“Don't you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here.”

“If you live in New York, even if you're Catholic, you're Jewish”

“Even if you are Catholic, if you live in New York you're Jewish. If you live in Butte, Montana, you are going to be goyish even if you are Jewish.”

“New York is a different country. Maybe it ought to have a separate government. Everybody thinks differently, they just don't know what the hell the rest of the United States is.”

“I don't know about the rest of the country but in New York more people have learned anonymity from rent control than ever discovered it in a twelve-step program.”

“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, 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.”