A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning. The city is like poetry: it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines. The island of Manhattan is without any doubt the greatest human concentrate on earth, the poem whose magic is comprehensible to millions of permanent residents but whose full meaning will always remain elusive.

Children almost always hang onto things tighter than their parents think they will.

Reading is the work of the alert mind, is demanding, and under ideal conditions produces finally a sort of ecstasy.

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust.

Television should be our Lyceum, our Chautauqua, our Minsky's and our Camelot.

In every queen there's a touch of floozy.