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

Ring Cycle

"Everything in New York is like the Ring Cycle. Everything in New York is an operatic thing. It’s incredible problems. So you realize that it’s just so hard to live in New York, that when people say, ‘Why do you live in New York?’ you really can’t answer them. Except you know that you have contempt for people who don’t have the guts to do it."
Fran Lebowitz, Pretend It's a City

How to Afford to Live in New York

"No one can afford to live in New York. Yet, eight million people do. How do we do this? We don’t know. It’s a mystery to us. We don’t have a clue. We don’t know but we’re still here. So you can come here without knowing how you’re going to live here and somehow you will do enough things to live here. It’s as simple as that."
Fran Lebowitz, Pretend It's a City

New York is Here to Stay

"New York City is not going down the drain. New York City is here to stay and it's still the greatest city in the world."
Abraham Beame, Pretend It's a City