Des Moines Quotes

• Hardly anyone ever leaves. This is because Des Moines is the most powerful hypnotic known to man. Outside town there is a big sign that says, WELCOME TO DES MOINES. THIS IS WHAT DEATH IS LIKE. There isn't really. I just made that up. But the place does get a grip on you.

  Bill Bryson

  Powerful, Men, Doe

  Bill Bryson (1989). “The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-town America”, p.3, VNR AG

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• Des Moines is like your typical American city; it's just these concentric circles of malls, built outward from the city.

  Bill Bryson

  Cities, Circles, Typical

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• I come from Des Moines. Someone had to.

  Bill Bryson

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• Where I grew up, in Des Moines, Iowa, there is hardly any downtown economic activity now. Everybody shops in malls - you don't find a sense of community in malls.

  Bill Bryson

  Iowa, Community, Downtown

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• It's hard to pass up a pole vault opportunity here in Des Moines. The crowd was so great when I was at the mall and I was pumped up and I thought technically I was on and I figured where else to open up my outdoor season than here.

  Jenn Suhr

  Opportunity, Crowds, Vaults

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• I think that the Internet is going to effect the most profound change on the entertainment industries combined. And we're all gonna be tuning into the most popular Internet show in the world, which will be coming from some place in Des Moines. We're all gonna lose our jobs. We're all gonna be on the Internet trying to find an audience.

  Steven Spielberg

  Jobs, Thinking, Profound

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you. I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn't start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause.

  Barack Obama

  Men, Office, Giving

  President-Elect Victory Speech, delivered 4 November 2008, Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois

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• I must admit, even my fans everywhere I go in the world - just this week I was in London and Glasgow and the week before I was in Des Moines - my fans all look the same in all those cities - they look great!

  John Waters

  Cities, London, Fans

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• When I was growing up I used to think that the best thing about coming from Des Moines was that it meant you didn't come from anywhere else in Iowa. By Iowa standards, Des Moines is a mecca of cosmopolitanism, a dynamic hub of wealth and education, where people wear three-piece suits and dark socks, often simultaneously.

  Bill Bryson

  Growing Up, Dark, Thinking

  Bill Bryson (1989). “The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-town America”, p.5, VNR AG

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• I love it. It's all good to me. Whether I'm performing in New York, L.A., Columbus or Des Moines, I give 110 percent every night.

  Bret Michaels

  New York, Night, Giving

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• Look, you know i don't wanna come on ungrateful, but that warren report, you know as well as me, just didn't make it. You know, like they might as well have asked some banana salesman from des moines, who was up in toronto on the big day, if he saw anyone around looking suspicious/.

  Bob Dylan

  Ungrateful, Looks, Toronto

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• I'm from the US of A. Born in Des Moines, raised in the New York suburbs.

  Stephen Collins

  New York, Born, Raised

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• Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington -- it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. ...This is your victory.

  Barack Obama

  Government, Victory, Backyards

  President-Elect Victory Speech, delivered 4 November 2008, Grant Park, Chicago, Illinois

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• This sounds corny, but I once told a kid when I was in a the library conference, the best - not the best, what I really hope for is that someday 20, 30 years from now, some kid, 12-year-old, 15-year-old, in Des Moines will be going through the stacks, if they have stacks anymore - they probably won't - and find a book of mine and get something from it.

  Nat Hentoff

  Book, Kids, Years

  Source: thedailyhatch.org

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• I come Des Moines. Somebody had to.

  Bill Bryson

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• I ate apple pie and ice cream—it was getting better as I got deeper into Iowa, the pie bigger, the ice cream richer. There were the most beautiful bevies of girls everywhere I looked in Des Moines that afternoon—they were coming home from high school—but I had no time for thoughts like that…So I rushed past the pretty girls, and the prettiest girls in the world live in Des Moines.

  Jack Kerouac

  Beautiful, Girl, Home

  Jack Kerouac (2007). “Road Novels 1957-1960”

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• So I rushed past the pretty girls, and the prettiest girls in the world live in Des Moines.

  Jack Kerouac

  Girl, Past, World

  Jack Kerouac (2007). “On the Road: The Original Scroll: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.125, Penguin

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• A typical National World Weekly would tell the world how Jesus' face was seen on a Big Mac bun bought by someone from Des Moines, with an artist's impression of the bun; how Elvis Presley was recently sighted working in a Burger Lord in Des Moines; how listening to Elvis records cured a Des Moines housewife's cancer; how the spate of werewolves infesting the Midwest are the offspring of noble pioneer women raped by Bigfoot; and that Elvis was taken by Space Aliens in 1976 because he was too good for this world. Remarkably, one of these stories is indeed true.

  Neil Gaiman

  Jesus, Cancer, Taken

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• (On upcoming racing plans) Right now I am going to go back into training and then I am going to resurface and do the BAA Mile, The Boston Mile, and then I am going to do the USA Championships Mile out in Des Moines, Iowa. Then it is either going to be between The Penn or Drake Relays and then I will go back into training again and start another kind of session.

  Leonel Manzano

  Athlete, Boston, Iowa

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• My interest in chemistry was started by reading Robert Kennedy Duncan's popular books while a high school student in Des Moines, Iowa, so that after some delay when it was possible for me to go to college I had definitely decided to specialize in chemistry.

  Wallace Carothers

  Book, Reading, School

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• I moved to Des Moines when I was 15. I asked my mother to give up costody and sign parental rights over to my grandmother, who I lived with while I went to school. I was clean and finally starting to figure myself out. I can only say that now without laughing. I was still very out of my own place, and I didn't even know what that place was. All I knew was that I could write music, that I had no idea what that could mean and that I was still surrounded by people I couldn't relate to. I hadn't found my tribe yet.

  Corey Taylor

  Mother, Giving Up, Writing

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• I-just-got-off-the-bus-and-I'm-really-excited-and-ambitious-and-I-took-an-acting-class-in-Des-Moines-and-I-know-I-really-need-an-agent-and-I-want-one-NOW

  Bonnie Gillespie

  Class, Ambitious, Acting

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• We're talking about an extremely prolific poet and songwriter and lyricist. That stuff comes off the top of her head. She [Joni Mitchell] will write exactly what she lives. If she puts some money in the soda machine, she'll write about putting money in the soda machine. "Dry Cleaner from Des Moines," on the Shadows & Light album, was about sitting next to a dry cleaner from Des Moines, playing a slot machine.

  Don Alias

  Writing, Talking, Light

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• Secret Service agents detained an Iowa man with a gun who happened to be walking in a Des Moines park where President Bush was jogging. Were they out of their minds? White guys with guns put Bush in the White House.

  Argus Hamilton

  Gun, Men, Iowa

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• What the Des Moines Register said - you know, there were coin - I think there were half a dozen coin flips - a fairly chaotic type situation. At the end of the day, no matter how it's recounted, it will break roughly even. I love and respect the caucus process in Iowa. See, and I don't have to say it, because they voted already.

  Bernie Sanders

  Thinking, Iowa, The End Of The Day

  Bernie Sanders during Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, New Hampshire, www.nytimes.com. February 5, 2016.

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