Quotes from Ed Koch

Have you ever lived in the suburbs? It's sterile. It's nothing. It's wasting your life.

I'm sure that people who elected me, some of them thought I was gay, some of them thought I wasn't gay, and most of them didn't care.

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.

Anybody who suggests that I run for governor is no friend of mine. It's a terrible position, and besides, it requires living in Albany, which is small-town life at its worst.

Life is indeed precious, and I believe the death penalty helps affirm this fact.

We should sell them to our worst enemies, the Russians and the Cubans.

I'm coming to the end of my life. I do reflect on what I've done for the 85 years that I have been given so far. And I'm proud of what I've done.

I don't believe that in our society that we should have guns.

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.

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.'

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.

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.

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.

Tone can be as important as text.

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.

You don't have to love them. You just have to respect their rights.

The Republicans are coming - make nice.

If you listen to Giuliani, it's like nobody did anything to improve the city except him. I'm not part of the history. Bloomberg's not part of the history. It's like, he did it. He's the only one. That's why he's a little crazy.

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.

I know many writers who first dictate passages, then polish what they have dictated. I speak, then I polish - occasionally I do windows.

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.

I'm just a simple Jewish boy from the Bronx.

Water, water, everywhere, Atlantic and Pacific. But New York City's got them beat, Our aqua is terrific!

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.