You swallow hard when you discover that the old coffee shop is now a chain pharmacy, that the place where you first kissed so-and-so is now a discount electronics retailer, that where you bought this very jacket is now rubble behind a blue plywood fence and a future office building. Damage has been done to your city. You say, ''It happened overnight.'' But of course it didn't. Your pizza parlor, his shoeshine stand, her hat store: when they were here, we neglected them. For all you know, the place closed down moments after the last time you walked out the door. (Ten months ago? Six years? Fifteen? You can't remember, can you?) And there have been five stores in that spot before the travel agency. Five different neighborhoods coming and going between then and now, other people's other cities. Or 15, 25, 100 neighborhoods. Thousands of people pass that storefront every day, each one haunting the streets of his or her own New York, not one of them seeing the same thing. Colson Whitehead
About This Quote

Its not just one city that suffers from change. The people in each city will also feel the same effects of the change and their day to day life will be affected. A city can change very quickly and you don't even notice it at all, because your life is so busy and you don't have time to stop and look around. People who live in cities often complain about the changes and how they feel like they are always losing their identity. The changes can be very scary and some people start to become very unhappy with their new environment.

Source: The Colossus Of New York

Some Similar Quotes
  1. When someone loves you, the way they talk about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable. - Jess C. Scott
  2. I think... if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts. - Leo Tolstoy
  3. It’s probably not just by chance that I’m alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he’s terribly strong. And if he’s stronger than I, I’m the one who can’t live with him. … I’m neither smart nor stupid,... - Coco Chanel
  4. Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another. - Carl Sagan
  5. About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won't like you at all. - Rita Mae Brown
More Quotes By Colson Whitehead
  1. See chains on another person and be glad they are not your own--such was the good fortune permitted colored people, defined by how much worse it could be at any moment.
  2. I can't blame modern technology for my predilection for distraction, not after all the hours I've spent watching lost balloons disappear into the clouds. I did it before the Internet, and I'll do it after the apocalypse, assuming we still have helium and weak-gripped children.
  3. We never see other people anyway, only the monsters we make of them.
  4. The word we. We are not one people but many different people. How can one person speak for this great, beautiful race--which is not one race but many, with a million desires and hopes and wished for ourselves and our children?
  5. And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes--believes with all its heart--that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn't exist, if there is any justice in...
Related Topics