Ed Koch famous quotes

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

#Giving #Ulcers #Type

The art of creation is older than the art of killing.
-- Ed Koch

#Art #Killing #Creation

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

#Respect #Believe #Self

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Thinking #Months #Six

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Issues #Vote #Psychiatrist

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

#Love #Rights

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

#Politics #Firsts #Bedtime

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

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

#New York #Aqua #Cities

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

#Success #Graduation #Education

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Country #Home #People

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Country #Children #Self

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Country #Children #Law

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Believe #Way #Grass

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Cities #Foundation #Essentials

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Enemy #Trying #Want

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Country #Doors #Land

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

#New York #Safe Haven #Thinking

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.
-- Ed Koch

#People #Would Be #Four

...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?
-- Ed Koch

#Country #Government #Immigration

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

#Drinking #Want #Pay

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Believe #Errors #Long

Carter couldn't elect a dog-catcher.
-- Ed Koch

#Dog #Catchers #Carter

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Running #No Friends #Towns

[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.
-- Ed Koch

#Country #New York #Government

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

#Enemy #Modern Life #Cuban

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

#Gone #Manhattan #Want

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

#Years #Two #Differences

Have you ever lived in the suburbs? It's sterile. It's nothing. It's wasting your life, and people do not wish to waste their lives once they've seen New York! This rural American thing - I'm telling you, it's a joke,
-- Ed Koch

#New York #People #Wish

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

#Killing #Bent #Persons

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Teaching #Different #Sage

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.
-- Ed Koch

#President #Cost #Politics

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Running #Sunday #Years

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

#Hands #Moments #Legislature

Tone can be as important as text.
-- Ed Koch

#Important #Tone

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Mean #Want #Homosexual

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

#New York #Law #Knives

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Watches #Weight #Mouths

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

#Fun #Critics

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Fall #Groups #World

In action be primitive; in foresight, a strategist.
-- Ed Koch

#Advice #Action #Primitive

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Humorous #America #Rainbow

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Thinking #Energy #Way

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Country #New York #Hate

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

#Age #Twelve #Born

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

#Society #Cleaning #Neighborhood

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Jail #Worry #Risk

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Motivational #Art #Pain

Whenever I leave Manhattan, I get the bends!
-- Ed Koch

#Manhattan

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

#Boys #Simple #Bronx

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Years #Done #Proud

I never doubted that I would be a good mayor. I never did.
-- Ed Koch

#Would Be #Mayors #Doubted

I love being the mayor. I want to be the mayor forever.
-- Ed Koch

#Forever #Want #Mayors

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Birthday #Years #Cities

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

#Regret #Hands #Years

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

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

#Social

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

#World #Remakes

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

#New York #Cities #People

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

#Jail #Violence

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

#Thinking #Enough #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.
-- Ed Koch

#War #Views #President

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

#Commitment #President #States

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

#Mayors

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Believe #Rights #Population

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

#Believe #Gun #Our Society

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Home #Army #Thinking

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Animal #People #May

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

#Running #Looks #Bores

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Exercise #Rights #Government

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

#Morning #New York #Thank You God

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.
-- Ed Koch

#Supportive #Friendly #Guts