The City Quotes

The trail of lime trees outside our building is still a public loo. …where else are they supposed to go to the toilet in a city where public toilets are about as common as UFO sightings?” (pp.281-82)

I came to this city to escape.

In the city, strangers seldom meet beyond daily functions. Instead, they brush by with a haste and preoccupation that so defines a century of 'too little time'.

To live in a city, one must be larger than one's environment or enjoy belonging to the crowd.

Ant swarming CityCity full of dreamsWhere in broad day the specter tugs your sleeve

It happened every single day in Brooklyn: awaken to fresh glory, fall asleep to blight and ruin.

When you looked out my window you could see the whole city crouched under a blanket of car smog.

The architect, like other workers in our endeavor, is facing the inevitability of a change of profession: he [sic] will no longer be a builder of forms alone, but a builder of complete ambiances.

On both sides of the highway I could see the rows of little frame houses, all alike, as if there were only one architect in the city and he had a magnificent obsession.

Installing massive amounts of wireless devices into every city may eventually be proven to be a global weather modification system.

A rhinestone skein, a jeweled brocade of light, –the city is a garment stretched so thinher festive colors bleed into the night.

The city's all brightnessand shadow, deckle-edged, bluer than air-there's no help anywhere-you no longer know how to listen.

This poor little one-horse town.

If you would know and not be known live in a city.

God made the country and man made the town.

In the busy haunts of men.

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.

I like to visit New York but I wouldn't live there if you gave it to me.

If there ever was an aviary overstocked with jays it is that Yaptown-on-the-Hudson called New York.

A hick town is one in which there is no place to go where you shouldn't be.

We might define an eccentric as a man who is law unto himself and a crank as one who having determined what the law is insists on laying it down to others.

The country has charms only for those not obliged to stay there.

A great city a great solitude.

If you would be known and not know vegetate in a village if you would know and not be known live in a city.

Farmers worry only during the growing season but town people worry all the time.

As a remedy to life in society I would suggest the big city. Nowadays it is the only desert within our reach.

There is nothing good to be had in the country or if there be they will not let you have it.

The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the centre of each and every town or city.

To say the least a town life makes one more tolerant and liberal in one's judgement of others.

Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness natives give it solidity and continuity but the settlers give it passion.

There is no solitude in the world like that of the big city.

One of my greatest obsessions is the lights of a city. Through my eyes there is nothing so delicious and rich and lovely.

Well… er -”“Expecting a rescue is beyond hope under the circumstances!” Sam Barthoff, Mayor of Atro City, interrupted grimly, throwing up his hands in hopelessness. “Hopeless!

Streets that follow like a tedious argumentOf insidious intentTo lead you to an overwhelming question...

To love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be destroyed

The San Francisco skyline sparkles in the distance, the bay spread out before it like a shark-infested welcome mat.

She knows she is in Chicago. But she does not yet realize that she is in Illinois.

It is not an individual act, architecture. You have to consider your client. Only out of that can you produce great architecture. You cannot work in the abstract.

He needed to get away from the rush of the city, from the unceasing noise and annoying obligations.

a city is all about how you look at it

My dear, you are not one person. You have many people in you, and each one can ask only some kinds of questions.

this was an environment built, not for man, but for man's absence.

the ragged skyline of the city resembled the disturbed encephalograph of an unresolved mental crisis.

It's a strange city... filled with things that are not obvious.

When I come back to you, if I come back to you, will I know you? Will you be the city of my memory? Or will you be a stranger?

I will not see you, she tells the city, but I will remember you.

The best thing to be in a city was anonymous. Failing that, however, notoriety would do.

Although my father had never been there, I came to believe I would someday see that city for him.

I could decorate a whole city with books!

We get so used to the gregarious nature of our towns and villages that we forget how crowded our existence has become.