Camden Town Quotes

My parents are from Manchester but I was brought up in London, Camden Town. ~ Sadie Frost

People invariably ask Carefree Scamps, "Where did you get that jumper?" or, "Where did you get that dress?" The answer is quite possibly Camden Market, but they won't be able to remember. They'll simply answer something like, "I dunno, I've had it for ages. ~ Karl Wiggins

Five hours' New York jet lag and Cayce Pollard wakes in Camden Town to the dire and ever-circling wolves of disrupted circadian rhythm. ~ William Gibson

Last night, Good Friday night, at the bottom of the escalator at King's X tube, a weasel-faced man in uniform was sweeping up rubbish with a wide broom, drink cartons, cigarette packets with all the dust and filthy scraps of the day which he pushed towards an elegant long black glove that was lying there. I expected him to pick it up as I would have – I thought of picking it up, but was too late. He smothered it in a wide sweep. It seemed to me extraordinary and shocking that he had no feeling for it. Several images went through my mind, a symbolic hand, a dead blackbird, an ornamental bookmark fallen from a lectern Bible – any once-precious relic being tumbled in the dirt. As I went up the escalator I remembered the Tatterdemallion whom I haven't seen for months and thought of his body, if he were to die in the tube, being tumbled about with the rest of the thrown-away rubbish." David Thomson, In Camden Town ~ David Thomson

Mr Bliss looked grave. 'Your brother was very sensible to warn you, Miss Astley - but sadly misinformed. There are no trams in Trafalgur Square - only buses and hansoms, and broughams like our own. Trams are for common people; you should have to go quite as far as Kilburn, I'm afraid, or Camden Town, in order to by struck by a tram ~ Sarah Waters

prostitute he just murdered. It's called The Camden Town Murder ~ Patricia Cornwell

If you really want space on public transport you should carry some pornography from the 1970s and a pair of children's safety scissors, then delicately cut out all the eyes of the glamour models whilst whistling. Every now and again mutter, 'Why are women more beautiful when they are eyeless?' You will be able to stretch out, though this can have ramifications such as ending up on a police list or being run out of town. ~ Robin Ince

You'd think New York people was all wise; but no, they can't get a chance to learn. Every thing's too compressed. Even the hay-seeds are bailed hay-seeds. But what else can you expect from a town that's shut off for the world by the ocean on one side and New Jersey on the other? ~ O. Henry

In all cultures, ceremonies are designed to communicate the experience of one group of people to the wider community. When people bury loved ones, when they wed, when they graduate from college, the respective ceremonies communicate something essential to the people who are watching... if contemporary America doesn't develop ways to publicly confront the emotional consequences of war those consequences will continue to burn a hole through the vets themselves... ...Offer veterans all over the country the use of their town hall every Veteran's Day to speak freely about their experience at war... A community ceremony like that would finally return the experience of war to our entire nation, rather than just leaving it to the people who fought. The bland phrase "I support the troops" would then mean showing up at the town hall once a year to hear these people out. ~ Sebastian Junger

Half a mile from Haverstraw there lived a halfwit fellow,
Half his house was brick and red, and half was wood and yellow;
Half the town knew half his name but only half could spell it.
If you will sit for half an hour, I've half a mind to tell it. ~ James Thurber

I don't need to be dead to see something like that. Besides, I know you pretty well by now. You better slow down before you run out of eligible men. This is a small town. ~ J.J. Cook

I'll be out of my mind
and you'll be out of ideas pretty soon.
So let's spend the afternoon
in a cold hot air balloon.
Leave your jacket behind.
Lean out and touch the tree tops over town.
I can't wait to kiss the ground wherever we touch back down. ~ Owl City

In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth. ~ Joseph Conrad

Peter had spent his whole life in a town where fights were either drunken and friendly, or silent and petty. True war was foreign to him. He thought of how scared and confused he had been when the battle broke out in the Nest; he was in a different world now. ~ Jonathan Auxier

And this is Kimmie Elias."
Kimmie inhaled a loud breath. "I had a dream you were the
love child of Bugs Bunny and the abominable snowman, but in my dream that was a good thing, and you lived in a mushroom that had
secret passages into outer space," she said.
And here he thought he'd already heard it all. ~ Jamie Farrell

You know how I feel about your scars. They only make you more beautiful. ~ Karina Halle

Reagan Truman's cell phone clamored in the darkness. It took several rings to find it.
"Hello," she mumbled, hoping she didn't wake her uncle in the next room.
"Rea, this is Noah."
"It's late, Noah." She pulled she string on an old Tiffany-style lamp that was probably five times her age. Something was wrong; not even Noah called this late.
"I know, Rea. But I need to talk to you."
She shoved her hair out of her face and tried to force sleep away. "All right, what's up?"
"I'm in the hospital, Rea. I was hurt tonight in Memphis."
"How bad?" she laughed nervously. She'd almost asked if he was still alive. There was a long pause on the line. "I don't know. Bad. Broken arm, two ribs, but it's my back that has me worried." He didn't speak for a moment. When he began again, he sounded more like a frightened boy than a man of twenty. "I'm hurt bad enough to maybe kick me off the circuit. When I hit the dirt, I was out cold. They said I kept yelling your name in the ambulance, but I don't remember. All I remember is the pain."
"Noah, what can I do? Do you want me to go over to your folk's house? I think they're in town. I could call your sister, Alex."
"No, I don't want them to worry. I know mom. She'll freak out and dad will start lecturing me like I'm still a kid. I don't want them to know anything until I know how serious it is. They're still not telling me much yet." He paused, and she knew he was fighting to keep his voice calm. "Rea, ~ Jodi Thomas

Let's make no mistake about this: The American Dream starts with the neighborhoods. If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods. And to do that, we must understand that the quality of life is more important than the standard of living. To sit on the front steps--whether it's a veranda in a small town or a concrete stoop in a big city--and to talk to our neighborhoods is infinitely more important than to huddle on the living-room lounger and watch a make-believe world in not-quite living color.

...

And I hardly need to tell you that in the 19- or 24-inch view of the world, cleanliness has long since eclipsed godliness. Soon we'll all smell, look, and actually be laboratory clean, as sterile on the inside as on the out. The perfect consumer, surrounded by the latest appliances. The perfect audience, with a ringside seat to almost any event in the world, without smell, without taste, without feel--alone and unhappy in the vast wasteland of our living rooms. I think that what we actually need, of course, is a little more dirt on the seat of our pants as we sit on the front stoop and talk to our neighbors once again, enjoying the type of summer day where the smell of garlic travels slightly faster than the speed of sound. ~ Harvey Milk

I saw on the pad not an operator's number from my home town, but one which seemed to interrupt the beating of my heart. ~ John Knowles

If you walked around like David Bowie in 1973 in Reading, you'd get beaten up. The 1970s in a small town was more like the 1950s.. and that's the truth. The backdrop was probably Victorian. ~ Ricky Gervais

Well, I thought you might want to listen to this. I mean, I thought you might be . . . ready for it.
"I don't know if you remember, but just before . . . just before Malcolm died, he took me to see a concert in the town. We went to Barbarella's, and we heard all these weird bands. You remember the kind of music he used to like? Well, the people who made this record were playing that night, and they were his favourite. He liked them more than anyone. And I thought that if you heard it, it might remind you . . . might help you to think a bit about the kind of person he was.
"And there's another reason too. You see the title of the record? It's called The Rotters' Club.
"The Rotters' Club: that's us, Lois, isn't it? Do you see? That's what they used to call us, at school. Bent Rotter, and Lowest Rotter. We're The Rotters' Club. You and me. Not Paul. Just you and me.
"I think this record was meant for us, you see. Malcolm never got to hear it, but I think he . . . knows about it, if that doesn't sound too silly. And now it's his gift, to you and me. From - wherever he is.
"I don't know if that makes any sense.
"Anyway.
"I'll just leave it on the table here.
"Have a listen, if you feel like it.
"I've got to go now.
"I've got to go, Lois.
"I've got to go. ~ Jonathan Coe

The Meaning of Birds

Of the genesis of birds we know nothing,
save the legend they are descended
from reptiles: flying, snap-jawed lizards
that have somehow taken to air. Better the story
that they were crab-apple blossoms
or such, blown along by the wind; time after time
finding themselves tossed from perhaps a seaside tree,
floated or lifted over the thin blue lazarine waves
until something in the snatch of color
began to flutter and rise. But what does it matter
anyway how they got up high
in the trees or over the rusty shoulders
of some mountain? There they are,
little figments,
animated---soaring. And if occasionally a tern washes up
greased and stiff, and sometimes a cardinal
or a mockingbird slams against the windshield
and your soul goes oh God and shivers
at the quick and unexpected end
to beauty, it is not news that we live in a world
where beauty is unexplainable
and suddenly ruined
and has its own routines. We are often far
from home in a dark town, and our griefs
are difficult to translate into a language
understood by others. We sense the downswing of time
and learn, having come of age, that the reluctant
concessions made in youth
are not sufficient to heat the cold drawn breath
of age. Perhaps temperance
was not enough, foresight or even wisdom
fallacious, not only in ~ Charlie Smith

Growing up happens in a heartbeat. Once day you're in diapers, the next day you're gone. But the memories of childhood stay with you for the long haul. I remember a place, a town, a house, like a lot of houses. A yard like a lot of other yards. On a street like a lot of other streets. And the thing is, after all these years, I still look back... with wonder.
-Kevin from the finale of the Wonder Years ~ Daniel Stern

I had never heard of the little Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid. And yet, that's where it all began. With an ordinary incident, one that happens frequently, but so frequently that it finally started something unstoppable. ~ John Freeman

The thing I really like about Jase is that he's as obsessed with ducks as I am. I rarely took my boys hunting with me when they were very young. In fact, I never took them when I was still an outlaw. "Not this time, boys, we might be running from the game warden," I'd tell them. But after I repented and came to Jesus Christ, I started taking my sons hunting with me, beginning with Alan. Before we moved to where we live now, it was a pretty long haul from town to the Ouachita River bottoms. Alan got carsick nearly every time I took him hunting, but he didn't think I knew. We stopped at the same gas station every time, and he'd walk around back and lose his breakfast before he climbed back into the truck. I was proud of him for never complaining.
I took Jase hunting for the first time when he was five. He was shooting Pa's heavy Belgium-made Browning twelve-gauge shotgun, which he could barely even hold up. It kicked like a mule! The first time Jase shot the gun, it kicked him to the back of the blind and flipped him over a bench.
"Did I get him?" Jase asked.
I knew right then that I had another hunter in the family, and Jase is still the most skilled hunter of all my boys. I trained Jase to take over the company by teaching him the nuances of duck calls and fowl hunting, and he is still the person in charge of making sure every duck call sounds like a duck. Not only did Jase design the first gadwall drake call to hit the market, he also invented the first triple ~ Phil Robertson

A red neon sign flickered dimly, buzzed like a dying insect, as they passed. ~ Ray Bradbury

It used to happen in villages and towns in China that they would have - I guess you'd call them beauty contests - where all of the women of a particular village or town would be seated behind these screens or curtains with only their feet showing. ~ Lisa See

After all, everything in here is just pieces of paper with words and lines on them. They're not even very valuable.
Pieces of paper with words and lines on them have the ability to change the world ... They always have. ~ Elizabeth Camden

Marina Abramovic had brought something new into the city. She had made of herself a rock in the center of a town where everything moved and had been moving en masse for hundreds of years. ~ Heather Rose

I started to take care of my body after I turned 50. I never liked how I looked physically because I was too cute, short, with coloring only on my cheeks, the perfect little nose, and then the blue eyes. But I would have preferred to have the look of a tough guy from the wrong side of town - one of those fascinatingly ugly looks. ~ Giorgio Armani

When the biggest, richest, glassiest buildings in town are the banks, you know that town's in trouble. ~ Edward Abbey

Since the beginning of storytelling, he explained, Death has called on the unwitting. In one tale or another, it arrives quietly in town and takes a room at an inn, or lurks in an alleyway, or lingers in the marketplace, surreptitiously. Then just when the hero has a moment of respite from his daily affairs, Death pays him a visit. This is all well and good, allowed the Count. But what is rarely related is the fact that Life is every bit as devious as Death. It too can wear a hooded coat. It too can slip into town, lurk in an alley, or wait in the back of a tavern. Hadn't it paid such a visit to Mishka? Hadn't it found him hiding behind his books, lured him out of the library, and taken his hand on a secluded spot overlooking the Neva? ~ Amor Towles

I'd been dreaming of such adventures since I was small. Back then I'd believed in destiny, and believed in it absolutely, with every strand and fiber of my little kid heart. I'd felt it like an itch in my chest while listening to my grandfather's extraordinary stories. "One day that will be me." What felt like obligation now had been a promise back then - that one day I would escape my little town and live an extraordinary life as he had done; and that one day, like Grandpa Portman, I would do something that mattered. ~ Ransom Riggs

All it takes to get along in this here man's town is a little shit, grit, and mother-wit. ~ Ralph Ellison

And everyone loved sunsets. The light lost its sanity as it fell over the hills and into the Pacific--it went red and deeper red, orange, and even green. The skies seemed to melt, like lava eating black rock into great bite marks of burning. Sometimes all the town stopped and stared west. Shopkeepers came from their rooms to stand in the street. Families brought out their invalids on pallets and in wheelbarrows to wave their bent wrists at the madness consuming their sky. Swirls of gulls and pelicans like God's own confetti snowed across those sky riots. ~ Luis Alberto Urrea

There are hundreds of reasons for Daniel and me
to be impossible. History has not been kind
to two boys who love each other like we do.
But putting that aside. And not even considering
the fact that a hundred and fifty years ago,
his family was in a small town in Russia
and my family was in a similarly small town
in Ireland- I can't imagine they could have
imagined us here, together. Forgetting our gender,
ignoring all the strange roads that led to us
being in the same time and place, there is still
the simple impossibility of love. That all of our
contradicting securities and insecurities,
interests and disinterests, beliefs and doubts,
could somehow translate into this common
uncommon affection should be as impossible
as walking to the moon. But instead, I love him. ~ David Levithan

Prim and proper, a cat woman ... Hmm, I was left to wonder. Possibly a librarian in her late forties or early fifties. In town for a special occasion? It certainly left me to ponder her story. ~ Debbie Macomber

Belbroughton Road, Linton Road, Bardwell Road. The houses there are quite normal. They are ordinary sizes and have ordinary chimneys and roofs and gardens with laburnum and flowering cherry. Park Town. As you go south they are growing. Getting higher and odder. By the time you get to Norham Gardens they have tottered over the edge into madness: these are not houses but flights of fancy. They are three storeys high and disguise themselves as churches. They have ecclesiastical porches instead of front doors and round norman windows or pointed gothic ones, neatly grouped in threes with flaring brick to set them off. They reek of hymns and the Empire, Mafeking and the Khyber Pass, Mr Gladstone and Our Dear Queen. They have nineteen rooms and half a dozen chimneys and iron fire-escapes. A bomb couldn't blow them up and the privet in their gardens has survived two World Wars. ~ Penelope Lively

His lack of condemnatory zeal gave him a reputation in the religious hierarchy that ensured he would always remain a humble teacher in a backwater town. ~ Richard K. Morgan