Carnivorous Plant

"New York has swallowed me up like a carnivorous plant swallowing a fly, I have been living a breathless life for fifty days now, here life consists of a series of appointments made a week or a fortnight in advance: lunch, cocktail party, dinner, evening party, these make up the various stages of the day which allow you constantly to meet new people, to make arrangements for other lunches, other dinners, other parties and so on ad infinitum."
Italo Calvino, The Letters of Italo Calvino

Pretending

NYC ferry

"In a city with so many people, a New Yorker would always pretend not to see you when you didn't want to be seen."
Emma Straub, Modern Lovers

Spidey Sense

S shuttle

"If you grow up in New York City and you're paying attention, you have a better spidey sense than anyone else. It prepares you well for the rest of the world. You learn to listen to the hair on the back of your neck."
Lin-Manuel Miranda, Variety

Improbable Love

Stuyvesant Cove Park

"Love in New York is improbable. Those who can't find love first and fast may never find it. Those who are slapped by love each time they step on the subway, walk in the park or wait in a line will always find it but may never attain it. And new loveless keep arriving, they travel here from all over, intoxicated by the grandness, seduced by the possibility. We are a city of heartached strivers, sapped by our own wherewithal."
Justin Nobel, Standing Still in a Concrete Jungle

Intimacy

96th Street subway station

"People think it's easy to be anonymous in New York. It's not. The subway system creates an intimacy that even the coldest New Yorker can't avoid."
Kim Hooper, People Who Knew Me

American Dream

Seventh Avenue

"New York is whatever the hell you want it to be. It's the city of the American Dream, founded by people who flock there and wring every drop of opportunity that flows through it."
Joanne Pittaway, Chess News

Filth

Pixabay

"In New York City, we really live like worms. There is dirt above, below, and on all sides of us. The air is a constant fine mist of dust and soot. Filth is creeping up from every basement. Cockroaches and insects are constantly chewing things into little piles of dirt. Pigeons! Dogs!"
Bob Rosenthal, Cleaning Up New York

Spiritual Home

"New York is, in a way, my spiritual home. It is a city that embraces you the minute you step on its countless curbs, the one that pulses with life, where every pore in your body dances to its endless buzz."
Rasna Warah, Habitat Debate

Never Alone

Midtown Manhattan

"New York is a lonely place. But in New York, you're never alone."
Sarah Hepola, The Morning News

Tourette's

"I'm from New York, so I thought everybody had Tourette's."
Pam Matteson, Comedy Central

Concrete and Ambition

Empire State Building

"Manhattan is concrete and ambition, steam rising from a manhole in winter, a hot blast from a subway grate in summer. Its inner workings grind away at all hours, purring in the name of commerce."
Suzanne Rindell, Three-Martini Lunch

Cool

East Village

"Like many young American idiots, I moved to New York because I wanted to be cool. New York rewards coolness; in fact, I have met at least 17 people in this city who apparently make a living by being cool full time, a vocation that requires its adherents to (a) never actually work, yet still (b) wear stylish neckties."
Chuck Klosterman, The New York Times

Good Ol' Days

Coney Island

"New York is the only place in America that rejects the concept of 'The Good Ol' Days.' In New York, life has always been pretty miserable, and it's slowly not getting any worse."
Dick Wolfsie, Dick Wolfsie's New Book

Saturday in New York

"Saturday in New York was a lovely thing. The city was always bustling with the prospect of adventure and life-altering opportunities."
Suzanne Hayes and ‎Loretta Nyhan, Empire Girls

Projection Screen

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir

"The thing about New York is that it does not have a singular characteristic; it's the most complex city imaginable. I view New York as a giant projection screen and whatever you need you can project onto it."
Milton Glaser, American Ceramics

What People Say

Stuyvesant Town Landing

"People say that New York is the capital of the world. They say that anything you want or need you can get anytime in New York. They say that it can change your life forever, this city. That the world will open up before you once you move here.  I say New York is an island, and it is just as easy to hide here as anywhere else."
Jami Attenberg, The Kept Man

Happy People

Flag on Third Avenue

"The consequence-free nature of giving somebody a shoulder because they're carrying their umbrella too low, and it's only a drizzle, on a crowded street — where else in the world can you get that kind of excitement? That's why everyone in New York is so great. We're a very happy people, because we're constantly dealing with our angst. As soon as we're angry we immediately take it out on a stranger and keep it moving."
Natasha Lyonne, Metro

Shot of Adrenaline

"The sheer energy of the city seeped through her skin and into her veins, like a shot of adrenaline. Here, she could be whoever she wanted to be. She could live her life without being asked how she was feeling twenty-five times a day. In the breathless bustle that was New York City, people were too busy thinking about themselves to have time to think about other people. Interaction skimmed the surface and never went deep."
Sarah Morgan, Sleepless in Manhattan

After September 11

Astor Place

"The only positive thing to happen in New York City after September 11th is on September 12th, every tourist that moved here -- from Maine and Wyoming and Minnesota -- got up on September 12th and stood in front of a video camera and said, 'It's not safe.' No kidding, it's New York City, it's not supposed to be safe. Get the f**k out. Real New Yorkers got up on September 12th and said, 'Hey, is there alternate side of the street parking today?'"
Joey Gay, Comedy Central

Twin Towers

National September 11 Memorial & Museum

"The twin towers still stand because we saw them, moved in and out of their long shadows, were lucky enough to know them for a time. They are a part of the city we carry around."
Colson Whitehead, The New York Times

Good Looks

Dumbo

"New York City loves good looks. You're going there, honey. The streets are lined in dog shit and gold. The nights are filled with music and yearning. The days are worn by toil and disappointment. Dawn is filled with hope and taunted by despair. Dusk carries the weight of success and the drowning pool of failure."
Vera Jane Cook, Dancing Backward in Paradise

New York Successes

The Strand

"You know how New York is. You get a success, and even before you're even allowed to have the success they chop you down and say, 'Well, who does she think she is?' You know, New York is vicious to its successes."

Tama Janowitz, New York Magazine

New York Fashion Week

"New York is a great city to start the Fashion Weeks. I can always feel the great energy that is pulsing in this city all year long; during Fashion Week, I feel it even stronger. The designers are young and energetic or classic and timeless, just like New York itself!"
Iris Strubegger, New York Fashion Week

Rockin'

"The Staten Island Ferry's rockin' all night long
From Soho to Harlem hear 'em singing along
The boys are steppin' out down on Christopher Street
In Bed-Stuy they're rockin' to a new jack beat
Well give our regards to ol' Broadway
'Cause New York is rockin' and it's here to stay."
Curtis Stigers, New York is Rockin'

Gorgeous Mosaic

Ellis Island

"I see New York as a gorgeous mosaic of race and religious faith, of national origin and sexual orientation—of individuals whose families arrived yesterday and generations ago, coming through Ellis Island, or Kennedy Airport, or on Greyhound buses bound for the Port Authority."
David Dinkins, A Mayor's Life

Lost People

"New York is the greatest city in the world to lose yourself in. Because there's all these other lost people too, and you're a part of that. There's that freedom."
Chris Noth, AM New York

Under Your Skin

"There is something about New York, something that words can hardly convey. Whether it's its troubled history, or its ability to attract people from different countries and backgrounds, whether it's its continuous evolution or the inevitable decadency, this city has something that gets inside you, and it stays there, stuck under your skin."
Maurita Cardone, Soul Crime, New York

Opposite Extremes

"New York is the most depressed city in America. And, it is the most electrically active. America is this way. In any place where you find one thing extreme, you will find its opposite extreme."
Jean Toomer, A Jean Toomer Reader

Being New York

North Williamsburg

"New York was being New York. The hot asphalt was steaming, the little dogs were being toted or followed by their eccentrically dressed masters, the clothes were bright and skimpy, the smell was sewer and candied nuts, the newspapers were cracking open at the café tables, the sunglasses were enormous, the scrawls on the walls seemed to vibrate."
Molly Prentiss, Tuesday Nights in 1980

Fatiguing and Enriching

Williamsburg

"Living in New York is lonely and inspiring, fatiguing and enriching. It's not for everyone, but that's the nature of the city."
Rose Byrne, The Guardian