Grace Paley Quotes

I guess I probably took New York for granted. Growing up, playing in the street, going down to the Avenue to the record store and to the grocery store and stuff like that.

New York City is filled with the same kind of people I left New Jersey to get away from.

I've always been a city person - London boy - and New York is just incredible. It has what London has but almost more in terms of variety, culture, social life, everything. I just like walking the streets and feeling the energy and the vibe.

Well, I'm kind of an urban girl, I like big cities. I like New York, I like London, I like L.A. I like people, I get lonely, really, really easily. But, I think it was good. It was very different and I think that's good.

I used to build lofts in SoHo back when there was nothing there. I had a stoop on West Broadway between Prince and Spring. My partner and I would sit there, eat dinner, and watch the world go by.

I grew up in New York where there is such a different variety of people.

I live a very quiet life, although I'm very urban and a diehard New Yorker.

I do love to walk around in New York because people will notice me, smile, but they never bother anyone. New Yorkers are very cool. I love New York.

I think I miss just being able to go out on the street and have fun.

I love London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris - there are a million places I could imagine I like, but N.Y. is home.

I'll just walk around New York and watch people on the streets.

I do find myself missing the energy of New York more and more often as my time away from the city progresses.

My first decade of living in a metropolis was like, I was a people watcher. It meant the world to me to talk to strangers. I got excited about the fifth time I'd see the same person in the same bodega. I loved getting to know a certain clerk or barista. It took on a whole big meaning for me because of that atomization that suburban people do start to feel.

L.A. is such a different place. I miss New York so much. I almost teared up when I came back and wanted a Guinness and realized I could drink it and take a cab home. I remembered that I could be a functional alcoholic in New York, like I used to be!

I spent a lot of time standing on street corners [of New York City] talking to local residents. I spent time in bookstores and galleries. But most of the time, I really did not have much to do.

Sophistication" is another word for that inventive mix of tolerance, resilience, and resourcefulness city people develop.

People in towns are always preoccupied. 'Have I missed the bus? Have I forgotten the potatoes? Can I get across the road?

I love the city. I love the energy of New York and what happens here. But I'm very happy I don't live in the city on a daily basis, because I really do spend a great deal of my time, when I'm not on the road, in my studio - everyday, everyday, everyday.

New York is a city of conversations overheard, of people at the next restaurant table (micrometers away) checking your watch, of people reading the stories in your newspaper on the subway train.

As far as cities, I love London. I go to London very often because I think the young people there are very creative. I also love New York, of course, and the clash of different cultures you find there.

I don't want to sound like some old person pining for how things used to be, because I'm not. But walking down the street, for example, used to be a public activity; you'd see the other people.

Every man should be allowed to love two cities, his own and San Francisco

Note that both of these papers [the New York Post and the New York Daily News] are big sellers in a city whose residents like to go around saying they'd never live anyplace else on account of they'd miss the opera.

In Manhattan, when you're out of the front door, you're on, and you have to be ready to smile and speak to people.

This isn't a fairy tale. It's New York City.