The city of New York leaves no one indifferent. You either love it or hate it—there’s no in-between. Some well-known figures have also shared their opinions about the Big Apple. What did American writer Mark Twain and British author Agatha Christie have to say about New York?
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16 Quotes About New York City
“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.”
– Frank Sinatra, American singer and actor (in the song New York, New York)
“I get out of the taxi and it’s probably the only city which in reality looks better than on the postcards, New York.”
— Miloš Forman, Czech-American film director
“It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.”
— Agatha Christie, British crime novelist
“Living in California adds ten years to a man’s life. And those extra ten years I’d like to spent in New York.”
— Harry Ruby, American pianist, composer, songwriter and screenwriter
“Anything is possible. This is New York.”
— Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City (TV Series)
“In New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there’s nothing you can’t do. Now you’re in New York, these streets will make you feel brand new, the lights will inspire you. Let’s hear it for New York, New York, New York.”
— Alicia Keys, Empire State Of Mind
“One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.”
— Tom Wolfe, American journalist and author
“I go to Paris, I go to London, I go to Rome, and I always say, ‘There’s no place like New York. It’s the most exciting city in the world now. That’s the way it is. That’s it.”
— Robert de Niro, American actor
“Make your mark in New York and you are a made man.”
— Mark Twain, American writer
“There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.”
— Simone de Beauvoir, French writer and philosopher
“London is satisfied, Paris is resigned, but New York is always hopeful. Always it believes that something good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it.”
— Dorothy Parker, American poet and writer
“When it’s 100°F in New York, it’s 72°F in Los Angeles. When it’s 30°F in New York, in Los Angeles it’s still 72°F. However, there are 6 million interesting people in New York, and only 72 in Los Angeles.”
— Neil Simon, American playwright, screenwriter and author
“I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York’s skyline.”
— Ayn Rand, Russian-born American writer and philosopher
“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.”
— Francis Scott Fitzgerald, American novelist and essayist (in the novel The Great Gatsby)
“But there is one thing about it – once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough.”
— John Ernst Steinbeck, American writer
“And New York is the most beautiful city in the world? It is not far from it. No urban nights are like the night there.
I have looked down across the city from high windows. It is then that the great buildings lose reality and take on their magical powers. They are immaterial – that is to say, one sees but the lighted windows. Squares after squares of flame, set and cut into the Aether.
Here is our poetry, for we have pulled down the stars to our will.”
— Ezra Weston Loomis Pound, American poet and critic
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