Quotes About City

City wisdom became almost entirely centered on the problems of human relationships, in contrast to the wisdom of any natural tribal group, where relationships with the rest of the animate and inanimate world are still given due place.

Unfortunately, it is more difficult to get on a city bus than it is to join most Southern Baptist churches. This circumstance makes church discipline all but impossible. History shows us that things have not always been this way.

In this kip of a city it's regarded as a crime for a poor man to go about his lawful occasions

New York has collapsed.

And once Genghis Khan breached those walls, he did as he had promised. He killed everyone in the city, over a hundred thousand people. But he didn't stop there. It is said he slaughtered every beast of the field, too. It was those dark acts that earned the city the name it bears today." The professor shuddered. "Shahr-e-Gholghola. The City of Screams.

If this valley is indeed cursed," Atherton continued, "there's the source. The Muslims named this set of ruins Mao Balegh, which means Cursed City.

Six a.m., first light of dawn, world stitching itself back together out there, reconstituting itself, as he looked on. Blink, and the warehouse across the way reemerged. Blink again, the city loomed in the distance, a ship coming hard into port.

The City is of Night; perchance of Death,But certainly of Night.

But my loyalties were elsewhere. And the flavor of Pippa's kiss—bittersweet and strange—stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.

but I liked the idea of living in a city - any city, especially a strange one - liked the thought of traffic and crowds, of working in a bookstore, waiting tables in a coffeeshop, who knew what kind of odd, solitary life I might slip into?

And the flavor of Pippa's kiss—bittersweet and strange—stayed with me all the way back uptown, swaying and sleepy as I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.

And—oh, I don't know, stop me if I'm rambling…" passing a hand over his forehead.… "but Welty himself used to talk about fateful objects. Every dealer and antiquaire recognizes them. The pieces that occur and recur. Maybe for someone else, not a dealer, it wouldn't be an object. It'd be a city, a color, a time of day. The nail where your fate is liable to catch and snag.

a gunpowder factory exploded at Delft in the 1600s, that the painter had been so haunted and obsessed by the destruction of his city that he painted it over and over.

I like the idea of living in a city - any city, especially a strange one - like the thought of traffic and crowds, of working in a bookstore, waiting tables in a coffee shop, who knew what kind of odd, solitary life I might slip into? Meals alone, waling the dogs in the evenings; and nobody knowing who I was.

Welty himself used to talk about fateful objects. Every dealer and antiquaire recognizes them. The pieces that occur and recur. Maybe for someone else, not a dealer, it wouldn't be an object. It'd be a city, a color, a time of day. The nail where your fate is liable to catch and snag.

Hordes of people on the street, lighted Christmas trees sparkling high on penthouse balconies and complacent Christmas music floating out of shops, and weaving in and out of crowds I had a strange feeling of being already dead

I sailed home on the bus, melting with sorrow and loveliness, a starry ache that lifted me up above the windswept city like a kite: my head in the rainclouds, my heart in the sky.

The books still weren't real, but maybe they were written about city women, television women, Yankee women—just about as strange as Zeus had always been and Jesus was getting to be.

No reason to feel nervous at night, not even at eleven thirty at night, in the heart of New York. Nothing ever happened to her kind of people; things happened to people living down those cross streets in old red bricks or old brownstones. Things threatened silver and gold dancers there in the Iridium Room across. But things didn't happen to her or anyone she knew.

In the glamour of one Gaudy night, one could realize that one was a citizen of no mean city. It might be an old and an old-fashioned city, with inconvenient buildings and narrow streets where the passersby squabbled foolishly about the right of way; but her foundations were set upon the holy hills and her spires touched heaven.

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.

The air was stifling, but he liked it because it was stifling city air, full of excitingly unpleasant smells, dangerous music, and the distant sound of warring police tribes.

I think there is a Paris inside us all.

And what better place to sow vengeance—to, quite literally, turn Gotham into a City of Endless Night?