Ed Koch's Quotes

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.

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.

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.

I like to think that I'm one of the few people in public life who write their own material. I write every word. And I really enjoy writing - especially my political commentary.

I probably enjoy campaigning more than most other people in public office because I like people and I enjoy going out there and telling people what I've done.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

It happens that I'm heterosexual, but I don't care about that. I do care about protecting the rights of 10 percent of our population who are homosexual and who don't have the ability to protect their rights.

Jews have always thought that having someone elevated with his head above the grass was not good for the Jews. I never felt that way. I believe that you have to stand up.

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.

The very fact that I became mayor in 1977 conveys how you can't figure out what the people will do. Nobody thought I would be elected. When I entered I got four percent of the vote in the first poll, four percent.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

You punch me, I punch back. I do not believe it's good for one's self-respect to be a punching bag.

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.

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.

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.

The fireworks begin today. Each diploma is a lighted match. Each one of you is a fuse.

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.

The art of creation is older than the art of killing.

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.

The knife of corruption endangered the life of New York City. The scalpel of the law is making us well again.

In action be primitive; in foresight, a strategist.

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.

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.

If you seek violence, we will seek to put you in jail.

The mere process of growing old together will make the slightest acquaintance seem a bosom friend.

We're in the hands of the state legislature and God, but at the moment, the state legislature has more to say than God.

I was born at the age of twelve on a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot.

In a neighborhood, as in life, a clean bandage is much, much better than a raw or festering wound.

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

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.

God gave me a very good hand to play over my 88 years. I have no regrets.

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

How'm I doing?