New York City

"So now we come to New York City, the incomparable, the brilliant star city of parodies, the forty-ninth state, a law unto itself, the Cyclopean paradox, the inferno with no out-of-bounds, the supreme expression of both the miseries and the splendors of contemporary civilization, the Macedonia of the United States. It meets the most severe test that may be applied to definition of a metropolis- it stays up all night. But also it becomes a small town when it rains. Paradox? New York is at once the climactic synthesis of America, and yet the negation of American in that it has so many characteristics called un-American. One friend of mine, indignant that it seems impossible for any American city to develop on the pattern of Paris or Vienna, always says that Manhattan is like Constantinople- not the Instanbul of old Stamboul but of the Pera or Levantine side. He meant not merely the trite fact that New York is polygot, but that it is full of people, like the Levantines, who are interested basically in only two things, living well and making money. I would prefer a different analogy- that only Instanbul, of all the cities in the world, has as enchanting and stimulating a profile."

"New York is the publishing center of the nation; it is the art, theater, musical, ballet, operatic center; it is the opinion center; it is the radio center; it is the style center. Hollywood? Hollywood is nothing more than a suburb of the Bronx, both financially and from a view of talent. Politically, socially, in the world of ideas and in the whole world of entertainment, which is a great American industry needless to say, New York sets the tone and pace of the entire nation. What books 140 million Americans will read is largely determined by New York reviewers. Most of the serious newspaper columns originate in or near New York; so do most of the gossip columns, which condition Americans from Mobile to Puget Sound to the same patterns of social behavior. In a broad variety of fields, from serious drama to what you will hear on a jukebox, it is what New York says that counts; New York Opinion is the hallmark of both intellectual and material success; to be accepted in this nation, New York acceptance must come first. I do not assert that this is necessarily a good thing. I say merely that it is true. One reason for all this is that New York, with its richly cosmopolitan population, provides such an appreciative audience. It admires artistic quality. It has a fine inward gleam for talent. Also New York is a wonderfully opulent center for bogus culture. One of its chief industries might be said to be the manufacture of reputations, many of them fraudulent."

"Where I come from, the rules were relatively simple... Don't look for trouble, because in New York you can always find it. But don't back off either."

"I was raised in what is now the "jungle" of New York, the lower Bronx, and, indeed, at that time it was a very pleasant place. We played like all other kids. Where I lived was a very small enclave, a ghetto, but there were a number of ghettos. Most of the people there were immigrants; first generation Americans from Italy, Ireland, Poland, and there were a few French people. In a way, in a peculiar way, it was an integrated community composed of several separated ghettos. That was about the norm in those days. The idea of integration hadn't really gotten started, so I think that for anyone living today it would be a period that would be really difficult to understand...it was...in spite of some of the racism which I began to learn in school, a rather pleasant life."

"New York: where everyone mutinies but no one deserts."

"There are so many unspoken rules when you live here, like the way you're never supposed to stop in the middle of the sidewalk or stare dreamily up at tall buildings or pause to read graffiti. No giant folding maps, no fanny packs, no eye contact. No humming songs from Dear Evan Hansen in public. And you're definitely not supposed to take selfies at street corners, even if there's a hot dog stand and a whole line of yellow taxis in the background, which is eerily how you always pictured New York. You're allowed to silently appreciate it, but you have to be cool. From what I can tell, that's the whole point of New York: being cool. I'm not cool."

"I get a certain pleasure in knowing that I live not merely in a city but in Manhattan, the center of New York City, a region so unique in many ways that I honestly believe that Earth is divided into halves: Manhattan and non-Manhattan."

"New York is the only city in the world where you can get deliberately run down on the sidewalk by a pedestrian."

"I've a distrust of big cities. I've a distrust of New York which is my big city. Why?... Well, because I was born there, grew up there. My experience of it, after all, it is pretty gloomy; and it is too big. It is one of the loneliest places in the world."

"The Empire State" is of course dominated by New York City, the "Big Apple," filled with the bustle and excitement of millions of energetic, sophisticated, urbane people experiencing numerous only-in-New-York thrills such as making it all the way to work without getting peed on. As Frank Sinatra put it in his immortal and dynamic rendering of New York's Official Horrendously Overexposed Hit Show Tune, "New York, New York," "If I can make it there, I can afford to move to Stamford, Connecticut."

"Here are some tips for getting maximum enjoyment from your trip to New York: 1. Cancel it immediately. Ha ha! We are just kidding, of course. New York is in fact a major tourist destination, drawing millions of visitors each year, the majority of whom are never robbed and stabbed and left on the sidewalk to bleed to death while being stepped over by enough people to populate the entire state of Montana. Their secret? They follow certain common-sense New York City safety rules, such as: Always walk at least 30 miles per hour. Always keep your money and other valuables in a safe place, such as Switzerland. Avoid unsafe areas, such as your hotel bathroom. Never make eye contact. This is asking to be mugged. In the New York court system, a mugger is automatically declared not guilty if the defense can prove that the victim has a history of making eye contact."

"Getting around New York is easy, thanks to the convenient and simple subway system. The major lines are the IRT, the BMT, the SAT, the LSD, and QED, which operate crosstown, midtown, downtown, thrutown, and camptown trains that are local and quasi-express only with alternating stations northbound between 59th Street and the corner of Twelfth Avenue and Grant's Tomb only on Wednesdays except during lobster season or for those passengers holding odd-numbered transfers and claiming more than 8.5 percent of their gross net deductible pretax noninterest income as medical expenses. If you have any questions about this, helpful attendants inside bullet-proof bomb-proof flame-proof machete-proof token-dispensing bunkers will be more than happy to continue reading the New York Post no matter how loud you yell. Or for equal convenience you can take a taxi, which you get by simply raising your hand and then bringing it down sharply on the heads of the various New Yorkers who will try to leap into the taxi ahead of you. Be sure to speak very clearly to the driver, as he probably just arrived from a Third World nation where the major form of transportation is vines. The standard tip for everything in New York City is a smile and a bright, shiny quarter. New York State is completely different."

"The idea to make New York City a state, in case you didn't know, is not original with me. There's been a long struggle for more "home rule," which, although it hasn't focused on statehood, has sought to get us more control over taxes, services and decision-making. Statehood was first proposed by the Mayor of New York in 1861; it was later advocated by such people as William Randolph Hearst and by William F. Buckley in his campaign for Mayor in 1965. Most people, however, will remember the statehood idea as it was first put forth in Norman Mailer's campaign for Mayor in 1969. He gave the idea some pzazz, but not enough people took it seriously."

"The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79."

"Wall Street, the banks, and corporate America, has been able to call the shots here. They control our members of Congress and they get what they want."

"I think of Wall Street guys as the crookedest in the world..."

"You know, I think many people have the mistaken impression that Congress regulates Wall Street. In truth that's not the case. The real truth is that Wall Street regulates the Congress."

"The business model of Wall Street is fraud. In my view, there is no better example than the recently-exposed illegal behavior at ."

"Let us wage a moral and political war against the billionaires and corporate leaders, on Wall Street and elsewhere, whose policies and greed are destroying the middle class of America."

"Mutual funds are an overrated investment heavily promoted by Wall Street."

"The fall of Wall Street is for market fundamentalism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was for communism."

"Holding the citizens of Wall Street to the standards of honesty which govern everyone else is, if one thinks about it, the very opposite of class warfare."

"Journalism was being whittled away by a Wall Street theory that profits can be maximized by minimizing the product."

"Wall Street is the only place that people ride to in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway."

"The president, the secretary of state, the businessman, the preacher, the vendor, the spies, the clients and managers—all walking around Wall Street like chickens with their heads cut off—rushing to escape bankruptcy—plotting to melt down the Statue of Liberty-to press more copper pennies—to breed more headless chickens—to put more feathers in their caps-medals, diplomas, stock certificates, honorary doctorates—eggs and eggs of headless chickens."

"Charlie and I cringe when we hear analysts talk admiringly about managements who always “make the numbers.” In truth, business is too unpredictable for the numbers always to be met. Inevitably, surprises occur. When they do, a CEO whose focus is centered on Wall Street will be tempted to make up the numbers."

"Hating Wall Street is an American tradition that dates back even to the days when Thomas Jefferson cursed that money lover Alexander Hamilton. And for centuries, the complaints about it have largely stayed the same: 'It does nothing! It creates chaos! It's a parasite that sucks hardworking Americans dry!'"

"No man can control Wall Street. Wall Street is like the ocean. No man can govern it. It is too vast. Wall Street is full of eddies and currents. The thing to do is to watch them, to exercise a little common sense, and … to come out on top."

"Wall Street is where prophets tell us what will happen and profits tell us what did happen."

"Watch the walls come down, whether it's in the South or on Wall Street. When the walls come down, what do we find? More markets, more talent, more capital and growth. Which means that the race and sex discrimination stunt economic growth. It's not good for capitalism. It's not good for America's growth. And it's not morally right."

"Panic in Wall Street, brokers feeling melancholy. Good times coming. Good times have come. Listening to the strains of genuine negro ragtime, brokers forget their cares."

"The essential is the object. Error consists in forgetting that grain, cotton, wool are vital objects and in being interested in them only because of their value in gold, their speculative value. The economic purpose is not ‘to make millionaires out of gasoline’ but to distribute gasoline according to demand and need. Wall street is an abstraction."

"Wall Street is populated by a bunch of people whose primary goal is to make money, and the rules are pretty much caveat emptor."

"Wicked spirits not only mislead people but also frighten them. Today, Satan and his demons know that they have only "a short period of time" left before they are put out of action, and they are now more vicious than ever."

"People who want to serve Jehovah need to get rid of everything related to spiritism. That includes books, magazines, movies, posters, and music recordings that encourage the practice of spiritism and make it seem appealing and exciting."

"What about the life of an unborn child? Well, according to the Mosaic Law, causing the death of a baby in its mother's womb was wrong. Yes, even such a life is precious to Jehovah. (Read Exodus 21:22, 23; Psalm 127:3.) This means that abortion is wrong."

"Does the command to abstain from blood include blood transfusions? Yes. To illustrate: Suppose a doctor were to tell you to abstain from alcoholic beverages. Would that simply mean that you should not drink alcohol but that you could have it injected in your veins? Of course not! Likewise, abstaining from blood means not taking it into our bodies at all. So the command to abstain from blood means that we would not allow anyone to transfuse blood into our veins."

"Because of the connections that Christmas has with false religion, however, those who want to please God do not celebrate it or any other holiday that has its roots in pagan worship."

"Maybe you feel that the origins of holidays have little to do with how they are celebrated today. Do origins really matter? Yes! To illustrate: Suppose you saw a piece of candy lying in the gutter. Would you pick up that candy and eat it? Of course not! That candy is unclean. Like that candy, holidays may seem sweet, but they have been picked up from unclean places. To take a stand for true worship, we need to have a viewpoint like that of the prophet Isiah, who told true worshipers: "Touch nothing unclean!" - Isiah 52:11."

"Jesus himself set the example by being baptized in water. He was not sprinkled with water, and he did not just have some water poured over his head. (Matthew 3:16) The word "baptize" comes from a Greek term meaning "dip under water". Christian baptism therefore means being fully dipped, or immersed, in water."

"In replacing God's name with titles, Bible translators make a serious mistake. They make God seem remote and impersonal, whereas the Bible urges humans to cultivate "close friendship with Jehovah". (Psalm 25:14)"

"Clearly, the name Jehovah belongs in the Bible. Knowing its meaning and using it freely in our worship are powerful aids in drawing closer to our heavenly Father Jehovah."

"When the experts accuse Jehovah’s Witnesses for their teachings, they do not realize that they are actually making accusations against the Bible."

"They would choose to die rather than kill someone. Consequently, I am sure if only Jehovah’s Witnesses lived on the earth then wars would not break out anywhere."

"They do not abuse alcohol, they do not smoke, they are not money hungry, they do not break their promises, nor give false witness . . . It is not a mysterious sect, but law-abiding citizens. [They] are respectable, happy people, interested in history, literature, art, and life in all its aspects. To alter Voltaire’s words, we could say that if Jehovah’s Witnesses did not exist, we would do well to invent them."

"Jehovah’s Witnesses inculcate in their children high moral principles. They teach their children to avoid behavior, actions and even attitudes that, [while] considered in today’s world as normal, can be harmful to the children themselves and others. Therefore they warn their children about the dangers of using drugs, smoking and the abuse of alcohol. They recognize the importance of honesty and hard work. . . . Jehovah’s Witnesses teach their children moral qualities, to respect the authorities, other individuals and their property and to be law abiding citizens."

"When they read in the Bible, they believe God is talking to them. Whenever problems appear in their lives, they take God’s Word and search in it for a solution. . . . For them, God’s Word is still alive."

"I often say that the best prevention for AIDS is for one to become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, for the members of that religion are neither homosexuals nor bisexuals, they are loyal to their marriage—they associate it with reproduction—don’t use drugs and, to complete the picture, they don’t accept blood transfusions."

"The conventions and arrangements they have are almost perfect in their form and order. Nothing is left to chance. The success of sports teams and youth-group projects is often dependent on the willingness of each member to lend a hand. These should take note of the way Jehovah’s Witnesses organize their projects. Much can be learned by observing the willing spirit they display. It is almost unbelievable."

"No Jehovah’s Witness will ever go to war. . . . If everyone in the world in position of power had been of this faith, [World War II] would never have happened."