In My Heart

“I carry the place around the world in my heart but sometimes I try to shake it off in my dreams”  F Scott Fitzgerald

Born Again

“What, indeed, is a New Yorker? Is he Jew or Irish? Is he English or German? Is he Russian or Polish? He may be something of all these, and yet he is wholly none of them. Something has been added to him which he had not had before. he is endowed with a briskness and an invention often alien to his blood. He is quicker in his movement, less trammeled in his judgement...The change he undergoes is unmistakeable, New York, indeed, resembles a magic cauldron. Those who are cast into it are born again.”  Charles Whibley

Aint Going

“When you leave New York you ain't going anywhere.”  Jimmy Breslin

Innocence

"The wanderer in Manhattan must go forth with a certain innocence, because New York is best seen with innocent eyes. It doesn't matter if you are younger or old. Reading our rich history makes the experience more layered, but it is not a substitute for walking the streets themselves. For old-timer or newcomer, it is essential to absorb the city as it is now in order to shape your own nostalgias. 

That's why I always urge the newcomer to surrender to the city's magic. Forget the irritations and the occasional rudeness; they bother New Yorkers too. Instead, go down to the North River and the benches that run along the west side of Battery Park City. Watch the tides or the blocks of ice in winter; they have existed since the time when the island was empty of man. Gaze at the boats. Look across the water at the Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island, the place to which so many of the New York tribe came in order to truly live. Learn the tale of our tribe, because it's your tribe too, no matter where you were born. Listen to its music and its legends. Gaze at its ruins and monuments. Walk its sidewalks and run fingers upon the stone and bricks and steel of our right-angled streets. Breathe the air of the river breeze."  Pete Hamill

Belongs

“One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.”  Tom Wolfe

How far?

“There is no question that there is an unseen world. The problem is, how far is it from midtown and how late is it open?”  Woody Allen

I Belong To It

“I love New York, even though it isn't mine, the way something has to be, a tree or a street or a house, something, anyway, that belongs to me because I belong to it.”  Truman Capote

Love New York in the Fall

“Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.”  Nora Ephron

New Vigors

Travel and change of place impart new vigors to the mind - Seneca

A Book

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” St Augustine

New Way

Henry Miller said “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”