When you leave New York you ain't going anywhere.

Don't trust a brilliant idea unless it survives the hangover.

The office of president is a bastardized thing, half royalty and half democracy that nobody knows whether to genuflect or spit.

The professional arsonist builds vacant lots for money.

Baseball isn't statistics, it's Joe DiMaggio rounding second base.

People born in Queens, raised to say that each morning they get on the subway and "go to the city," have a resentment of Manhattan, of the swiftness of its life and success of the people who live there.

All political power is primarily an illusion. Illusion. Mirrors and blue smoke, beautiful blue smoke rolling over the surface of highly polished mirrors, first a thin veil of blue smoke, then a thick cloud that suddenly dissolves into wisps of blue smoke, the mirrors catching it all, bouncing it back and forth.