“I prayed for the city to be cleared of people, for the gift of being alone—a-l-o-n-e: which is the one New York prayer that rarely gets lost or delayed in channels, and in no time at all everything I touched turned to solid loneliness.”

“On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy.... No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.”

“Mammon, n. The god of the world's leading religion. His chief temple is in the city of New York”

“In compulsively keeping myself out of view, I was participating, without realizing it, in a rich New York tradition. Loners and shut-ins and hermits are what keep New York City from imploding. If all the people who never leave their apartments in New York City suddenly left their apartments, the city's infrastructure would crumble.”

“New York City in life was much like New York City in death. It was still hard to get a cab, for example.”

“I think of New York City lost in starsforgotten as a blue haired pet of childhood love Tonight the night is full;”