I feel about New York as a child whose father is a bank robber. Not perfect, but I still love him.

I'm really a timid person - I was beaten up by Quakers

There's nothing like the discovery of an unknown work by a great thinker to set the intellectual community atwitter and cause academics to dart about like those things one sees when looking at a drop of water under a microscope.

I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.

I've always believed that thoughtful people don't really take the tabloids seriously. They're basically a form of entertainment. I enjoy them as much as the next New Yorker.

I would not like to live in the past because you don't get anesthetic when you go to the dentist. You don't get antibiotics. You don't get the things that you are used to now, cell phones and televisions and things that are very convenient. You don't want that. But, it would be fun if you could, every now and then, just meet a friend for lunch at Maxim's in Paris in 1900, or go back to 1870 just for a couple of hours, take a walk in the park, and then come right back to Broadway.

For some reason I've always had an irrational love for New York. There's no reason that you would necessarily like it on paper. It's very expensive.