Famous quotes containing the words street, avenue, bryant, park, york, city and/or subway:
“Everybody has that thing where they need to look one way but they come out looking another way and thats what people observe. You see someone on the street and essentially what you notice about them is the flaw. Its just extraordinary that we should have been given these peculiarities.... Something is ironic in the world and it has to do with the fact that what you intend never comes out like you intend it.”
—Diane Arbus (19231971)
“Only in America ... do these peasants, our mothers, get their hair dyed platinum at the age of sixty, and walk up and down Collins Avenue in Florida in pedalpushers and mink stolesand with opinions on every subject under the sun. It isnt their fault they were given a gift like speechlook, if cows could talk, they would say things just as idiotic.”
—Philip Roth (b. 1933)
“Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatnessa harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.”
—William Cullen Bryant (17941878)
“Is a park any better than a coal mine? Whats a mountain got that a slag pile hasnt? What would you rather have in your gardenan almond tree or an oil well?”
—Jean Giraudoux (18821944)
“To deny the need for comprehensive child care policies is to deny a realitythat theres been a revolution in American life. Grandma doesnt live next door anymore, Mom doesnt work just because shed like a few bucks for the sugar bowl.”
—Editorial, The New York Times (September 6, 1983)
“A spasm band is a miscellaneous collection of a soap box, tin cans, pan tops, nails, drumsticks, and little Negro boys. When mixed in the proper proportions this results in the wildest shuffle dancing, accompanied by a bumping rhythm.”
—For the City of New Orleans, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“In New Yorkwhose subway trains in particular have been tattooed with a brio and an energy to put our own rude practitioners to shamenot an inch of free space is spared except that of advertisements.... Even the most chronically dispossessed appear prepared to endorse the legitimacy of the haves.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Cleaning and Cleansing, Myths and Memories (1986)