When you operate in an overbuilt metropolis, you have to hack your way with a meat ax.

I raise my stein to the builder who can remove ghettos without removing people as I hail the chef who can make omelets without breaking eggs.

Those who can, build. Those who can't, criticize.

If the ends don't justify the means, then what does?

Every true New Yorker believes with all his heart that when a New Yorker is tired of New York, he is tired of life.

[It is] the most hideous waterfront structure ever inflicted on a city by a combination of architectural conceit and official bad taste. the Cathedral of Asphalt.

Here the skeptic finds chaos and the believer further evidence that the hand that made us is divine.

l have no fear of change as such and, on the other hand, no liking for it merely for its own sake.

I have long since abandoned the notion that higher education is essential to either success or happiness. Hothouses of learning do not always grow anything edible.

He continued to be an infant long after he ceased to be a prodigy.

If you elect a matinee idol mayor, you're going to have a musical comedy administration.

To start any thing is like to breathe in open air, to complete it is like to breathe in no air.

Calling it as you see it, should include yourself as well.

No one wanted to die with secrets in their grave.

If you work hard, you will be rewarded at the end of the day.

I stopped rowing for a moment to glug down some water, but it was warm, tasted of plastic, and failed to refresh. I yearned for an ice-cold drink—preferably one with bubbles and alcohol in it.

I joined the Party definitely in 1923 after having already been in sympathy with it before.

If only the human body could handle trauma as well as biotechnology stocks do.

The horrors of war, pale beside the loss of a mother

If we develop in-depth knowledge, it will enable us to give our best to others and help to make a better world.

I am the very slave of circumstance And impulse -- borne away with every breath!