Every Conceivable Form of Delight

"In the evening light Manhattan, as always, looked miraculous — towers of light thrusting upwards into the suffused glow of the sky, and the freeways moving rivers of headlights. Here was a city that offered, in its brash and open-handed way, every conceivable form of delight."
Rosamunde Pilcher, September

A Black Woman's Town

Harriet Tubman Memorial

"If ever there was a black woman's town, New York was it."
Toni Morrison, Tar Baby

The Trick of Enjoying New York

Brooklyn Bridge Park

“The trick of enjoying New York is to not be so busy grinding your way to the center of the earth that you fail to notice the sparkle of the place, a scale and a kind of wonder that put all human endeavors in their proper place.”
David Carr, The Night of the Gun: A reporter investigates the darkest story of his life. His own.

Not Quite the Other-World

Fifth Avenue

"As I open my eyes, I'm afraid. And then I remember: this is not quite the other-world. It's New York."
Simone de Beauvoir, America Day by Day

Knocking New York

One World Trade Center

"The more they knock New York, the bigger it gets."
Will Rogers, The Best of Will Rogers: A Collection of Rogers' Wit and Wisdom, Astonishingly Relevant for Today's World

The New York Game

"The real purpose of the evening for most of the attendees was to play the New York game: to show off what they had and compare it to others who had as much or more."
Olivia Goldsmith, The First Wives Club

Outsider

East 60th

"One can live in this city for years and still feel like an outsider."
Caitlin Leffel, NYC: An Owner's Manual: Arriving, Surviving and Thriving in the Greatest City in the World

On Location

East 28th Street

"Living in New York was like being on location for a movie that never wrapped."
Jay McInerney, How It Ended: New and Collected Stories (Vintage Contemporaries)

Biggest Pond

The Pond in Central Park

"The gravitational pull of New York has drawn all of those desirous of being a big fish in the biggest pond."
Joshua David Stein and  Alice Twemlow, StyleCity New York

Driving Forces

Building on Prince St.

"The driving forces in the making of New York remain essential parts of its character: greed, energy, tolerance, and optimism."
Pete Hamill, New York: City of Islands

Too Much to Handle

"To me, New York is like a bitch of a woman, she's too much to handle, and I don't admire her lifestyle."
Danielle Steel, Going Home

Women's College

Barnard College

"Sometimes she thought New York resembled a women's college in the way that it brought women together, in part because of a lack of decent men."
J. Courtney Sullivan, Commencement (Vintage Contemporaries)

America Writ Large

Brooklyn Bridge

"New York is America writ large."
Willie Morris, Conversations with Willie Morris (Literary Conversations Series)

Construction Site

Bowery and Houston

"Nothing is impossible, especially in New York City. It is a never-ending construction site."
Isabel Gillies, A Year and Six Seconds: A Love Story

Not Just a Tan

Brooklyn Bridge

"New York is not just a tan that you'll never lose."

Lady Gaga, Marry The Night

The Only World

"Tough, feisty Manhattan was the only world that mattered."
Kate Jacobs, The Friday Night Knitting Club

Bad Possibilities

"New York City is a landscape of bad possibilities."
Colin Harrison, Manhattan Nocturne: A Novel

Human Intensity

"New York was the only place she knew of where the sheer weight of the human intensity wore one down to fatigue, made you feel as though you had done a job."
Stanley Crouch, Don't the Moon Look Lonesome: A Novel in Blues and Swing

What Makes America Endurable

Saks Fifth Avenue

"New York is the only place that makes America endurable."
William Henry Rideing, A LITTLE UPSTART : A NOVEL

Haunted

Christopher Park

“New York is definitely haunted. Old lovers, ex-boyfriends, anyone you have unresolved issues with you are bound to run into again and again until you resolve them.”
Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City - The Complete Series (Collector's Giftset)

Obsessed with Light

Solow Building

"New York has never been a dark city, but never has it been so obsessed with light as now. The city has become brightly, intensely lit up -- every month, it seems, a new skyscraper top goes ablaze with floodlights, every season a new skyscraper top goes ablaze with light."
Paul Goldberger, New York Times World of New York: An Uncommon Guide to the City of Fantastics

Two Cities

View from The High Line

"New York is a nightmare and a paradise, the absolute image of what a city should be, magical. Everything is broken and modern at the same time, as if it were two cities in one."
Annette Messager, Annette Messager: The Messengers

No Truck with the Past

Sugar House Prison Window

"New York has no truck with the past. It expels its dead."
Luc Sante, Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York

Rabbit Holes

Anita's Way 

"New York (and this is the source of its charm and its peculiar fascination) was then a city where anything seemed possible. Like the urban fabric, the social and cultural fabric was riddled with holes. All you had to do was pick one and slip through if, like Alice, you wanted to get to the other side of the looking glass and find worlds so enchanting that they seemed unreal."
Claude Levi-Strauss, The View from Afar

No Signs of Weakness

"At the height of rush hour, people on the London underground actually say "excuse me." Imagine what would happen if you tried an insane stunt like that on the New York City subway. The other passengers would take it as a sign of weakness, and there'd be a fight over who got to keep your ears as a trophy."
Dave Barry, "It's Monday... So This Must Be My Tax Write-Off in London," in There's No Toilet Paper . . . on the Road Less Traveled: The Best of Travel Humor and Misadventure (Travelers' Tales)