Chavelas Brooklyn Quotes

New York was always more expensive than any other place in the United States, but you could live in New York - and by New York, I mean Manhattan. Brooklyn was the borough of grandparents. We didn't live well. We lived in these horrible places. But you could live in New York. And you didn't have to think about money every second. ~ Fran Lebowitz

I was never a 'bad' kid, but I did get into minor juvenile trouble. Look, I grew up in Brooklyn. This was the '60s, and the neighborhood was rapidly changing and not without its problems. All the kids of the neighborhood 'did their thing,' breaking windows and the like. I was no different. ~ William Forsythe

It's a nice neighborhood, like the one I left. My home borough is Brooklyn and Queens. ~ Anthony Weiner

I work in a small study on the top floor of a brownstone in Brooklyn - it's about 75 square feet, 11 taken up by book shelves along one wall. ~ Kathryn Harrison

You are driving home.
You listen to 'Tongue Tied' by Grouplove.
Someone side-swipes the Ferrari.
You almost strike three pedestrians and crash into a Dunkin' Donuts.
This is somewhere near the Brooklyn Bridge and you find out - later - the lady who hit you, she died.
She was old.
"Wasn't wearing her glasses," someone on the street says.
"She was basically driving blind," the police officer says. "I'm surprised this didn't happen earlier."
An EMT examines you.
You try and act normal.
"Am I hurt?" you ask.
"You're not hurt," the EMT says.
You talk to the cops.
"Am I in trouble?" you ask.
"You're not in trouble," a young cop says.
You freak out a little.
You can smell pomade in your sweat.
"Everything is under control," someone says - another police officer.
You freak out some more. ~ Mike Kleine

Fighting me would be an exercise in futility, Countess." As if to assert his point, he reached out to grasp her jaw, tilting her chin up to meet his gaze. "As would trying to escape." Narrowing her eyes, she held her voice firm. "Yet I am certain my attempts could be very vexing." For an eternity, they stared at each other, locked in a silent battle of wills. Rafael's scowl deepened before he released her. ~ Brooklyn Ann

The best reason I can think of for not running for President of the United States is that you have to shave twice a day. ~ Adlai E. Stevenson

But walking along Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn, in his black overcoat and his gray interview suit, Quentin knew he wasn't happy. Why not? He had painstakingly assembled all the ingredients of happiness. He had performed all the necessary rituals, spoken the words, lit the candles, made the sacrifices. But happiness, like a disobedient spirit, refused to come. He couldn't think what else to do. ~ Lev Grossman

Brooklyn for twenty years, I've learned that there is always someone better than you at what you do. ~ Theophilus London

The Brooklyn Bridge and I grew up together, ~ Al Smith

But I'm sorry, where did you think you were, motherfucker? Connecticut? You're in a magic safe house in Bed-Stuy, borough of Brooklyn. There was a considerable Venn diagram overlap between people who lived in Bed-Stuy and people who had motherfucking guns. Fool. ~ Lev Grossman

But in their secret hearts, each new that it wasn't all right and would never be all right between them again. ~ Betty Smith

Course you can't fucking see, buddy, it's darker than a nun's virgin anus down here. ~ Charlie Huston

It may be small comfort, but I believe Rafe doesn't want to kill you."
A light laugh escaped her lips. "Actually, that is a substantial comfort. ~ Brooklyn Ann

When I was fifteen or sixteen I carried around in the streets of Brooklyn a paperback copy of Plato's 'Republic', front cover facing outward. I had read only some of it and understood less, but I was excited by it and knew it was something wonderful. How much I wanted an older person to notice me carrying it and be impressed, to pat me on the shoulder and say... I didn't know what exactly.

from: 'The Examined Life, Philosophical Meditations ~ Robert Nozick

I'm 37, please don't make me go to Brooklyn. ~ LIZ

I'm shooting in Brooklyn, we've got all kinds of crap going on, and I'm all alone now in a big hotel suite that you can't believe the size of it and a thing sticks in my foot and I just think it's the funniest thing that's ever happened to me. ~ Danny DeVito

Spring and fall in New York are the best seasons here to get out and about. I like the little park in Dumbo between the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridge. I like Prospect Park. ~ Paul Dano

Living in Brooklyn it's a very fend-for-yourself place. Maybe it's made me a little bit harsh but I don't consider that to be pejorative. ~ Fernando Torres

We left my birthplace, Brooklyn, New York, in 1939 when I was 13. I enjoyed the ethnic variety and the interesting students in my public school, P.S. 134. The kids in my neighborhood were only competitive in games, although unfriendly gangs tended to define the limits of our neighborhood. ~ Irwin Rose

I live in Brooklyn, New York. It is a melting pot of cultures and people. I walk down the street, and there is art on the buildings and people congregating who have been neighbors for years and events and music and freedom. ~ Erin Willett

Each generation identifies with a small group of people said to have lived lives exemplifying the vices and virtues of that generation. If one were to choose a trial lawyer whose life reflected the unique characteristics of America's "Wild West" of a criminal justice system in the latter half of the Twentieth Century, that person likely would be my father.

New York City of the 1960s until the turn of the 21st century was the world's epicenter of organized and white-collar crime. During those four decades, the most feared mafia chiefs, assassins, counterfeiters, Orthodox Jewish money launderers, defrocked politicians of every stripe, and Arab bankers arriving in the dead of night in their private jets, sought the counsel of one man: my father, Jimmy La Rossa.

Once a Kennedy-era prosecutor, Brooklyn-born Jimmy La Rossa became one of the greatest criminal trial lawyers of his day. He was the one man who knew where all of the bodies were buried, and everyone knew it. It seemed incomprehensible that Jimmy would one day just disappear from New York. Forever.

After stealing my dying father from New York Presbyterian Hospital to a waiting Medevac jet, the La Rossa Boys, as we became known, spent the next five years in a place where few would look for two diehard New Yorkers: a coastal town in the South Bay of Los Angeles, aptly named Manhattan Beach.

While I cooked him his favorite Italian dishes and kept him alive using the most advanced ~ James M. LaRossa Jr.

Or in Brooklyn Botanic Gardes during the cherry blossom season? ~ Laurelin Paige

It would take me three or four lifetimes to do everything I want. I'm a Brooklyn boy who learned to hustle, and I have to do something every day or I get the guilties. ~ Wolfman Jack

Move on. It's just a chapter in the past. But don't close the book just turn the page. ~ Brooklyn Copeland

Brooklyn is not the easiest place to grow up in, although I wouldn't change that experience for anything. ~ Neil Diamond

I would encourage more development in the boroughs outside of Manhattan as well. I think it's great that this natural emergence has occurred in the lower part of Midtown, but there's tremendous potential in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island as well. ~ John Liu

What's important," I say, taking his face in mine hands, looking him in the eye, "is that all this hesitation of yours is giving me a complex. And I feel annoying, insecure thoughts threatening to infiltrate the certainty of you liking me. ~ Brooklyn Skye

Carl Furillo was pure ballplayer. In his prime he stood six feet tall and weighed 190 pounds and there was a fluidity to his frame you seldom see, among such sinews. His black hair was thick, and tightly curled. His face was strong and smooth. He had the look of a young indomitable centurion ... I cannot imagine Carl Furillo in his prime as anything other than a ballplayer. Right field in Brooklyn was his destiny. ~ Roger Kahn

The idea that she would leave all of this - the rooms of the house once more familiar and warm and comforting - and go back to Brooklyn and not return for a long time again frightened her now. She knew as she sat on the edge of the bed and took her shoes off and then lay back with her arms behind her head that she had spent every day putting off all thought of her departure and what she would meet on her arrival. ~ Colm Toibin

How many other vampires are hidden in the nobility? And how many other lord vampires are here? "A mere handful are in the nobility, and only four lords were able to come." He answered her thought as if she'd spoken aloud. "But to answer your first question, when I heard my good friend Ian had wed a mortal, I was curious to see her for myself," he said with a soft smile. "And it was due time I ventured out of my castle. I'm certain you've heard I am a known recluse." Angelica gasped. "You can read my mind?" Vincent smiled. "Only if you are thinking very loud. ~ Brooklyn Ann

Everyone should walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. I did it three days in a row because it was one of the most exhilarating experiences I've ever had. The view is breathtaking. ~ Seann William Scott

When you live in Brooklyn, if you throw a rock, you'll hit a writer - Jonathan Safran Foer, Jonathan Lethem, Paul Auster. ~ Libba Bray

There were days, rainy gray days, when the streets of Brooklyn were worthy of a photograph, every window the lens of a Leica, the view grainy and immoble. We gathered our colored pencils and sheets of paper and drew like wild, feral children into the night, until, exhausted, we fell into bed. We lay in each other's arms, still awkward but happy, exchanging breathless kisses into sleep. ~ Patti Smith

I know there's this ongoing Portland/Brooklyn spar for über hipdom (and I have to be careful here, because my agent lives in Brooklyn), but Portland is the least derivative place I've ever been. The folks here do what they do in defiance of norm or trend. The spirit of authenticity in Portland is as contagious as a February flu. ~ Suzy Vitello

Far below ran the silver ribbon of the East River, braceleted by shining bridges, flecked by boats as small as flyspecks, splitting the shining banks of light that were Manhattan and Brooklyn on either side. ~ Cassandra Clare

Up on the Brooklyn Bridge a man is standing in agony, waiting to jump, or waiting to write a poem, or waiting for the blood to leave his vessels because if he advances another foot the pain of his love will kill him. ~ Henry Miller