A Quote by J. K. Simmons

I never had intention of coming to New York or L.A. and actually doing more than scraping by - you know, doing plays. And as my career sort of progressed of its own volition, I did come to New York.
New York was a new and strange world. Vast, impersonal, merciless.... Always before I had felt like a person, an individual, hopeful that I could mold my life according to some desire of my own. But here in New York I was ignorant, insignificant, unimportant--one in millions whose destiny concerned no one. New York did not even know of my existence. Nor did it care.
Woody Allen stayed so good because he never left New York. Howard Stern stayed so good because he never left New York - Mel Brooks when he just got out of New York was doing 'Blazing Saddles;' when he left New York he started doing stuff like 'Robin Hood Men In Tights' - he was in L.A. too long. He lost the edge.
Honestly, people told me to. It was weird, I graduated from school, I never thought I'd live in L.A. and I always wanted to be to New York. I assumed that would be my trajectory - that romantic ideal of moving there and doing plays Off-Broadway and being scrappy about it. Then we did a showcase in New York and a showcase in L.A., and for whatever reason the response that I generated in L.A. was significantly more enthusiastic.
It had always been a dream of mine to come to New York to work. Coming to New York and looking for work is one thing, but coming to New York and already having a job and feeling like you are already part of the city has been an amazing experience for me.
A play is a hard thing, particularly in L.A. It's less expensive than in New York, but there's also less of a commitment to people doing plays than in New York. So it's a strange battle.
We were going to do 'Reno 911!: New York, New York, Las Vegas,' which was like a 'Die Hard' set not in New York, but in the New York, New York casino in Las Vegas. We were really excited about being locked into the one casino and doing a bad action movie.
You're supported by everything in New York if you want to be a performing artist. You come here, you can change your name. You leave home, you come here, you're severed from family obligations - the old identity drops away as soon as you come to New York because you're coming to New York, if you're an artist, to be someone else.
I always considered myself a songwriter, but I didn't move to New York with plans of doing that; it just sort of happened. Everyone thinks that I moved to New York strictly to play music, but I totally just happened to fall into playing with Woods, and it all got started from there. I just went to New York to hang out.
Anything that I'm doing I think I always come at it from an outsider perspective. The first like real front page story that I had for the Times was about how after decades of battles over public restrooms in New York City, effectively chain stores had become the public restroom of choice for New Yorkers, it's sort of a silly little thing, but coming as an outsider, I was like 'Oh this is actually really interesting.'
One good and bad thing about New York is there's so much exciting stuff and so many people doing something interesting. I actually find in New York that you become more careerist and more focused on what's the newest, hippest thing.
I had been doing plays in New York and on a whim we packed up and moved West, I started doing commercials and plays and guest star spots on TV and one thing led to another and I got Knots Landing.
I'm from New York and I love New York and I'm always repping New York, but what I represent is something deeper than just being a New York rapper.
I actually like south Florida. I never lived in a more interesting place than this. I've never met a wider range of people. I guess when I came here I thought there were Cubans and then there were people from New York and that was Miami. Now I know that it's Cubans, people from New York, and some people from New Jersey.
A lot of the reason I left New York, in addition to being so broke, was that I just felt I was becoming provincial in that way that only New Yorkers are. My points of reference were really insular. They were insular in that fantastic New York way, but they didn't go much beyond that. I didn't have any sense of class and geography, because the economy of New York is so specific. So I definitely had access and exposure to a huge variety of people that I wouldn't have had if I'd stayed in New York - much more so in Nebraska even than in L.A.
Chicago seems to follow New York, and coming from New York and being in real estate, I worry about things happening in Chicago that have happened in New York. I've seen a great city like New York go downhill. It has a wonderful financial downtown, but the rest of the city is not very nice.
New Yorkers know how to borrow wildly. You know, Louis Armstrong was not a New York musician. He went from New Orleans to Chicago to New York, and when he arrived here, he taught those New Yorkers. New York needs that infusion.
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