Quotes About City life

The way I viewed it, there were lots of very ugly things in London, so, on the occasions when something beautiful with a glossy coat came along and nudged its cold nose into your hand, it seemed churlish not to take a few moments to celebrate the mere fact of its existence.

My dad occupied a government position, deputy collector, in a city called Nainital, so we had access to the cinemas at any time. I saw my first movies when I was very young.

I do a lot of eavesdropping. That's one of the things I miss about New York: just checking people out.

I felt that this grey, monstrous London of ours, with its myriads of people, its sordid sinners and its splendid sins

London late at night -- or even in the daytime, for that matter -- is no place for a man in scarlet tights.

What on earth did he do after that? London late at night—or even in the daytime, for that matter—is no place for a man in scarlet tights.

One glance at the girl convinced R. Jones that he had been right. Circumstances had made him a rapid judge of character, for in profession of living by one's wits in a large city, the first principle of offence and defence is to sum people up at first sight.

There was such noise. It came without remorse. There were always people everywhere. New Crobuzon.

There's eight million people here pretending the others aren't getting on their nerves. I believe it's called civilization.

Es gibt ein Mittel gegen die Einsamkeit, die einen plötzlich in einer fremden Stadt überfällt: etwas kaufen: eine Ansichtskarte, einen Kaugummi nur, einen Bleistift oder Zigaretten: etwas in die Hand bekommen, teilnehmen am Leben dieser Stadt, indem man etwas kauft [...]

One of these days I'm going to write a book about living in New York—in a sixteen-story apartment house complete with families, bachelors, career girls, a ninety-year-old Village Idiot and a doorman who can tell you the name and apartment number of every one of the twenty-seven resident dogs. I am so tired of being told what a terrible place New York is to live in by people who don't live there.

I have an affection for a great city. I feel safe in the neighbourhood of man, and enjoy the sweet security of the streets.

Stepan Arkadyevitch felt exactly the difference that Pyotr Oblonsky described. In Moscow he degenerated so much that if he had had to be there for long together, he might in good earnest have come to considering his salvation; in Petersburg he felt himself a man of the world again.

Layer upon layer, past times preserve themselves in the city until life itself is finally threatened with suffocation; then, in sheer defense, modern man invents the museum.

Through its complex orchestration of time and space, no less than through the social division of labor, life in the city takes on the character of a symphony: specialized human aptitudes, specialized instruments, give rise to sonorous results which, neither in volume nor in quality, could be achieved by any single piece. Cities

I'm sure it's not all hot buttered crumpets out there in the breathing world of asphalt and heartbeats.

The road was called Agnes weeps, after the town's first schoolteacher, who had burst into tears when she saw how plunging and twisting the road was and realized how remote the town must be. But from the first moment I laid eyes on it, I loved that road. I thought of it as a winding staircase taking me out of the traffic jams, news bulletins, bureaucrats, air-raid sirens and locked doors of city life. Jim said we should rename the road Lilly sings.

In other parts of the country people tried to stay together for the sake of the children. In New York they tried to work things out for the sake of the apartment.

I think that would be great, if I could be in a city and wasn't even allowed to work.

People are so busy anyway they don't see you or recognise you in the street.

I learned a lot I wouldn't have learned roaming the streets of Dallas.

I've never seen anyone handling pans in the streets of New York, and if I did I doubt I'd give them money, unless I needed a pan. I do give money to homeless people, whether they ask or no.

In New York, especially, so much of your life is spent on the streets. You don't always want to be driving around in an SUV with a security guard. You want to be able to walk to a restaurant; you want to go and do things.

I have a somewhat reclusive quality myself, and actually what's great about New York is that it pushes you to be social because the streets are full of people.