brooklyn

To the bankrupt poet, to the jilted lover, to anyone who yearns to elude the doubt within and the din without, the tidal strait between Manhattan Island and her favorite suburb offers the specious illusion of easy death. Melville prepared for the plunge from the breakwater on the South Street promenade, Whitman at the railing of the outbound ferry, both men redeemed by some Darwinian impulse, maybe some epic vision, which enabled them to change leaden water into lyric wine. Hart Crane rejected the limpid estuary for the brackish swirl of the Caribbean Sea. In each generation, from Washington Irving__ to Truman Capote__, countless young men of promise and talent have examined the rippling foam between the nation__ literary furnace and her literary playground, questioning whether the reams of manuscript in their Brooklyn lofts will earn them garlands in Manhattan__ salons and ballrooms, wavering between the workroom and the water. And the city had done everything in its power to assist these men, to ease their affliction and to steer them toward the most judicious of decisions. It has built them a bridge.

Apparently Brooklyn needn't always push itself to be something else, something conscious and anxious, something pointed toward Manhattan.... Brooklyn might sometimes also be pleased, as here on Flatbush, to be its grubby, enduring self.

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.

Well, I didn't really know what to say. So maybe I should say that I have thought about you and I like you, I like seeing you, I care for you and maybe I love you too. And the next time if you tell me you love me, I'll--" She stopped."You'll what?""I'll say I love you too.

Florence, listen to me carefully.... Take whatever that agent offers you. Give him what he wants, and don__ ask too many questions. Get yourself an exit visa as soon as you can. Then leave! Disappear. Forget this wretched place

The immediate difficulty, Florence realised while riding the high rail back to Brooklyn, was how to break the news to her parents, even if she could convince them that being a chaperone to six foreign men was a legitimate occupation for a twenty-three-year-old girl. What choice did she have? A paycheck could not win a girl__ independence

Who is she, after all? Not a member of the Party. Not even a Russian...What can she do, really, but watch the ginger-haired sacrificial lamb get slaughtered? One wrong move and Florence herself might be on the chopping block herself

Even the worst things about Devonairre Street are better than the rest of the city.

Your technique means nothing if you're not using your talents for the betterment of humanity.

Everything comes out of smoke and mist and nothingness, a mystical happening_

People say it is not the key to happiness, but I have always figured if you have enough money you can have a key made.

I had a blind date with a dentist _ and he told me to come back in six months.

The act of creation fascinates me. You can only sit with blank page and wait. You cannot press a button, cannot program it.

I said, "Is there!" I told him there is a Mafia school where they teach them math _ if Johnny has ten fingers and they cut off two, how many does he have left?

I am driven. Being driven is my energy source. It is my fun._I believe that where there is action, there is movement, and those ripples will eventually produce something positive.

Maybe that is why in my comedy I try and puncture the hypocrisy all around us, why it is almost a crusade with me to strip life down to what really is true.

_but I think comedy is more aggressive than that. It is a medium for revenge. We can deflate and punish the pomposity and the rejection which hurt us. Comedy is power.

Liked" was the kiss of death. "Loved" or "hated" interested him. At least the performer had aroused emotion.