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“Through it all that first feeling, on a night more than forty years ago, remains my major feeling: I am so pleased to be here that I can hardly believe I am. What New York represents, perfectly and consistently, in literature and life alike, is the idea of Hope. Hope for a new life, for something big to happen, hope for a better life or a bigger apartment. When I leave Paris, I think, I was there. When I leave New York, I still think: Where was I? I was there of course, and I still couldn’t grasp it all. I love Paris, but I believe in New York and its trinity of values: plurality, verticality, possibility. These are stories of happiness in shadow: the shadow of a darkening time and the shadow of human mortality both. I feel the shadows, we all do, and cringe maybe even more than most. But I try to remember that darkness is a subject, too, and need not always be too sad a one. Shadows are all we have to show us the shapes that light can make.” — Adam Gopnik