I never consider myself a minority. I see people who look like me in Barbados, in Trinidad, in Haiti, in London, and in Brooklyn. So I don't know what the heck anyone means when they call me a 'minority.' There's something about that word to me. It just minimalizes people.
If you've never seen people taking the pledge of allegiance for the first time as U.S. Citizens, it will move you: a room full of people who can really appreciate what I was lucky enough to grow up with, simply by being born in Brooklyn.
When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn - I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point - and that was it.
When I was in New York, I put together a show; I put together this really great band and performed at this place called Littlefield in Brooklyn. It was really fun. I did, like, 10 standards, and then I just hopped around different bars like Mona's and different jazz clubs in New York just singing because I know all the standards so well.
As with all the other rappers I've worked with, Biggie and I shared common ground. Even though Biggie grew up in Brooklyn and I grew up in Chicago, we came from the same 'hood.
I was driving my 1959 Chevy Impala down King's Highway in Brooklyn with the top down, and I heard 'Oh! Carol' on three stations at the same time while I was channel surfing. I knew then that I made it.
I have observed, through many years of living in north Brooklyn, that people, for example an ostensible group of friends, can be dangerous to one another.
After I did 'Brooklyn,' I did about five or six violent films in one way or another, and not always with me being the bad guy, but something violent about it to keep the street cred up, really.
My grandmother was born in Russia, and she came through Poland on her way to America in the early 20s. She moved to Brooklyn.
I had taken on the color of the climate around me and had driven back all the emotion that rose from the Brooklyn streets so that I could belong to the exclusive club of Congress.
I was born on the other side of the tracks, in public housing in Brooklyn, New York. My dad never made more than $20,000 a year, and I grew up in a family that lost health insurance. So I was scarred at a young age with understanding what it was like to watch my parents lose access to the American dream.
I moved to L.A. after my landlord in Brooklyn tripled my rent. I spent months looking for other places to move to in New York, then one day I was in California eating a grapefruit, and I was like, 'This is what they taste like?' So I decided to move to L.A. and build a studio in my house.
I don't really go out, 'go out' that much anymore. I live in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg, so I just like to wander around. Williamsburg's such a cool little neighborhood community spot.
My wife and I always comment that our lives are relatively mundane. She's a writer as well, I'm a writer, we spend most of our time writing, and kind of going to yoga in Brooklyn.
I painted billboards above every candy store in Brooklyn.
My wife and I live in Brooklyn, N.Y., not too far from where my Long Island childhood happened.
Brooklyn for twenty years, I've learned that there is always someone better than you at what you do.
I was 15 when I read the script for 'Earth to Echo.' I thought it was amazing, and I couldn't think of turning it down. It's awesome for a kid from Brooklyn to have an opportunity to be on the big screen. And I had a great experience learning what the movie business is like. So, I'm glad I did it.
I consider myself fortunate to have grown up in Brooklyn. It's what gave me my drive to succeed, the upward mobility I've been after my whole life.
The ten-block radius around my house in Brooklyn has been my whole world. When I walk on the street, I feel like I've rediscovered my childhood innocence. I love it because nothing has changed.
I lived in Park Slope, which is probably one of the most homogenized areas of Brooklyn. No offense to Park Slope.
Newark might be one of few the places where the politics is tougher than even Brooklyn.
I went to an amazing school in Brooklyn called St. Anne's that's a really kind of creative hot bed.
I know there's Brooklyn and all the boroughs, but Manhattan specifically is so condensed that the energy is very vibrant. Everywhere you look there is something happening.
The whole point of bike-sharing is to give New Yorkers another way to commute. A lot of folks in Bay Ridge work in downtown Brooklyn or other parts of the borough. For them, it would make more sense to hop on a Citi Bike than to wait for a train or a bus.
Oh, Zoe Kazan - I'd move back to Brooklyn for her. She makes me happy with my life. Knowing her, being at her dinner table, going on a walk with her is the best of all possible worlds.