City Lights Quotes

• I wonder about silence. Also about darkness. I love the idea that city lights are a "conspiracy" against higher thoughts.

  Terry Tempest Williams

  Light, Cities, Ideas

  Terry Tempest Williams (2006). “A voice in the wilderness: conversations with Terry Tempest Williams”, Utah State Univ Pr

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• Human sympathy has its limits, and we were contented to let all their tragic arguments fade with the city lights behind.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Light, Cities, Limits

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2016). “(The Great Gatsby)”, p.80, F. Scott Fitzgerald

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• In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Country, Night, Light

  "A Writer's Notebook" by W. Somerset Maugham, Country Life Press, (p. 48), 1949.

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• I look out the window and I see the lights and the skyline and the people on the street rushing around looking for action, love, and the world's greatest chocolate chip cookie, and my heart does a little dance.

  Nora Ephron

  New York, Heart, Light

  FaceBook post by Nora Ephron from Dec 22, 2014

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• A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding.

  William Gibson

  Light, Data, Cities

  1984 Neuromancer. This is the first recorded use of the term 'cyberspace'.

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• City lights shine bright on my complexion,
  Self-reflection...red hairs flashing at the intersection.
  Life is a green light, one star, no script,
  Supporting actors...fresh peaches, no pit.

  Action Bronson

  Stars, Rap, Reflection

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• But treat dimes fair and I'm bigger than the city lights down in times square

  Puff Daddy

  Rap, Light, Cities

  Song: Mo Money Mo Problems

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• There is an atmosphere of spiritual effort here. No other city is quite like it. I wake early, often at 5 o'clock, and start writing at once.

  James Joyce

  Spiritual, Writing, Cities

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• As an artist one has no home in Europe except in Paris.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Art, Home, Europe

  "Why I Am so Clever".

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• Ever since I was a little kid, I always dreamed of being a Big City kid, because I grew up in a very small town up north in Canada. I have to say I just love the city lights at night.

  Dustin Milligan

  Kids, Night, Small Town

  "Q&A: Dustin Milligan talks Sharks, man-junk and 'Potter'". Interview with Sandie Angela Chen, www.mtv.com. September 1, 2011.

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• A walk about Paris will provide lessons in history, beauty, and in the point of Life.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Paris, Lessons, Eiffel Tower

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• I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain - and back in rain. I have out walked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet. When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street, But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly light, One luminary clock against the sky Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. I have been one acquainted with the night.

  Robert Frost

  Rain, Eye, Night

  "Acquainted with the Night" l. 1 (1928)

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• What an immense impression Paris made upon me. It is the most extraordinary place in the world!

  Charles Dickens

  Paris, World, Made

  Charles Dickens, Jenny Hartley (2012). “The Selected Letters of Charles Dickens”, p.136, Oxford University Press

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• Perhaps after all the most breathtaking quality about San Francisco is these unexpected glimpses that you are always getting of beautiful hill-heights and beautiful valley-depths. ... City lights, like nests of diamonds, glitter and glisten in the depths of those valleys.

  Inez Haynes Irwin

  Beautiful, Light, Cities

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• World's flying like birds; my car's in flight. The city lights are spattered on my windshield like the fragments of the night. And I'm in flight. The sky's a wheel, a merry-go-round of wings and snow and steel, and fire. We'll tread the sky, we'll ride the scarlet horses.

  Tanith Lee

  Horse, Night, Fire

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• The dark is settling in. The sky glows yellow- pale- anemic from the city lights. The Tenderloin at night is a real horror show. Every 3 feet someone is accosting you with a plea for a handout or the offer of drug or sex. The men and women wander the streets and alleys with a threatening, violont want. Takers looking to take, hustlers looking to hustle, all trying to satisfy a craving that is parpatually unsatisfiable. And tonight I'm one of them.

  Nic Sheff

  Sex, Real, Dark

  Nic Sheff (2012). “Tweak: Growing up on Crystal Meth”, p.45, Simon and Schuster

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• America is my country and Paris is my hometown.

  Gertrude Stein

  Country, Paris, America

  "An American and France" (1936)

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• When spring comes to Paris the humblest mortal alive must feel that he dwells in paradise.

  Henry Miller

  Travel, Spring, Paris

  Henry Miller (1961). “Tropic of Cancer”

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• Winter came and the city [Chicago] turned monochrome -- black trees against gray sky above white earth. Night now fell in midafternoon, especially when the snowstorms rolled in, boundless prairie storms that set the sky close to the ground, the city lights reflected against the clouds

  Barack Obama

  Winter, Night, Clouds

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• Climbing up on Solsbury Hill
  I could see the city light
  Wind was blowing, time stood still
  Eagle flew out of the night
  He was something to observe
  Came in close, I heard a voice
  Standing stretching every nerve
  I had to listen, had no choice

  Peter Gabriel

  Time, Night, Light

  Song: Solsbury Hill

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• A final reminder. Whenever you are in Paris at twilight in the early summer, return to the Seine and watch the evening sky close slowly on a last strand of daylight fading quietly, like a sigh.

  Kate Simon

  Summer, Twilight, Sky

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• I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain - and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

  Robert Frost

  Rain, Eye, Night

  "Acquainted with the Night" l. 1 (1928)

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• A portrait of the young Charlie Parker with a degree of vivid detail never before approached. . . [Kansas City Lightning is] a deft, virtuosic panorama of early jazz. . . This is a mind-opening, and mind-filling, book.

  Tom Piazza

  Book, Cities, Kansas City

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• Here I am on the shore of Brittany. Let the cities light up in the evening. My day is done. I am leaving Europe. The sea air will burn my lungs. Lost climates will tan me. I will swim, trample the grass, hung, and smoke especially. I will drink alcohol as strong as boiling metal--just as my dear ancestors did around their fires.

  Arthur Rimbaud

  Strong, Fire, Light

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• Kansas City Lightning succeeds as few biographies of jazz musicians have. . . This book is a magnificent achievement; I could hardly put it down.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Book, Cities, Kansas City

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