New York

You can do what you like, sir, but I'll tell you this. New York is the true capital of America. Every New Yorker knows it, and by God, we always shall.

All empires become arrogant. It is their nature.

She was quiet for a moment or two. Then she said: 'Cruel words are a terrible thing, Quash. Sometimes you regret them. But what's been said cannot be unsaid.

Don't you know that there's another bubble as well An expectations bubble. Bigger houses private planes yachts ...... stupid salaries and bonuses. People come to desire these things and expect them. But the expectations bubble will burst as well as all bubbles do. Come to my gallery and I will sell you beautiful things at a more reasonable price. But the point is that they will have value. Things of real beauty things of the spirit.

Fate was cruel, but it was fate.

What he needed Gorham to understand - what his son was heir to - the thing that really mattered - was the New Yorkers indomitable spirit

Then he noticed the belt. He pulled it out. The thing had been handed down in the family since God knows when. His father had told: 'Better keep it. It's wampum. Supposed to be lucky.' William shrugged. He could sure as hell use some luck today. On an impulse, he decided to put it on. Under his shirt of course-- he didn't want to look like a damn fool. Then he dressed as usual, every inch the successful man. If he was going down, he'd go down in style. Anyway, you should never give up hope.

When people are angry, any insult will do; and prejudice is magnified into a cause.

And suddenly it came to him. That Strawberry Fields garden he'd come from, and the Freedom Tower he'd been thinking of: taken together, didn't they contain the two words that said it all about this city, the two words that really mattered? It seemed to him that they did. Two words: the one an invitation, the other an ideal, an adventure, a necessity. "Imagine" said the garden. "Freedom" said the tower. Imagine freedom. That was the spirit, the message of this city he loved. You really didn't need anything more. Dream it and do it. But first you must dream it.

Can you do it?' 'Maybe I can, and maybe I can't. But I am going to make MacDuff think that I can. And belief,' said Gabriel Love, with the smile of an angel, 'is a wonderful thing.

I'll be damned if I'm going to miss the overture and finale when I've payed good money for it... You can go, but I'm staying.

It was politics and religion, in van Dyck’s private view, that made men dangerous. Trade made them wise.

Don’t rule your husband. But arrange the conditions in which he will make his choices.

Human nature, gentleman. It is original sin that leads men to misfortune, every time. I am a speculator in the market, gentlemen, and that is part of God's plan. Men only learn through suffering. So I punish human weakness, and God rewards me.

Gotham admired Maeve. By day she managed money, and did it brilliantly, but she didn't find it satisfied her intellect. She spoke four languages. She played the piano seriously well. And she read books. Lots of them.

And he glanced down at Mercy beside him, and saw in her face such radiant goodness, such a calm certainty, that it seemed to him that if he could only be with her all his life, he should know a love, and happiness, and peace that he had never known before.

Never mind,' Gertchen said with a smile, 'you'll have to be pagan today.

A New Yorker can never be beat, Gorham, because he gets right back up again. Remember that.

Oh Lord, we thank Thee for this thy gift of lobster Newburg. And grant us also, if it be Thy will, control of the Hudson Ohio Railroad.' 'But we ain't wanting control of the Hudson Ohio," Sean softly objected. 'True,' said Gabriel Love, 'but the Almighty doesn't need to know that yet.

Novelists liked to imagine the interconnectedness of things—as though all the people in the big city were part of some great organism, their lives intertwined. He

They say that people should be free to do as they like. That’s what I think. But if they start preaching at me, they can go to hell.

It was evident that Madame Restell not only liked to do as she pleased, but to talk about it as well.

And Dirk van Dyck the Dutchman realized that he never had been, and never would be, as proud of any child as he was of his elegant little Indian daughter at that moment.

Don't you know there's another bubble as well? An expectations bubble. Bigger houses, private planes, yachts... stupid salaries and bonuses. People come to desire these things and expect them. But the expectations bubble will burst as well, as all bubbles do.

You believe it?” “A man should always believe his wife, sir.

Unfortunately he’s just sold all his stock. We gave him the funds today.” “Sold everything?” “I tried to persuade him not to, but he came in on Monday and said he’d decided not to tempt fate.” The clerk smiled. “Said he’d had a sign from St. Anthony.

Doesn’t private vice make a man unworthy of public office?” And now kindly Mrs. Albion looked at Mercy with genuine astonishment. “Well,” she laughed, “if it did, there’d be no one to govern the land.

Frank Master wasn't really her lover yet. Though he didn't quite know it, he was still on trial. She found him intelligent, kindly, somewhat ignorant of opera, but maybe improvable.

She did not know what people of other nations ate, and did not care. For Italian food was the best.