Pain in the Neck

Mott Street

"New Yorkers are a pain in the neck. Always thinking about money."
Sinclair Lewis, Cass Timberlane - A Novel Of Husbands And Wives

Dying in Manhattan

New York City Marble Cemetery

"If I'm going to die, I want to die in Manhattan."
Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), Mad Men: Season Two

The Perfect Place to Lose Yourself

The Lake

"New York City is the perfect place to lose yourself for a while — permanently, if you want to."
Lisa Unger, Beautiful Lies (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard)

Will Go On

Pier 54

"Maybe we become New Yorkers the day we realize that New York will go on without us."
Colson Whitehead, The Colossus of New York

Depends on Immigration

"The fact is that America depends on New York and New York depends on immigration."
Rudolph Giuliani, The Quotable Giuliani: The Mayor of America in His Own Words

Sesame Street

Times Square

"I always imagined that New York felt like Sesame Street. The urban decay. The community aspect. The multiracial thing."
Jeff Whitty, Avenue Q: The Book

A Monument of Splendor

Manhattan seen from Roosevelt Island

"The skyline of New York is a monument of a splendor that no pyramids or palaces will ever equal or approach."
Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, A New Concept of Egoism - 1989 publication

Melting Pot?

"Once the visitor was told rather repetitively that this city was the melting pot; never before in history had so many people of such varied languages, customs, colors and culinary habits lived so amicably together. Although New York remains peaceful by most standards, this self-congratulation is now less often heard, since it was discovered some years ago that racial harmony depended unduly on the willingness of the blacks (and latterly the Puerto Ricans) to do for the other races the meanest jobs at the lowest wages and then to return to live by themselves in the worst slums."
John Kenneth Galbraith,  View from the Stands, A: Of People, Politics, Military Power and the Arts

Empire City

Empire State Building

"Everyone who lives here thinks the city is such hot shit. New York just sucks you in with all its coolness. But the Empire City has no clothes. It was buzz, spin, and hype without any substance."
Arthur Nersesian, Dogrun

Big Men with Little Soul

Riverside South

"New Yorkers are prone to boast of their superiority over the denizens of other cities, but it is a fact that the American metropolis is inferior in culture, intelligence and morals to almost any city in the world. It is the home of big men with little soul, big newspapers with little editors."
Henry O. Morris, Waiting for the Signal: A Novel

Jostling for Space

96th Street Station

"New Yorkers are so accustomed to subways and elevators, fighting to get a seat and jostling for space, that it's a hard habit to break. They come skiing in Vermont and spend all day charging lifts."
John Hilferty, Moonlight in Vermont: a novel

Cosmopolitan

"New York is a cosmopolitan city; but it is not a city of cosmopolitans."
G.K. Chesterton, On Lying in Bed and Other Essays by G.K. Chesterton

The Story of the World

Statue of Liberty

"To Europe she was America, to America she was the gateway of the earth. But to tell the story of New York would be to write a social history of the world."
H.G. Wells, The War in the Air

A New Yorker Who Doesn't Take the Subway

Rockefeller Center subway station

"A New Yorker who does not take the subway is not a New Yorker you can trust."
Mozzie (Willie Garson), White Collar: Season One

The City That Never Lets You Sleep

"It's so loud. All the time. Yes,  it's the city that never sleeps. Well, guess what? I like to sleep! I've been tired for eight years!"
Marshall Eriksen (Jason Segel), How I Met Your Mother: Seasons 1-4

Too Good for New Yorkers

Fifth Avenue

"New York is much too good for New Yorkers"
Heywood Broun, "The Place of Sacrifice," Empire City: A Treasury of New York (Essay Index Reprint Series)

No Local Pride

"There is this to be said for New York City: it is the one densely inhabited locality -- with the possible exception of Hell -- that has absolutely not a trace of local pride."
Irving S. Cobb, New York

The Fantasy of a Mechanical God

Madison Square Park

"New York is unreal. A simple tree is more real than it.
It is the fantasy of a mechanical God.
New York is a monster furiously disemboweled by men like maggots.
Had religion given rise to it, what would we sincerely think of this religion?"
Jean Toomer, A Jean Toomer Reader: Selected Unpublished Writings

New York Is a Drug

East 6th

"New York is cocaine, opium, hashish."
Ambrose Bierce, A Much Misunderstood Man: Selected Letters of Ambrose Bierce

Hurry and Flurry

"Many years ago I learned to discount the hurry and flurry of New York. We are no busier than Bridgeport or Jersey City, but we pretend we are. It is necessary for our municipal vanity to squeeze and jam and rush and crush."
James Huneker,  New Cosmopolis

Central Park

Central Park

"Manhattan is a city without trees, but there is a ghetto for them: Central Park."
Raymond-Léopold Bruckberger, One Sky To Share: The French And American Journals Of Raymond Leopold Bruckberger

Great Achievement

East River Park

"New York is one of man's greatest achievements."
Edward Robb Ellis, The Epic of New York City: A Narrative History

The Destinies of the Nation

Alexander Hamilton statue

"The great city of New York wields more of the destinies of this great nation than five times the population of any other portion of the country. "
Willis A. Gorman, quoted in New Metropolis: New York City, 1840-1857.

The Composition of a Mad Artist

The Beresford and Central Park

"A collage of disparate, violently-yoked-together elements, New York was the surreal composition of a mad artist."
E.L. Doctorow, Creationists: Selected Essays, 1993-2006

The Most Wonderful Street

Broadway

"The most wonderful street in the Universe is Broadway. It is a world within itself."
James Dabney McCabe,  Lights and Shadows of New York Life, Volume 1