“When we arrived at New York I went, straight after clearing customs, to the Algonquin Hotel. I would not claim as of right a room in my own flat, since Hortense must now regard it as hers. After a couple of whisky sours in the Blue Bar I walked up Fifth Avenue. The September heat was intense and the air was all woollen shirts aboil. The town was full of jumbo steaks and ice cream, the shops pleaded that we buy useless gadgets. This was not Europe. This was very far from being Europe. Victory in Europe and Asia confirmed the excellence of the American way of life. Strong appetite and inviolable health. The afternoon sun was higher here than in any town of Europe, forced upwards by the skyscrapers. The place was rife with life.”

— Anthony Burgess

Fiction, Earthly Powers (1980)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "When we arrived at New York I went, straight after clearing customs, to the Algonquin Hotel. I would not claim as of ri…" by Anthony Burgess?

Anthony Burgess 297

English writer 1917–1993

Related quotes

“I like the United States in many ways. I like the people, I like the atmosphere. I like to travel around also when I am able to get out of Washington or New York, and I like the food. Especially the meat. The steak is excellent, and I had a very good steak in New York a couple of days ago and you can't get that kind of steak in Europe, so big and so tender, that's one of the reasons I like to come to the United States.”

Jens Stoltenberg (1959) Norwegian politician, 13th Secretary-General of NATO, 27th Prime Minister of Norway

Interview with Aroop Mukharji https://soundcloud.com/belfercenter/office-hours-jens-stoltenberg-on-nato-russia-and-his-favorite-american-meal?in=belfercenter/sets/office-hours
2010s

“Millions of people in Britain must have been very surprised to hear that the language of Chaucer, of Shakespeare and of Milton must in future be regarded as an undesirable American import from which we have to protect ourselves if we are to build a new Europe. We can agree that the French own the supreme prose literature in Europe. But if we are to prove –– if we have to prove –– our Europeanism by accepting that French is the dominant language in the Community, then my answer is quite clear, and I will say it in French in order to prevent any misunderstanding: Non, merci beaucoup.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

Speech at Southampton (25 May 1971)
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer

“I can take long walks, as I understand Greta Garbo does, and no one interferes with my thoughts and tranquility. Come to think of it, the other day I was on Fifth Avenue in New York and I saw a woman who could very well have been Garbo; I was a bit tempted to go up to her, but then I thought, "My God, practice what you preach! If it is her, you'll be intruding — just the thing you don't like yourself."”

Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) British actress

Source: Audrey Hepburn (2002), p. 305

“we must make it clear that the reform of Europe [the EU] can only start with stopping the migrants, putting an end to immigration, and everyone using their national competence to protect their borders. After that, as part of a joint programme the migrants who have already arrived in Europe illegally must be transported back to some place outside the territory of the European Union.”

Viktor Orbán (1963) Hungarian politician, chairman of Fidesz

“I returned to civilization shortly after that and went to Cornell to teach, and my first impression was a very strange one. I can't understand it any more, but I felt very strongly then. I sat in a restaurant in New York, for example, and I looked out at the buildings and I began to think, you know, about how much the radius of the Hiroshima bomb damage was and so forth… How far from here was 34th street?… All those buildings, all smashed — and so on. And I would go along and I would see people building a bridge, or they'd be making a new road, and I thought, they're crazy, they just don't understand, they don't understand. Why are they making new things? It's so useless. But, fortunately, it's been useless for almost forty years now, hasn't it? So I've been wrong about it being useless making bridges and I'm glad those other people had the sense to go ahead.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

On his emotional reaction after the first uses of the atomic bomb.
Part 3: "Feynman, The Bomb, and the Military", "Los Alamos from Below", p. 136
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985)

“This extremely interesting girl, after giving me a single glance from her beautiful eyes, stubbornly refused to look at me again. My vanity at once made me think that it was only so that I would be at full liberty to study her impeccable beauty. It was on this girl that I instantly set my sights, as if all Europe were only a seraglio provided for my pleasures.”

Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice

History of My Life (trans. Trask 1967), 1997 reprint, v. 7, chapter 2, p. 19
Referenced

“And so we stood there in the kitchen, my mother and I, facing off over everything that had built up since June, when I was willing to hand myself over free and clear. Now I needed her to return it all to me, with the faith that I could make my own way.”

Sarah Dessen (1970) American writer

Someone Like You (1998)

“Travel by air is not travel at all, but simply a change of location; so my wife and daughter and I went to San Francisco by train, leaving Boston on a Wednesday morning in June and, then after lunch in New York, boarding Amtrak’s Broadway to Chicago.”

Andre Dubus (1936–1999) Novelist, short story writer, teacher

Railroad Sketches.
Broken Vessels (1991)

“Lest we forget, when Europe goes far right, they go far right through Belgium.”

John Oliver (1977) English comedian

Last Week Tonight: European Far Right https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFEeS2OXpoI Last Week Tonight: European Far Right (2 June 2014)
Last Week Tonight (2014–present)

“I always felt that my work hadn't much to do with art; my admirations for other art had very little room to show themselves in my work because I hoped that if I concentrated enough the intensity of scrutiny alone would force life into the pictures. I ignored the fact that art, after all, derives from art. Now I realize that this is the case.”

Lucian Freud (1922–2011) British painter and engraver

Said in conversation with Robert Hughes and quoted in Hughes' Lucian Freud: Paintings (1987) ISBN 0-500-27535-1, p. 14
Lucian Freud : Paintings (1987)

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Anthony Burgess 297

Related quotes

Related topics