Ed Koch Quotes

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.

How’m I doing?

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Tone can be as important as text.

You want me to tell me the truth or do you want me to stroke you?

I never doubted that I would be a good mayor. I never did.

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.

The person who is bent on killing you will follow you wherever you are.

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.

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.

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

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.

Maybe he just looks good compared to the bores he’s running against.

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.

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

I have a social life. But I don’t discuss it.

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.

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.’

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 think that every Saturday, we ought to say, ‘My father‘s a Jew, my mother was a Jew, and I’m a Jew,’ with great pride.

In action be primitive; in foresight, a strategist.

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’m confident President Obama will continue his unambiguous commitment to the Jewish state in his second term.

To learn something new every day is still exciting!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I’m not the type to get ulcers. I give them.

Whenever I leave Manhattan, I get the bends!

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.

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

When all are wrong, everyone is right.

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

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

I love being the mayor. I want to be the mayor forever.