“New York - that unnatural city where every one is an exile, none more so than the American”

“No place epitomizes the American experience and the American spirit more than New York City.”

“By '95 - in New York, alone - more Americans had died of AIDS than were killed in Vietnam.”

“The sixteen hundred dairies in California’s Central Valley alone produce more waste than a city of twenty-one million people-that’s more than the populations of London, New York, and Chicago combined.”

“According to the 2003 data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 25.8 percent of [New Orleans] population lives below the poverty line... This is more than twice the national average, but is close tot he percentages in other American cities such as Miami (28.5), Los Angeles (22.1), Atlanta (24.4), and New York City (21.2). ”

“It was Night. In most places, Night is a time for sleep, for calm, and for mystery. But not in New York City, where many things conspired every evening to murder the night.”