Quite simply, I was in love with New York. I do not mean…
““Quite simply, I was in love with New York. I do not mean “love” in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you and you never love anyone quite that way again. I remember walking across Sixty-second Street one twilight that first spring, or the second spring, they were all alike for a while. I was late to meet someone but I stopped at Lexington Avenue and bought a peach and stood on the corner eating it and knew that I had come out out of the West and reached the mirage. I could taste the peach and feel the soft air blowing from a subway grating on my legs and I could smell lilac and garbage and expensive perfume and I knew that it would cost something sooner or later – because I did not belong there, did not come from there – but when you are twenty-two or twenty-three, you figure that later you will have a high emotional balance, and be able to pay whatever it costs. I still believed in possibilities then, still had the sense, so peculiar to New York, that something extraordinary would happen any minute, any day, any month.””
About This Quote
This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation.
Love for a place can be intense, fleeting, and tied to personal growth and sacrifice.
In simple terms: City love is deep and costly.
Key Takeaway
Embrace the city’s energy, accept its costs.
Themes
place attachment
nostalgia
growth
Mood
reflective
melancholy
Type
literary
personal
When to use this quote
- moving to a new city
- first job abroad
- college life
Key Concepts
urban romance
identity formation
exile
Questions to Reflect On
- What does the city demand from you?
- How does belonging shape your identity?
A Different Perspective
Romanticizing may ignore hardships.