179 New York Instagram Captions To Describe The Big Apple

Looking for some New York Instagram captions? If you have visited the Big Apple before then you know there is no other city in the world quite like it.  Below are some of the best New York quotes that will inspire you to book a trip and begin your NYC bucket list adventures before you finish scrolling through this list. 

Without further ado let’s get on with these quotes about New York City!

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New York Instagram captions Pinterest pin. Text says New York quotes for Instagram. New York City skyline.

Need more inspiration for your trip to New York City? Check out these related posts:

Best New York Captions for Instagram

While you’re out exploring the things to do in New York City, you don’t have to think of a perfect caption. Use these New York captions for Instagram that I have curated for you.

Manhattan bridge. New York Instagram caption that reads “Anything is possible. This is New York.”

1| “Anything is possible. This is New York.”

2| “Once upon a time in New York.” 

3| “New York, New Me.” 

4| “London is a mystery, NYC is an explanation.”

5| “I want to live as many lives as there are in New York City.”

6| “Somewhere between living and dreaming, there’s New York.”

7| “New York is always a good idea!” 


8| “The city that never sleeps.” 

9| “Happiness is…. holding tickets that say New York!”

Short  Quotes About New York

Quote about New York that says “Give me the streets of Manhattan!”- Walt Whitman . Building in NYC.

10| “Give me the streets of Manhattan!”- Walt Whitman 

11|  “I’m in a New York state of mind.”- Billy Joel

12| “New York is the only real city-city.” – Truman Capote

13|  “I didn’t know the city at all, but I was so happy to be in New York I cried. I was so excited.” – Greta Gerwig

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

15|  “If London is a watercolor, New York is an oil painting.”- Peter Shaffer

16|  “New York had all the iridescence of the beginning of the world.”- F. Scott Fitzgerald

17| “You haven’t lived until you died in New York.”- Alexander Woollcott  

18| “Here we are Marv. New York City, the land of opportunity.”- Harry, Home Alone 2

Awesome New York Captions for Instagram 

NYC instagram caption “Taking a bite out of the Big Apple.” View of NYC during sunset.

19| “Taking a bite out of the Big Apple.” 

20| “A New York minute.”

21| “Wanderlust city dust.” 

22| “Fairytale of New York” 

23| “My heart burns for the city lights.”

Best New York City Captions for Instagram

Text reads “Late nights, bright lights.”. NYC lit up at night.

24| “Late nights, bright lights.”

25| “If you follow your heart just right, it will get you to New York City.” 

26| “I’d rather be in New York.”

27| “Keep calm and love NYC.” 

28|“Make your way through New York.”

Short New York City Instagram Captions 

New York Instagram caption “Welcome to the concrete jungle." View of Manhattan.

29| “Welcome to the concrete jungle.”

30| “Enjoying every New York minute.”

31| “I left my heart in New York.”  

32| “New York – The City of dreams.”

33|  “Welcome to the concrete jungle.”

 34| “New York is calling and I must go.” 

35|  “Sleepless nights and city lights.” 

Instagram Captions for New York Pics

Caption about New York "NYC is calling us.” View of NYC.

36| “NYC is calling us.”

37| “You can leave New York, but it will never leave you.” 

38| “Forever a city girl.” 

39| “This is the only city with a special flair.” 

40| “I went to NYC for rebirth.” 

41| “NYC is calling us.”

Best New York Quotes for Instagram

New York Instagram caption that says 42| “I love New York on summer afternoons when everyone’s away.”- F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Central park during the day.

42| “I love New York on summer afternoons when everyone’s away.”- F. Scott Fitzgerald

43|  “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 

44| “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

45|  “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

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

47|  “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

48| “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

49| “A hundred times I have thought: New York is a catastrophe, and fifty times: it is a beautiful catastrophe.”- Le Corbusier

50|  “The only people who can afford to be artists in New York are rich.”- Sophie Frances


51| “There is something in the New York air that makes sleep useless.”- Simone de Beauvoir

Short New York Captions for Instagram 

Text reads “Hustle like a New Yorker.” People walking on the busy streets in NYC.

52| “Hustle like a New Yorker.”

53| “I came, I ate, I conquered.” 

54| “You’re going to make it happen. This is New York.” 

55| “All you need is love and skylines.” 

56| “Give me such shows – give me the streets of Manhattan.” 

57| “Dear New York I will never get over you.”

58| “Let the city set you free.”

Short New York Quotes for Instagram

Quote about New York that says “New York is not a city – it’s a world.”- Iman. Upward view of the buildings in NYC.

59| “New York is not a city – it’s a world.”- Iman 

60| “New York to me, means the world.” – Donna Karan 

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

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

Funny New York Instagram Captions

Caption about NYC says “I’m just a little apple in the Big Apple.”.  View of NYC during sunrise.

63| “I’m just a little apple in the Big Apple.”

64| “New York City is a tourist trap I don’t mind being in.”

65|  “I’m just a little apple in the Big Apple.” 

66| “If a man can live in Manhattan, he can live anywhere.”

67| “Someone asked me for directions, so you can call me a real New Yorker.”

68| “Times Square’s so bright, I need to wear shades.” 

69| “A bad day in New York City is still better than a good day anywhere else.”

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

71| “Happiness is…holding tickets that say New York.”

New York Puns for Instagram

New York pun for Instagram says “Finally made it to the Statue of Liberty. It’s a boat time!” Image of the Statue of Liberty.

72| “Finally made it to the Statue of Liberty. It’s a boat time!”

73| “Queens for a day.” 

74| “I’m so glad we MET.” 

75|“Times Square heals all wounds.” 

76| “A trip to New York takes quite a bit of dough.”

77| “Finally made it to the Statue of Liberty. It’s a boat time!”

78| “Staten Island floats my boat.”

79|  “In winter, NYC is the city of tights.”

80| “Winter in NYC is snow joke.”  

81| “Don’t harbor any ill will towards me.”

82|  “Living the High Line.”

83| “The views from the Empire State Building couldn’t be any NYCer.”

Funny Puns About New York

Funny pun about New York that says ”We’re all out of Stock." Wall Street sign.

84| ”We’re all out of Stock.”

85| “The street art in New York is very ad-mural-able.”

86|  “Spill the Liber-tea.” 

87| “Seeing Greene.”

88| ”We’re all out of Stock.”

89| “That’s some bull.”

90| “A trip to NYC can be very taxi-ng on your wallet.”

91| “I’d really lake to live by Central Park.”

92| “First Time-rs Square.” 

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

94| “I don’t think you’re Dumbo.”  

95| “More like Empire Great Building, am I right?”

96| “Arch you glad you’re in New York?”

97| “Stop Yankee-ng my chain.”

Bold New York Captions for Instagram

98|  “I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York’s skyline.”- Ayn Rand 

99| “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 

100| “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

Romantic New York Love Quotes 

Romantic New York love quote “I fell in love. His name is New York.”- Unknown. Manhattan bridge during sunset.

101|  “I fell in love. His name is New York.”- Unknown

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

103|  “Quite simply, I was in love with New York. I do not mean ‘love’ in any colloquial way, I mean that I was in love with the city, the way you love the first person who ever touches you and you never love anyone quite that way again.” – Joan Didion

104| “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

105| “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.”- Carrie Bradshaw

106|  “Times Square can’t shine as bright as you.”- Plain White T’s

New York Lyrics That Will Inspire You 

107| “Go on and try to tear me down. I will be rising from the ground like a skyscraper.” — Demi Lovato, “Skyscraper” 

108| “First we take Manhattan” – Leonard Cohen “First We Take Manhattan”

109| “It’s autumn in New York that brings the promise of new love.”- Billie Holiday, “Autumn in New York” 

110| “New York state of mind.”- Nas, “N.Y. State Of Mind”

More Short New York City Instagram Captions 

111| “Sky’s the limit.” 

112| “Hello, New York you’re looking gorgeous today!” 

113| “New York is the world’s largest mouth.”

114|  “A different kind of escape.”

Funny Quotes about New York City 

Funny quote about New York City that reads “Skyscraper National Park”- Kurt Vonnegut. Port in New York.

115| “Skyscraper National Park”- Kurt Vonnegut 

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

117| “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

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

119|  “Anytime four New Yorkers get into a cab together without arguing, a bank robbery has just taken place.”- Johnny Carson

Best Quotes for New York 

120| “We do not have space, but we travel to change ideas.”- Unknown

121|  “Every true New Yorker believes with all his heart that when a New Yorker is tired of New York, he is tired of life.” – Robert Moses

122| “I want to be like New York, like cities, city air, as much as I know New York City, the more I think about it.” -Unknown

123|  “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 

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

NYC Quotes On Life 

NYC quote on life “People go to LA to ‘find themselves,’ they come to New York to become someone new.” – Lindsey Kelk, I Heart New York. Bridge in NYC.

125| “People go to LA to ‘find themselves,’ they come to New York to become someone new.” – Lindsey Kelk, I Heart New York

126| “One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years.”- Tom Wolfe

127|  “Once you have lived in New York and made it your home, no place else is good enough.”- John Steinbeck 

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

129| “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

Quotes about NY New Yorkers Quotes

130|  “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 center of the universe.”- Ellen R. Shapiro

131|  “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

132| “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 

133| “I love New York City. The reason I live in New York City is because it’s the loudest city on the planet Earth. It’s so loud I never have to listen to any of the shit that’s going on in my own head. It’s really loud. They literally have guys come with jackhammers and they drill the streets and just leave cones in front of your apartment; you don’t even know why. Garbage men come; they don’t pick up the garbage, they just bang the cans together.” – Lewis Black

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

135| “The flag of New York City should be someone with four bags opening a door with their shoulder.”- Alex Baz 

136| “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

137| “When I first moved to New York, I bought Vogue instead of dinner. I just felt it fed me more.”- Carrie Bradshaw

Funny New York City Sayings

Text reads “Welcome to New York.” Aerial view of NYC.

138| “Welcome to New York.” 

139| “Good morning New York City!” 

140| “Live like a local.”

New York Song Quotes 

141| “Even if it ain’t all it seems, I got a pocketful of dreams. Baby I’m from New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of. There’s nothing you can’t do. Now you’re in New York. These streets will make you feel brand new. Big lights will inspire you. Hear it for New York, New York, New York.”- Alicia Keys 

142| “New York, I love you but you’re bringing me down. Like a rat in a cage. Pulling minimum wage.” LCD Soundsystem, “I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down”

Best New York City Captions for Instagram 

143| “This is not a history of the party, but a city of New York.”

144| “I think I should have been in New York.” 

 145| “No sleep in the city.” 

146| “Once in New York.” 

147| “New York is the world’s largest mouth.”

Adorable New York Instagram Captions 

Popular New York Instagram caption “Welcome to New York.” Neighborhood in NYC.

148| “I heart New York.” 

149| “I think I was made to line in New York”

150| “City of dreams.” 

151| “New York is the city that tells others only one dream.” 

152| “Left my heart in Central Park.”

Instagram Captions for New York Pics

153| “Meet me in New York.”

154| “New York city girl.”

155| “New York city is my goal.” 

156| “Hello, NYC, your night is a firefighter in my heart.”

Inspirational Quotes About New York City

Inspirational quotes about New York City saying “New York is a diamond iceberg floating in river water.”- Truman Capote. View of NYC.

157| “New York is a diamond iceberg floating in river water.”- Truman Capote 

158| “It is ridiculous to set a detective story in New York City. New York City is itself a detective story.”- Agatha Christie  

159| “My favorite 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.”- Unknown

160| “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.” — Delia Ephron

161|  “Each neighborhood has it’s own beauty & idiosyncrasies that spark creativity.”-Unknown

162| “A city is not gauged by its length and width, but by the broadness of its vision and the height of its dreams.”- Herb Caen  

163| “You can not paint the way New York is, but the way it looks.”- Unknown

Song Lyrics For NYC Instagram Captions

Song lyric for NYC Instagram caption from Billy Joel that says "I'm in a New York state of mind." Streets of New York on a sunny day.

164|  “I’m in a New York state of mind.”- Billy Joel, ‘New York State of Mind’ 

165| “New York City’s the place where they said, ‘Hey, babe, Take a walk on the wild side’” – Lou Reed, ‘Walk On the Wild Side’

166|  “Concrete jungle where dreams are made of, there’s nothing you can’t do, now you’re in New York!”- Alicia Keys and JAY-Z, ‘Empire State of Mind’

167|  “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’

168| “Welcome to New York, it’s been waiting for you.”- Taylor Swift, ‘Welcome to New York’

169|“I want to be a part of it, New York, New York.”- Frank Sinatra, ‘New York, New York’

New York Instagram Quotes From The Famous 

170| “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

171| “Curtains forcing their will against the wind, children sleep, exchanging dreams with seraphim. The city drags itself awake on subway straps; and I, an alarm, awake as a rumor of war, lie stretching into dawn, unasked and unheeded.”- Maya Angelou, “Awaking in New York” 

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

New York Christmas Instagram Captions 

New York Instagram caption about christmas that says "Merry Christmas you filthy animal." Quote from Home Alone. Christmas tree in NYC.

173|  “Merry Christmas, you filthy animal.” — Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

174| “People in this cold city are frozen for death by happy holidays.” 

175| “Who wants to spend Christmas in a tropical climate, anyway?” — Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

176| “Christmas in New York is a one-of-a-kind experience.”

177| “There is no more beautiful place to be at Christmas than New York City.” — Mike Roth

178| “A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.” 

179| “Merry Christmas, you filthy animal.” — Home Alone 2: Lost in New York

Hashtags For Your New York Instagram Captions 

#newyorkcity #manhattan #ny #brooklyn #newyork_instagram #nycprimeshot #what_i_saw_in_nyc #ig_nycity #instagramnyc #icapture_nyc #newyorker #iloveny #america #nbc4ny #newjersey #made_in_ny #topnewyorkphoto #newyorknewyork #bigapple #timessquare #queens #newyorkminute #nyc #newyork #newyorkcity #manhattan #newyorknewyork #newyorkstyle #newyorklife #newyork_instagram #brooklyn #ilovenyc #newyorker #nyclife #icapture_nyc #ig_nycity #newyorkstateofmind #newyork_ig #newyork_world #newyorkart #photography #bigapple #centralpark #nycityworld #unlimitednewyork #brooklynbridge #nycprimeshot#broadway #topnewyorkphoto

Thoughts On New York Instagram Captions

Ladies and gentlemen that’s a wrap on New York Instagram captions. Hope you found a few to use on your social media. I’d love to hear your favorite New York quote, let me know in the comments below. 

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2 Comments

  1. Shafinah

    gosh i had such a visual flashback to that very scene when i stumbled across that home alone quote – what a hallmark NY xmas movie that one was!

    1. Chrissy

      Hey Shafinah! It is classic for New York, right? Had to include it. Glad you enjoyed that quote. Thank you so much for reading!

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