Urban Poetrt Quotes

When the Brooklyn rain comes down
hopefully it will be to fuckin' wake you up ~ Julian Gallo

The lake comes to the fringe while lights go up around the bay. Somewhere near, cow flesh is singed. Smoke floats above the walkway. I've eaten green that comes up black, risen cold from torrid mud. I've licked my paws and tasted blood. What is this world of busy lies? Some urban genie feeding food to flies! ~ Andre Alexis

This letter is written on the skin of one of the water sprites who drowned your parents.'
'Ick!' I cried, and dropped the letter on the kitchen table. ~ Charlaine Harris

The side effects of growing up 'just outside of [insert major urban center here] are many but practically intangible. This is logical given the fact that suburbia itself is a side effect and practically intangible. ~ Sloane Crosley

And that is true in 85 percent of kids; it's kids who live in old, dilapidated, mostly urban housing. But that still leaves 15 percent of the cases that occur in middle- or upper-class families, usually associated with home renovations. People are sanding paint, removing banisters, cleaning up windowsills, and they don't realize that they're spewing lead dust around in the house. And then the kids get it. ~ Deirdre Imus

I had left small-town, rural life for good, and I had no intention of ever returning, not because I didn't like my home but because I had always known that I would leave. Leaving was part of my life romance, part of an idea I had about myself as a person destined for adventure; and as far as I could tell, adventure lay in the urban wilds of Manhattan, not in the farmland of Minnesota. ~ Siri Hustvedt

Tangled Moon ~ Sometimes you have to break the rules. Sometimes you have to let go of the past. And sometimes you have to accept the impossible. ~ Olivia Stocum

My favorite urban flower, the baseball box score ~ Roger Angell

Becoming a fae leader? Not on my bucket list. ~ E.J. Stevens

The impact of NCDs is not only affecting the urban populations but also rural poor. This is compounding the basic problem of poverty. ~ Marty Natalegawa

Eternity, I repeated, the words burning into my brain, so much so it felt we'd made some form of sacred and unbreakable bond. ~ Tima Maria Lacoba

I kissed her one more time, slow, and whispered, "I don't have a condom."

"Don't need a condom in a dream." She mumbled against my lips, her heavy lips drifting closed.

"You should get some sleep."

"Sleep? You're half naked." Her hips rocked under me, shaking my will. "I can't get lucky even in my dreams? ~ Lisa Kessler

Those aren't the rules. She cost us a meal," Tank said. "You cost the group a meal, you go hungry. That's the way it's always been."
I thought Dax was going to let them fight it out but then he spoke up. "I don't want to feed her right now either but she's a walking skeleton, and I need her alive. If there was one jerky, she'd get it before any of us." He reached over and grabbed two dried meat sticks from Lucy and tried to hand me one.
"I'm fine. I don't need it," I said, looking at Tank.
Dax grabbed my hand and shoved the jerky into my palm. "I took you out of that compound for a reason. I will force-feed you that jerky before I let you starve yourself."
"Fine. I'll eat it. Whatever. You don't need to get so bent out of shape about it." I was hungry as hell so it wasn't actually a concession, but he didn't know that. I mean hell, I knew I needed the calories and the Cement Giant wasn't going to blow itself to smithereens.
"I took a couple of bites as Dax got up and walked out of the camp.
I gnawed on the stuff as I leaned against my rock. "What flavor is this? It's really good stuff."
Lucy and Tank looked at me kind of oddly. Hey, if I was going to eat it I didn't see a lot of reason to pretend it sucked. These people were weird. ~ Donna Augustine

If you want to mimic spoons in a drawer, I promise I won't think anythin' of it."
She realized that curling the same way they'd fit much better. She sighed. "Okay, but I get to be the big spoon. I don't want to accidentally bump into your ... "
"Knife?" he supplied. ~ Ashlyn Chase

Look at me, Regina."
She glanced up at him, appearing tiny. He stood almost a foot taller than her in his boots while she wore flats, which looked like ballet shoes. His palms heated and his heartbeat raced. Her scent that had teased him from afar now tormented him up close. God, he wanted to wrap himself in that scent, bury himself deep inside her. ~ Lisa Carlisle

Inexpensive Progress

Encase your legs in nylons,
Bestride your hills with pylons
O age without a soul;
Away with gentle willows
And all the elmy billows
That through your valleys roll.

Let's say goodbye to hedges
And roads with grassy edges
And winding country lanes;
Let all things travel faster
Where motor car is master
Till only Speed remains.

Destroy the ancient inn-signs
But strew the roads with tin signs
'Keep Left,' 'M4,' 'Keep Out!'
Command, instruction, warning,
Repetitive adorning
The rockeried roundabout;

For every raw obscenity
Must have its small 'amenity,'
Its patch of shaven green,
And hoardings look a wonder
In banks of floribunda
With floodlights in between.

Leave no old village standing
Which could provide a landing
For aeroplanes to roar,
But spare such cheap defacements
As huts with shattered casements
Unlived-in since the war.

Let no provincial High Street
Which might be your or my street
Look as it used to do,
But let the chain stores place here
Their miles of black glass facia
And traffic thunder through.

And if there is some scenery,
Some unpretentious greenery,
Surviving anywhere,
It does not need protecting
For soon we'll be erecting
A Power Station there.

When all our roads are lighted
B ~ John Betjeman

I received a grant from The Ford Foundation to write a book for kids about urban perception, or how people experience cities, but I kept putting off writing it. Instead I started to write what became The Phantom Tollbooth. ~ Norton Juster

Are you here about the infestation?"
MacMillian stiffened. "I don't ... We aren't-"
Lena cleared her throat. "I'm afraid bugs aren't really our specialty."
"Not bugs." The woman shook her head vigorously. "Ghosts. Whole place is crawling with 'em. ~ Laura Oliva

I woke in his arms and I knew I'd never be happier than I was in this moment. I watched his chest rise and fall as he slept peacefully next to me. As I relished in this tranquility, the sight of his body stirred me once again. My heart was attached and I knew I was ruined. It was a lesson I knew all too well, when you love, you hurt... they were two sides of the same coin. ~ Brynn Myers

The best friend of a blind Us is a nemesis Us - Them. Nothing unites Us like a collectively hated anti-Us, and the blind tribe is usually defined almost as much by hating the dogma of Them as it is by abiding by the dogma of Us. Whatever ~ Tim Urban

But ideal cities are very much the product of their own ages. Designed as complete urban statements, they bear the unmistakable imprint of their own culture and world view in every street and building. And yet to be successful a city has to be open to continuous development, free to evolve and grow with the demands of new times. Like science fiction accounts of the future, ideal cities quickly become outmoded. ~ P.D. Smith

In 1969 my parents, my sister, my brother Jin-ming, and I were expelled from Chengdu one after another, and sent to distant parts of the Sichuan wilderness. We were among millions of urban dwellers to be exiled to the countryside.

In this way, young people would not be roaming the cities with nothing to do, creating trouble out of sheer boredom, and adults like my parents would have a 'future." They were part of the old administration which had been replaced by Mao's Revolutionary Committees, and packing them off to the sticks to do hard labor was a convenient solution.

According to Mao's rhetoric, we were sent to the countryside 'to be reformed." Mao advocated 'thought reform through labor' for everyone, but never explained the relationship between the two. Of course, no one asked for clarification. Merely to contemplate such a question was tantamount to treason. In reality, everyone in China knew that hard labor, particularly in the countryside, was always punishment. It was noticeable that none of Mao's henchmen, the members of the newly established Revolutionary Committees, army officers and very few of their children had to do it.

The first of us to be expelled was my father. Just after New Year 1969 he was sent to Miyi County in the region of Xichang, on the eastern edge of the Himalayas, an area so remote that it is China's satellite launch base today. It lies about 300 miles from Chengdu, four days' journey by truck, as there was no ~ Jung Chang

After spending all damned night digging his sorry ass up, no wonder she'd passed out.
"I haven't seen it yet," she mumbled against his neck as consciousness returned, "but I'm willing to bet your ass is actually quite nice. ~ Dianne Duvall

Some lines you just don't cross. Not in my business."
"Your business?" Georgia rolled her eyes. "You mean the private detective business? I wasn't aware you guys had such ironclad rules about making out with clients." She ignored the choking sound he made. "Seriously, have you even seen The Maltese Falcon?"
Darius' face heated. "This isn't some movie, Ms. Clare. You're not Mary Astor, and I'm sure as hell no Humphrey Bogart. Here in the real world, there are rules. ~ Laura Oliva

Edward smiled, I smiled, even Bernardo smiled. Olaf just looked sinister. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

Games of chance fell outside the boundaries of urban reformers' definitions of respectable labor and amusement ~ LaShawn Harris

Anyone who thought death warmed over didn't look good, had never seen this guy. ~ Donna Augustine

I have to.
I've been fighting it all night. I'm going to lose. My battle is as futile as a woman feeling the first pangs of labor and deciding it's an inconvenient time to give birth. Nature wins out. It always does. ~ Kelley Armstrong

One can see from space how the human race has changed the Earth. Nearly all of the available land has been cleared of forest and is now used for agriculture or urban development. The polar icecaps are shrinking and the desert areas are increasing. At night, the Earth is no longer dark, but large areas are lit up. All of this is evidence that human exploitation of the planet is reaching a critical limit. But human demands and expectations are ever-increasing. We cannot continue to pollute the atmosphere, poison the ocean and exhaust the land. There isn't any more available. ~ Stephen Hawking

I could take nice and boring with you right now." He growled low and ran his lips across my neck. "Long, boring... and slow. ~ Amanda Carlson

Sure, I hung out around Red Witch Bridge in the middle of the night, but that was in the cover of the trees with an urban legend and a baseball bat as weapons. ~ Francesca Zappia