Best Quotes About New York City
Are you looking for the best quotes about New York City?
New York is one of my favorite cities in the world. The only city that comes close to it as Paris. As a native New Yorker, I can travel all around the world but I’ll always call New York home.
There’s no other city in the world with an energy like New York. It’s diverse, it’s dynamic, and there’s always something happening, giving it one of its (many) nicknames, The City That Never Sleeps.
It’s no surprise that New York has always attracted movers and shakers — artists and musicians, writers and poets, actors and dancers, tastemakers and visionaries. There have been countless movies and TV shows set in New York, songs written about New York, books that take place in New York, the list goes on.
These quotes capture the magic of the city and what makes it so special.
Here’s a look at the best quotes about NYC to inspire you:
Short Quotes About NYC
Getting right to the point, these are the best short quotes about NYC.
“There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.” — Simone Beauvoir
“Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book — and does.” — Groucho Marx
“Make your mark in New York and you are a made man.” — Mark Twain
“One can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.” — Georgia O’Keeffe
“I can make it here, I’ll make it anywhere. It’s up to you, New York, New York.” — Frank Sinatra
“New York is where the future comes to audition.” — Ed Koch
“Give me such shows — give me the streets of Manhattan!” — Walt Whitman
“I can work longer and harder without weariness in New York than anyplace else.” — John Steinbeck
“I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York’s skyline.” — Ayn Rand
“For me, New York is comfortable, not strange.” — Karl Lagerfeld
“It was never built for the comfort and happiness of its citizens, but to astonish the world.” — Susan Ertz
“Cities have sexes: London is a man, Paris a woman, and New York a well-adjusted transsexual.” — Angela Carter
“People go to LA to ‘find themselves’, they come to New York to become someone new.” — Lindsey Kelk
“I wake up every morning and say to myself, ‘Well, I’m still in New York.’ Thank you, God.” — Ed Koch
“I love New York because within its borders you can travel the world.” — Dennis Gonzalez
Medium Quotes About NYC
If you’re looking for more famous NYC quotes, these ones are a little bit longer.
“A hundred times have I thought New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times: It is a beautiful catastrophe.” — Le Corbusier
“Living in California adds ten years to a man’s life. And those extra ten years I’d like to spend in New York.” — Harry Ruby
“The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.”— John Updike
“New Yorkers are born all over the country, and then they come to the city and it strikes them, ‘Oh, this is who I am.'” — Delia Ephron
“Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.” — E.B. White
“When you leave New York, you are astonished at how clean the rest of the world is. Clean is not enough.” — Fran Lebowitz
“You don’t come to live here unless the delusion of a reality shaped around your own desires isn’t a strong aspect of your personality.” — Zadie Smith
“It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.” — Agatha Christie
Long Quotes About NYC
Are you looking for some longer quotes about New York City? These quotes express many sentiments about the city from the perspective of famous writers, actors, artists, musicians, and others.
“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 beauty in the world.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
“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
“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
“I look out the window and I see the lights and the skyline and the people on the street rushing around looking for action, love, and the world’s greatest chocolate chip cookie, and my heart does a little dance.” — Nora Ephron
“My favorite thing about New York is the people, because I think they’re misunderstood. I don’t think people realize how kind New York people are.”— Bill Murray
“New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous. 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 Steinbeck
“It is often said that New York is a city for only the very rich and the very poor. It is less often said that New York is also, at least for those of us who came there from somewhere else, a city for only the very young.” — Joan Didion
“Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud. No other city is so spitefully incoherent.” — James Baldwin
“I believe in New Yorkers. Whether they’ve ever questioned the dream in which they live, I wouldn’t know, because I won’t ever dare ask that question.” — Dylan Thomas
“You can do what you like, sir, but I’ll tell you this. New York is the true capital of America. Every New Yorker knows it, and by God, we always shall.” — Edward Rutherford
“I regret profoundly that I was not an American and not born in Greenwich Village. It might be dying, and there might be a lot of dirt in the air you breathe, but this is where it’s happening.” — John Lennon
“When it’s 100 degrees in New York, it’s 72 in Los Angeles. When it’s 30 degrees in New York, in Los Angeles it’s still 72. However, there are 6 million interesting people in New York, and only 72 in Los Angeles.” — Neil Simon
Best Quotes About New York City
These are the best quotes about New York City to inspire you.
Which of these quotes is your favorite? It’s impossible for me to choose just one, but I’ve always loved this quote from James Baldwin because it sums up how I feel about New York: “Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud.”
There really is no other city in the world like it!
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