Detroit Quotes

Every station I was at, I never said goodbye - when I was in Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Oakland, and L.A. I don't know why. ~ Casey Kasem

Detroit is big enough to matter in the world and small enough for you to matter in it. ~ Jeanette Pierce

The first film I made was when I was 13 and it was called 'The Dogs That Ate Detroit.' It starred my Saint Bernard Barney, and it was a killer thriller with oodles of special effects that were cutting edge for the time. ~ Les Claypool

I lived in Detroit until I was six. My older sister was living with us, and she listened to the Ohio Players and Stevie Wonder, so I grew up listening to stuff like that. ~ Boots Riley

Dr. Ben Carson has the most moving personal narrative in modern presidential politics. His mother, one of 24 children, had only a third-grade education. She was married at age 13, bore Ben and his brother, and then raised the boys as an impoverished single mother in Detroit. As a young boy, Carson was a terrible student. ~ Nicholas Kristof

All you crazy white people "I'm American!", all you did was come out of your mother's pussy on American soil. That's it. That's it! What, you think you're better than somebody from France 'cause you came out of a pussy in Detroit? ~ Chris Rock

Oh God almighty, another Detroit monster is Chad Smith of the Chili Peppers. Their music is intoxicating between Flea and Chad Smith. They're contemporary because they're still making good records, but I don't think there's anything new that has a groove and soulfulness. The Chili Peppers just stink of soul-and that's the ultimate compliment. They continue what James Brown created. ~ Ted Nugent

Official boundaries are often hard to see. If you head north on Woodward Avenue, away from downtown Detroit, you wouldn't know exactly when you left the city and crossed over into Oakland County - except for a small sign that tells you. ~ Robert Reich

Since its founding, Detroit has been a place of perpetual flames. Three times the city has suffered race riots and three times the city has burned to the ground. The city's flag acknowledges as much. Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus: We hope for better things; it shall rise from the ashes. ~ Charlie LeDuff

I'm not a New Yorker. I grew up in Detroit. A lot of people think it's one big city but they're completely different. ~ Mike Binder

It was a time of uncommon possibility and freedom, when Detroit created wondrous and lasting things. But life can be luminescent when it is most vulnerable. ~ David Maraniss

New Orleans is just a microcosm of Newark and Detroit and hundreds of other troubled urban locales. ~ Douglas Brinkley

What is a career, actually? Nobody can destroy my career. Only I can destroy my career, if I am a bad conductor. I've gone to lesser known orchestras in Scotland and Sweden, Detroit, but I have enjoyed the places I've been, and had success. I like the close community relations, and to solve problems. ~ Neeme Jarvi

As I witness and participate in our visionary efforts to revitalize Detroit and contrast them with the multibillion dollars' worth of megaprojects advanced by politicians and developed that involve casinos, giant stadiums, gentrification, and the Super Bowl, I am saddened by their shortsightedness. At the same time I rejoice in the energy being unleashed in the community by our human-scale programs that involve bringing the country back into the city and removing the walls between schools and communities, between generations, and between ethnic groups. And I am confident just as in the early twentieth century people came from around the world to marvel at the mass production lines pioneered by Henry Ford, in the twenty-first century they will be coming to marvel at the thriving neighborhoods that are the fruit of our visionary programs. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

of all the cities he had been to - Detroit, Indianapolis, Chicago, St. Louis, Salt Lake City - San Francisco was by far the worst. ~ Tracy Chevalier

I was just about 6 weeks old when we moved to Detroit. ~ Eddie Floyd

The Detroit String Quartet played Brahms last night. Brahms lost. ~ Bennett Cerf

Definitely just growing up in general influenced me; Detroit happened to be where I was. I feel like the city definitely has made an impact on my life and made me who I am. Detroit has an unmistakable soul - nobody can duplicate the soul we bring to the game. From Motown to J Dilla to Eminem to anything. ~ Big Sean

The killing fields of Chicago, of Baltimore, of Detroit, were created by the policy of Dreamers, but their weight, their shame, rests solely upon those who are dying in them. There is a great deception in this. To yell "black-on-black crime" is to shoot a man and then shame him for bleeding. And the premise that allows for these killing fields - the reduction of the black body - is no different than the premise that allowed for the murder of Prince Jones. The Dream of acting white, of talking white, of being white, murdered Prince Jones as sure as it murders black people in Chicago with frightening regularity. Do not accept the lie. Do not drink from poison. The same hands that drew red lines around the life of Prince Jones drew red lines around the ghetto. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

For me, personally, Detroit is a melting pot for everything. We get the best from the East Coast, West Coast and down South. ~ Big Sean

This rise of the new global mega-rich is happening as established institutions are falling. The fall runs the gamut from the music business and traditional media to the Detroit automakers who find themselves obsolete, outmaneuvered, and out-priced by entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, Mumbai, Shanghai, and even Siberia. ~ Robert Kiyosaki

From that night the thousand streets ran as one street, with imperceptible corners and changes of scene, broken by intervals of begged and stolen rides, on trains and trucks, and on country wagons with he at twenty and twentyfive and thirty sitting on the seat with his still, hard face and the clothes (even when soiled and worn) of a city man and the driver of the wagon not knowing who or what the passenger was and not daring to ask. The street ran into Oklahoma and Missouri and as far south again as Mexico and then back north to Chicago and Detroit and then back south again and at last to Mississippi. It was fifteen years long. ~ William Faulkner

Haven't you heard, the Dread Scott decision has been overturned?"

"Not out here, baby," Warren replied, without a second's hesitation. "For that matter, not in Washington, either, or in Detroit, or at the Vatican, or at the Harvard Law School. People are objects and we use them. Out here, I like to think, the trappings surrounding the transaction are a little more attractive. But we're all the users. ~ Joyce Haber

I'd watch my father get up at 5 o'clock and go down to the Eastern Market in Detroit to do the shopping for his restaurant, and get that business going and then go out on his vending machine business. ~ Ed Bradley

I think Detroit is already providing a model for change in the world. I think that Detroit - I mean, people come from all over the world come to see what we're doing. People are looking for a new way of living. ~ Grace Lee Boggs

We are essence of love, and when we die that love returns to our Father. This angel's love was corrupted, so I believe my Father sent his essence elsewhere. Possible Detroit, but that my have just been a joke. ~ John Wiltshire

A wonderful, warm, positive individual who exhibits the values that are prerequisite to a significant faculty post in higher education, I think that it is an absolutely extraordinary and bold career move that Darwin has made in leaving the Orchestra and embarking on the trajectory of a solo performer/educator. And what a marvelous thing it is for Detroit to be able to welcome home a successful native son - one in whom the community can take pride, and one who will serve as an inspiration to a younger generation of aspiring performers eager to make their mark in the world. ~ David Cerone

Young professionals seeking cities to live and work in, and a wave of immigrants in inner-city neighborhoods and inner suburbs that eventually produced second-generation college graduates who moved into the center city to live and work. These groups joined the gays and artists who have always chosen to live in urban communities.12 Edward Glaeser points out that not all cities have succeeded in the past generation - and he points to Detroit, Michigan, and Leipzig, Germany, as examples. But most cities have found the power to reinvent themselves, argues Glaeser, because the essence of what makes a city a city is the bringing of people together to innovate. At one level, this means bringing together the most highly trained and talented people, the "elites." Yet at another level, it means bringing together the most energetic, ambitious, and risk-taking people from among the ~ Timothy Keller

People know Detroit for the cars, but the suburban areas of the city are really beautiful. It's much more inhabitable than people think. Many believe it's like Berlin at the end of World War II. ~ Leonard Slatkin

Ever since I've become chairman, there have been profiles of me in People, George, The Washington Post, The Detroit News, and all of them could have been written by the same person. ~ Julian Bond

Hollywood - an emotional Detroit. ~ Lillian Gish

Detroit is beautiful - though you probably have to be a child of the industrial Midwest, like me, to see it. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

I awoke from this nightmare into a freezing cold motel room: the heater had broken at some point during the night, and the fan was now blowing icy air into the room.

At first I tried to keep warm under the crappy motel bedspread by thinking about the man I loved. At the time he was traveling in Europe, and was thus unreachable. I didn't know it yet, but as I lay there, he was traveling with another woman. Does it matter now? I tried hard to feel his body wrapped tightly around mine.

Next I tried to imagine everyone I had ever loved, and everyone who had ever loved me, wrapped around me. I tried to feel that I was the composite of all these people, instead of alone in a shitty motel room with a broken heater somewhere outside of Detroit, a few miles from where Jane's body was dumped thirty-six years ago on a March night just like this one.

'Need each other as much as you can bear,' writes Eileen Myles. 'Everywhere you go in the world.'

I felt the wild need for any or all of these people that night. Lying there alone, I began to feel - perhaps even to know - that I did not exist apart from their love and need of me.

Of this latter I felt less sure, but it seemed possible, if the equation worked both ways.

Falling asleep I thought, 'Maybe this, for me, is the hand of God. ~ Maggie Nelson

I think Detroit would do real well if we started repopulating it with young, aspirational people. ~ Jeb Bush

I know that's blasphemous when you are from Detroit, but I was never a fan of Motown stuff. I don't care for the production much. ~ Jack White

In Detroit, we all talked the race game. It is a way of life. ~ Charlie LeDuff

There are many really good teams in our conference this season. Miami, Indiana and Detroit will be our fiercest opponents this year. But we just have to focus on our game and be patient with the realistic hope that we'll be on top after all is said and done. ~ Jason Kidd

The thing that you have to understand about those of us in the Black Muslim movement was that all of us believed 100 percent in the divinity of Elijah Muhammad. We believed in him. We actually believed that God, in Detroit by the way, that God had taught him and all of that. I always believed that he believed in himself. And I was shocked when I found out that he himself didn't believe it. ~ Malcolm X

So we believe. Leo has to be alive." "You remember the time in Detroit, when he flattened Ma Gasket with a car engine?" "Or those dwarfs in Bologna. Leo took them down with a homemade smoke grenade made from toothpaste." "Commander Tool Belt," Jason said. "Bad Boy Supreme," Piper said. "Chef Leo the Tofu Taco Expert." They laughed and told stories about Leo Valdez, their best friend. ~ Rick Riordan

I got into Kiss before I got into anybody. The first thing I heard was 'Detroit Rock City.' I heard it in the school library, where I lived. ~ Brian Posehn

Any time Detroit scores more than 100 points and holds the other team below 100 points they almost always win. ~ Doug Collins

Governor Romney supported the bailout of Wall Street and decided not to support the bailout of Detroit. ~ Rick Santorum

Everything I've done in my career has started in and around Detroit, you know, the metro area and Michigan. ~ Kid Rock

Real cars were made here in America: Fords, Chevys, Plymouths. These were large chunks of Detroit iron - cars that had the size, weight, and handling characteristics of aircraft carriers but worse fuel efficiency. ~ Dave Barry

I grew up in Hollywood. Saying my name here is like mentioning Ford in Detroit. ~ Tony Goldwyn

It was dusk when I drove back into downtown Detroit. I was annoyed by how much traffic there was at that hour of the day. Being a guy with two good legs who doesn't mind ankling, I hadn't realized the car situation had gotten so bad in the city. I almost had two smack-ups with people who refused to yield to me. Then I bumped someone from behind, intentionally, at the new flashing traffic light on Jefferson. The guy in the car had refused to move - he just sat there waiting because the light was red. After I bumped him (not that hard), the squirt hopped out of his car red in the face, and I must admit the sight of him gave me my first laugh in two days. He said, "Can't you see it's a red light?" I told him a red light is just a suggestion. Then I pressed the gas lightly and started pushing his car further out into the intersection whilst he stood there in disbelief. "Better get back in, your car is leaving without you," I said. ~ W.K. Berger

I went on to Cincinnati. I had got a taste of the big cities and them bright lights. I stayed there until I was about 18 or 19 and then I went on to Detroit. ~ John Lee Hooker

I kind of grew up with hip hop and of course being from Detroit I'm a Motown man. Music is in our blood. When you're from Detroit, music is in your DNA. ~ Eric Thomas

In my dream, I am not returning to Detroit to be with my parents. I'm not dreaming of being back in Mexico with my mom. I certainly don't dream to be back with Angelita! No, in my favorite dream, I go home... home to Nancy's house. ~ Jose N Harris

So, I mean, there's still vast swaths of the city that are suffering from a lack of jobs and poor housing and poor public schools, but they are building momentum - you know, techies, foodies, artists, musicians, all coming to Detroit. So there is this vibrancy. You see it in the newspapers every day - some story about the new Detroit. ~ David Maraniss

I grew up in Detroit. I was a teen father. I lived on welfare for three years. I have a brother serving life in prison, though I believe he's innocent. ~ Michael Eric Dyson

I've gone to Detroit. I've been to Ferguson; I've been to Baltimore, because I want our party to be bigger, better and bolder, and I'm the only one that leads Hillary Clinton in five states that were won by President Obama. I'm a different kind of Republican. ~ Rand Paul

When you go to Detroit you see a town that is resilient, that's just fighting to win again, and there's an energy to that. Just watching a city really fighting to get back on its feet and watching the inner strength of a city is tremendous. ~ George Clooney

My eight years in Detroit, obviously, were my most successful years managing. I think that Pittsburgh and Detroit are probably very, very similar. We kinda rekindled the fire of baseball in Pittsburgh. We did the exact same thing in Detroit. ~ Jim Leyland

Jimmy Carter, who embraced all manner of schemes to make America a second or third-rate country, came down so squarely in favor of the double nickel [the 55 mph National Speed Limit] ... This is the same Jimmy Carter whose limosine with him in it, just a little later in his presidency, was timed at an average of 72 mph for the 21.5 mile trip from Detroit Metro to the Detroit Plaza Hotel. He didn't want to be late for a campaign appearance. ~ Patrick Bedard

Everything you do, spiritualise it. Your heart will guide you.

(June 6 2016; Detroit) ~ Kamlesh Patel Daaji

I have always been involved with radio, whether it was as an artist talking to radio about my own songs, or as a promotion man at Def Jam to working records through my company. In 2000 I was asked to host a show in Norfolk VA and through that show I was then asked to host the morning show in Detroit. The concept of the show was around Hip Hop. We were active in the community and we wanted to do a local show that had a hip hop feel around it. ~ MC Serch

I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. ~ Anna Sui

Heartfulness is about expansion of consciousness and divinisation of existence through meditation.

(June 6 2016; Detroit) ~ Kamlesh Patel Daaji

Abby had a little experience with the rap genre already - she used to spit rhymes with this little blond neighbor kid when she would visit her aunt and uncle in Detroit. Marshall something. Great kid. A little tightly wound. ~ Andrew Shaffer

Many Detroiters, for example, are beginning to see urban agriculture as a real part of the solution; to grow things right where people live, where they work, and definitely need healthier food on the table. Green city gardens are scattered throughout Detroit now, from the schoolyard at Catherine Ferguson Academy for pregnant teens and teen moms, to reclaimed land owned by a local order of Catholic friars (Earthworks), to a seven-acre organic farm in Rouge Park. Together, city gardeners, nonprofit organizations, and the Greening of Detroit resource agency are writing a new local-food story of urban Michigan. ~ Jaye Beeler

I was a working class Jewish girl. In my girlhood, anti-Semitism was a daily fact of life in Detroit. I did not come from people who had many options in their lives or many choices open to them. I was a girl in a family in which women were, as in society at large, very much second-class citizens. I did not see why I should accept these forced limitations without a fight. Being free to make my own choices thus became very important to me at an early age. ~ Marge Piercy

I emceed in metro Detroit throughout college, and even when I moved to New York, I would actually fly back on a Friday, emcee on a Saturday, and fly back on Sunday so that I could audition during the week. It was a big part of my life. ~ James Wolk

Detroit: Cars and rock 'n' roll. Not a bad combo. ~ Kid Rock

I got this tiger head ring that's similar to a Cartier ring. I had my jeweler Sean from Detroit make it similar to the Cartier ring, but gold and diamonded-out. That's my Detroit tiger. It's made with two different golds - the bottom is yellow and the top is gold. ~ Big Sean

My mum's American. She's from Detroit. ~ Rebecca Hall

Lefty and Desdemona's cousin, Sourmelina, had gone to America and was living now in a place called Detroit. Built ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

I grew up in Detroit. So my mother always loved big band music. ~ Glenn Frey

That's what I mean. I thought it was only in filthy places no one wants to go, like Chernobyl and Detroit. ~ Joe Hill

There's a lot of influences that I have from Detroit that are subliminal. I mean, I spent the first 10 years of my life there. My mom and dad were born and raised there, so a lot of that rubbed off on me. When I get angry, sometimes a Detroit accent comes out. ~ Lizzo

I think that the Detroit auto industry is important to the United States. It's important for hundreds of thousands of Americans who have their jobs as a result. ~ John Boehner

I was raised in Chicago and I guess that was one of the special breeding grounds for gangsters of all colors. That was the Detroit of the gangster world. The car industry was thugs. ~ Quincy Jones

My favorites are Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, but those are a little off in terms of getting Detroit right on the head. But of course, you know, "Dancing In The Streets." You can't forget the Motor City. And we can't forget the Motor City. ~ David Maraniss

It's still a trip for me to see somebody that I've only seen on television or in a movie. When they are there in real life, it's very different. When we played Detroit, Kevin Costner played before us. ~ Rodney Atkins

It is a great mistake for presidents and other leading executives of organizations having branches throughout the country to chain themselves to their desks at headquarters and send out rigid instructions to those in charge of distant branches and offices. Because a man sits in a palatial office in New York or Chicago or Philadelphia or Detroit and draws a big salary, it does not necessarily follow that he knows better than the man on the spot what ought to be done ... Paul, Caesar, Napoleon did not merely sit at home and issue long-range instructions. ~ B.C. Forbes

In the 1890's horses, carrying people to work, dropped 4.5 million tons of manure on the streets of Manhattan, every year. That was the big environmental problem of the day. "NYC will be buried in horse manure by 1950!" screamed the headlines. It doesn't matter what your opinion about this was. None of the people living in NY solved the problem despite the 1000s of opinions. People with passion for mechanics in Detroit made something called a car. Problem solved. ~ James Altucher

Detroit's political leadership is a parasite that has outgrown its host. ~ Kevin D. Williamson

That July, on a flight to the Republican convention in Detroit which nominated him as the party's presidential candidate, Ronald Reagan had chatted with his political guru, Stuart Spencer: 'Spencer asked the question all political pros learn to ask their candidates early on. "Why are you doing this, Ron? Why do you want to be President?" Without a moment's hesitation Reagan answered, "To end the Cold War. ~ Charles Moore

In Detroit, in July of 1967, what happened was no less than a guerrilla uprising.
The Second American Revolution. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

wI don't care what they say about Aretha. She can be hiding out in her house in Detroit for years. She can go decades without taking a plane or flying off to Europe. She can cancel half her gigs and infuriate every producer and promoter in the country. She can sing all kinds of jive-ass songs that are beneath her. She can go into her diva act and turn off the world. But on any given night, when that lady sits down at the piano and gets her body and soul all over some righteous song, she'll scare the shit out of you. And you'll know - you'll swear - that she's still the best fuckin' singer this fucked-up country has ever produced. ~ Billy Preston

I was born Joseph Lane, but when I applied to the actors union, they said they already had a Joe Lane on the books and I'd have to change my last or first name. I had played the character of Nathan Detroit, whom I liked very much, in 'Guys and Dolls,' so I took the name Nathan. ~ Nathan Lane

If you want to be in the automotive business, you go to Detroit, and you figure it out. If you want to be in entertainment, go to where it's at. Go to Hollywood, go to New York. ~ Nick Cannon

I think Detroit is starting to get it. We consider it a victory for the grassroots, CalCars, and the Internet-led effort. ~ Felix Kramer

There ain't no haints in Detroit. ~ Angela Flournoy

You can find old Jewish newspapers from Detroit that have my promotional ad in them. It was a totally insane time in my life. Paul Rudd was also a bar mitzvah emcee, you know? It was like being a local rock star in Detroit. ~ James Wolk

You know, I'm the 1st black solo MC from Detroit. I didn't do the 50 Cent sales but hey ... I got a long career, I'm still young and I'm trying to bring really good music. ~ Obie Trice

Detroit is a place where we've had it pretty tough. But there is a generosity here and a well of kindness that goes deep. ~ Mitch Albom

Nobody moves on purpose to Detroit. ~ Manoj Bhargava

I remember back in Detroit, I used to go to the Apex Bar every night after I got off work. The bartender there used to call me Boom Boom. I don't know why, but he did. ~ John Lee Hooker

You don't have to be best friends as basketball players but I do believe in chemistry. I think it makes everything different if a team is really together and they're all on that same page. They might not like each other, per se, but if you're on the same page and the chemistry is there, you can play great basketball. You can go back to teams like Detroit, the Bad Boys. Those guys had great chemistry, that's why they won. ~ Dwight Howard

Race always comes up in the conversation of Detroit. ~ Julie Mehretu

Disruption is continuously afoot in every industry, but especially in autos. It is how Toyota, Nissan and Honda bloodied Detroit: They did not start their attack with Lexus, Infiniti and Acura, but with low-end subcompact models branded Corona, Datsun and CVCC. ~ Clayton Christensen

Detroit turned out to be heaven, but it also turned out to be hell. ~ Marvin Gaye

I understand that Detroit was a pretty rough place to grow up in the '70s and '80s. ~ Buzz Aldrin

The odor of burning sulphur shifted on the night air, acrid, a little foul. Somewhere, the Canaan dwellers had learned of a supplier of castor - an extract from the beaver's perineal glands. Little packets containing the brown-orange mass of dried animal matter arrived from Detroit at the Post Office's "general delivery." At home, by the kerosene light, the recipients unwrapped the packets. A poor relative sometimes would be given some of the fibrous gland, bitter and smelling slightly like strong human sweat, and the rest would go into a Mason jar. Each night, as prescribed by old Burrifous through his oracle, Ronnie, a litt1e would be mixed with clear spring water. And as it gave the water a creamy, rusty look, the owner would sigh with awe and fear. The creature, wolf or man, became more real through the very specific which was to vanquish him. ~ Leslie H. Whitten Jr.

In Detroit, the quarterbacks lift with all the linebackers and running backs and everybody else, so I'm doing that whole thing. ~ Matthew Stafford

They were "galvanized iron bake ovens," said Carl LaRue, commenting on Fordlandia's foibles years later. "It is incredible that anyone should build a house like that in the tropics." Another visitor described them as "midget hells, where one lies awake and sweats the first half of the night, and frequently between midnight and dawn undergoes a fierce siege of heat-provoking nightmares." They seemed to be "designed by Detroit architects who probably couldn't envision a land without snow."19 Ford managers, said the priest, "never really ~ Greg Grandin

Together, let us make this a new beginning. Let us make a commitment to care for the needy, to teach our children the values and the virtues handed down to us by our families, to have the courage to defend those values and the willingness to sacrifice for them. Accepting Republican nomination, Detroit, July 17, 1980 ~ Ronald Reagan

I was born in Detroit. I never really saw myself working in comics, I just fell into it. But it's been one of the best things to happen to a kid from Detroit. ~ Dwayne McDuffie

Detroit is a city that really stands out. It's been through a very difficult time. There's been a lot of pain here, and the city, physically, has suffered. You can see it in certain neighborhoods, and there's buildings downtown that have been abandoned. ~ Michael Imperioli