Quotessence
Home / Topics / Brooklyn Quotes

Brooklyn Quotes

Browse 336 quotes about Brooklyn.

Related topics

PeopleNew YorkKnowsYearsIfsManhattanThinkingBridgesGrewGrew UpGrowing UpLittlesKidsKindStreetsBrooklyn BridgeBrooklyn New YorkFirstsWantCitiesGrowingMotherSchoolHomeUsedFeelsLooksMeanMenPlaySawsStillsWayWorldGrowsGuyJobsMadeMovingNeighborhoodParentRealBeautifulBornChildrenDadDodgersFansGirlMightMy DadTwoWalksWells

Brooklyn Quotes

“We window-shopped along Court Street, the closest thing Brooklyn has to Manhattan, perusing the indie clothing boutiques, bookstores, and Italian bakeries, and stopped at Frankies 457 Spuntino, a casual Italian restaurant that every young Brooklynite loves, to pound fresh ricotta, gnocchi, and meatballs. Afterward, I dragged us ten blocks out of the way to hit up Sugar Shop, a modern-retro candy store I loved, to load up on malt balls and gummies. We strolled the magnificent blocks of Victorian homes and green lawns in Ditmas Park, as if suddenly transported from the city's whirl to a faraway college town, perusing the rhubarb, Bibb lettuces, and buckets of fresh clams at the farmers' market, before demolishing fried egg sandwiches on ciabatta at the Farm on Adderly, one of the boroughs now-prolific farm-to-table restaurants. We shared pizza at Franny's: one red, one white, both pockmarked with giant charred blisters from the exceedingly hot brick oven. In a borough known for its temples of pizza worship, before it closed in the summer of 2017, Franny's was right up there, owing to the perfect flavors oozing from each simple ingredient, from the milky mozzarella to the salty-sweet tomato sauce to the briny black olives.”

DatingPizzaBrooklynFarmers MarketItalian Restaurants
Book:Brooklyn in Love: A Delicious Memoir of Food, Family, and Finding Yourself
Create image

“Maybe it wasn’t rational, but she didn’t like the idea of Leo invading her little world. Yesterday, Brooklyn had belonged to her. The Long Island ’burbs where she’d grown up had felt far away from the brick streets and renovated factory spaces of Brooklyn. In this job, she’d felt truly independent, putting down her own fragile roots in a new place. Fast forward twenty-four hours, and her daddy had joined the workplace and her ex-boyfriend had shown up to remind her of all that she’d lost. Really, a girl could be forgiven for feeling slightly hysterical. Not that there was any time to panic.”

IndependenceRationalJobPanicDaddyBoyfriendBrooklynHystericalLong Island
Book:Rookie Move
Create image

“To the bankrupt poet, to the jilted lover, to anyone who yearns to elude the doubt within and the din without, the tidal strait between Manhattan Island and her favorite suburb offers the specious illusion of easy death. Melville prepared for the plunge from the breakwater on the South Street promenade, Whitman at the railing of the outbound ferry, both men redeemed by some Darwinian impulse, maybe some epic vision, which enabled them to change leaden water into lyric wine. Hart Crane rejected the limpid estuary for the brackish swirl of the Caribbean Sea. In each generation, from Washington Irving’s to Truman Capote’s, countless young men of promise and talent have examined the rippling foam between the nation’s literary furnace and her literary playground, questioning whether the reams of manuscript in their Brooklyn lofts will earn them garlands in Manhattan’s salons and ballrooms, wavering between the workroom and the water. And the city had done everything in its power to assist these men, to ease their affliction and to steer them toward the most judicious of decisions. It has built them a bridge.”

FailureSuicideNew York CityHopelessnessBrooklynManhattanMelvilleBankruptWalt WhitmanBrooklyn BridgeHerman MelvilleWhitmanEast RiverJacob M Appel
Book:The Biology of Luck
Create image

“Sunset was just then settling over Red Square. There seemed some hidden vision to be gleaned. A message about man’s chaotic spirit and his sombre dignity. His dignity and his power. His power and his purpose. She was sure that there was some thread there, but the burden of decoding it made her feel too tired”

LoveAmericaFictionMotherhoodCommunismSoviet UnionBrooklynFiction NovelSoviet RussiaRussian LiteratureRussian RevolutionBased On Real EventsBased On A True StorySoviet Literature20th Century Russia
Book:The Patriots
Create image

“Who is she, after all? Not a member of the Party. Not even a Russian...What can she do, really, but watch the ginger-haired sacrificial lamb get slaughtered? One wrong move and Florence herself might be on the chopping block herself”

LoveAmericaFictionMotherhoodCommunismSoviet UnionBrooklynFiction NovelSoviet RussiaRussian LiteratureRussian RevolutionBased On Real EventsBased On A True StorySoviet Literature20th Century Russia
Book:The Patriots
Create image

“The immediate difficulty, Florence realised while riding the high rail back to Brooklyn, was how to break the news to her parents, even if she could convince them that being a chaperone to six foreign men was a legitimate occupation for a twenty-three-year-old girl. What choice did she have? A paycheck could not win a girl’s independence”

LoveAmericaFictionMotherhoodCommunismSoviet UnionBrooklynFiction NovelSoviet RussiaRussian LiteratureRussian RevolutionBased On Real EventsBased On A True StorySoviet Literature20th Century Russia
Author:Sana Krasikov
Create image

“My mother had been in the Soviet whirlpool for eleven years by this point. Enough time, I imagine, to unlearn the bourgeois habits of her native Brooklyn, to accustom herself to the farting and shouting of her neighbours, to doing her washing by hand in the collective tub, to keeping her dry food locked up in her wardrobe”

LoveAmericaFictionMotherhoodCommunismSoviet UnionBrooklynFiction NovelSoviet RussiaRussian LiteratureRussian RevolutionBased On Real EventsBased On A True StorySoviet Literature20th Century Russia
Book:The Patriots
Create image

“Was it an instinct towards their future life together that she was already sensing, which made her pull back? For what she was seeing suddenly, in her mind’s eye, was an image of the two of them dancing on the edge of the world, not realising that they were about to fall off”

LoveAmericaFictionMotherhoodCommunismSoviet UnionBrooklynFiction NovelSoviet RussiaRussian LiteratureRussian RevolutionBased On Real EventsBased On A True StorySoviet Literature20th Century Russia
Book:The Patriots
Create image

“Only then, as she prepared to cross the avenue, did she again spot the man in the fedora hat. He was at the opposite side of the street from where he’d stood before, but the caramel color of his coat was unmistakable. He was loitering in front of what looked like a Ford V8 parked nose-up on the sidewalk. Florence adjusted her shawl over her shoulders and crossed to the opposite corner of the plaza. When she turned back to look again, he was gone”

LoveAmericaFictionMotherhoodCommunismSoviet UnionBrooklynFiction NovelSoviet RussiaRussian LiteratureRussian RevolutionBased On Real EventsBased On A True StorySoviet Literature20th Century Russia
Book:The Patriots
Create image

“Florence could feel a constriction in her chest…She had been foolish enough to hope that whatever she was walking into would affect no one but herself. Now the truth was catching up with her at the speed of her galloping heartbeat…Now they had summoned her. And they knew everything”

LoveAmericaFictionMotherhoodCommunismSoviet UnionBrooklynFiction NovelSoviet RussiaRussian LiteratureRussian RevolutionBased On Real EventsBased On A True StorySoviet Literature20th Century Russia
Book:The Patriots
Create image

“Florence, listen to me carefully.... Take whatever that agent offers you. Give him what he wants, and don’t ask too many questions. Get yourself an exit visa as soon as you can. Then leave! Disappear. Forget this wretched place”

LoveAmericaFictionMotherhoodCommunismSoviet UnionBrooklynFiction NovelSoviet RussiaRussian LiteratureRussian RevolutionBased On Real EventsBased On A True StorySoviet Literature20th Century Russia
Book:The Patriots
Create image

“I obviously love Jack the Horse Tavern in Brooklyn Heights. The smoked trout salad is what lures me back again and again; it's indicative of the offbeat menu that also includes baked eggs, buckwheat pancakes, and a shrimp club sandwich. Everything at the Farm on Adderly is fresh and tasty. This Ditmas Park pioneer keeps it simple and refined: a smoked pollock cake with harissa mayonnaise, french toast with apple compote, and a kale salad with dried cherries and hazelnuts. Yes, please! Tucked away in the north of ever-popular DUMBO, Vinegar Hill House feels like you've actually trekked to Vermont. In the rustic ambiance, you can indulge in fancy cocktails along with the oversized sourdough pancake, tarragon-accented omelet, or eggs Benedict topped with pickled onion. Buttermilk Channel is the ultimate indulgence- pecan pie french toast, Provençal bean stew, a house-cured lox platter. Because of the over-the-top menu and portions, this Carroll Gardens bistro hops all day, every Sunday.”

BrooklynPancakesBrunchBreakfast Of ChampionsSaladsBistro
Book:Brooklyn in Love: A Delicious Memoir of Food, Family, and Finding Yourself
Create image

“Four & Twenty is a seasonal bakeshop- it is Brooklyn, after all, where seasonal, local, and sustainable are the altars at which all foodies worship. The sisters aren't opposed to experimenting with off-season or foraged ingredients but prefer following the popular credo that just so happened to also be their grandma's philosophy: "It just feels better," Emily explains. "Local is so much better and tastier." While they constantly develop new recipes- honey rosemary shoofly, chocolate bourbon mint, strawberry kefir lime- there is one fan favorite that the Elsens make year round: the salted caramel apple pie. In a show of romanticism, Andrew and I decided to split a slice. Apple pie takes many forms: chunky fruit or dainty slices, oozing with juices, laden with spices, crumbly tops, and moist middles. Without even taking a bite, I knew this was going to be special. The thinly sliced apple rings- visible from the side but obscured from above by thick, sugar-dusted latticework- were densely stacked. Along with a commitment to seasonal fruit and local ingredients, the sisters are hell-bent on having an all-butter crust. "A good crust is a mark of someone who's paid a lot of attention and who cares about what they're making," Emily insists. They don't use Crisco or lard, no margarine or hot oil- just pure butter with a titch of apple cider vinegar to add a little tang, tenderness, and the right flake. Andrew let me take the first bite. The pie had a perfect amount of give. It was soft and juicy, but not soggy (the downfall of promising slices in lesser hands). Neither sweet nor tart, the salted caramel enrobed the fruit and added a note of savoriness. As promised, the crust was killer.”

BrooklynFlavorsApple PieBakeryLocal FoodSeasonalCrustBakeshop
Book:Brooklyn in Love: A Delicious Memoir of Food, Family, and Finding Yourself
Create image

“Every once in a while at a restaurant, the dish you order looks so good, you don't even know where to begin tackling it. Such are HOME/MADE's scrambles. There are four simple options- my favorite is the smoked salmon, goat cheese, and dill- along with the occasional special or seasonal flavor, and they're served with soft, savory home fries and slabs of grilled walnut bread. Let's break it down: The scramble: Monica, who doesn't even like eggs, created these sublime scrambles with a specific and studied technique. "We whisk the hell out of them," she says, ticking off her methodology on her fingers. "We use cream, not milk. And we keep turning them and turning them until they're fluffy and in one piece, not broken into bits of egg." The toast: While the rave-worthiness of toast usually boils down to the quality of the bread, HOME/MADE takes it a step further. "The flame char is my happiness," the chef explains of her preference for grilling bread instead of toasting it, as 99 percent of restaurants do. That it's walnut bread from Balthazar, one of the city's best French bakeries, doesn't hurt. The home fries, or roasted potatoes as Monica insists on calling them, abiding by chefs' definitions of home fries (small fried chunks of potatoes) versus hash browns (shredded potatoes fried greasy on the griddle) versus roasted potatoes (roasted in the oven instead of fried on the stove top): "My potatoes I've been making for a hundred years," she says with a smile (really, it's been about twenty). The recipe came when she was roasting potatoes early on in her career and thought they were too bland. She didn't want to just keep adding salt so instead she reached for the mustard, which her mom always used on fries. "It just was everything," she says of the tangy, vinegary flavor the French condiment lent to her spuds. Along with the new potatoes, mustard, and herbs de Provence, she uses whole jacket garlic cloves in the roasting pan. It's a simple recipe that's also "a Zen exercise," as the potatoes have to be continuously turned every fifteen minutes to get them hard and crispy on the outside and soft and billowy on the inside.”

BreakfastPotatoesBrooklynSeasoningsFriesMustardScrambled EggsToast
Book:Brooklyn in Love: A Delicious Memoir of Food, Family, and Finding Yourself
Create image

“You wouldn't know it by their rapid ascension to ice cream dominance, but caution has guided their way. "The goal is to build out an anti-chain chain," Brian explains, fully aware that the charm of Ample Hills is that it's small, independently owned, and has quirks that locals appreciate. Every time they add a new scoop shop, they're mindful of creating at least one flavor that's unique to that location, like It Came Out of Gowanus, "the deepest, darkest, murkiest chocolate ice cream," in Brian's words, that's chock-full of white chocolate pearls, a nod to the waterway's once-prolific bivalves; chocolatey "crack cookies" made with hazelnut paste; and Grand Marnier-laced brownies.”

ChocolateIce CreamBrooklynLocal
Book:Brooklyn in Love: A Delicious Memoir of Food, Family, and Finding Yourself
Create image

“Whenever I walked across the Manhattan Bridge, I remembered myself as having crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. This is because you can see the latter from the former, and the latter is more beautiful. [...] But by the time I arrived in Brooklyn to meet Alex, I was starting to misremember crossing in the third person, as if I had somehow watched myself walking beneath the Brooklyn Bridge's Aeolian cables.”

New YorkPerspectiveMemoryBrooklynBrooklyn Bridge
Author:Ben Lerner
Create image

“We even made it to the holy mecca of Brooklyn food fanaticism: Smorgasburg, a collection of food vendors that battle it out for the most outrageously delicious, ridiculously inventive food. We duly ate our heads off, sampling panko-crusted chicken sandwiches topped with pickled cucumbers and daikon, brown butter cookies doused in flies of sea salt, and the coup d'état- gigantic, billowy doughnuts from a Bed-Stuy bakery called Dough, one sweetly flavored with hibiscus, the other a savory, roasted café au last varietal.”

BrooklynFusionDoughnutsFood SamplesFoodie Business
Book:Brooklyn in Love: A Delicious Memoir of Food, Family, and Finding Yourself
Create image