New Yorkers Quotes

• The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.

  John Updike

  New York, Believe, People

  FaceBook post by John Updike from Dec 31, 2013

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• I love New York, even though it isn't mine, the way something has to be, a tree or a street or a house, something, anyway, that belongs to me because I belong to it.

  Truman Capote

  New York, House, Tree

  Truman Capote (2012). “Breakfast at Tiffany's”, p.84, Vintage

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• Everybody ought to have a lower East Side in their life.

  Irving Berlin

  Music, New York, East Berlin

  "Vogue" Magazine, November 1, 1962.

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• There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Travel, New York, Sleep

  Simone de Beauvoir (2000). “America Day by Day”, p.18, Univ of California Press

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• New York now leads the world's great cities in the number of people around whom you shouldn't make a sudden move.

  David Letterman

  New York, Moving, Cities

  "Late Show with David Letterman", February 9, 1984.

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• New York is the only city in the world where you can get run down on the sidewalk by a pedestrian.

  Russell Baker

  Running, New York, Cities

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• Traffic signals in New York are just rough guidelines.

  David Letterman

  Funny, Sarcastic, New York

  "Late Show with David Letterman",

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• New York is an exciting town where something is happening all the time, most unsolved.

  Johnny Carson

  Funny, Time, New York

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• I'm a New Yorker, and I jaywalk with the best of them.

  Sonia Sotomayor

  Sonia Sotomayor (2013). “My Beloved World”, Vintage

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• At first, writing for The New Yorker was very scary to me. I couldn't imagine anything that I would write in that typeface.

  David Sedaris

  Writing, Scary, Firsts

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• My parents put the New Yorker in my crib. I saw Vogue and Vanity Fair around the house before I could read.

  Richard Avedon

  Vanity, House, Parent

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• A friend said to me I'm like a walking New Yorker article. It's true! That's how I write. That's how I think.

  Jose Antonio Vargas

  Writing, Thinking, Said

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• When the New Yorker turned down work, they turned it down in such an elaborately gentlemanly way making apologies for their own shortsightedness. Undoubtedly it was their fault but somehow for some reason this fell short of the remarkably high standard that you by your own work have set for yourself. They had a way of rejecting my work that made me feel sorry for them somehow.

  Garrison Keillor

  Sorry, Apology, Way

  "Humor has to surprise us, otherwise it isn't funny". Interview with George Plimpton, blankonblank.org. November 28, 1994.

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• I love the honesty of New Yorkers. When a New Yorker says 'let's do lunch,' they actually mean it. In L.A., when they say 'let's do lunch,' they're just trying to say good-bye.

  Sherri Shepherd

  Goodbye, Honesty, Mean

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• By comparison with other less hectic days, the city is unconfortable and inconvenient; but New Yorkers tempramentally do not crave comfort and convenience - if they did they would live elsewhere.

  E. B. White

  Cities, Comfort, Convenience

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• Every returning New Yorker asks the question: Is this still my city? I have a ready answer, cloaked in obstinate despair: It is. And if it's not, I will love it all the more. I will love it to the point where it becomes mine again.

  Gary Shteyngart

  Cities, Despair, Answers

  Gary Shteyngart (2010). “Super Sad True Love Story”, p.82, Granta Books

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• I'm going to do whatever I have to do to help a New Yorker, whether it's a girl on the street or a tenant in a housing development.

  Christine Quinn

  Girl, Development, Helping

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• I get nostalgic for British negativity. There is an inherent hope and positive drive to New Yorkers. When you go back to Britain, everybody is just running everything down. It's like whatever the opposite of a hug is.

  John Oliver

  Running, Opposites, Negativity

  "Guest Host John Oliver Will Try Not to Destroy 'The Daily Show'". Interview with Marisa Guthrie, www.hollywoodreporter.com. May 31, 2013.

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• In a subway car, my skin would typically fall in the middle of the color spectrum. On street corners, tourists would ask me for directions. I was, in four and a half years, never an American; I was immediately a New Yorker.

  Mohsin Hamid

  Fall, Color, Years

  Mohsin Hamid (2008). “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”, p.27, Penguin UK

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• There is an inherent hope and positive drive to New Yorkers.

  John Oliver

  Inherent

  "Guest Host John Oliver Will Try Not to Destroy 'The Daily Show'". Interview with Marisa Guthrie, www.hollywoodreporter.com. May 31, 2013.

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• Anybody that I can work with that will help improve the lives of New Yorkers, I will work with that person.

  Christine Quinn

  Helping, Persons, I Can

  "Christine Quinn, Gay NYC Mayoral Candidate, Says LGBT Community Is Behind Her" by Michelangelo Signorile, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 15, 2013.

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• Commas in The New Yorker fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.

  E. B. White

  Fall, Writing, Knives

  E. B. White (2011). “In the Words of E.B. White: Quotations from America's Most Companionable of Writers”, p.159, Cornell University Press

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• New York lost a classic. Carmine was an old school New Yorker.

  Anthony Weiner

  New York, School, Classic

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• Depending on where you live, your threat is much different from the other person. If you ask a New Yorker today, because of the way the press plays it, he will say terrorism is his biggest fear. But for somebody living on a small island state, then it is climate change, the rise of the sea level, for his whole island may be washed away. If I go to southern Africa, they tell me it is HIV/AIDS and somewhere in Asia it is poverty. This is also why you will find it difficult to find agreements, because if you want someone to be concerned about your threat, then you should be concerned about his.

  Kofi Annan

  Agreement, Sea, Play

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• In the summer New York was the only place in which one could escape from New Yorkers.

  Edith Wharton

  Summer, New York

  Edith Wharton (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Edith Wharton (Illustrated)”, p.1665, Delphi Classics

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