Another Day. Another Quote.

A few quotes to celebrate the 226th birthday of Los Angeles.
   

"Nineteen suburbs in search of a metropolis." -- H.L. Mencken

" In Los Angeles versus the San Gabriel Mountains, it is not always clear which side is losing.
--  John McPhee

  "If a tidal wave hits LA just grab a fake boob for safety." -- Sarah Michelle Gellar

"The violet hush of twilight was descending over Los Angeles as my hostess, Violet Hush, and I left its suburbs headed towards Hollywood. In the distance a glow of huge piles of burning motion-picture scripts lit up the sky. The crisp tang of frying writers and directors whetted my appetite. How good it was to be alive, I thought, inhaling deep lungfulls of carbon monoxide." -- S.J. Perelman

"I think it's only right that crazy people should have their own city, but I cannot for the life of me see why a sane person would want to go there." -- Bill Bryson

"Plus nobody I know got killed in south central L.A.  Today was a good day" -- Ice Cube

"she, had to leave. . .los angeles" - X

"Los Angeles was just a big dry sunny place with ugly homes and no style, but goodhearted and peaceful, I used to like this town. A long time ago" - "Philip Marlowe"

" Go back to Jersey, Sonny. This is the City of the Angels and you haven't got any wings. " --"Dudley Smith" (LA Confidential)

"Either you bring the water to L.A. or you bring L.A. to the water." -- "Noah Cross" (Chinatown) 

"Los Angeles makes the rest of California seem authentic." -- Jonathan Culler

"Between a quarter and a third of Los Angeles's land area is now monopolized by the automobile and its needs-by freeways, highways, garages, gas stations, car lots, parking lots. And all of it is blanketed with anonymity and foul air.” -- Alistair Cooke

"I've got a phone, answer machine, TV set, computer, hand grenade - everything you need to run a business in Los Angeles." -- Ice T

“People cut themselves off from their ties of the old life when they come to Los Angeles. They are looking for a place where they can be free, where they can do things they couldn't do anywhere else.” -- Tom Bradley

“I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic." -- Andy Warhol

“Los Angeles is a large city-like area surrounding the Beverly Hills Hotel” -- Fran Lebowitz

"The old bitch is looking pretty good for her age!"  -- LAist

“Los Angeles is a city looking for a ritual to join its fragments, and The Doors are looking for such a ritual also. A kind of electric wedding. We hide ourselves in the music to reveal ourselves.” -- Jim Morrison

"Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees.” -- David Letterman

" In Los Angeles they don't throw out their garbage away. They make it into television shows." -- Woody Allen

"This used to be a helluva town, officer." -- 'Dr. James Vance' (Earthquake)

Photo: El Pueblo from City Hall View From A Loft

Comments

[Tim Quinn]

You've captured my favorite LA landmark, The Chinese Massacre Memorial Freeway Onramp. I always tear-up when I get on there.

[cindylu]

Thanks for the quotes, they were fun to read through even if a lot of them were more about Hollywood than the LA I know.

One of my favorites comes from Héctor Tobar's The Tattooed Soldier:
In Antonio's country, where there were many natural beauties, the sunsets were ordinary and predictable. Here in Los Angeles, nightfall was often a sweeping and multihued event, with a majesty that suggested the coming of the millennium, the end of a planetary journey.

Someone once told Antonio it was the pollution in the air that made the evening sky this way. Like everything else in Los Angeles, even the beautiful sunsets were man-made.

[LA City Nerd]

Nice compilation. Don't forget my favorite:
"I walk through the streets 'cause she's my companion." - Red Hot Chili Peppers

[Metro_Vaquero]

considering the majority of those quotes thrive on creating the "bizarre" + "fake" image of Los Angeles...here's two from a brilliant essay on Los Ange;es by Paulette Singley in the Urban Planning/Design anthology "Shaping the City."

"Los Angeles is bigger than postmodernism and yet, has been defined by it."

my favorite: "In order to tell the story of Los Angeles, they erased its history."

[e@v]

good quote Metro, ill highlight that next