“It was sad to see his tall figure receding in the dark as we drove away, just like the other figures in New York and New Orleans: they stand uncertainly underneth inmense skies, and everything about them is drowned. Where go? what do? what for?”

“It was not that the figure had been removed, not that the figures had been swept away, but the symbols for the figures, and in turn the shapes in the later canvases were substitutes for the figures.... these new shapes say.... what the symbols said.”

“New York, New York. Big city of dreams, but everything in New York ain't always what it seems.”

“Mr. Jacob A. Riis, a few years ago, used some figures which showed that about one-third of the people of New York City were dependent upon charity at some time during the eight years previous to 1890. The report of the United Hebrew Charities for 1901 shows very similar conditions existing among the Jewish population of New York. But even more astonishing than all other facts we have are those furnished by the State Board of Charities... The poverty of New York State is enormous. In actual figures as reduced, the persons in distress in 1897 number… about 19 per cent of the people of New York and in 1899 they number… about 18 per cent. …If the figures are correct as published the persons in New York State in distress in 1897 and in Boston in 1903 would equal proportionately the number of those in poverty in London.”

“I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this.

[, New York Times, April 19, 1992]”

“I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them. I just want to figure out who they are and what they want and where they're going.”

“We are like figures which some great demonstrator draws upon the blackboard of Time. A problem is to be solved, without doubt; what the problem is, we, the figures, cannot know and do not need to know; all we know is that sooner or later we shall be sponged off the board and other figures take our places, and the demonstration go on.”

“America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans.
Everywhere else is Cleveland.”

“I'm a ghost," said the small figure, then added, a little uncertainly, "Boo?”

“I’d love to see a 6-foot-2-tall, skinny man doing a halfpipe on figure skates.”