200 New York Instagram Captions + Inspiring New York Quotes

Are you looking for New York Instagram Captions or/and Famous New York Quotes to complement your epic photos from the trip or vacation? New York is one of the most beautiful places to visit on the East Coast! This post is a collection of the best New York captions and quotes that will inspire your followers to travel to the extraordinary city NYC is!

The post is divided into sections to make browsing for the perfect New York quote or NYC Instagram caption easy. In the first two sections, you will find the best New York Insta captions and the best quotes about New York.

In the subsequent sections, there are famous quotes about New York City, funny New York quotes that will bring a smile to anyone’s face, best New York puns, New York quote love expressing, short NYC captions + short New York quotes, quotes about NY from people that don’t like the city, quotes about New Yorkers and life in the city, film quotes including Sex and the City quotes about New York and more! 

Best New York Instagram Captions

Let’s start with a collection of the best New York Instagram captions that are short and sweet! No need to overcomplicate things with long and complex New York City captions. Let your photo speak for itself! Here they are – the best NYC captions. 

1. “New York state of mind.” – Unknown

2. “Keep calm and go to New York.” – Unknown

3. “London is a mystery, NYC is an explanation.” – Unknown

4. “New York is a 24-hour city. It never stops.” – Unknown

5. “Anything is possible. This is New York.” – Unknown

6. “New York: concrete jungle where dreams are made of.” – Unknown

7. “Dear New York, I’ll never get over you.” – Unknown

8. “Wanderlust and city dust.” – Unknown

9. “NYC is always a good idea.” – Unknown

10. “New York is always in my mind.” – Unknown

11. “New York. City of dreams.”- Unknown

12. “Sleepless nights and city lights.” – Unknown

13. “I’m having an affair with New York.”- Unknown

14. “I went to New York to be born again.”- Unknown

15. “Hello, New York. You’re looking gorgeous today.”- Unknown

16. “A bad day in New York City is still better than a good day anywhere else.”- Unknown

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Famous New York Quotes 

Are you looking for some epic New York quotes for Instagram, perhaps famous quotes New York themed that will make an impression on whoever reads them? Below, you’ll find the best NYC quotes from famous people such as Madonna or Mark Twain. 

17. “New York is not a city. It’s a world.” – Iman

18. “I had enough electricity in my booty to jump-start the whole of New York City.” – Colum McCann

19. “This isn’t a fairytale. It’s New York City.” – Alex Flinn

20. “Make your mark in New York and you are a made man.”- Mark Twain

21. “I go to Paris, I go to London, I go to Rome, and I always say, ‘There’s no place like New York. It’s the most exciting city in the world now. That’s the way it is. That’s it.’” – Robert de Niro

22. “New York City is where your wildest dreams come true.”- Unknown

23. “Somewhere between living and dreaming, there’s New York.”- Unknown

24. “This is the city of dreamers and time and again it’s the place where the greatest dream of all, the American dream, has been tested and has triumphed.” – Michael Bloomberg

25.  “It was never built for the comfort and happiness of its citizens, but to astonish the world.” – Susan Ertz

26. “I don’t like cities. But I like New York. Other places make me feel like a dork.”— Madonna

27. “New York is really the place to be; to go to New York, you’re going to the centre of the world, the lion’s den.” – Zubin Mehta

28. “These streets will make you feel brand new.”- Unknown

29. “You’re going to make it happen. This is New York.”- Unknown

30. “It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.” – Agatha Christie

31. “These lights will inspire you.”- Unknown

32. “One’s life and passion may be elsewhere, but New York is where you prove if what you think in theory makes sense in life.” – Miuccia Prada

33. “Probably everything in my life comes back to a feeling of abandonment, and this city never abandons you.” – Ann Douglas

34. “The only credential the city asked was the boldness to dream. For those who did, it unlocked its gates and its treasures, not caring who they were or where they came from.” – Moss Hart, Act One

35. “It’s pretty cliched, but Times Square is just incredible. You really feel like you’re in the capital of the world.” — Timothy F. Cahill

36. “The great city of New York wields more of the destinies of this great nation than five times the population of any other portion of the country.” –  Malcolm S. Forbes

More Famous New York City Quotes 

If you’ve enjoyed the previous section packed with New York famous quotes, here are some more NYC famous quotes. In this section, you will find more inspiring quotes for New York from famous New Yorkers such as Lady Gaga. 

37. “I regret profoundly that I was not an American and not born in Greenwich Village. It might be dying, and there might be a lot of dirt in the air you breathe, but this is where it’s happening.” – John Lennon

38. “There is no question that there is an unseen world. The problem is, how far is it from midtown and how late is it open?” – Woody Allen

39. ​​“I … still had the sense, so peculiar to New York, that something extraordinary would happen any minute, any day, any month.” – Joan Didion

40. “I don’t like Los Angeles. The people are awful and terribly shallow, and everybody wants to be famous but nobody wants to play the game. I’m from New York. I will kill to get what I need.” – Lady Gaga

41. “The wanderer in Manhattan must go forth with a certain innocence because New York is best seen with innocent eyes.” – Pete Hamill

42. “Only in a crowded, diverse place like New York, surrounded by strangeness, do I come home to myself.” – Jonathan Franzen, How to Be Alone

43. “The diversity, the food, the culture, the constant change–New York City is truly one of the most inspiring places on the planet.” – XXMK

44. “When I’m in New York, I just want to walk down the street and feel this thing, like I’m in a movie.” – Ryan Adams

45. “In order to love New York you have to hate it too. It’s like a love affair–you don’t hunger for it till it’s out of reach, and when you’ve had your fill, you need to separate. When you return, some of its unfamiliar, but oh my god, the beauty of it.” ~ Connie Eisenstat

46. “New York City’s the place where they said, ‘Hey, babe, Take a walk on the wild side’” – Lou Reed

47. “There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.” – Simone de Beauvoir

48. “New York had all the iridescence of the beginning of the world.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

49. New York is a work of art in and of itself. It’s a masterpiece that shouldn’t make sense, yet somehow, it does. ~ Jacqueline E. Smith

50. “In New York, the opportunities for learning, and acquiring a culture that shall not come out of the ruins, but belongs to life, are probably greater than anywhere else in the world.” – Thomas Wolfe, Of Life and the River

Famous Song Lyrics New York New York 

Now, it’s time for the famous NY quotes from songs that we all love, including the famous New York New York Alicia Keys song and quotes on New York by Frank Sinatra. Some of these New York song quotes are so famous that they have become New York sayings! 

51. “Now you’re in New York. These streets will make you feel brand new. Big lights will inspire you. Hear it for New York.” – Alicia Keys and JAY-Z, ‘Empire State of Mind’

52. “New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there’s nothin’ you can’t do now you’re in New York.” – Jay-Z and Alicia Keys

53. “I’m in a New York state of mind.” – Billy Joel, ‘New York State of Mind’

54. “Welcome to New York, it’s been waiting for you.” — Taylor Swift, ‘Welcome to New York’

55. I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps.” – Frank Sinatra

56. “I want to be a part of it, New York, New York.” – Frank Sinatra, ‘New York, New York’

57. “Look around, look around at how lucky we are to be alive right now! History is happening in Manhattan and we just happen to be in the greatest city in the world!” – Hamilton Cast, ‘The Schuyler Sisters’

58. “Times Square can’t shine as bright as you.” – Plain White T’s, ‘Hey There Delilah’

Funny Quotes About New York

Enough with famous NYC quotes, this section is all about New York quotes funny style and funny NYC captions! Which funny New York Instagram caption is your favourite? 

59. I’m just a little apple in the Big Apple.

60. We’re all out of Stock.

61. Don’t harbor any ill will towards me.

62. That’s some bull.

63. Times Square’s so bright, I need to wear shades.

64. More like Empire Great Building, am I right?

65. Central Park always perks me up.

66. Times Square heals all wounds.

67. Staten Island floats my boat.

68. I came, I ate, I conquered.

69. In winter, New York makes a great frost impression.

70. A trip to New York takes quite a bit of dough.

More New York Funny Quotes + New York Sayings Funny 

If you’re looking for a little longer but also funny quotes on New York City, here are the 8 hilarious quotes about New York City (including New York quotes famous). 

71. “Cities have sexes: London is a man, Paris a woman, and New York a well-adjusted transsexual.” – Angela Carter

72. “If a newspaper prints a sex crime, it’s smut, but when The New York Times prints it, it’s a sociological study.” – Adolph S. Ochs

73. “New York City is a tourist trap I don’t mind being in.”- Unknown

74. “New York is the only city in the world where you can get deliberately run down on the sidewalk by a pedestrian.” – Russell Baker

75. “There’s something so romantic about being broke in New York. You gotta do it. You have to live there once without any money, and then you have to live there when you have money. Let me tell you, of the two, the latter is far better.” – Amy Poehler

76. “In Boston, they ask, how much does he know? In New York, how much is he worth? In Philadelphia, who were his parents?” – Mark Twain

77. “Of course, in Los Angeles, everything is based on driving, even the killings. In New York, most people don’t have cars, so if you want to kill a person, you have to take the subway to their house.”- Unknown

78. And sometimes on the way, the train is delayed and you get impatient, so you have to kill someone on the subway. That’s why there are so many subway murders; no one has a car.” – George Carlin

New York City Puns

Okay, we’ve had some funny quotes about NYC and now it’s time to bring it up a level with some of the best NYC puns! 

79. The views from the Empire States couldn’t be any NYCer.

80. Stop Yankee-ng my chain.

81. Winter in NYC is snow joke.

82. First Time-rs Square.

83. In winter, NYC is the city of tights.

84. A trip to NYC can be very taxi-ng on your wallet.

85. What a brew-tiful day!

86. Finally made it to the Statue of Liberty. It’s a boat time!

87. I’m so happy we MET.

88. In New York, the vegan puns are so corny.

89. After sightseeing all day, I’m Central Park-ing myself down for the rest of the night.

90. I’d really lake to live by Central Park.

New York Love Quotes

Any New York lovers out there? In this section, you will find some super inspiring New York city love quotes perfect to use for NYC Instagram captions. 

91. “New York has romanced me unlike anything else.” – Blake Lively

92. “I love New York on summer afternoons when everyone’s away.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

93. “If you follow your heart just right, it will get you to New York City.”- Unknown

94. “New York, I love you.”- Unknown

95. “I fell in love, his name is New York.”- Unknown

96. “Follow your heart, even if it takes you all the way to New York.”- Unknown

97. “New York. it puts a spell on you.”- Unknown

98. “I love New York, even though it isn’t mine, the way something has to be, a tree or a street or a house, something, anyway, that belongs to me because I belong to it.” – Truman Capote

99. “New York is not a place. It’s a feeling.”- Unknown

100. “People never forget two things: their first love and their first day in New York City.”- Unknown

101. “If Louis was right, and you only get one great love, New York may just be mine. And I can’t have nobody talking nonsense about my boyfriend.”— Carrie Bradshaw

Short Quotes About New York

This section is a collection of New York quotes short style and clever Insta captions for New York photos. Enjoy!

102. “I love New York.” – Hillary Clinton

103. “New York, here we come!”- Unknown

104. “Welcome to the concrete jungle.”- Unknown

105. “A New York minute.”- Unknown

106. “Bike like a New Yorker.”- Unknown

107. “Taking a bite out of the Big Apple.”- Unknown

108. “Give me the streets of Manhattan!” – Walt Whitman

109. “I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps.”- Unknown

110. “New York. City of dreams.”- Unknown

111. “You cannot stop New York City.”- Unknown

112. “Either you love New York or you are wrong.”- Unknown

113. “My life didn’t begin until I got to New York.”- Unknown

114. “New York is the city that other cities can only dream of being.”- Unknown

115. “I think I was made to live in New York.”- Unknown

116. “New York to me means the world.” – Donna Karan

117. “You haven’t lived until you died in New York City.” – Alexander Woollcott

More ​​Instagram Captions for New York 

If you are still looking for short and clever New York city Instagram captions, you will find more inspiration in this section. Which New York saying is your favourite? 

118. Enjoying every New York minute.

119. Meanwhile, in New York…

120. Once upon a time in New York..

121. Fairytale of New York.

122. The sky is the limit.

123. The city that never sleeps…

124. Late nights, bright lights.

125. My heart burns for the city lights.

126. Take me to New York City.

127. New York, New Me.

Escape from New York Quotes + New Yorkers quotes that dislike the city

In this section, you will find quotes and phrases about New York from people that don’t like the city! Would you agree with any of these NYC sayings? 

128. “When you leave New York you ain’t going anywhere.” – Jimmy Breslin

129. “I moved to New York City for my health. I’m paranoid and it was the only place where my fears were justified.” – Anita Weiss

130. “When you leave New York, you are astonished at how clean the rest of the world is. Clean is not enough.” – Fran Lebowitz

131. “New York is appalling, fantastically charmless and elaborately dire.” – Henry James

132. “New York is a sucked orange.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

133. “Manhattan is an accumulation of possible disasters that never happen.” – Ed Koch

134. “New York is a place where the rich walk, the poor drive Cadillac’s, and the beggars die of malnutrition with thousands of dollars hidden in their mattresses.” – Duke Ellington

135. “New York is an ugly city, a dirty city. Its climate is a scandal, its politics are used to frighten children, its traffic is madness, its competition is murderous.”- Unknown

136. “On a New York subway you get fined for spitting, but you can throw up for nothing.” – Lewis Grizzard

137. “You can try to change New York, but it’s like Jay-Z says: ‘Concrete bunghole where dreams are made up. There’s nothing you can do.’” – Liz Lemon

NYC Quotes on Life

Are you looking for NYC quotes for Instagram that talk about the experience of living in New York? Here is the collection of the best New York life quotes. 

138. “If a man can live in Manhattan, he can live anywhere.” – Arthur C. Clarke

139. “Things always change and New York teaches you that.” – Richard Hell

140. “It is a fact of big cities that one girl’s darkest how is always another’s a moment of shining triumph, and New York is the biggest and cruellest city of them all.” – Anna Godbersen

141. “I look out the window and I see the lights and the skyline and the people on the street rushing around looking for action, love, and the world’s greatest chocolate chip cookie, and my heart does a little dance.” – Nora Ephron

142. “I love New York. You can pop out of the Underworld in Central Park, hail a taxi, head down Fifth Avenue with a giant hellhound loping behind you, and nobody even looks at you funny.”- Rick Riordan

143. “There’s an inherent energy in New York City that it’s famous for. It makes you want to get up and do a million things all day and stay up all night.”- Unknown

144. “More than anything else New York is a city of superlatives, a place where the best, the brightest, the biggest is the norm.” – Marilyn J. Appleberg

145. “There is nothing prettier than a city at 5 AM with its empty streets and cold wind.”- Unknown

146. “Something’s always happening here. If you’re bored in New York, it’s your own fault.”- Unknown

147. “If you’re greedy for life, that’s what New York is all about. If you’re trying to get as much as you can every day, this city is the place to be.” – Pam Nelson

New Yorker Quotes

In this section you will find, the most famous New Yorker captions and sayings about New York City about the people that live and breathe NYC on a daily basis. Can you imagine living in this extraordinary city? 

148. “Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book–and does.” – Groucho Marx

149. “Someone asked me for directions, so you can call me a real New Yorker.”- Unknown

150. “My favourite thing about New York is the people because I think they’re misunderstood. I don’t think people realize how kind New York people are.”— Bill Murray

151. “The true New Yorker secretly believes that people living anywhere else have to be, in some sense, kidding.” – John Updike

152. “Yet, as only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you’ll live through the night.” – Dorothy Parker

153. “One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to its as much as five minutes as in five years.” – Tom Wolfe

154. “Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud. No other city is so spitefully incoherent.”— James Baldwin

155. “New Yorkers are born all over the country, and then they come to New York City and it hits them: oh, that’s who I am.”- Unknown

156. “But there is one thing about it – once you have lived in New York and it has become your home, no place else is good enough.” – John Steinbeck

157. “You can do what you like, sir, but I’ll tell you this. New York is the true capital of America. Every New Yorker knows it, and by God, we always shall.” – Edward Rutherfurd

158. “Being a New Yorker grounds you in every way. Before you walk out of the house, you can dress in the nicest clothes and be whoever you think you are, but when you’re on those streets, you’re just in the school of fish.”— Awkafina

159. “If you want to become a real New Yorker, there’s only one rule: You have to believe New York is, has been, and always will be the greatest city on earth. The centre of the universe.” – Ellen R. Shapiro

160. “The flag of New York City should be someone with four bags opening a door with their shoulder.” – Alex Baze

Sex and the City New York Quotes & Carrie Bradshaw Quotes about New York

Here is the most famous Carrie Bradshaw New York quotes and sayings about NYC from Sex and the City show. 

161. “When I first moved to New York, I bought Vogue instead of dinner. I just felt it fed me more.” – Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City

162. “Men in their forties are like The New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. Tricky, complicated, and you’re never really sure you’ve got the right answer.”

163. “If Louis was right, and you only get one great love, New York may just be mine. And I can’t have nobody talking shit about my boyfriend.”

164. “New York City is all about sex. People getting it, people trying to get it, people who can’t get it. No wonder the city never sleeps. It’s too busy trying to get laid.”

165. “That’s another reason I love New York. Just like that, it can go from bad to cute.”

166. “Year after year, twenty-something women come to New York in search of the two ‘L’s: Labels & Love.

167. “In New York, you’re always looking for a job, apartment or a boyfriend.”

168. “Every year the women of New York leave the past behind and look forward to the future. This is known as Fashion Week…”

169. Carrie: “New York Magazine says Brooklyn is the new Manhattan.”

                  Miranda: “Yes, but whoever wrote that lives in Brooklyn.”

170. “So maybe it won’t look like you thought it would in high school, but it’s important to remember that love is possible. Anything is possible. This is New York.”

Gossip Girl New York Quotes

Here are two perfect New York city IG captions for Gossip Girl fans!  

171.  “I love New York City…you’re never alone but you’re always on your own.” – Blair Waldorf, Gossip Girl

172. “Someone tell Gossip Girl I’m here right now.”

New York City Phrases From Other Films

In this section, you will find more New York City saying from super famous movies!

173. “And I always heard people in New York never get to know their neighbours.” – Paul Varjak, Breakfast at Tiffany’s

174. “I’m staying! You hear that, New York? THE FROG IS STAYING!” – Kermit the Frog, The Muppets Take Manhattan

175. “The only people who can afford to be artists in New York are rich.” – Sophie, Frances Ha

176. “Here we are Marv. New York City, the land of opportunity.” – Harry, Home Alone 

177. “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.”―F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

178. “Don’t you love New York in the fall? It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address. On the other hand, this not knowing has its charms.” – Joe Fox, You’ve Got Mail

Autumn in New York Quotes

Are you looking for New York captions for Instagram to describe autumn? Here is a few ideas you can use.

179. “There is a time of year in New York when even before the first leaf falls, you feel the seasons click.”- Unknown

180. “It was one of those perfect New York October afternoons when the explosion of oranges and yellows against the bright blue sky makes you feel like your life is passing through your fingers, that you’ve felt this autumn-feeling before and you’ll probably get to feel it again, but one day you won’t anymore because you’ll be dead.” – Sarah Dunn

181. “It’s autumn in New York. The colours are changing – yellow, the browns, the greens, the oranges. And that’s just the tap water.” – David Letterman

182. “Autumn in New York, why does it seem so inviting?” — Vernon Duke

183. “On the day of the race, as I run those very streets, will I be able to fully enjoy this autumn in New York? Or will I be too preoccupied? I won’t know until I actually start running. If there’s one hard and fast rule about marathons, it’s that.” — Haruki Murakami

More New York Captions for Insta

In this last section, you’ll find even more quotes and captions about New York. I hope you enjoyed it all.  

184.  “Pull up the shades so I can see New York. I don’t want to go home in the dark.” – O. Henry

185.  “As for New York City, it is a place apart. There is not its match in any other country in the world.” – Pearl S. Buck

186. “There is more sophistication and less sense in New York than anywhere else on the globe.” – Elbert Hubbard

187. “A hundred times I have thought: New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times: it’s a beautiful catastrophe.” – Le Corbusier

188. “One can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.” – Georgia O’Keefe

189. “I get out of the taxi and it’s probably the only city which in reality looks better than on the postcards, New York.” – Milos Forman

190. “If London is a watercolor, New York is an oil painting.” – Peter Shaffer

191. “People go to LA to “find themselves”, they come to New York to become someone new.” – Lindsey Kelk

192. “I knew I couldn’t live in America and I wasn’t ready to move to Europe so I moved to an island off the coast of America – New York City.” – Spalding Gray

193. “New York is a different country. Maybe it ought to have a separate government. Everybody thinks differently, they just don’t know what the hell the rest of the United States is.” – Henry Ford

194. “London is satisfied, Paris is resigned, but New York is always hopeful. Always it believes that something good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it.” – Dorothy Parker

195. “The people who say Las Vegas never sleeps must never have visited New York.”- Unknown

196. “The city was different back then–poor and crumbling–kept alive only by the gritty determination and steely cynicism of its occupants. But underneath the dirt was the apple-cheeked optimism of possibility, and while she worked, the whole city seemed to throb along with her.” – Candace Bushnell

197. “When it’s 100 degrees in New York, it’s 72 in Los Angeles. When it’s 30 degrees in New York, in Los Angeles it’s still 72. However, there are 6 million interesting people in New York, and only 72 in Los Angeles.” – Neil Simon

198. “The skyline of New York is a monument of a splendor that no pyramids or palaces will ever equal or approach.” ~ Ayn Rand

199. “When I was younger, I had wanted to be at the very center of all the action in New York, but I slowly came to realize that there is no one center. The center is everywhere – wherever people are living out their lives. It’s a city with a million centers.” – Elizabeth Gilbert, City of Girls

200. “So I went to New York City to be born again. It was and remains easy for most Americans to go somewhere else and start anew. I wasn’t like my parents. I didn’t have any supposedly sacred piece of land or shoals of friends to leave behind. Nowhere has the number zero been of more philosophical value than in the United States…. and when the [train] plunged into a tunnel under New York City, with its lining of pipes and wires, I was out of the womb and into the birth canal.” – Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard

201. “My advice for aspiring writers is go to New York. And if you can’t go to New York, go to the place that represents New York to you, where the standards for writing are high, there are other people who share your dreams, and where you can talk, talk, talk about your interests. Writing books begins in talking about it, like most human projects, and in being close to those who have already done what you propose to do.” – Walter Kirn

Final Word

I hope you enjoyed all the 201 New York quotes and New York Instagram captions! If you would like to take photos like me, check out my camera guide or meet me on Instagram for more inspiration. 

Mal xxx

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