I can understand the allure of a venerable Big Six imprint, of a shot at the New York Times list, of a publisher-sponsored book tour, of seeing your hardbacks in bookstores and your paperbacks in supermarkets.
I don't write huge books any more. I used to write 1,000 printed pages, but now I write short books. I did one on Napoleon, 50,000 words - enjoyed doing that. He was a baddie. I did one on Churchill, which was a bestseller in New York, I'm glad to say. 50,000 words. He was a goodie.
There was one reviewer from the 'New York Times,' I forget his name, who said I was 'death warmed over.' I wrote him back that I knew more about death than he did. The 'Times' fired him, put him in the cooking department!
That was more or less coincidental in the sense that my parents wanted me to come back to New York because that's the center of musical activity still to this day, more or less, and so I auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera.
Mayor Koch, of New York, was the first public figure to give me support.
We're going to restructure the state government into a government that's responsive to the needs of New York state taxpayers.
New York is a great city. There is no question of that. It's such a diverse city. I've walked down the city and heard four or five different languages simultaneously. I think that's beautiful.
I don't have to really be in the 60s. Every time I hail a cab in New York, and they pass me by and pick up the white person, then I get a dose of it. Or when they don't want to take you to Harlem. I grew up with that.
I went to the London Academy Of Music and Dramatic Art and returned to New York where I started my career.
I was supposed to go to drama school and then go to New York and do theatre. But I grew up on all those fabulous movies and had read all the bold Hollywood books, and I thought I just had to take a look.
I'd like to do Harvey again. I did it two years ago with Helen Hayes in New York. It was a joy. I was so glad to do it again because I never thought I did it right the first time.
The Internet makes it possible for people like me to live the way I do now. Without it, I'd have to be in New York or some other city. I think the Internet is the greatest invention in history after antibiotics.
I started work on my first French history book in 1969; on 'Socialism in Provence' in 1974; and on the essays in Marxism and the French Left in 1978. Conversely, my first non-academic publication, a review in the 'TLS', did not come until the late 1980s, and it was not until 1993 that I published my first piece in the 'New York Review.'
My mum is very political - left wing - and my dad was in the advertising business. They were both from the East Coast: Boston and New York City, respectively.
Unfortunately I was in New York when 9/11 happened.
I personally would rather raise my child in New York. It seems like it would be easier to make sure she or he gets a whole bunch of experience and understanding of the world. But, people in general think it's easier to raise a kid when you don't have so much stuff in your face.
On this basis, which was originally financial and goes back to George Peabody, there grew up in the twentieth century a power structure between London and New York which penetrated deeply into university life, the press, and the practice of foreign policy.
I never really considered acting as a career until I moved to New York.
I think that the very fact that CBS fought and fought and fought in Texas, in New York.
I love New York - maybe more than Los Angeles or London. I think I'm happiest in New York.
The film itself involves a New York City radio storyteller, Gabriel Noone, who strikes up a friendship with one of his fans, an abused 14-year-old teenager who is suffering from AIDS, who does not have much longer to live.
The four places I've called home in my life have been Lahore, London, New York and California. And I have a very strong tie to each one of those four places.
New York came after me aggressively and that's what sealed the deal.
I live in New York. I don't really particularly want to move to LA.
In New York, the street adventures are incredible. There are a thousand stories in a single block. You see the stories in the people's faces. You hear the songs immediately. Here in Los Angeles, there are less characters because they're all inside automobiles.
When I was younger, I'd go to the Museum of Television and Radio in New York and watch this beautiful clip of Billie Holiday playing with a bassist, a pianist and Gerry Mulligan, who was a friend of mine, on baritone sax. At one point, she looks over at Gerry, and they just smile. When those moments happen, it's just lovely.
If you're big in Montreal, you're big in Quebec. If you're big in Toronto, you're big in Canada. But if you're big in New York, you're big in the rest of the world.
The biggest luxury is a job in which I get to live in New York, travel the world, and work with so many incredible people.
We're living at a time where if you do a Google search for a 'show, review and network,' you'll get 'The New York Times' and Pete Billingsley from a town you've never heard of on the same results page. It's kind of democratizing the process so that everyone has access to a distribution system to express themselves.
Every day is a different day in New York; there's always something new going on.
I remember perfectly my first trip to New York, when I was on the bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan, when I saw the skyscrapers. It was like an incredible dream.
I like the fact that New York looks a bit backwards, toward the Old World, rather than resolutely forwards.
I always say that I would go poor eating my way through New York because I like to try everything.
I grew up a little north of New York City and went to high school at Regis, an all-boys tuition-free high school in Manhattan.
My mother's background was Scottish. She came from an old family, some of whom lived in upper New York State and some of whom had come over from Scotland.
Growing up in New York has influenced my style so much, and I have an amazing relationship with my stylist, Estee Stanley. We have so much fun with the whole process. She picks out dresses, I try things on and play dress up, and we get creative to see what works.
