American Cities Quotes

• In the twilight, it was a vision of power.

  Upton Sinclair

  Twilight, Vision, Chicago

  Upton Sinclair (2016). “The Jungle”, p.37, First Avenue Editions

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• It's an odd thing, but anyone who disappears is said to be seen in San Francisco. It must be a delightful city and possess all the attractions of the next world

  Oscar Wilde

  Travel, Cities, San Francisco

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.131, Wordsworth Editions

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• Loving Chicago is like loving a woman with a broken nose.

  Nelson Algren

  Broken Heart, Cities, Broken Promises

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• When good Americans die they go to Paris.

  Oscar Wilde

  Paris, Best American, Dies

  The Picture of Dorian Gray ch. 3 (1891). Similar dialogue appears inWilde's A Woman of No Importance (1893) as well. See OliverWendell Holmes 4

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• The highways of American cities are an enduring testimony to our acceptance of ugliness

  J. Rufus Fears

  Acceptance, Cities, Endure

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• The American city should be a collection of communities where every member has a right to belong. It should be a place where every man feels safe on his streets and in the house of his friends.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Men, Cities, House

  Johnson, Lyndon B. (1966). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965”, p.240, Best Books on

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• Chicago is the great American city, New York is one of the capitals of the world, and Los Angeles is a constellation of plastic; San Francisco is a lady

  Norman Mailer

  New York, Cities, San Francisco

  Norman Mailer (2016). “Miami and the Siege of Chicago: An Informal History of the Republican and Democratic Conventions of 1968”, p.83, Random House

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• Sidney Lumet's chief preoccupation wasn't art. It was right and wrong in the American city, nearly always in New York.

  Wesley Morris

  Art, New York, Cities

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• Paris is one of the largest, and certainly it is the pleasantest, of modern American cities.

  Sinclair Lewis

  Cities, Paris, Modern

  Sinclair Lewis (1956). “Dodsworth”

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• Frank Sinatra was the voice of the 20th-century American city.

  Pete Hamill

  Cities, Voice, Century

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• LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities; NY gets god-awful cold in the winter but there's a feeling of wacky comradeship somewhere in some streets. LA is a jungle.

  Jack Kerouac

  Winter, Cities, Feelings

  Jack Kerouac (1957). “On the Road”, Viking Press

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• New Orleans has a real spirit. It's the most authentic of all American cities.

  Brad Pitt

  Real, New Orleans, Cities

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• LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities.

  Jack Kerouac

  Cities, Los Angeles, Brutal

  Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.180, Penguin

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• China's ability to deliver nuclear warheads on American cities is expanding.

  Lee H. Hamilton

  Cities, Nuclear, China

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• This is a serious problem that will lead to a serious debate about the first amendment.

  Newt Gingrich

  Real, Thinking, Cities

  "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert, www.nbcnews.com. December 17, 2006.

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• Today there are more African-Americans under correctional control, in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. There are millions of African-Americans now cycling in and out of prisons and jails or under correctional control or saddled with criminal records. In major American cities today, more than half of working-age African-American men either are under correctional control or are branded felons, and are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives.

  Michelle Alexander

  War, Men, Cycling

  "Legal Scholar: Jim Crow Still Exists In America". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. January 16, 2012.

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• Fifty-thousand were gathered (March,27th,1933) in and around Madison Square Garden, supportive rallies were at that moment waiting in Chicago, Washington, San Francisco, Houston, and about seven other American cities. At each supportive rally, thousands huddled around loudspeakers waiting for the Garden event, which would be broadcast live via radio to 200 additional cities across the country. At least 1 million Jews were participating nationwide. Perhaps another million Americans of non-Jewish descent heritage stood with them.

  Edwin Black

  Country, Garden, San Francisco

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• I went to public schools, and while Gary was, like most American cities, racially segregated, it was at least socially integrated - a cross section of children from families of all walks of life.

  Joseph Stiglitz

  Children, School, Cities

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• Well, first of all the Dominion Bureau of Statistics made a survey in the spring of 1970, which showed that on balance the difference in the cost of living between Canadian cities and American cities was 5 % to the advantage, of course, to the Canadian cities.

  Leonard Woodcock

  Spring, Cost Of Living, Cities

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• Chicago is not the most corrupt American city. It's the most theatrically corrupt.

  Studs Terkel

  Cities, Chicago, City Of Chicago

  "The Dick Cavett Show", June 9, 1978.

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• New York is only 97 miles from Philadelphia but was the Big Time as no other American city has ever been.

  Ethel Waters

  New York, Cities, Philadelphia

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• Elevated locations imply elevated purposes, even in American cities departing as radically as Los Angeles does from the traditional planning patterns of the Eastern Seaboard.

  Martin Filler

  Cities, Doe, Purpose

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• San Francisco is perhaps the most European of all American cities

  Cecil Beaton

  Cities, San Francisco, Bay Area

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• Planning is for the world's great cities, for Paris, London, and Rome, for cities dedicated, at some level, to culture. Detroit, on the other hand, was an American city and therefore dedicated to money, and so design had given way to expediency.

  Jeffrey Eugenides

  Rome, Hands, Cities

  Jeffrey Eugenides (2003). “Middlesex”, p.80, A&C Black

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• Des Moines is like your typical American city; it's just these concentric circles of malls, built outward from the city.

  Bill Bryson

  Cities, Circles, Typical

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