Ed Koch People Quotations

I am not for public executions, though I support the death penalty. One, it's an appropriate punishment in horrific cases, and two, it's a deterrent. There are studies that say that for every person executed, eight innocent people who might otherwise have been murdered were not.

Unless they can immediately demonstrate a credible fear of persecution, why shouldn't these people be returned at once to the country from which they embarked - whether it be their home country or a stopover point - at the expense of the airline that brought them? All appeals would then be made from the country to which they have been returned.

If you turn your back on these people, you yourself are an animal. You may be a well-dressed animal, but you are nevertheless an animal.

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.

Should we be rewriting history just to make people feel good? That's not history, that's psychiatry.

I changed the city of New York. I gave people back their morale.

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.

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.'

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 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.

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.

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.

and I thought the people who voted against him were nuts.

He came to see me a few weeks ago, and I said, 'You're not doing it exactly the way I did it,' ... 'You're talking as though it was the four other boroughs against Manhattan.' ... I said 'There are plenty of middle-class people living in Manhattan.' He changed the tone then, so that it became more of a message about the middle class.

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.