Chinese New Year

Mott St.

"Every year when it's Chinese New Year in New York, there are fireworks going off at all hours. New York mothers calm their frightened children by telling them it's just gunfire."
David Letterman, That’s Really Funny

Movie Star

Morningside Heights

"In New York, you are always the star in your own movie."
Simon Barnes, The Meaning of Sport

Time and Friends

Central Perk

"Ain't it great the way it all begins in New York City
Right away, you're making time, and making friends
No one cares where you were yesterday
If they pick you out, you're on your way
To a once upon a time that never ends."
Barry Mann and Howard Ashman, Once Upon a Time in New York City, Oliver and Company

Powerful Drug

"New York is a powerful drug that insulates you if you want, protects you from the sad jewel of loneliness, fills you with emanations from outside your own room."
Andy Summers, One Train Later

New York in the Winter

Bow Bridge

"There's nothing more wonderful than New York City in the winter -- except the view of New York City through your apartment window."
Ted Mosby (Bob Saget), How I Met Your Mother

Neighbourliness

Third Avenue

"Neighbourliness is, I think, the right term for New York, and it is found at its most piquant in Manhattan. After all, this borough which is not even a city complete in itself contrives to be the capital of the world."
Anthony Burgess, New York (Time-Life The Great Cities)

Rush Hour

"New Yorkers don't stroll. Even on the weekend, it was constant rush hour. Pushing and shoving was just another way of saying, 'Get the hell out of my way or I'll kill you.'"
Terry Phillips, Murder at the Altar

Flock

Greeenpoint Landing

"New York is where the extraordinary flock."
Eliot Schrefer, Glamorous Disasters

Real New Yorkers

JFK Airport

"Real New Yorkers are obsessed with the idea of leaving New York. A true New Yorker is one who's consumed by thoughts of how to get out of the city. Fixated by how to get away."
Lily Brett, New York

Snow Blanket

Bethesda Terrace

"It's beautiful, but under a blanket of snow, New York would become even more so, turning twinkly and old-timey. This concrete mess with towers sprouting like beanstalks, with subways zigzagging and crowded streets teeming with grime – all of it would be obliterated."
Dagmara Dominczyk, Lullaby of Polish Girls

Commonplace Beauty

"New York is the kind of place where beauty is so commonplace, so taken for granted, that people don't look anymore like they're enjoying it. They look sick in their nice clothes. Pasty, ill-fed, drunk on bad coffee, seething."
Charlie LeDuff, US Guys

Jealous Lover

"People aren't kidding when they say New York is like a jealous lover. It'll rip your heart out then throw it in front of a speeding cab because it knows nothing can replace it."
Andrea Duchon, The Huffington Post

Great Wheel

"Life in New York is like a great wheel, rolling very fast, and if we do not go at the same tempo, we are run over."
Hólmfríður Árnadóttir, When I Was a Girl in Iceland

Radio Requests

East Village

"New York: the only city where people make radio requests like 'This is for Tina — I'm sorry I stabbed you.'"
Carol Leifer, The Great American Bathroom Reader

Boxing Match

Joe Louis Plaza

"New York's like a boxing match. In Hollywood, it's like a Fellini movie or something."
John Cusack, quoted in The Ultimate Book of Boxing Lists

Always the Center

"Manhattan will always be the center of the universe. It's where deals are done, stars are born, legends—and fortunes—are made."
Kate Sekules, Fodor's 25 Best New York

Wedding Cake

"In winter, when the darkness always comes before you expect it and all those lights begin to pinch through the stale mist, New York becomes a gigantic wedding cake."
Don DeLillo, Americana

Only Place Worth Living In

Worth Square

"How delightful it is to get back to a pure atmosphere — a clear sky — a brilliant firmament — a place of freedom and security, where the soul can always soar to heaven and the heart leap with ecstasy upon the future! After trying and testing London, Paris, and other European capitals, it is a settled axiom in our philosophy that New York is the only place worth living in."
James Gordon Bennett, Memoirs of James Gordon Bennett and His Times

Shoved

Union Square subway station

"New York is the place where if you have talent, and you believe in yourself, and you show people what you can do, then some day, maybe - just maybe - you could get shoved in front of a moving subway train."
Dave Barry, The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners

Blunt New Yorkers

"New Yorkers don't give a fuck. They're not starstruck. They'll tell you if they think you're the bomb. They'll tell you if they think you're wack."
Ice-T, Ice: A Memoir of Gangster Life and Redemption-from South Central to Hollywood

Collision

Gramercy Park North

"Cities give us collision. 'Tis said London and New York take the nonsense out of a man."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted in Forty Thousand Quotations

Middle of the Universe

"I love this amazing city that works very hard and produces the best. It's just such a big ongoing project, this city. I love being able to walk downstairs and find myself in the middle of the universe. Did I say I love this place?"
Viktor Koen, Weird Tales 351

Pick Up

East 59th

"I come from New York, where if you fall down, someone will pick you up by your wallet."
Al McGuire, Sportswit

Beyond America

United Nations

"It's true that what you find in New York is something other than America. Only small towns and small countries are self-satisfied, a real capital goes beyond its borders."
Simone De Beauvoir, quoted in 1001 Greatest Things Ever Said About New York

New York Cockroaches

Park Avenue South

"Everyone has something to learn from New York cockroaches -- how to survive."
James Earl Jones, New York Magazine

Jockstrap

Mural on Lafayette Street

"Some call New York a jungle. It's not. It's a big jockstrap. It supports the men."
Gail Parent, Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York

Ethnic Diversity

Chinatown

"New York is truly a city of ethnic diversity, but I don't have much occasion or desire to hang around with the ethnics."
Nelson DeMille, The Gold Coast

Transsexual

"Cities have sexes: London is a man, Paris a woman, and New York a well-adjusted transsexual."
Angela Carter, Words from the Wise

New York Winter

"I've discovered a delightful thing about winter in New York. When a bum throws up on you, you can chip it off."
Richard (Malcolm Gets), Caroline in the City

Where the Mad Roam Free

"In New York, the mad have been set free. Let out into the city, they are difficult to tell apart from the rest of the punks, junkies, addicts, winos, or down and outs who inhabit it."
Jean Baudrillard, America 

New York Winds

"The thing about New York is that once you are exposed to its winds, you can never leave this place, even if you end up dying in the street."
Nagai Kafu, American Stories