Everyone's Dream

Battery Park

"He'd always dreamed of living in New York -- like every other person in the world."
Joanna Smith Rakoff, A Fortunate Age

Din and Glare

Lexington Avenue and 24th

"I was getting tired of New York — of the city's din of cars and people, and the glare of lights blotting out the stars."
Patti Davis, A House of Secrets

For Masochists

"I like New York. Well, for very well balanced people, it's probably a bad place but for masochists like me, it's OK."
Joseph Brodsky, Joseph Brodsky: Conversations

The Boldness to Dream

West 40th

"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."
Moss Hart, Act One: An Autobiography

Traffic Signals

Fifth Avenue

"Traffic signals in New York are just rough guidelines."
David Letterman, Late Show with David Letterman

Sprinter's City

Central Park Reservoir

"New York was a sprinter's city; one took a deep breath, held it, and ran as fast as one could. Not because there was always danger but because that was the pace."
Howard M. Katz, Love and Marriage

Seeking Anonymity

Willowdell Arch

"In Southern genealogies there is always a mention of a cousin who went to live in New York in 1922 and not another word. One hears that people go to New York to seek their fortunes, but many go to seek just the opposite."
Walker Percy, The Last Gentleman

Taxi and the City

Park Avenue

"Cabs hold a special allure for New Yorkers. Maybe it's the ease of settling into the backseat. Maybe it's the fact that tipsy couples are on their way home to have sex and think of the ride as foreplay."
Amy Braunschweiger, Taxi Confidential

Oz

Manhattan skyline

"Even being in New York, the actual place, I found the idea of New York so wonderful that I could only imagine it as some other place, greater than any place that would let me sleep in it -- a distant constellation of lights I had not yet been allowed to visit. I had arrived in Oz only to think, Well, you don't live in Oz, do you?"
Adam Gopnik, Through the Children's Gate

Debonair City

East River

"When we entered New York harbor the lights were already coming on, glittering like jewels in the hard, clear buildings. The great, debonair city that was both young and old, and wise and innocent."
Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

Rough Impersonality

Penn Station

"I like the rough impersonality of New York, where human relations are oiled by jokes, complaints, and confessions — all made with the assumption of never seeing the other person again."
Bill Bradley, Life on the Run

Explorers

Christopher Columbus statue

"New York is to explorers what Paris is to artists."
Wayne Johnston, The Navigator of New York

Casual Exhibitionism

First Avenue

"One of the perks of living in New York City is the casual exhibitionism."

Neal Caffrey (Matt Bomer), White Collar

The Genius of Brooklyn

Brooklyn Heights

"The genius of Brooklyn has always been its homey atmosphere; it does not set out to awe or intimidate, like skyscraper Manhattan."
Phillip Lopate, Brooklyn Was Mine

Classic Symbol

Empire State Building

"New York is the classic symbol for the modern city, with the Empire State Building, the ultimate icon, summing up all skyscrapers."
Matteo Pericoli, The City Out My Window

Akron

East River Plaza

"New York, once open and free, like a Paris (which she hated because it had so many French people) or a Vienna (her favorite by far) was now another Akron, Ohio. Repressed and boring, but clean."
Leslie Schnur, The Dog Walker

Always Out

Turtle Bay

"New Yorkers are always out. So much to see, so much to do, it's always a disappointment to go back home to the apartment."
Jane Green, Babyville

Apocalyptic Future

West 113th St.

"This is New York City after all. This is the future the anti-utopians warned us about. This is the apocalyptic future in the disguise of the benumbed present."

Jonathan Baumbach, Seven Wives

Lower East Side

Allen Street

"Everybody ought to have a Lower East Side in their life."
Irving Berlin, quoted in Memorable Quotations: Jewish Writers of the Past

Olympics

Riverside Park

"Being in New York was as tiring as walking around with weights on the legs. It was obvious, even after one day, that living there required training. Making it through a month in New York would be the equivalent, for a person of my age and disposition, of competing in the decathlon, in the Olympics of city life."
Larry McMurtry, Somebody's Darling

Wild Life

Madison Square Park

"I like to walk around Manhattan, catching glimpses of its wild life, the pigeons and cats and girls."
Rex Stout, Three Witnesses

Walt Whitman

Conservatory Garden

"He who really touches the soil of Manhattan and the pavement of New York touches, whether he knows it or not, Walt Whitman."
Lewis Mumford, Mumford on Modern Art in the 1930s

Lamppost

A lamppost at Columbia University

"I'd rather be a lamppost in New York City than Mayor of Chicago."
Jimmy Walker, Once Upon a Time in New York

A City that Seems Like Oz

17 State Street (center) 

"Every building in the city seemed to catch the sun and the glittering New York skyline made the city seem like Oz."
Holly Peterson, The Manny

Greatest Show on Earth

Broadway

"Loved or hated, soul-destroying or life-giving, New York City concededly adds up to the greatest show on earth."
Alexander Klein, Empire City

Labyrinth

385 Fifth Avenue

"Is New York such a labyrinth? I thought it was all straight up and down like Fifth Avenue. All the cross streets numbered and big honest labels on everything."
Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer), The Age of Innocence

The Worst Place to Date

Bowery

"New York was a big city, with lots of people, but it was probably the crappiest place in the world to date."
Beth Harbison, Hope in a Jar

New York City is America

Midtown 

"New York City is America  — dynamic, maybe brutal, but always aspiring towards the higher, the better, the impossible."
Van Dinh Tran, Blue Dragon, White Tiger

Transient

West 35th St.

"The thing I love about New York is that you can utterly lose yourself there amidst the clamoring sea of people. It is a transient place with a constant new turnover of creativity, youth and beauty."
Sophie Dahl, Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights

Addictive Place

"The thing about New York is that it's addictive. Once you break the habit, you're all right, but while you're hooked— she smiled warmly at him— watch out!"
Danielle Steel, Palomino

New York Law

Fifth Avenue

"It's a law of New York City: no matter how much money you're making, you're surrounded by people making more."
Bridie Clark, The Overnight Socialite