Category: city
Quotes of Category: city
I waited in vain for someone like me to stand up and say that the only thing those of us who don't believe in god have to believe is in other people and that New York City is the best place there ever was for a godless person to practice her moral code. I think it has to do with the crowded sidewalks and subways. Walking to and from the hardware store requires the push and pull of selfishness and selflessness, taking turns between getting out of someone's way and them getting out of yours, waiting for a dog to move, helping a stroller up steps, protecting the eyes from runaway umbrellas. Walking in New York is a battle of the wills, a balance of aggression and kindness. I'm not saying it's always easy. The occasional "Watch where you're going, bitch" can, I admit, put a crimp in one's day. But I believe all that choreography has made me a better person. The other day, in the subway at 5:30, I was crammed into my sweaty, crabby fellow citizens, and I kept whispering under my breath "we the people, we the people" over and over again, reminding myself we're all in this together and they had as much right - exactly as much right - as I to be in the muggy underground on their way to wherever they were on their way to. book-quotecitynew-york-cityurban-lifeBuilding with Its Face Blown Off
How suddenly the private
is revealed in a bombed-out city,
how the blue and white striped wallpaper
of a second story bedroom is now
exposed to the lightly falling snow
as if the room had answered the explosion
wearing only its striped pajamas.
Some neighbors and soldiers
poke around in the rubble below
and stare up at the hanging staircase,
the portrait of a grandfather,
a door dangling from a single hinge.
And the bathroom looks almost embarrassed
by its uncovered ochre walls,
the twisted mess of its plumbing,
the sink sinking to its knees,
the ripped shower curtain,
the torn goldfish trailing bubbles.
It's like a dollhouse view
as if a child on its knees could reach in
and pick up the bureau, straighten a picture.
Or it might be a room on a stage in a play with no characters,
no dialogue or audience,
no beginning, middle, and end–
just the broken furniture in the street,
a shoe among the cinder blocks,
a light snow still falling on a distant steeple, and people
crossing a bridge that still stands.
And beyong that–crows in a tree,
the statue of a leader on a horse,
and clouds that look like smoke,
and even farther on, in another country
on a blanket under a shade tree,
a man pouring wine into two glasses
and a woman sliding out
the wooden pegs of a wicker hamper
filled with bread, cheese, and several kinds of olives. book-quotefoodcityexposed…So, um, you're from Rochester? Like, New York?" Jersey asked.
"Yup, we used to live out there," Rudger confirmed, nonchalant. "You ever been?"
"Naw, the closest I've ever been to there would be… well, believe it or not, New Jersey, the place where my parents named me after. It was crowded, polluted and full of crime… I loved it. book-quotelovetravelcity
