Something's About to Happen

"I like it when it snows. The city gets real quiet. Everything goes still, all the noise stops. It feels like something's about to happen."
Eugene Hunt (Ron Silver), Blue Steel

No Place Like New York City

"The insanity, the constant frustration, the worries, and dark moments are worth it. Every now and then, you walk up out of the subway on some night of perfect weather and the buildings, the lights, the pretty, stylish girls and the boys affecting an attitude hard enough to deserve the city and the girls strikes you. The magic that exists now existed in 1993; it probably existed in 1893. It’s New York City. And there is no place like it on the face of the earth."
David Marcus, The Federalist

Seclusion in New York

"One man talked to me who knew Garbo, who lived then in New York in seclusion; I don't blame her – anyway, everyone lives in seclusion in New York."
Nico, Nico: The Life and Lies of an Icon

Helpful New Yorkers

Broadway

"If you are confused ask somebody. New Yorkers are very helpful. However, the first person you ask will give you the wrong answer. So ask loudly enough that others will overhear and make corrections. New Yorkers love to correct each other."
George Weller, quoted in New York: The Big Apple Quote Book

Ambivalence

South End Avenue

"I live in harmony with the ambivalence of New York: it's a huge metropolis, and people project onto it their fantasies of success and try to look away from the threats of its underside."
Ernestine Bradley, The Way Home

If You Can't Say Something Nice

Lower East Side

"For generations --since long before the great cities of this country became associated in the public mind with their problems rather than their wonders-- New Yorkers have believed in the old saying that they learn at their mother's knee: 'If you can't say something nice, you're never in danger of being taken for an out-of-towner.'"
Calvin Trillin,  The Subway Chronicles