Quote

I said, to be a New Yorker you have to live here for six months, and if at the end of the six months you find you walk faster, talk faster, think faster, you're a New Yorker.

Ed Koch

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Ed Koch
Age: 88 †
Born: 1924
Born: December 12
Died: 2013
Died: February 1
Film Critic
Former United States Representative
Judge
Lawyer
Politician
Writer
The Bronx
New York City
Edward Irving Ed Koch
Edward I. Koch
Edward Irving Koch
Think
Six
Thinking
Walk
Months
Walks
Talk
Ends
Find
Yorker
Live
Faster

More quotes by Ed Koch

Image
I'm just a simple Jewish boy from the Bronx.
Ed Koch
Image
...what about the millions of poor in this country who desperately need assistance and services to help bring them out of poverty? Shall they go to the back of the line? and shall those who have made a dramatic illegal entry, who would normally not be entitled to government assistance, or even entry itself, be put at the front?
Ed Koch
Image
There's a nastiness out there that wants to harm me with words. These are my enemies - the ideologues, the populists, the columnists who don't like the fact that I take them on toe-to-toe. What I try to do is tell the truth. It's not the coin of the realm in politics.
Ed Koch
Image
If you don't like the President, it costs you 90 bucks to fly to Washington to picket. If you don't like the governor, it costs you 60 bucks to fly to Albany to picket. If you don't like me - 90 cents.
Ed Koch
Image
If they don't want to pay for it, they can stop drinking it.
Ed Koch
Image
When I was first elected I got 50% of the vote in '77 in the general election. In '81 I got 75%. In '85, I got 78%. No mayor has ever gotten that high a vote. So it was not an issue. Except for people who were very hostile to me. They thought they would injure me.
Ed Koch
Image
Have you ever lived in the suburbs? It's sterile. It's nothing. It's wasting your life.
Ed Koch
Image
I probably have another two or three years. Or I can pass tomorrow, but it doesn't make a difference to me.
Ed Koch
Image
The most guileful amongst the reporters are those who appear friendly and smile and seem to be supportive. They are the ones who will seek to gut you on every occasion.
Ed Koch
Image
But enough of me. Lets talk about you. What do you think of me?
Ed Koch
Image
Whenever I leave Manhattan, I get the bends!
Ed Koch
Image
I wake up every morning and say to myself, Well, I'm still in New York. Thank you, God.
Ed Koch
Image
Be different-if you don't have the facts and knowledge required, simply listen. When word gets around that you can listen when others tend to talk, you will be treated as a sage.
Ed Koch
Image
There's enormous energy required to carry grudges - enormous energy! And I'm getting too old to expend my energy that way, cause I think every person has a limited amount of energy. So I have given up all grudges.
Ed Koch
Image
Water, water, everywhere, Atlantic and Pacific. But New York City's got them beat, Our aqua is terrific!
Ed Koch
Image
Tone can be as important as text.
Ed Koch
Image
Carter couldn't elect a dog-catcher.
Ed Koch
Image
I don't want to leave Manhattan, even when I'm gone.
Ed Koch
Image
In action be primitive in foresight, a strategist.
Ed Koch
Image
We should sell them to our worst enemies, the Russians and the Cubans.
Ed Koch