17 Quotes About City Life

Life is full of choices. Some choices take us down roads we never thought we’d go down. Some choices take us to places we never knew existed. And then there are the choices that take us to places we never thought possible, places where our ideas of ourselves change, our perspectives alter, and sometimes even our lives alter forever Read more

Sometimes these choices take us to places like cities. While many people spend their entire lives in small towns or rural areas, there are those who choose to leave all they know behind and start over in the big city. Whether it’s for temporary or permanent reasons, leaving home can be a tough decision to make, but with the right mindset and the right words, it can transform your life.

1
[Poem: Slates of Grey]Sullen faces like slates of grey– What I’d seen on a walk today. Bodies rushing bodies bolting Time for life a disregarding. Money to make and to grow old What about the hands to hold? Deadlines, projects, people to meet What about our own two feet. Sullen faces like slates of grey... What I’d see most anyday. Jess C. Scott
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That was 1993 grunge in suburbia. This was 2003 hell in Harlem. (Dark City Lights) Eve Kagan
3
But you’re out of another world old kid … You ought to live on top of the Woolworth Building in an apartment made of cutglass and cherry blossoms. John Dos Passos
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In the modern city life, if you don't have money , you simply don't have life. Bangambiki Habyarimana
5
Sometimes work was just what you clocked into while you were falling in love. Sometimes sex was just something you did while you weren't at work. Drugs were something you did sometimes when you couldn't deal with one of those things, or with yourself. The City was so expensive and so grueling sometimes that it was easy to be unsure why you were there. Many were there to make money, money that could largely only be made there, in the long spiny arms of industries that could never grow anywhere else or anywhere smaller. Some people just liked it, its loudness and crowdedness and surprises. Some started there for a reason and then couldn't imagine being anywhere else, but maybe lost track of that reason along the way. Some people had a plan. Some were just chancing it. Either way the months flew by, and over the years you came up with something or you came up with not much. . Choire Sicha
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The city was alive, and so was he... Kassandra Cross
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Like most cities, London could be a lonely place... Kassandra Cross
8
To the one in the skies, this city must look like a scintillating pattern of speckled glows in all directions, like a firecracker going off amid thick darkness. Right now the urban pattern glowing here is in hues of orange, ginger, and ochre. It is a configuration of sparkles, each dot a light lit by someone awake at this hour. From where the Celestial Gaze is situated, from that high above, all these sporadically lit bulbs must seem in perfect harmony, constantly flickering, as if coding a cryptic message to God. . Elif Shafak
9
A year earlier my parents had moved us out of the city to a split-level on Long Island, their idea of the American dream, which meant it as now an hour-and-a-half commute via the 7:06 Hicksville to Penn Station every morning. (Dark City Lights) Jonathan Santlofer
10
The process of categorisation is as old as men, yet as old as man alone, for no other animal species categorises itself so neatly. Yet the ultimate, most vulnerable and weakest victim of categorisation is empathy. Categorisation is a process that destroys the very empathy that enlivens communities: the empathy that traditionally binds diverse communities together. Joshua Krook
11
If you aren’t paranoid before you arrive in this city, give it a few weeks and you will soon notice it creeping in, dripping into your subconscious like a leaky tap. The trick is not to give a flying fuck what anyone thinks about you, and if you are in the right frame of mind this can be an easy trick to perform but if not you’ll soon notice that for a city full of people who do a great Stevie Wonder impersonation when it comes to the homeless and beggars and casual violence towards others, wearing the wrong kind of shoes or a cheap suit brings out a sneering, hateful attitude that can have weaker minded individuals locked in their houses for weeks before harassing their doctors for prescriptions of Prozac and Beta blockers just to make it out the front door. Garry Crystal
12
Bombay, you will be told, is the only city India has, in the sense that the word city is understood in the West. Other Indian metropolises like Calcutta, Madras and Delhi are like oversized villages. It is true that Bombay has many more high-rise buildings than any other Indian city: when you approach it by the sea it looks like a miniature New York. It has other things to justify its city status: it is congested, it has traffic jams at all hours of the day, it is highly polluted and many parts of it stink. . Khushwant Singh
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Last summer had meant lots of Sam Adams Summer Ale by herself on hot weekend days when it seemed like just her and the Dominican Day parade. Stephanie Clifford
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The city was a hive from this height, the people and the yellow cabs moving about in the street below like pre-programmed insects. (Dark City Lights) David Levien
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She loved the way her city always sounded like it was celebrating. Sarah Pekkanen
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A city is more than a place in space, it is a drama in time Patrick Geddes