Ed Koch
There was always a love-hate relationship with New York in the rest of the country, but I made them feel more love than hate.Collection: Relationship
No, I am not a homosexual. If I were a homosexual, I would hope I would have the courage to say so. What's cruel is that you are forcing me to say I am not a homosexual. This means you are putting homosexuals down. I don't want to do that.Collection: Courage
I was not afraid of the press or the militants. It was uncomfortable, but I was not afraid. With respect to the press, I knew I knew more than they knew about city matters. With respect to the militants, I understood it. I mean, everybody believed in those days that they were being screwed, you know, that somebody was getting ahead of them.Collection: Respect
The best way to lose weight is to close your mouth - something very difficult for a politician. Or watch your food - just watch it, don't eat it.Collection: Diet
Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks.Collection: Poetry
You want me to tell me the truth or do you want me to stroke you?Collection: Truth
I know many writers who first dictate passages, then polish what they have dictated. I speak, then I polish - occasionally I do windows.Collection: Politics
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.Collection: Politics
The art of creation is older than the art of killing.Collection: Art
Stereotypes lose their power when the world is found to be more complex than the stereotype would suggest. When we learn that individuals do not fit the group stereotype, then it begins to fall apart.Collection: Power
Citizens, thank you for all your birthday wishes. I am 88 years old today and still lucky to live in the greatest city in the world.Collection: Birthday
If you agree with me on 9 out of 12 issues, vote for me. If you agree with me on 12 out of 12 issues, see a psychiatrist.
The fireworks begin today. Each diploma is a lighted match. Each one of you is a fuse.
When all are wrong, everyone is right.
The person who is bent on killing you will follow you wherever you are.
You punch me, I punch back. I do not believe it's good for one's self-respect to be a punching bag.
How'm I doing?
If you seek violence, we will seek to put you in jail.
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.
In action be primitive; in foresight, a strategist.
Tone can be as important as text.
It's a lot more fun being a critic than being the one criticized.
In a neighborhood, as in life, a clean bandage is much, much better than a raw or festering wound.
The knife of corruption endangered the life of New York City. The scalpel of the law is making us well again.
I'm not the type to get ulcers. I give them.
We're in the hands of the state legislature and God, but at the moment, the state legislature has more to say than God.
You don't have to love them. You just have to respect their rights.
If they don't want to pay for it, they can stop drinking it.
Water, water, everywhere, Atlantic and Pacific. But New York City's got them beat, Our aqua is terrific!
If I traveled to the end of the rainbow as Dame Fortune did intend, Murphy would be there to tell me the pot's at the other end.
I was born at the age of twelve on a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot.
The mere process of growing old together will make the slightest acquaintance seem a bosom friend.
Maybe he just looks good compared to the bores he's running against.
Clinton has more important things to worry about. He not only risks being destroyed historically, like Afghanistan's Buddha statues; he also could end up going to jail.
The Republicans are coming - make nice.
Have you ever lived in the suburbs? It's sterile. It's nothing. It's wasting your life.
People get tired of you. So they decided to throw me out. And so help me God, as the numbers were coming in, I said to myself, 'I'm free at last.'
Twelve years ago, if someone attacked me, I wouldn't let them get away with it. I'd take them on. I now perceive my job to include allowing people to vent their rage.
My brain is good, but my body is deteriorating. I probably have another two or three years. Or I can pass tomorrow, but it doesn't make a difference to me.
I think I have a very good reputation amongst the gay population and among the whole country because I stood up on the issue of gay rights. It is not easy to stand up on that issue when you are single and male in New York City. I did it anyway.
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.
I injured myself politically when I took on Jesse Jackson' in the 1988 presidential campaign. I was too strident. I didn't recognize the emotional tie that he had with all black voters.
God gave me a very good hand to play over my 88 years. I have no regrets.
I changed the city of New York. I gave people back their morale.
I enjoyed my stay in the Congress. Most people do not. And too many people who have been elected really don't understand the nature of government.
If I were running against Chuck Schumer. I would take every one of his Sunday press releases - and there are 52 for as many years as he's been there - and I would ask, 'How many of the things he said he was proposing became law?' I doubt many.
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.
When I came in, the city was on the edge of bankruptcy. I'm proud of what I did. I built the foundation that mayors after me built upon - particularly Bloomberg. But the foundation was essential because if it hadn't occurred, we would have been another Detroit.
I was drafted into the Army when I was 19 and came out at age 22. Most people that I knew didn't think they'd come home alive. I didn't think I would either, so I was happy when I did.
I'm confident President Obama will continue his unambiguous commitment to the Jewish state in his second term.