THE QUOTABLE NEW YORKER: MORE WIT AND WISDOM OVERHEARD IN MANHATTAN BY AN IMAGINARY EAVESDROPPER:

---"My son, Timothy, told me that he wants to meet the delegate who represents the North Pole at the United Nations. Timothy commented that if he meets that delegate, maybe Timothy will have the opportunity to meet Santa Claus through him. It seems that Timothy at age 5 is already developing strategies for getting the best possible Christmas present five months from now."

---"My 6-year-old son told me he was very disappointed to learn that there is no delegate officially representing the North Pole in the UN General Assembly. I told my son to write a letter to the UN Secretary General, asking him for assistance on that."

--"I don't recommend keeping any sharp cutting knives inside your apartment unit. If anyone breaks in, and here in Manhattan it's just a matter of time before they do, the last thing in the world you want them to find in your apartment are sharp knives. The intruder could grab one of those knives and stab you during your sleep."

--"To me, that sounds a bit simplistic. If you own any sharp cutting knives, just make sure they are locked in a special safe in your apartment at all times when you are not using them in the kitchen. But then again, some nighttime burglars might be drawn to the safe and figure out the combination, so if they manage to open the safe, it greets them with a murder weapon. Your idea of a 'zero-sharp-knives apartment' may well be wise here in Manhattan. This is not Topeka, Kansas. You have to be very careful at all times here. You have to always have strategies for foiling the criminal element on a 24-hour-a-day and year-round basis."

---"I find it odd that none of my friends have any special tradition for George Washington's birthday. We have an entire public square named after him, but none of us honor Dear Old George by throwing a party or banquet to celebrate his birthday. Is that any way to show respect for the first U.S. President to live in New York during his Presidency?"

---"Many New Yorkers are embarrassed by the fact that George Washington had paler skin than 90 percent of the New Yorkers of today. 'To honor him is a bit like kissing Uncle Sam,' as an Asian-American New Yorker might comment. 'It feels so very, very archaic to kiss a white man in this day and era,' the Asian New Yorker might then add with a sour look on his face."

--"I'm new to New York, so I'm not sure which Rockefeller paid for Rockefeller Center. Would you please tell me whether that was Nelson Rockefeller or someone else?"

---"When you live in a top-floor apartment, you are always worried that some burglar in a helicopter will somehow land on top of your complex and break in. My nightmares during my sleep so often feature a burglar in a helicopter assaulting me at nighttime when I'm lying alone on my bed sound asleep. This is one of the reasons why I hate helicopters. To me, they're a threat to my personal safety even though I never ride in one."

---"I plan to join the National Safety Council on an individual basis, to protect me from all the forces here in New York that conspire against my own personal safety on a 24-hour-a-day and year-round basis. Membership in the National Safety Council is my way of warding off evil spirits."

--"Maybe you should keep a diary or journal about the conversations with strangers you have on subways here. If you can get a stranger sitting next to you to actually talk to you, that is quite a remarkable feat here in New York. So why not chronicle those amazing moments with a detailed account about each of those conversations you had while riding a subway?"

--"My favorite philanthropy project is the monthly tradition I have of treating a hostess or busboy or front-desk clerk to lunch and friendly conversation with me here in Manhattan. I think we so often overlook the support-staff people of life who make our own life here so very elegant and enjoyable."

--"Is it really all that megalomaniacal of me to identify with Superman? I think most of us do. So it isn't just another psychological malaise when I wear a Superman cape  during my leisuretime. I identify with being ultra-heroic. We have three types of New Yorkers: the ultra-heroic, the heroic, and the anti-heroic. I would definitely fall into the first category. In fact, some of my friends call me Clark, to honor my Superman status. But I'm determined not to get complacent about it. After all, remember what happened to that famous actor who played Superman and then got paralyzed in an accident."

--"Personally, I feel that anyone who identifies with being ultra-heroic is endangering his own safety. One of these days when you're drunk, you may attempt to fly to the scene of a crime in order to save a victim in the middle of being attacked, and you will instead merely turn into a front-page story in the 'Daily News' about the most recent example of a New Yorker with a Superman complex that proved to have been fatal for him."

--"You should keep in mind that we have in this City thousands of Superman haters who delight in physically assaulting anyone wearing a Superman cape during his leisuretime. So if you think that wearing a Superman cape is exciting, that's nothing compared to the excitement you'll get from an illicit-youth gang attacking you for allegedly being a White Supremacist in a Cape.  So many African-Americans regard Superman as a symbol of white persons having power over black persons. So when you wear the cape, you provoke our city's minorities."

--"My friend Erica has developed this hobby of reading each of the historic markers she finds here. I told her that is a very dull way to study history, but she insists on doing it. This is her way of getting to know New York in-depth, she tells me. So I always remind her that if someone gave her a pop quiz on her knowledge of New York history, she would definitely fail. No one actually remembers anything they ever read in our city's historic markers. They are elaborate display items that are merely for show. You see them from a distance, but you ignore the fine print."