QUOTE : That was the magnificent thing about the city: It was inherently Machiavellian. One rarely had to worry about follow-<i>throughs</i>, follow-<i>ups</i>, follow the leaders, or any kind of consistency in people due to no machinations of one's own but the <i>sheer force</i> of living here. New York hit its residents daily like a great debilitating deluge and only the <i>strongest</i>-the ones with Spartacus-styled <i>will</i>- had the strength to stay not just <i>afloat</i> but on course. This pertained to work as much as it did to personal lives. Most people ended up, after only a couple of months, far, far away from where they'd intended to go, stuck in some barbed underbrush of a quagmire when they'd meant to head straight to the ocean. Others outright drowned (became drug addicts) or climbed ashore (moved to Connecticut).