Slimers In The City Quotes

If you live in poor neighborhoods - I know from living in several poor neighborhoods - the worst supermarkets in the city are in the poorest neighborhoods, where people don't have cars. ~ Sandra Cisneros

Men are seldom helpless against their own evil wishes, and in their souls they know it. But common men love flattery not less than tyrants, if anyone will sell it to them. If they are told that the struggle for the good is an illusion, that no one need be ashamed to drop his shield and run, that the coward is the natural man, the hero is fable, many will be grateful. But will the city, or mankind, be better?'

No being a sophist, trained to bring out answers pat, I could only say, 'But it's such marvelous theater. ~ Mary Renault

They
the books I mean, not the ladies of Technical Services, though maybe those ladies too
might have dreamed of a different life in a private home, beloved and displayed and well dressed and only occasionally, dreamily read, but they belonged to the city now and had to work for the common good. ~ Elizabeth McCracken

Remind me again-why do you hate me so much?"
I don't hate you."
Could've fooled me."
She folded her cap of invisibility. "Look ... we're just not supposed to get along, okay? Our parents are rivals."
Why?"
She sighed. "How many reasons do you want? One time my mom caught Poseidon with his girlfriend in Athena's temple, which is hugely disrespectful. Another time, Athena and Poseidon competed to be the patron god for the city of Athens. Your dad created some stupid saltwater spring for his gift. My mom created the olive tree. The people saw that her gift was better, so they named the city after her."
They must really like olives."
Oh, forget it."
Now, if she'd invented pizza-that I could understand. ~ Rick Riordan

New York is at once cosmopolitan and parochial, a compendium of sentimental certainties. It is in fact the most sentimental of the world's great cities - in its self-congratulation a kind of San Francisco of the East ~ John Gregory Dunne

We had heard that the people of Delhi loved their city as bees love flowers. But we could not believe that the child of a courtesan would prefer to live in a Delhi brothel rather than in our palace in Iran! ~ Khushwant Singh

I'd quite like to have one place where I stay put. And I don't like living in cities all the time. In order to have ideas, you have to have some peace and quiet. ~ Daphne Guinness

Do you want to achieve something or do you just want to make money?" asked a nearby man in a white shirt to another man in a striped shirt. I waited for the answer as I slowly walked past them.
"Why is it an either or question?" the man in the striped shirt finally murmured philosophically under a sip of beer. They both stood there looking at each other in thought. ~ Daniel Amory

Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud. No other city is so spitefully incoherent. Whereas other cities flaunt there history - their presumed glory - in vividly placed monuments, squares, parks, plaques, and boulevards, such history as New York has been unable entirely to obliterate is to be found, mainly, in the backwaters of Wall Street, in the goat tracks of Old and West Broadway, in and around Washington Square, and, for the relentless searcher, in grimly inaccessible regions of The Bronx. ~ James Baldwin

Our children need to be able to see us take a stand for a value and against injustices, be those values and injustices in the family room, the boardroom, the classroom, or on the city streets. ~ Barbara Coloroso

The white woman across the aisle from me says 'Look,
look at all the history, that house
on the hill there is over two hundred years old, '
as she points out the window past me

into what she has been taught. I have learned
little more about American history during my few days
back East than what I expected and far less
of what we should all know of the tribal stories

whose architecture is 15,000 years older
than the corners of the house that sits
museumed on the hill. 'Walden Pond, '
the woman on the train asks, 'Did you see Walden Pond? '

and I don't have a cruel enough heart to break
her own by telling her there are five Walden Ponds
on my little reservation out West
and at least a hundred more surrounding Spokane,

the city I pretended to call my home. 'Listen, '
I could have told her. 'I don't give a shit
about Walden. I know the Indians were living stories
around that pond before Walden's grandparents were born

and before his grandparents' grandparents were born.
I'm tired of hearing about Don-fucking-Henley saving it, too,
because that's redundant. If Don Henley's brothers and sisters
and mothers and father hadn't come here in the first place

then nothing would need to be saved.'
But I didn't say a word to the woman about Walden
Pond because she smiled so much and seemed delighted
that I thought to b ~ Sherman Alexie

Jarod Kintz was born in Salt Lake City to a family of five. One father, and four mothers. Jarod moved around a lot as a kid, but eventually ended up in the middle bedroom. Being an only child, Jarod has been known to tell people, "I'm genetically half non-existent, on my brother's side."

Well, enough about me, let me tell you about my work. Actually, I'll let it speak for myself. So read it and find out what it says. Or, rather, what I say it says. ~ Jarod Kintz

The new towns of the 1950s and '60s were nothing less than the spatial translation of alienation and control and in these cities power increasingly could relinquish the old forms of advertising in favor of 'the simple organization of the spectacle of objects of consumption, which will only have consumable value illusory to the extent to which they will first of all have been objects of spectacle'
to the extent, that is, they have first appeared on the television screen, which henceforth had to be seen as an urbanistic tool in its own right. ~ Tom McDonough

Gone. We were out in the country and everything slowed down into rolling hills covered with snow. There were trees, but no leaves, and I could not remember seeing anything so white and clean. Winter in the city was gray and the snow was dirty, but out here it was so bright it hurt my eyes and I had to turn away. ~ Gary Paulsen

When I got home I mixed a stiff one and stood by the open window in the living room and sipped it and listened to the groundswell of traffic on Laurel Canyon Boulevard and looked at the glare of the big angry city hanging over the shoulder of the hills through which the boulevard had been cut. Far off the banshee wail of police or fire sirens rose and fell, never for very long completely silent. Twenty four hours a day somebody is running, somebody else is trying to catch him. Out there in the night of a thousand crimes, people were dying, being maimed, cut by flying glass, crushed against steering wheels or under heavy tires. People were being beaten, robbed, strangled, raped, and murdered. People were hungry, sick; bored, desperate with loneliness or remorse or fear, angry, cruel, feverish, shaken by sobs. A city no worse than others, a city rich and vigorous and full of pride, a city lost and beaten and full of emptiness. It all depends on where you sit and what your own private score is. I didn't have one. I didn't care. I finished the drink and went to bed. ~ Raymond Chandler

The city had changed beyond recognition. Wrecking balls and bulldozers had leveled the old buildings to rubble. The dust of construction hung permanently over the streets. Gated mansions reached up to the northern foothills, while slums fanned out from the city's southern limits.
I feared an aged that had lost its heart, and I was terrified at the thought of so many useless hands. Our traditions were our pacifiers and we put ourselves to sleep with the lullaby of a once-great civilation and culture. Ours was the land of poetry flowers, and nightingales - and poets searching for rhymes in history's junkyards. The lottery was our faith and greed our fortune. Our intellectuals were sniffing cocaine and delivering lectures in the back rooms of dark cafés. We bought plastic roses and decorated our lawns and courtyards with plaster swans. We saw the future in neon lights. We had pizza shops, supermarkets, and bowling alleys. We had trafric jams, skyscrapers, and air thick with noise and pollution. We had illiterate villagers who came to the capital with scraps of paper in their hands, begging for someone to show them the way to this medical clinic or that government officee. the streets of Tehran were full of Mustangs and Chevys bought at three times the price they sold for back in America, and still our oil wasn't our own. Still our country wasn't our own. ~ Jasmin Darznik

I was born in the city of Brantford, Ontario, Canada - but by the time I'd left high school, I'd moved seven times with my family, my father's engineering work taking us to places as far-flung as Bay City, Texas, and Wolnae-Ri in South Korea. ~ Susanna Kearsley

The air delighted her nose - fresher and crisper compared to the air in the grimy ghetto, even better than in the city. She rubbed her chest where the dart had hit. Her heart beat powerfully inside her - fueled by fear. It felt as if it would burst, and she mentally tried to slow it down. Strange, she thought, these may be some of its last beats in her chest. Was that why it beat so fiercely? ~ Cate Campbell Beatty

The pleasures of the damned
are limited to brief moments
of happiness:
like eyes in the look of a dog,
like a square of wax,
like a fire taking city hall,
the county,
the continent,
like fire taking the hair
of maidens and monsters;
and hawks buzzing in peach trees,
the sea running between their claws,
Time
drunk and damp,
everything burning,
everything wet,
everything fine. ~ Charles Bukowski

In my native Boulder County, Colorado, the fracking fanatics are out in force. They are marching door-to-door, petitions and mythology in hand, and they are storming city council and county commissioner meetings. ~ Bob Beauprez

Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs (lesser developed countries)? I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that ... I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly under polluted; their air quality is vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City. ~ Lawrence Summers

These stories at times to be stories of a long-lost world when the city of New York was still filled with a river light, when you heard Benny Goodman quartets from a radio in the corner stationary store, when almost everybody wore a hat. Here is the last of that generation of chain smokers who woke to the world in the morning with their coughing, who used to get stoned at cocktail parties and perform obsolete dance steps like 'the Cleveland Chicken,' sail for Europe on ships, who were nostalgic for love and happiness, and whose gods were as ancient as yours and mine, whoever you are. ~ John Cheever

Roads are necessary, but the fact that we don't fully recognize that when you build a road you're doing more than building a road - you're building the future development of your city. And, that's what's never dawned on people. It still doesn't, in a way. ~ Richard Lamm

Lina couldn't sleep at first, thinking of the old songs and what they meant. Someone, long ago, had hoped that at least a few people would survive and had wanted them to remember her city and the treasure it held, the treasure that was most valuable of all - herself, her family, and all of the generations of people who had lived in that secret place, their purpose, though they didn't know it, to make sure that human beings did not vanish from the world, no matter what happened above. ~ Jeanne DuPrau

I truly believe my job starts the minute I leave the baseball field. Going out and catching ground balls and hitting, that's a job, and that's what I've wanted to do ever since I was a kid. But when you think about leaving that field, that's when the job and the demands really start. In New York, Seattle, every city. The community, the media, business stuff. You have to stay on a narrow path. ~ Alex Rodriguez

I'm working on a film called 'Bonnie.' Bonnie means water. It's in English, and it's dealing with a future world in a megacity - which is what the U.N. says we're going to be - but in this megacity, a city that runs out of water. ~ Shekhar Kapur

There's a power struggle going on across Europe these days. A few cities are competing against each other to see who shall emerge as the great 21st century European metropolis. Will it be London? Paris? Berlin? Zurich? Maybe Brussels, center of the young union? They all strive to outdo one another culturally, architecturally, politically, fiscally. But Rome, it should be said, has not bothered to join the race for status. Rome doesn't compete. Rome just watches all the fussing and striving, completely unfazed. I am inspired by the regal self-assurance of this city, so grounded and rounded, so amused and monumental, knowing she is held securely in the palm of history. I would like to be like Rome when I am an old lady. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

In my opinion it is essential to get lost in a new city, that way you are forced to walk about and discover places at a proper, natural pace. But you must have the taxi fare home, and it helps if you can remember the name of your hotel. ~ Sue Townsend

Just because you're from a city ten miles outside of St. Paul. It doesn't mean you don't read magazines, or the incredible Internet, and what's going on in the world. I never, ever take a client, or women, for granted. ~ Vera Wang

I'm also a sucker for a view. Take me to a high place where I can see the landscape or the stars or the whole city, and I'm putty, I'm melting in your arms. Then I think having a romantic night, getting a little dressed up, but don't kill yourself trying to force the romance. A bunch of little subtle changes that will make the day more special will amount to a big awesome day in your memory. I like little breadcrumbs along the way. Draw it out! ~ Evan Rachel Wood

Maybe being good isn't about getting rid of anything. Maybe being good has to do with living in the mess in the frailty in the failures in the flaws. Maybe what I tried to get rid of is the goodest part of me. Think Passion. Think Age. Think Round. Maybe good is about developing the capacity to live fully inside everything. Our body is our country, the only city, the only village, the only every we will ever know. ~ Eve Ensler

Please read prayerfully what I'm about to write. When God puts a passion in your heart, whether it be relieving starvation in Africa or educating children in the inner city or making movies with redemptive messages, that God-ordained passion becomes your responsibility. And you have a choice to make. Are you going to be irresponsibly responsible or responsibly irresponsible? ~ Mark Batterson

A city obsessed by its ghosts seems to be weighted down by a conflicted view of the past. Something close to melancholy: a weight it can't quite let go of, a lingering sadness. And though we don't often think of the United States in these terms, this melancholy is as much a part of our history as our triumphs. ~ Colin Dickey