Quotations on / about chicago

Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin' town.

(Fred Fisher (1875-1942), U.S. songwriter. "Chicago," Fred Fisher, Inc. (1922). Music composed by Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990).)
More quotations from: Fred Fisher

Chicago—is—oh well a façade of skyscrapers facing a lake, and behind the façade every type of dubiousness.

(E.M. (Edward Morgan) Forster (1879-1970), British novelist, essayist. Letter, June 5, 1947. Selected Letters of E.M. Forster, vol. 2, eds. Mary Lago and P.N. Furbank (1985).)
More quotations from: E.M. (Edward Morgan) Forster

Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs.

(Ishmael Reed (b. 1938), U.S. novelist, poet, essayist. repr. In Writin' Is Fightin,' Atheneum (1988). "America's Color Bind: The Modeling of Minorities," San Francisco Examiner (November 1987).)
More quotations from: Ishmael Reed

Must we really see Chicago in order to be educated?

(Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Anglo-Irish playwright, author. Mr. Erskine, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 3 (1891).)
More quotations from: Oscar Wilde

Welcome to Chicago. This town stinks like a whorehouse at low tide.

(David Mamet, U.S. screenwriter, and Brian DePalma. Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery), The Untouchables, explanation of local police corruption to Elliot Ness (Kevin Costner) (1987).)
More quotations from: David Mamet

Could anything be more indicative of a slight but general insanity than the aspect of the crowd on the streets of Chicago?

(Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929), U.S. sociologist. Human Nature and the Social Order, ch. 2 (1902).)
More quotations from: Charles Horton Cooley

Being a [Chicago] Cubs fan prepares you for life—and Washington.

(Hillary Rodham Clinton (b. 1947), U.S. attorney; First Lady of the United States. As quoted in Newsweek, p. 17 (April 18, 1994). On how being a fan of the beleaguered baseball club "hardened her to adversity.")
More quotations from: Hillary Rodham Clinton

It is where life is fundamental and free that men develop the vision needed to reveal the human soul in the blossoms it puts forth.... In a great workshop like Chicago this creative power germinates, even though the brutality and selfish preoccupation of the place drive it elsewhere for bread. Men of this type have loved Chicago, have worked for her, and believed in her. The hardest thing they have to bear is her shame. These men could live and work here when to live and work in New York would stifle their genius and fill their purse.... New York still believes that art should be imported; brought over in ships; and is a quite contented market place. So while New York has reproduced much and produced nothing, Chicago's achievements in architecture have gained world-wide recognition as a distinctively American architecture.

(Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959), U.S. architect. "Chicago Culture," On Architecture: Selected Writings (1894-1940), Duell, Sloan, & Pearce (1941). Originally delivered as a lecture to the Chicago Women's Aid (1918).)
More quotations from: Frank Lloyd Wright

Many of us, whether in the jungles of Asia or on the streets of Chicago, had discovered that noble causes can lead to ignoble actions and that we were capable of sacrificing honor to a sense of efficacy.

(Linda Grant (b. 1949), U.S. mystery writer. Blind Trust, ch. 27 (1990). On the generation that came of age during the Vietnam War and the movement against American involvement in it. Major anti-war demonstrations occurred, most notably in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Convention.)
More quotations from: Linda Grant

The movies were my textbooks for everything else in the world. When it wasn't, I altered it. If I saw a college, I would see only cheerleaders or blonds. If I saw New York City, I would want to go to the slums I'd seen in the movies, where the tough kids played. If I went to Chicago, I'd want to see the brawling factories and the gangsters.

(Jill Robinson (b. 1936), U.S. novelist. As quoted in American Dreams, part 1, by Studs Terkel (1980). The daughter of movie producer Dore Schary, Robinson had grown up in Hollywood, deeply immersed in movies.)
More quotations from: Jill Robinson