Ed Koch Quotes

I know many writers who first dictate passages, then polish what they have dictated. I speak, then I polish - occasionally I do windows.

Progress is personal; it comes from individuals demanding more of themselves and everyone else.

I can explain it to you, but I can't comprehend it for you.

That's the first rule for anybody who controls - do no harm.

But enough of me. Lets talk about you. What do you think of me?

If you seek violence, we will seek to put you in jail.

To learn something new every day is still exciting!

In a neighborhood, as in life, a clean bandage is much, much better than a raw or festering wound.

In action be primitive; in foresight, a strategist.

Only do the thing we are best at doing and enjoy most.

Our vision controls the way we think and, therefore, the way we act the vision we have of our jobs determines what we do and the opportunities we see or don't see.

If I had to give a definition of happiness, it would be this: happiness needs nothing but itself; it doesn’t have to be validated.

The U.S. was the immigration country of choice even for alien jellyfish things that turned humans into scary monsters. It made you proud, really.

If a species is diverse, it can survive and prosper. If a species is homogeneous, it is vulnerable.

We try to evaluate how much value an employee is creating here and reward them accordingly.

It's a lot more fun being a critic than being the one criticized.

Picasso said once when being interviewed that one should not be one's own connoisseur.

Years later, when I asked my father, I said 'Pop, why were you so much harder on me than my younger brothers?' he said, son, you plum wore me out.

Make the choice that you want to be happy. You owe it to yourself and you owe it to other people too.

Clinton has more important things to worry about. He not only risks being destroyed historically, like Afghanistan's Buddha statues; he also could end up going to jail.

They say your genetics are going to set your direction regardless of what happens, but I think there's more to it than that.

I always wanted to be different and do things differently. I was a pain in the neck. I was challenging everything you wanted me to do and challenging people in school.

Be different-if you don't have the facts and knowledge required, simply listen. When word gets around that you can listen when others tend to talk, you will be treated as a sage.

[The UN should remain in New York] because every country needs a cesspool. And the UN is always interesting as a theater of the absurd.

Maybe he just looks good compared to the bores he's running against.

Instead of expending time to train yourself not to be afraid of snakes, avoid them altogether.

The weaker the country, the stronger the smile.

The best way to lose weight is to close your mouth - something very difficult for a politician. Or watch your food - just watch it, don't eat it.

Regardless of whether you are an entrepreneur or whether you are an employee of a large company, the absolute prerequisite is that you must know your stuff. There is no substitute for this.

When you finish a poem, it clicks shut like the top of a jewel box, but prose is endless. I haven't experienced an awful lot of clicking shut!

I wake up every morning and say to myself, Well, I'm still in New York. Thank you, God.

I don't have all the answers. I have a lot of questions. And I have some basic principles.

Summer in the trees! “It is time to strangle several bad poets.

We're in the hands of the state legislature and God, but at the moment, the state legislature has more to say than God.

Should we be rewriting history just to make people feel good? That's not history, that's psychiatry.

In one way or another, every parent is curious what their children... what are they doing when we don't see?... What double lives are they leading? Is there something else?

Far too many businesses have been all too eager to lobby for maintaining and increasing subsidies and mandates paid by taxpayers and consumers.

I've had trouble with criticism, I guess. It's hard to know what role criticism plays in either encouraging poets or in getting other people to read them.

Certainly, it seems true enough that there's a good deal of irony in the world... I mean, if you live in a world full of politicians and advertising, there's obviously a lot of deception.

The knife of corruption endangered the life of New York City. The scalpel of the law is making us well again.

Citizens, thank you for all your birthday wishes. I am 88 years old today and still lucky to live in the greatest city in the world.

Those who seize the day become seriously rich.

Tree killing is arborcide.

Poetry is a deliberate attempt to make language suggestive and imprecise.

The person who is bent on killing you will follow you wherever you are.

I'm confident President Obama will continue his unambiguous commitment to the Jewish state in his second term.

Chose the niche that you enjoy, where you can excel and stand a chance of becoming and acknowledged leader.

Conventional wisdom is not to put all of your eggs in one basket. 80/20 wisdom is to choose a basket carefully, load all your eggs into it, and then watch it like a hawk.

I was born at the age of twelve on a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot.

Anytime students shout down a speaker who says something different, this is not good.