I Hate New York

Favorite New York Quotes, Volume XV

Q. What makes someone a New Yorker?
A. When you complain about living here on a regular basis, but can't imagine living anywhere else.

Melissa Febos (no idea who this chick is) for New York Magazine's 21 Questions

Mystery & Beauty

Favorite New York Quotes, Volume XIV

"The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world." - F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby

Friends of the...

Favorite New York Quotes, Volume XIII

"The elevated freight rail line, the High Line—the remaining portion is today a stunning linear park above street level—had run through the parcels and been partially dismantled." - Anthony Flint in Wrestling with Moses

The High Line is stunning, and it stuns me to think that I have been an occupant of this city long enough to see it through to the end. Reading that line just now was like a timely moment of clarity, a proverbial punch to the head. I really do live here.

New York + Weather

Favorite New York Quotes, Volume XII

"new york city's demeanor as a whole just gets better when the weather does. i like it."

Pete Wentz, on his Twitter

What Makes Someone a New Yorker?

Favorite New York Quotes, Volume XI

Q. What makes someone a New Yorker?
A. The feeling that you couldn’t live anywhere else.

Janeane Garofalo for New York Magazine's 21 Questions

At The End of the Day

Favorite New York Quotes, Volume X

"At the end of the day, you have to go back to Brooklyn. And I know Brooklyn is very fancy now, but I mean home. You have to go back to reality. You have to go back to nothing in order to maintain the dream." Albert Elbaz, "Ladies' Man" in The New Yorker (Volume LXXXV, NO. 5, March 16, 2009) by Ariel Levy.

I mostly only like this one because I read it on the plane back to Brooklyn from vacation in San Francisco. I really didn't want to go back.

Stay in New York

Favorite New York Quotes, Volume IX

"Stay in New York or perish." Noel in the pilot episode of Felicity

I'm Going Back to New York City

Favorite New York Quotes, Volume VIII.

"I'm going back to New York City / I do believe I've had enough." Bob Dylan in "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" but I really only like this one when Neil Young sings it.

What's Your Favorite Place Ever?

Favorite New York Quotes, Volume VII.

"'What do you want to do?'

'I don’t know. What’s your favorite place ever? In the whole city, I mean.'

'My favorite place ever in the whole city?'

'Right.'

'Including the boroughs?'

'Don’t tell me it’s in Brooklyn. That’s awfully disappointing.'

'Not Brooklyn,' Sammy said. 'Queens.'

'Worse still.'

'Only it isn’t there anymore, my favorite place. They closed it. Packed it up and rolled it right it right out of town.'

'The fair,' Bacon said. He shook his head. 'You and that Fair.'"

Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

...Quite Simply, I was in Love with New York

Favorite New York Quotes, Volume VI.

"...quite simply, I was in love with New York. I do not mean 'love' in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you and never love anyone quite that way again." Joan Didion, "Goodbye to All That" in Slouching Towards Bethlehem

I Can Remember Now

Favorite New York Quotes, Volume V.

"I can remember now, with a clarity that makes the nerves in the back of my neck constrict, when New York began for me, but I cannot lay my finger upon the moment it ended, can never cut through the ambiguities and second starts and broken resolves to the exact place on the page where the heroine is no longer as optimistic as she once was." Joan Didion, "Goodbye to All That" in Slouching Towards Bethlehem

In NY, a Stranger is an Enemy...

Favorite New York Quotes, Volume IV.

"In Calif., a stranger is a [potential] friend until he proves otherwise; in NY, a stranger is an enemy until he proves otherwise. One uses up a lot of energy in NY by that hypothesis." Susan Sontag in her journals.

The City's a Disaster

Favorite New York Quotes, Volume III.

"The city's a disaster, Luke. It's not like it used to be. It's plastic. One big fucking happy meal." Dr. Squires played by (Sir) Ben Kingsley in The Wackness

New York is Not Beautiful

Favorite New York Quotes, Volume II.

"New York is not beautiful, and if it stimulates our practical activities, it also wounds our sense of happiness." Le Corbusier, The City of To-morrow and Its Planning

New York City is Fated Always to Remain My Home

Favorite New York Quotes, Volume I.

“New York is neither the Wonder City nor a half-populated ruin but a vulnerable, overcrowded, anxious, half-deluded, all-too-human town, shaken by a cataclysm nobody could have foreseen. I don’t live there anymore, and I have trouble going there and walking around because the streets are too haunted by the ghosts of my own history. I wasn’t born in New York, and I may never live there again, and just thinking about it makes me melancholy, but I was changed forever by it, and my imagination is manacled to it, and I wear its mark the way you wear a scar. Whatever happens, whether I like it or not, New York City is fated always to remain my home.” Luc Sante, Kill All Your Darlings