I feel like my 50 years at Harvard were an interlude. I'm really a New Yorker.
I've had a relatively charmed life. I loved to be out in the city. New York was my town. I've had people come up to me and say, 'You're a great New Yorker. You've given your time and money to so many New York charities. You're a great supporter of the arts. I like some of your movies - and some of your movies suck, actually.'
I like L.A., I really do, but I'm really a New Yorker. In New York, there's a feeling that you're not praised or treated too preciously. No one ever feels too important because someone on the subway will reassure you that you're not.
When I first moved here, I almost felt like I was obligated to hate L.A. as a New Yorker. I moved way too fast for this city. I walked everywhere, and I was lonely, too. It was a really hard time not knowing anybody, and you don't run into people the way you do in New York. You can go a week without seeing anyone.
I'm not running from the left; I'm running from the bottom. I'm running in fierce advocacy for working-class New Yorkers.
I'm a New Yorker, and working in New York was divine for me. I loved working there and going to work there, which I've been able to do three or four times in my career, and I just love it. It's my favorite.
New Yorkers will be rude, but at least they do so out of the rationale that everyone around them is always slowing them down. Los Angeles, I learned, is a city full of people who have the personality of the coolest pretty boy from your eighth-grade class.
The stereotype of New Yorkers is that we're people who avoid warm human interaction, we're always in too much of a rush to enjoy simple things, and that we're just generally rude.
Too many upstate New Yorkers have to drive 30 minutes or more to see a doctor.
Activating is about changing people's perceptions of overlooked or invisible spaces. A building can become an archetype, invisible, like for a New Yorker, for example, the Statue of Liberty. You look at it, and it disappears into the thousands of times you've already seen it.
