some of the larger crosstown streets and some of the major north—south avenues have two-way traffic, but in general, the odd-numbered streets go west, toward the Hudson River, and the “evens go east,” as Jane, the native New Yorker, taught me.

My first trip to the mainland came after I had been traveling extensively in Asia on reporting assignments for The Journal of Commerce newspaper, located at that time on Wall Street in New York City.

My main concern while in New York wasn't becoming a hot shot. I was more concerned with staying alive, and that took all the pleasure out of the experience. I didn't know where to find a grocery store so I subsisted on hot dogs, peanuts and whatever else I could buy from a street vendor. I didn't know how to hail a cab (apparently there's an art to it). I stood on the edge of the sidewalk and waved my arms around but no one stopped, so I limited my entire universe to however far I could walk and I never walked too far because I was afraid I'd get lost and never find my way back home again. Perhaps that's why there are so many homeless people in New York; maybe they're not really lost, maybe some of them have homes but they just don't know how to get there.

Never mind gas masks and fallout shelters in the event of biological warfare. Many New Yorkers move from place to place equipped with the essentials of vermin assault weaponry: mouse traps, roach spray, and sticky tapes. In some neighborhoods, it’s a must.

New York!" he said. "That's not a place, it's a dream.

New York is more than a state of mind. It is the completion of a dream. ( "New York at arm's length of desire" )

New York was the toughest place in the world if you couldn’t afford your rent. On the other hand, if you could afford not only your own rent but the rent of a thousand other people, New York was the greatest city in the universe.

Next time -- we will roll out the red carpet for you in the United States of Arabia, my brethren!