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Budapest Quotes

Browse 27 quotes about Budapest.

Budapest Quotes

“I have to tell you about these things from the past, because they are so important. The really important things usually lie in the distant past. And until you know about them, if you'll forgive my saying so, you will always to some extent a mere newcomer in my life. When I was at High School my favourite pastime was walking. Or rather, loitering. If we are talking about my adolescence, it's the more accurate word. Systematically, one by one, I explored all the districts of Pest. I relished the special atmosphere of every quarter and every street. Even now I can still find the same delight in houses that I did then. In this respect I've never grown up. Houses have so much to say to me. For me, they are what Nature used to be to the poets - or rather, what the poets thought of as Nature. But best of all I loved the Castle Hill District of Buda. I never tired of its ancient streets. Even in those days old things attracted me more than new ones. For me the deepest truth was found only in things suffused with the lives of many generations, which hold the past as permanently as mason Kelemen's wife buried in the high tower of Deva.”

Past Identity Architecture Nostalgia Budapest

Author:Antal Szerb

“O Danúbio, pensei, era o Danúbio mas não era azul, era amarelo, a cidade toda era amarela, os telhados, o asfalto, os parques, engraçado isso, uma cidade amarela, eu pensava que Budapeste fosse cinzenta, mas Budapeste era amarela.”

Yellow Grey River Hungary Budapest Duna Danube Donau

Book:Budapeste

Source: Budapeste

“It was well after midnight when I put the thick document called ‘Invitation to Tender for a concession to provide GSM services in Hungary’ on my bedside cabinet. The document had been reissued on October 15, 1992. I had quickly scanned, and hopefully absorbed, the main points. The tender was organized as a beauty contest and the winning consortia would be allowed to participate in the auction to be held next year. There were two concessions up for grabs, one that would surely go to the existing NMT operator Westel (US West & Bell Atlantic) and one for a new party. It was shut eye time now, I was tired. The flight to Budapest would leave early in the morning, so I had only a few hours to rest.”

Technology Mobile Mobile Phones Hungary Budapest Mobile Phone Gsm Westel

Book:Your phone, my life: Or, how did that phone land in your hand?

Source: Your phone, my life: Or, how did that phone land in your hand?

“So I close this long reflection on what I hope is a not-too-quaveringly semi-Semitic note. When I am at home, I will only enter a synagogue for the bar or bat mitzvah of a friend's child, or in order to have a debate with the faithful. (When I was to be wed, I chose a rabbi named Robert Goldburg, an Einsteinian and a Shakespearean and a Spinozist, who had married Arthur Miller to Marilyn Monroe and had a copy of Marilyn’s conversion certificate. He conducted the ceremony in Victor and Annie Navasky's front room, with David Rieff and Steve Wasserman as my best of men.) I wanted to do something to acknowledge, and to knit up, the broken continuity between me and my German-Polish forebears. When I am traveling, I will stop at the shul if it is in a country where Jews are under threat, or dying out, or were once persecuted. This has taken me down queer and sad little side streets in Morocco and Tunisia and Eritrea and India, and in Damascus and Budapest and Prague and Istanbul, more than once to temples that have recently been desecrated by the new breed of racist Islamic gangster. (I have also had quite serious discussions, with Iraqi Kurdish friends, about the possibility of Jews genuinely returning in friendship to the places in northern Iraq from which they were once expelled.) I hate the idea that the dispossession of one people should be held hostage to the victimhood of another, as it is in the Middle East and as it was in Eastern Europe. But I find myself somehow assuming that Jewishness and 'normality' are in some profound way noncompatible. The most gracious thing said to me when I discovered my family secret was by Martin, who after a long evening of ironic reflection said quite simply: 'Hitch, I find that I am a little envious of you.' I choose to think that this proved, once again, his appreciation for the nuances of risk, uncertainty, ambivalence, and ambiguity. These happen to be the very things that 'security' and 'normality,' rather like the fantasy of salvation, cannot purchase.”

Source: Hitch 22: A Memoir

“Two years ago, I shot 'Pillars of the Earth' in Budapest - it was a big part, but I had a lot of time to sit around and visit cafes.”

Years Two Bigs Earth Shots Years Ago Two Years Pillars Cafes Two Years Ago Budapest

Author:Eddie Redmayne

“There is no such place as Budapest. Perhaps you are thinking of Bucharest, and there is no such place as Bucharest, either.”

Thinking Budapest

Book:My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew

Source: My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew

“The younger generation forms a country of its own. It has no geographical boundaries. I've talked with young Hungarians in Budapest, with young Italians in Rome, with young Frenchmen in Paris, and with young people all over. ... These young people are going to do things. They are going to change things.”

People Country Form Young Generations Youth Boundaries Paris Rome Younger Generation Frenchmen Hungarians Budapest

Author:Edna St. Vincent Millay

“Budapest in late May is a city of lilacs. The sweet, languid, rather sleepy smell of lilacs wafts everywhere. And it is a city of lovers, many of them quite middle-aged. Walking with their arms around each other, embracing and kissing on park benches. A sensuousness very much bound up (it seems to me) with the heady ubiquitous smell of lilacs.”

May Seems Cities Middle Sweet Arms Lovers Walking Kissing Late Europe Bounds Smell Parks Benches Middle Aged Sleepy Lilac Budapest Park Benches

Book:(Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities

Source: (Woman) writer: occasions and opportunities

“The messages on our banners in 1979 - freedom, opportunity, family, enterprise, ownership - are now inscribed on the banners in Leipzig, Warsaw, Budapest and even Moscow.”

War Opportunity Cold Messages Enterprise Ownership Cold War Banner Moscow Warsaw Budapest Leipzig

Book:As I said to Denis--: the Margaret Thatcher book of quotations

Source: As I said to Denis--: the Margaret Thatcher book of quotations

“When I went travelling around Europe there was the Eurovision song contest on, and I got a bit dunk and we missed our train to Budapest the next day. Anyway, when I got back I kind of realised how many songs there were about people giving up things for somebody, so I thought I'd make a song about giving up things I don't have. These elaborate things that I don't have that I could give up to somebody, and I kind of thought there was kind of some sweet sentiment in that.”

People Giving Kind Song Next Bits Sweet Giving Up Europe Train Sentiments Next Day Contests Realised Budapest

Author:George Ezra

“When I was a student at university, I went to live in Budapest. I grew up in the countryside. In those days, I had a conservative right-wing way of thinking. At university, I met the other young people with whom I made this party, Jobbik. These friends grew to include more people, and as more people with these extreme-right views joined us, Jobbik became more and more extreme right. I was young, in my 20s, and we could continuously identify with these ideas.”

People Thinking Way Made Ideas Young Views Party Students Grew Mets Grew Up Wings University Conservative Extremes Way Of Thinking Right Wing Countryside Budapest

Author:Csanad Szegedi

“Things have gotten openly more extreme in the last few years. I was lecturing in Hungary, whose prime minister, Victor Orban, is an example of this trend. All over Budapest, statues have been replaced, museum exhibits have been redone, to turn ethnic Hungarians, not Jews, into the prime victims of the Germans during World War II. Five years ago, who would have thought this possible?”

“If you watch Michael Jackson [1992] concerts from Budapest and compare it to a Madonna concert of today, you'll see such uplifting beauty and a message that you won't see in any other artist of our time.”

Ifs Today Artist Watches Messages Uplifting Compare Our Time Concerts Budapest

Author:David LaChapelle

“I studied at the Budapest Academy of Theatrical Arts for four years and emerged with a degree.”

Years Art Four Degrees Four Years Academy Theatrical Budapest

Author:Bela Lugosi

“I recently had a few days off while shooting a movie in Budapest, so I took a cab from the set to the airport, looked at the departure board, and decided where I wanted to go right then and there. I spent four days in Rome and didn't tell anyone I was going.”

Wanted Four Decided Shooting Boards Rome Airports Departure Cab Days Off Budapest

Author:Cory Monteith

“Where would you like to go, what would you really like to do with your life? See Istanbul, Port Said, Nairobi, Budapest. Write a book. Smoke too many cigarettes. Fall off a cliff but get caught in a tree halfway down. Get shot at a few times in a dark alley on a Morrocan midnight. Love a beautiful woman.”

Writing Said Book Beautiful Fall Dark Tree Shots Caught Smoke Cigarette Midnight Beautiful Women Halfway Cliffs Port Alleys Istanbul Budapest Dark Alleys Nairobi

Author:Ray Bradbury

“I am with you. I'm not going anywhere." "Is there anything special you want to see? Paris? Budapest? The Leaning Tower of Pisa?" Only if it falls on Sebastian's head, she thought. "Can we travel to Idris? I mean, I guess, can the apartment travel there?" "It can't get past the wards." His hand traced a path down her cheek. "You know,I really missed you." "You mean you haven't been going on romantic dates with Sebastian while you've been away from me?" "I tried", Jace said, "but no matter how liquored up you get him , he just won't put out.”

Ifs Knows Want Mean Said Matter Hands Past Fall Path Special Havens Paris Cheeks Apartment Towers Jace Missed You Special You Budapest Pisa Leaning Tower Of Pisa

Book:City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

“(Jace) "Is there anything special you want to see? Paris? Budapest? The Leaning Tower of Pisa?" Only if it falls on Sebastian's head, she thought.”

Ifs Want Fall Special Paris Towers Jace Clary Fray Fray City Of Lost Souls Special You Budapest Pisa Leaning Tower Of Pisa

Book:Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls

Source: Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (5 books): City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass; City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls

“We started filming in 1993 which was only four years after the fall of communism. The difference in Budapest over the last five years has been remarkable.”

Years Has Beens Lasts Fall Differences Five Four Communism Five Years Remarkable Four Years Last Five Years Budapest

Author:Derek Jacobi

“When I sang my American folk melodies in Budapest, Prague, Tiflis, Moscow, Oslo, or the Hebrides or on the Spanish front, the people understood and wept or rejoiced with the spirit of the songs. I found that where forces have been the same, whether people weave, build, pick cotton, or dig in the mine, they understand each other in the common language of work, suffering, and protest.”

Source: Paul Robeson speaks: writings, speeches, interviews, 1918-1974

“But if you go from Moscow to Budapest you think you are in Paris.”

Ifs Thinking Paris Moscow Budapest

Author:Gyorgy Ligeti

“When I was younger I was completely without money - when I was studying in Budapest, when I was a refugee”

Study Refugee Refugee Camps Budapest

Author:Gyorgy Ligeti

“Budapest is a prime site for dreams: the East’s exuberant vision of the West, the West’s uneasy hallucination of the East. It is a dreamed-up city; a city almost completely faked; a city invented out of other cities, out of Paris by way of Vienna — the imitation, as Claudio Magris has it, of an imitation.”

Way Dream Cities Vision West East Paris Prime Site Imitation Uneasy Hallucinations Vienna Budapest

Author:M. John Harrison

“Celtic Tiger portrays the oppression of a people and the tiger symbolises the awakening of their Spirit and their struggle for freedom.”

“Solely in the world of languages is the amateur of value. Well-intentioned sentences full of mistakes can still build bridges between people. Asking in broken Italian which train we are supposed to board at the Venice railway station is far from useless. Indeed, it is better to do that than to remain uncertain and silent and end up back in Budapest rather than in Milan.”

People World Wells Stills Ends Values Language Mistake Broken Asking Train Silent Sentences Useless Bridges Boards Stations Italian Uncertain Venice Railway Milan Budapest Railway Station

Author:Kató Lomb

“People fear they won’t get what they want.”

People Want Budapest

Author:Ralph Fiennes

“This speaker reminds me of my childhood in Budapest. There were gypsy magicians who came to town to entertain us children. But as I recollect, there was one important difference: the gypsy only seemed to violate the laws of nature, he never really violated them!”

Children Important Law Science Differences Childhood Towns Speakers Magician Laws Of Nature Gypsy Budapest

Book:Theodore Von Kármán, 1881-1963: In Memoriam

Source: Theodore Von Kármán, 1881-1963: In Memoriam