Ed Koch Quotations

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.

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.

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

If you agree with me on 9 out of 12 issues, vote for me. If you agree with me on 12 out of 12 issues, see a psychiatrist.

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

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.

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.

It's a lot more fun being a critic than being the one criticized.

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

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.

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.

In action be primitive; in foresight, a strategist.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.'

To learn something new every day is still exciting!

Whenever I leave Manhattan, I get the bends!

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.

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

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

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

If they don't want to pay for it, they can stop drinking it.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I probably have another two or three years. Or I can pass tomorrow, but it doesn't make a difference to me.

I don't want to leave Manhattan, even when I'm gone,

I'm not an author, but before I became mayor, I wasn't a mayor.

The most guileful amongst the reporters are those who appear friendly and smile and seem to be supportive. They are the ones who will seek to gut you on every occasion.

I happen to believe that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality. It’s whatever God made you. 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.

Be different-if you don't have the facts and knowledge required, simply listen. When word gets around that you can listen when others tend to talk, you will be treated as a sage.

...the mayor should not be advancing a policy that encourages [illegal] immigrants to think of New York City as their safe haven.

Like many others, I'm deeply sympathetic to the huge numbers of people looking to come here today to escape suffering and poverty in their own lands. But as a country, we cannot afford to have a total open-door policy without any restrictions on entry.

...what about the millions of poor in this country who desperately need assistance and services to help bring them out of poverty? Shall they go to the back of the line? and shall those who have made a dramatic illegal entry, who would normally not be entitled to government assistance, or even entry itself, be put at the front?

The Chinese describe themselves as political refugees. Many base that claim on China's strict population laws, which allow them to have only one child. But if we accept them as bona fide political refugees for that reason, doesn't it follow that people living in countries where abortion is illegal (such as Ireland and Poland) should also receive political asylum? After all, their country's policy is forcing them to give birth to unwanted children.

Many of the self-described "political refugees" who come here make stopovers in other countries on their way to the U.S., in places where they would be free to have as many children as they want. But they choose to continue on to the U.S. Why? Because it is more economically attractive.

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.

Have confidence in your decisions. Make them expeditiously, and stay with them as long as you believe you are correct no matter what others say. However, when you conclude you were in error, do not hesitate to announce the error publicly and change course.

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.

The key to success in politics: Never forget, seldom forgive.

I want to come back as me.

Don't tell me this is a difficult problem. If it weren't difficult, it wouldn't be a problem.

I wake up every morning and say to myself, Well, I'm still in New York. Thank you, God.

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

However, they ignore the fact that the First Amendment is intended to protect only against government sanctions for exercising free speech rights, not private actions.

But enough of me. Lets talk about you. What do you think of me?

I intend to vote for President George W. Bush in the next election, because in my view, he is best able to wage the war against international terrorism.

Tone can be as important as text.

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.

It is not possible to remake the world. You can fix parts, but you can't remake the world.

[The UN should remain in New York] because every country needs a cesspool. And the UN is always interesting as a theater of the absurd.

Carter couldn't elect a dog-catcher.

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

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

I can explain it to you, but I can't comprehend it for you.

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 think he is in the great tradition of Pat Moynihan.

But nevertheless, I always believed today as he does, that if the United Nations hadn't been created, we would be creating it.

Eliot is the right guy to change Albany. As attorney general, he demonstrated a real commitment to reforming institutions from Wall Street to Main Street and I look forward to watching him work on reforming state government.

there was no limit to how high blacks could rise in my administration.

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.

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

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