Manhattan Quotes

“There's no luck in business. There's only drive, determination, and more drive.”
― Sophie Kinsella, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan

“People who want to make a million borrow a million first”
― Sophie Kinsella, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan

“THE LUXE IS . . .
Pretty girls in pretty dresses, partying until dawn.
Irresistible boys with mischievous smiles and dangerous intentions.
White lies, dark secrets, and scandalous hookups.
This is Manhattan in 1899.”
― Anna Godbersen

“That's the trouble with having the whole world love you. One day, you wake up and it's flirting with your best friend instead. And you don't know what to do. You're thrown.”
― Sophie Kinsella, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan

“If you’re purely after facts, please buy yourself the phone directory of Manhattan. It has four million times correct facts. But it doesn’t illuminate.”
― Werner Herzog

“[H]e could see the island of Manhattan off to the left. The towers were jammed together so tightly, he could feel the mass and stupendous weight.Just think of the millions, from all over the globe, who yearned to be on that island, in those towers, in those narrow streets! There it was, the Rome, the Paris, the London of the twentieth century, the city of ambition, the dense magnetic rock, the irresistible destination of all those who insist on being where things are happening-and he was among the victors!”
― Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities

“Manhattan in the morning is a living stream of Purpose; everyone's got a place to be and a problem on their mind. That doesn't mean it's and unfriendly place -- just busy and preoccupied. Personally, I love it. I'm a social creature but there are times and places you just don't want to do more than grunt at your fellow human being.”
― laura anne gilman

“Look at us. We build giant highways and murderously fast cars for killing each other and committing suicide. Instead of bomb shelters we construct gigantic frail glass buildings all over Manhattan at Ground Zero, a thousand feet high, open to the sky, life a woman undressing before an intruder and provoking him to rape her. We ring Russia's borders with missile-launching pads, and then scream that she's threatening us. In all history there's never been a more lurid mass example of the sadist-masochist expression of the thanatos instinct than the present conduct of the United States. The Nazis by comparison were Eagle Scouts.”
― Herman Wouk, Don't Stop the Carnival

“In lower Manhattan there is an improbable point where Waverly Place intersects Waverly Place. It was there that I met Veronica, on a snowy, windy night.”
― Nicholas Christopher

“Reading his autobiography many years later, I was astonished to find that Edward since boyhood had—not unlike Isaiah Berlin—often felt himself ungainly and ill-favored and awkward in bearing. He had always seemed to me quite the reverse: a touch dandyish perhaps but—as the saying goes—perfectly secure in his masculinity. On one occasion, after lunch in Georgetown, he took me with him to a renowned local tobacconist and asked to do something I had never witnessed before: 'try on' a pipe. In case you ever wish to do this, here is the form: a solemn assistant produces a plastic envelope and fits it over the amber or ivory mouthpiece. You then clamp your teeth down to feel if the 'fit' and weight are easy to your jaw. If not, then repeat with various stems until your browsing is complete. In those days I could have inhaled ten cigarettes and drunk three Tanqueray martinis in the time spent on such flaneur flippancy, but I admired the commitment to smoking nonetheless. Taking coffee with him once in a shopping mall in Stanford, I saw him suddenly register something over my shoulder. It was a ladies' dress shop. He excused himself and dashed in, to emerge soon after with some fashionable and costly looking bags. 'Mariam,' he said as if by way of explanation, 'has never worn anything that I have not bought for her.' On another occasion in Manhattan, after acting as a magnificent, encyclopedic guide around the gorgeous Andalusia (Al-Andalus) exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, he was giving lunch to Carol and to me when she noticed that her purse had been lost or stolen. At once, he was at her service, not only suggesting shops in the vicinity where a replacement might be found, but also offering to be her guide and advisor until she had selected a suitable new sac à main. I could no more have proposed myself for such an expedition than suggested myself as a cosmonaut, so what this says about my own heterosexual confidence I leave to others.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“Manhattan can act as a giant suction cup, sucking you into its folds. The city breeds no wimps and makes no apologies.”
― Kate Rockland, Falling Is Like This

“She found Jamie standing on that corner, probably one of the most civilized street corners in the whole world, consulting a compass and announcing that when they turned left, they would be heading 'due northwest.' Claudia was tired and cold at the tips; her fingers, her toes, her nose were all cold while the rest of her was perspiring under the weight of her winter clothes. She never liked feeling either very hot or very cold, and she hated feeling both at the same time. 'Head due northwest. Head due northwest,' she mimicked. 'Can't you simply say turn right or turn left as everyone else does? Who do you think you are? Daniel Boone? I'll bet no one's used a compass in Manhattan since Henry Hudson.”
― E.L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

“It made her smile a little at how fitting it was to think that an entrance to Hades could be somewhere in the financial district of Manhattan.”
― David Berger

“Juet's journal frequently records how only a tiny quantity of alcohol was needed to get the Indians drunk, 'for they could not take it'; and tales of the drunkenness that greeted Hudsons' arrival persisted among the native Indians until the last century. Indeed Heckewelder claims that the name Manhattan is derived from the drunkenness that took place there, since the Indian word 'manahactanienk' means 'the island of general intoxication'.”
― Giles Milton, Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History

“Aloof, as if looking through thick glass into an aquarium, she watched faces, fruit in storewindows, cans of vegetables, jars of olives, redhotpokerplants in a florist's, newspapers, electric signs drifting by. When they passed cross-streets a puff of air came in her face off the river. Sudden jetbright glances of eyes under straw hats, attitudes of chins, thick lips, pouting lips, Cupid's bows, hungry shadow under cheekbones, faces of girls and young men nuzzled fluttering against her like moths as she walked with her stride even to his through the tingling yellow night.”
― John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer

“And don't forget this, if a man's a success in New York, he's a success!”
― John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer

“Maybe Manhattan is purgatory.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo

“I imagine many urban dwellers love this feeling, that moment when you step out of your building and whatever has preoccupied you goes flapping away like a burst of pigeons rising all at once, wing and wind carrying them out into this pulsing, indifferent life.”
― Mark Doty, What Is the Grass: Walt Whitman in My Life

“For four hours, Andrew and I were presented with course after course of delightful creations, imaginative pairings, and, always, dramatic presentations. Little fillets of sturgeon arrived under a glass dome, after which it was lifted, applewood smoke billowed out across the table. Pretzel bread, cheese, and ale, meant to evoke a picnic in Central Park, was delivered in a picnic basket. But my favorite dish was the carrot tartare.
The idea came, along with many of the menu's other courses, while researching reflecting upon New York's classic restaurants. From 21 Club to Four Seasons, once upon a time, every establishment offered a signature steak tartare. "What's our tartare?" Will and Daniel wondered. They kept playing with formulas and recipes and coming close to something special, but it never quite had the wow factor they were looking for. One day after Daniel returned from Paffenroth Gardens, a farm in the Hudson Valley with the rich muck soil that yields incredibly flavorful root vegetables, they had a moment. In his perfect Swiss accent, he said, "What if we used carrots?" Will remembers. And so carrot tartare, a sublime ode to the humble vegetable, was added to the Eleven Madison Park tasting course.
"I love that moment when you clamp a meat grinder onto the table and people expect it to be meat, and it's not," Will gushes of the theatrical table side presentation. After the vibrant carrots are ground by the server, they're turned over to you along with a palette of ingredients with which to mix and play: pickled mustard seeds, quail egg yolk, pea mustard, smoked bluefish, spicy vinaigrette. It was one of the most enlightening yet simple dishes I've ever had. I didn't know exactly which combination of ingredients I mixed, adding a little of this and a little of that, but every bite I created was fresh, bright, and ringing with flavor. Carrots- who knew?”
― Amy Thomas, Brooklyn in Love: A Delicious Memoir of Food, Family, and Finding Yourself

“Thus, no matter where you live in New York City, you will find within a block or two a grocery store, a barbershop, a newsstand and shoeshine shack, an ice-coal-and-wood cellar (where you write your order on a pad outside as you walk by), a dry cleaner, a laundry, a delicatessen (beer and sandwiches delivered at any hour to your door), a flower shop, an undertaker's parlor, a movie house, a radio-repair shop, a stationer, a haberdasher, a tailor, a drug-store, a garage, a tearoom, a saloon, a hardware store, a liquor store, a shoe-repair shop. Every block or two, in most residential sections of New York, is a little main street. A man starts for work in the morning and before he has gone two hundred yards he has completed half a dozen missions: bought a paper, left a pair of shoes to be soled, picked up a pack of cigarettes, ordered a bottle of whiskey to be dispatched in the opposite direction against his home-coming, written a message to the unseen forces of the wood cellar, and notified the dry cleaner that a pair of trousers awaits call. Homeward bound eight hours later, he buys a bunch of pussy willows, a Mazda bulb, a drink, a shine-- all between the corner where he steps off the bus and his apartment.”
― E.B. White, Here Is New York

“In New York you are your own person. You may reach out and embrace all of Manhattan in sweet aloneness, or you can go to hell if you want to.”
― Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman

“Let me know if you want more flowers, because Daddy says they don't have flowers in Manhattan. Why would you want to live in a place with no flowers?”
― Alex Brunkhorst, The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine

“Meanwhile, other cupcakeries were popping up all over Manhattan. A near Magnolia replica turned up in Chelsea when a former bakery manager jumped ship to open his own Americana bakeshop, Billy's (the one AJ and I frequented). Two Buttercup employees similarly ventured downtown to the Lower East Side and opened Sugar Sweet Sunshine, expanding into new flavors like the Lemon Yummy, lemon cake with lemon buttercream, and the Ooey Gooey, chocolate cake with chocolate almond frosting. Dee-licious.
Other bakeries opted for their own approach. A husband-and-wife team opened Crumbs, purveyor of five-hundred-calorie softball-sized juggernauts, in outrageous flavors like Chocolate Pecan Pie and Coffee Toffee, topped with candy shards and cookie bits. There were also mini cupcakes in wacky flavors like chocolate chip pancake and peanut butter and jelly from Baked by Melissa and Kumquat's more gourmet array like lemon-lavender and maple-bacon.
Revered pastry chefs also got in on the action. After opening ChikaLicious, the city's first dessert bar, Chika Tillman launched a take-out spot across the street that offered Valhrona chocolate buttercream-topped cupcakes. And Pichet Ong, a Jean-Georges Vongerichten alum and dessert bar and bakery rock star, attracted legions of loyal fans- no one more than myself- to his West Village bakery, Batch, with his carrot salted-caramel cupcake.”
― Amy Thomas, Paris, My Sweet: A Year in the City of Light

“Shelves were jam-packed with orange and brown packaged treats: chocolate-covered Cheerios, chocolate-covered cornflakes, chocolate-covered raisins and pretzels and espresso beans. Chocolate malt balls, chocolate almonds, and giant 2.2-pound "Big Daddy" chocolate blocks. There was caramel corn, peanut brittle, mudslide cookie mixes, and tins of chocolate shavings so you could try replicating Jacques's über-rich hot chocolate at home- anything the choco-obsessed could dream was crammed in the small space.
An L-shaped counter had all manner of fresh, handcrafted temptations: a spread of individual bonbons with cheeky names like Wicked Fun (chocolate ganache with ancho and chipotle chilies), Love Bug (key lime ganache enveloped in white chocolate), and Ménage à Trois (a mystery blend of three ingredients). Platters of double chocolate chip cookies and fudge brownies. And there were his buttery croissants and pain au chocolat, which duked it out in popularity with the French bakery across the street, Almondine.”
― Amy Thomas, Paris, My Sweet: A Year in the City of Light

“To the deep feeling of love and veneration for home and liberty and to the every growing consciousness of high responsibility which warmed the hearts and guided the actions of the true leaders among our Dutch, English, and American forbears this record of their material achievements is proudly, yet humbly, inscribed with the hope and belief that the same spirit will ever continue a chief strength and inspiration to succeeding generations of happy sojourners upon Manhattan Island.”
― Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909, Vol. 1: Compiled From Original Sources and Illustrated by Photo-Intaglio Reproductions of Important Maps, Plans, Views, and Documents in Public and Priv

“Overhead a plane passes dreamily, its running lights winking.”
― E.B. White, Here Is New York

“En los mercadillos del domingo, que surgen en algunas encrucijadas de la ciudad como zocos de nómadas en los cruces de caminos del desierto, están las ropas y los muebles, los cuadros, los espejos, los percheros, las tazas melladas, los álbumes de estampas, las fotografías que atesoraron los muertos y que después han ido a dar a ese gran río o vertedero de las antigüedades de poco valor, las que no merecen el privilegio de un escaparate o de un catálogo y en muchos casos se disciernen con dificultad de la simple basura abandonada.”
― Antonio Muñoz Molina, Ventanas De Manhattan (Biblioteca Antonio Munoz Molina)

“Jonathan broke the silence. In a timorous voice, he said he could see clearly now, could see the future. The future is more exponentially exploding rents. The future is more condo buildings, more luxury housing bought by shell companies of the global wealthy elite. The future is more Whole Foods, aisles of refrigerated cut fruit packaged in plastic containers. The future is more Urban Outfitters, more Sephoras, more Chipotles. The future just wants more consumers. The future is more newly arrived college grads and tourists in some fruitless search for authenticity. The future is more overpriced Pabsts at dive-bar simulacrums. Something something Rousseau something. Manhattan is sinking.

What, literally? Because of global warming? I snarked.

Don’t make fun of me. And yes, literally and figuratively.”
― Ling Ma, Severance

“The buildings in the area were diaphanous spreadsheets, their cells like oil slicks”
― Zain Khalid

“MANHATTAN: THE RISING WAR is a lush, sweeping epic tale of the towers that define our landscape. Sal Cosenza paints an irresistible and exciting world that will pull readers in and keep them turning pages long into the night.”
― Lauren Smith