Embraced and Challenged

"Looking for an adventure? There is always one to be found. New York City has that rare ability to simultaneously make you feel embraced and challenged, all at once, every single day. As long as I live here, I will never be bored."
Will Guidara, quoted in The Points Guy

Sliding Texture

"New York has a sliding texture, like a toboggan. Everyone is in movement and everyone wants to succeed."
Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada, Humanos y marcianos en Nueva York II

Individual New York

"The cosmopolis remains forever a mystery and a marvel, inspirational and infuriating, arousing both loathing and longing. Whether you're a resident, visitor, or commuter, your New York is different from everyone else's. "
Laura Pedersen, Life in New York

Coldness and Callousness

"Anyone who has lived in New York is well aware of the coldness and callousness of people there. Mind your own business, don't get involved, don't make eye contact, and don't talk to strangers. Watch New Yorkers on an elevator: each person unerringly finds a spot as far away from everyone else as possible and develops a great interest in examining the ceiling."
Bernard Rollin, Putting the Horse Before Descartes

The Most Perfect City

Manhattan (Pixabay)

"New York is the most perfect city. It never sleeps. It dazzles all its visitors. In this city, the richest man of our poor country would feel like a beggar, the most corrupted person like a saint, the most ignorant like a wise person, the wisest like an ignoramus."
Unnamed undocumented immigrant, quoted in La Chulla Vida

Desperate Passion

"New York is a woman, she'll make you cry
And to her you're just another guy
And she's every girl you've seen in every movie
Every dame you've ever known on late night TV
In her steam and steel is the passion you feel
Desperately."
Suzanne Vega, New York is a Woman

The City We Love

"Right now the city that we love is crippled, as sure as if it's been under attack for the last year. The city we love needs us here."
Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck), Blue Bloods

New York, New York

"New York, New York. City so nice they named it twice. Manhattan is the other name."
Michael Scott (Steve Carell), The Office

Atomic Collider

Daily News Building (Wikimedia Commons)

"This city will come back when it’s once again a magnet that draws people in; the electric, the eccentric, the hucksters, the hustlers, the immigrants, the schemers and the refugees. All 8 million-plus people, and, we hope, plenty more, pack in like sardines across the city’s square miles — in offices, on stages, streets, sidewalks, in restaurants, hospitals and hallways of high-rises. What happens next is the human equivalent of an atomic collider, the machine that speeds up tiny particles and sends them smashing into each other. That collision creates energy."
Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News

Fancy Restaurant

"Living in New York is like going to a fancy restaurant. You know you can’t afford to taste the best things on the menu, so you split an expensive appetizer, you order a glass of tap water, and you call it a night. But you still get to tell everyone that you ate there."
Keri Savoca, Medium

Hanging Out with the Popular Kids

"I've long held the belief that being a fan or a cheerleader of New York is ethically and aesthetically dubious. Like the Yankees and, for that matter, the Mets, New York needs no more fans. This place is dense with wealth, with cultural capital, with anecdote; it is the setting for too many movies, books, and television shows. To be a vocal fan of New York is like hanging out with the popular kids."
Rivka Galchen, The New Yorker

Great Metropolis

Manhattan skyline (Pixabay)

"Tough times lay ahead. New York is not going to be 'finished' by a pandemic, though. The great metropolises — Rome, Paris, London, Berlin — have all been wracked by plagues and war and upheaval. And the throngs return, as they will to New York, a great metropolis."
Matthew Conlon, Marketwatch

No Big Deal

"Everybody say New York is big deal, number-one city. I say no. New York no big deal, too old. Not too smart. China smarter. Shanghai much more smarter."
Colin Harrison, The Finder

New York is Here to Stay

"New York City is not going down the drain. New York City is here to stay and it's still the greatest city in the world."
Abraham Beame, Pretend It's a City

Elbow Sharpener

"New York is a great elbow sharpener, and it rewards those willing to go through doors that are not yet open. What you find on the other side can change your life."
Ben Widdicombe, Gatecrasher

Having a Car in New York

"Having a car in New York is like having a baby. They start crying in the middle of the night. You constantly have to worry about where they are. You have to mop up their leaks."
Caren Lissner, Carrie Pilby

To Live in a Dream

"New York is bliss, again. The stores are selling all sorts of aspirations to all sorts of possibilities and being here in a land of so much promise—and so many promises—is to live in a dream."
Zelda Fitzgerald, Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda

Agent of Apathy

"The world is indifferent and uncaring and New York is its agent of apathy. New York doesn't give a damn."
Dana Czapnik, The Falconer

Greatest Vampire

"New York is immortal, the greatest vampire that ever lived. Mount Olympus wants to be New York, but there is only one.  Often imitated yet NEVER duplicated.... not even close."
Whoopi Goldberg, Travel and Leisure Magazine

Fighter

"I love New York because it has taught me so much about myself. The city turns you into a fighter; it toughens you up and makes you strong. I love the many different people and cultures that are joining together."
Maya Stepper, Fashion Week Daily

Island with a Moat

"New York is like an island with a moat around it and the drawbridge has been pulled up."
Vijay Dandapani, The New York Times

Alive City

The High Line (Pixabay)

"Whilst others may dislike the crammed buildings, the sirens and utter confusion of Times Square, to me New York is more alive than any city I’ve been to. And if the heart of New York City is its people — a heart that thumps, pounds and palpitates with an astounding rhythm — then its femoral artery is the High Line."
Thomas Blythe, Port Magazine

Love Story

Times Square (Pixabay)

"Me and New York would go out and get drunk and talk about books and act like we were more sophisticated than we were and pretend we had never lived in the suburbs of Cleveland and be like, 'God, I can’t believe I got lucky enough to find you.' I never really fell out of love with New York."
Devin Friedman, Medium

Peoria, New York, Los Angeles

"I left Peoria for New York because New York was cheerier. Los Angeles is cheerier than New York. L.A. is to New York as New York is to Peoria."
Betty Friedan, Interviews with Betty Friedan

Doing Everything Quickly

Wall Street subway station (Pixabay)

"I'm from New York. I do everything quickly. If I had to drive to my own execution, I'd be in the left lane, passing everyone in order to get there as soon as possible."
Rick Redner, I Left My Prostate in san Francisco

Spontaneity

"The thing that’s so incredible about living in New York is that spontaneity and that ability to make things happen, whether it’s socially or artistically or whatever it is that’s filled with inspiration. And I think that that’s just part of the soul of New York and even in these difficult times, I don’t think that that will really go away."

Natalie Krinsky, Flickering Myth

Staten Island Ferry

Staten Island Ferry (Pixabay)

"The Staten Island Ferry is the busiest passenger ferry in the world, with almost 25 million riders a year. By my own unofficial calculations, it also holds the record for “Most Exposed Public Restrooms” (somehow designed so that any casual passersby can see the entire bathroom, all of the stalls, and every single drag queen fixing her makeup in the mirror), as well as the record for 'Most Dead-Eyed Businessmen Staring at the Sea Contemplating Whether to End It.'"
Colin Jost, A Very Punchable Face

Magical Place

"Harlem was always a magical place for me."
Kamala Harris, The Truths We Hold

Huge City, Small Town

"New York is a huge city, but a small town."
Sharleen Cooper Cohen, Love, Sex and Money

Masterful

"New York is an endless space. A work of art about vice, emptiness, devastation and madness. Masterful." 
Manolo Sicart, Humanos y marcianos en Nueva York II

Fitting In

"Sweetie, listen, all you did was pass out, puke and pee in your pants. You were in Central Park. You fit right in."
Fran Fine (Fran Drescher), The Nanny

Fastest Runner

"New York is a dramatic city. It's high drama, it's high energy. I don't think there is a place that runs faster."
Zac Posen, New York Fashion

True Legacy

"The care that the city’s residents have extended to one another throughout a pandemic and countless protests is the city’s true legacy, and it’s one that I hope New Yorkers—leavers and stayers alike—will carry with us, no matter where our journeys take us."
Emma Specter, Vogue

Anything is Possible

"Love is possible. Anything is possible. This is New York."
Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Sex and the City

Change in New York

Hudson Yards (Pixabay)

"New York is a place that rapidly adopts, and normalizes, change. Things don’t exist one day and then, after a week, it feels like they’ve been around forever."

Jorge Colombo, The New Yorker

Tired of Life

"Every true New Yorker believes with all his heart that when a New Yorker is tired of New York, he is tired of life."
Robert Moses, quoted in The Little Red Book of New York Wisdom

Wide-Open Doors

Statue of Liberty (Pixabay)

"I will always love New York for welcoming me with open arms and for being the only place in the world with as much opportunity available, especially for new arrivals. Every day, New York offers proof of the power and value in wide-open doors."
Peter Lawrence, quoted in The Points Guy

Created for Ambition

"New York was created for ambition and that's why I'm here."
 Paulina Porizkova, quoted in The Sun Sentinel

Universe Itself

Hayden Planetarium (Wikimedia Commons)

"To New Yorkers (and many others who dream about migrating there) this city is not only the center of the Solar System and the Milky Way but the Universe itself, with all of the billions of galaxies and innumerable black holes rotating around Manhattan."
Oleg Svet, The Divine Madness

Inmortal City

"I take it really personally when I see articles saying, 'New York is dead.' It’s New York City. New York will never ever be dead. New York is the most resilient city and it always prevails."
Nicky Hilton, The New York Post