“Why stay in Chicago; what did the town have to justify its existence? One decent boulevard, one decent suburb to the north, priced for the rich, two universities and a lake. As for the rest, endless miles of depressing, dirty streets. The town was one big stockyard.”

—  Robert A. Heinlein

The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag (p. 261)
Short fiction, The Fantasies of Robert A. Heinlein (1999)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update May 31, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Why stay in Chicago; what did the town have to justify its existence? One decent boulevard, one decent suburb to the no…" by Robert A. Heinlein?
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Robert A. Heinlein557
American science fiction author 1907–1988

Related quotes

Ray Bradbury photo

“Any town, New York, Chicago, with its people, becomes improbable with distance. Just as I am improbable here, in Illinois, in a small town by a quiet lake. All of us improbable to one another because we are not present to one another.”

Ray Bradbury book Dandelion Wine

Source: Dandelion Wine (1957), p. 134

Jane Jacobs photo

“Great cities are not like towns, only larger. They are not like suburbs, only denser. They differ from towns and suburbs in basic ways, and one of them is that cities are, by definition, full of strangers.”

Jane Jacobs book The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Source: The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), p. 30

“On State Street, that great street, I just want to say
They do things they don't do on Broadway
They have the time, the time of their life
I saw a man, he danced with his wife
In Chicago, Chicago my home town.”

Fred Fisher (1875–1942) American songwriter

Song Chicago (1922)

Haruki Murakami photo

“If you listen to the radio for a whole hour there's maybe one decent song. The rest is mass-produced garbage”

Haruki Murakami book Dance Dance Dance

Source: Dance Dance Dance

Mary Meeker photo

“I grew up believing that one person could make a difference. In Indiana, you saw that with basketball. The small town could beat the big town, like in the movie Hoosiers. That is one of the things that attracts me to entrepreneurs.”

Mary Meeker (1959) American venture capitalist and securities analyst

Interview with Wired: "The Indomitable Mary Meeker" https://www.wired.com/2012/09/mf-mary-meeker/ (21 September 2012)

Chuck Palahniuk photo

“The big reason why folks leave a small town,' Rant used to say, 'is so they can moon over the idea of going back. And the reason they stay put is so they can moon about getting out.'

Rant meant that no one is happy, anywhere.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Rant

Source: Rant

Daniel Handler photo

“It's hard for decent people to stay angry at someone who has burst into tears, which is why it is often a good idea to burst into tears if a decent person is yelling at you.”

Daniel Handler book The Carnivorous Carnival

Lemony Snicket
The Carnivorous Carnival (2002)

“Towns are like people. Old ones often have character, the new ones are interchangeable.”

Wallace Stegner book Angle of Repose

Source: Angle of Repose

Mark Twain photo

“This poor little one-horse town.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"The Undertaker's Chat", first published as "A Reminiscence of the Back Settlements" in The Galaxy, Vol. 10, No. 5, November 1870 http://books.google.com/books?id=2TIZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA731. Anthologized in Mark Twain's Sketches, New and Old‎ http://books.google.com/books?id=5LcIAAAAQAAJ (1875)

Related topics