Favorite Child

"New York, I thought, is obviously humanity's favourite child. It's the best. Every parent says they don't have a favourite child, but they lie; and everyone pretends that other cities have a chance of catching up with New York, but they don't."
Caitlin Moran, How to Be Famous

Traffic in New York

Manhattan (Pixabay)

"The traffic in New York is unbelievable, a living entity that materializes at the first light of dawn and keeps the city in check, holding it in its paralyzing grip, asphyxiating with its polluting breath and deafening with the cacophony of engines and and horns. Only in the evening does the monster shrink and disappear, and with the streets almost deserted, the city seems to sigh with relief."
Raffaella Bossi, The Lawyer & the Coronel

Brooklyn Heights

Brooklyn Heights (Wikimedia Commons)

"The neighborhood was called Brooklyn Heights, and she was still undiscovered, a little nicked up and past her prime, but beautiful, with a sort of silver-haired grace. The brownstones and brick buildings spoke of time and endurance, the old slate sidewalks and the trees arching over  the streets gave the place an air of solidity and permanence that Manhattan's steel and glass towers could never duplicate."
Norman Green, The Angel of Montague Street

A Gift

"If there’s one thing I learned at the beginning for the pandemic, it’s that owning a tiger sanctuary is harder than it seems. If there’s a second thing, it’s that living any part of your life in New York is a gift."
Stephen Colbert, We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert

Foreign Country

"New York is like a foreign country in itself. For the first two weeks I was thrown, but it took time and after being there for so long I feel like I’m at home. I love it so much. It’s just the age that I’m at because it’s so high energy and the shopping’s awesome and I’ve made friends there. At first, I didn’t know anyone and I was scared."
Britney Spears, Variety

Sense of Life

"What I will always love about New York City is its resilience, energy, and constant sense of life. I moved here five years ago and I fell in love; I felt right at home. Nothing can take away the strength and power this city possesses."
Rubina Dyan, Fashion Week Daily 

New York City Rocks

"I love New York City more than anywhere else in the world because whenever you're somewhere and it's not New York City, you're like 'OK, this sucks,' but then when you get back to New York City, you're like, 'OK. This rocks.' Does that make any sense?"
Catherine Cohen, NYC Next

Black and White Photograph

Manhattan (Pixabay)

"New York is a photograph in black and white. There is color, but it is always subject to the controlling continuum. There is black, white, and a million shades of gray: green grays, red grays, yellow grays, black grays, white grays, infinite grays. I have become part of the monochrome universe."
A.R. Elia, Telegraph

Midnight Oil

 

 

"New York is a harbor
They’re working hard on West 74th
To find some beds
A free lawyer
The midnight oil burns like a torch
It’s New York, it’s New York, it’s New York."
Dar Williams, New York is a Harbor

Unique Dreamers

"While I doubt anyone would argue that New York is the friendliest city, I would confidently state that once you break down the hard exterior, New York is filled with the most magical and unique dreamers out there. A New Yorker is gritty, and we love it."
Jessa Chargois, Chill Times

New York Smell

Manhattan (Pixabay)

"New York is the only city in the world where you can be awakened by a smell."
Jeff Garland, quoted in Get-a-grip New York, Book II

Never Alone

"My favorite part about living in New York is you’re never alone. You can be completely anonymous, you can eat alone, you can walk alone, you can shop alone, and you never feel alone. This city is your neighbor, this city is your family."
Stephanie Ruhle, Variety

Transitory Kind of Place

"New York is a transitory kind of place, everybody goes there looking for something, it draws very ambitious people. But to live there, the apartments are pretty manky — even nice apartments, there is something weird about them. Like the washing machine is in the bedroom or something. People don’t believe me when I say that."
Maeve Higgins, Irish Examiner

Opportunities in New York

Sign on West 14th

" A city like New York is pretty demanding and competitive, but with such a dymatic economy, the truth is that it also offers many opportunities for those willing to accept its challenges."

Emilio Pérez, Traveler

Nobody is Watching

 

 

"It's an astonishment to me that every day, tens of thousands of people aren’t slaughtered on the streets of New York. I don't know why this happens. It is an amazing thing because there are millions of people. The only person looking where she is going is me. I'm the one person in the whole city who's watching I'm going."
Fran Lebowitz, Pretend It's a City

Always Enticing

"New York is always enticing—so many neighborhoods, so many markets, and so much cool stuff in New York. I’m always looking around."
John DeLucie, Interview Magazine

New York Waking Up

"I love New York. I always have. I especially love New Yok right as it wakes up, the way the sun claws its way between the cracks and crevices of skyscrapers and apartment buildings and no building has yet been built tall enough to scrape the sun out of the sky. Not even in New York. Not yet."
Whoopi Goldberg, Vogue

Buyer Beware

Manhattan Mall (Wikimedia Commons)

"Be warned: New York is still the magic town, the beckoning metropolis, the mighty citadel of power. And the younger you are, the more potent is its spell. Caveat emptor."
Faye Hammel, Frommer's New York '91

Subway Ninja

 

 

"There is no 'normal' in New York City. I grew up in a small town where everyone was white and Christian and Giovanni's Italian restaurant was considered ethnic food. I want my children to be exposed to social, economic, and cultural diversity. I like it when my five-year-old asks me if a woman in a burka on the subway is a ninja."

Jim Gaffigan, Dad is Fat

Un-ignorant

"I loved growing up in the city. You do get to see, especially in New York City, such a variety of people, such a variety of worlds, and I love that. I want that for my daughter—I say her because she’s the oldest, but I want both my kids to see people from all walks of life, and have acceptance for them. You get un-ignorant real quick when you live in New York."
Jemima Kirke, Gothamist

New York Tough

 

"Because we are New York tough
You have to be tough
This place makes you tough
And I love New York
Because New York loves you."
DJ Rob Dinero, New York is My City

Best of Times and Worst of Times

"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Seems Dickens knew something about life on the Upper East Side, where the only thing you can count on is that time changes everything."
Narrator (Kristen Bell), Gossip Girl