“It struck me that distant cities are designed precisely so you can know where you came from.”
Source: Let the Great World Spin
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Colum McCann71
Irish writer and journalist 1965Related quotes
“In our own times, you see, an emperor came to the city of Rome, where there’s the temple of an emperor, where there’s a fisherman’s tomb”
Temporibus enim nostris venit imperator in urbem Romam: ibi est templum imperatoris, ibi est sepulcrum piscatoris. Itaque ille ad deprecandam a Domino salutem imperator pius atque christianus non perrexit ad templum imperatoris superbum, sed ad sepulcrum piscatoris, ubi humilis ipsum piscatorem imitaretur, ut tunc respectus aliquid impetraret a Domino, quod superbiens imperator mereri non posset.
Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher
341:4; English from: Newly Discovered Sermons, 1997, Edmund Hill, tr., John E. Rotelle, ed., New City Press, New York, p. p. 286.
Sermons
Context: In our own times, you see, an emperor came to the city of Rome, where there’s the temple of an emperor, where there’s a fisherman’s tomb. And so that pious and Christian emperor, wishing to beg for health, for salvation from the Lord, did not proceed to the temple of a proud emperor, but to the tomb of a fisherman, where he could imitate that fisherman in humility, so that he, being thus approached, might then obtain something from the Lord, which a haughty emperor would be quite unable to earn.
William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, painter, and spoken word performer
Two Years Later: Mexico City Return
Queer: A Novel (1985)
Roger Zelazny book Jack of Shadows
Source: Jack of Shadows (1971), Chapter 6 (p. 62)
Siad Barre (1919–1995) Head of State of Somalia
As quoted by Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi (2001), Culture and customs of Somalia, p. 41
Gerrit Benner (1897–1981) Dutch painter
version in original Dutch (citaat van Gerrit Benner, in het Nederlands:) In de stad kun je jezelf verliezen, en dat is goed. In een kleine stad gaat dat niet. In Leeuwarden [waar Benner woonde tot c. 1954] kwam je jezelf toch altijd weer tegen, maar in Amsterdam is er zoveel, daar is dat niet mogelijk. Een prachtige stad, daar leef ik op.
Quote of Benner (1977), in the article 'Buitenbeetje Benner verliet ons'; Dutch newspaper 'Leeuwarder Courant', 26 August 1977
1950 - 1980
“The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.”
John Burroughs (1837–1921) American naturalist and essayist
Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician
Angeliou
Song lyrics, Into the Music (1979)