No one as yet has approached the management of New York in a proper spirit; that is to say, regarding it as the shiftless outcome of squalid barbarism and reckless extravagance. No one is likely to do so, because reflections on the long narrow pig-trough are construed as malevolent attacks against the spirit and majesty of the American people, and lead to angry comparisons.
In America, people think being South Asian is still kind of exotic. When you go outside New York and Chicago and L.A., there are people who have never tried Indian food... they've never even tasted it!
The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.
I loved New York — every inch of it. It was a little bit scary at that time, but still, the excitement was so strong — visually and intellectually. It was like a monster.
It is self-evident that St. Louis affected me more deeply than any other environment has ever done. I feel that there is something in having passed one's childhood beside the big river, which is incommunicable to those people who have not. I consider myself fortunate to have been born here, rather than in Boston, or New York, or London.
The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat.
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.
A long time ago, I took a walk down a street in Harlem in New York City. I came upon a man who asked me for a dollar. He had asked a few other people before me, but they only passed him by without glancing his way. I stopped and handed the man some money. As I began to turn away, he reached out and shook my hand. He looked me in the eyes and said, "I will bless you." Now, I'm not saying that was God Himself. But how do we know that it wasn't someone working for him, walking around in disguise, just to see what we would do?
On the screen were some flashback shots of Daniel, Emma and Rupert from ten years ago. They were 12. I have also recently returned from New York, and while I was there, I saw Daniel singing and dancing (brilliantly) on Broadway. A lifetime seems to have passed in minutes.