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San Francisco Quotes

Browse 442 quotes about San Francisco.

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San Francisco Quotes

“I was at Mount Tamalpais near San Francisco hiking when a boulder came hurling down the mountainside and smashed my left hand. When I looked at my mangled bloody fingers, I had a strange reaction. 'Thank God I will never have to play again,' I said. The fact is that dedication to one's art does involve a sort of enslavement.”

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Author:Pablo Casals
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“It's a chicken-and-egg thing. You could send cards to everyone in San Francisco, but if the merchants don't have the terminals, what's the point? What you need is a cooperative effort with merchants in a metropolitan area to create a tipping point where you can justify advertising and merchants are willing to attempt this new payment system.”

IfsNeedsEffortWillingAreasCardsAdvertisingJustifyEggsChickensSan FranciscoPaymentMerchantsCooperativesTippingTipping PointMetropolitan
Author:David Robertson
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“Tell me what you will of the benefactions of city civilization, of the sweet security of streets-all as part of the natural upgrowth of man towards the high destiny we hear so much of. I know that our bodies were made to thrive only in pure air, and the scenes in which pure air is found. If the death exhalations that brood the broad towns in which we so fondly compact ourselves were made visible, we should flee as from a plague. All are more or less sick; there is not a perfectly sane man in San Francisco.”

IfsKnowsMenShouldMadeBodyFoundNaturalCitiesDestinyAirStreetsSecuritySweetCivilizationScenePureTravelSickTownsVisibleThriveBroadsSanePlagueSan FranciscoCompact
Book:John Muir, in His Own Words: A Book of Quotations
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“You wouldn't think such a place as San Francisco could exist. The wonderful sunlight there, the hills, the great bridges, the Pacific at your shoes. Beautiful Chinatown. Every race in the world. The sardine fleets sailing out. The little cable-cars whizzing down The City hills. And all the people are open and friendly.”

PeopleThinkingWorldLittlesBeautifulRaceCitiesWonderfulCarShoesHillsBridgesFriendlySunlightSailingSan FranciscoCablesPacificBeautiful CitySardinesChinatown
Author:Dylan Thomas
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“Might it be the discovery of a distant civilization and our common cosmic origins that finally drives home the message of the bond among all humans. Whether we're born in San Francisco or Sudan or close to the heart of the Milky Way Galaxy, we are the products of a billion-year lineage of wandering stardust. We, all of us, are what happens when a primordial mixture of hydrogen and helium evolves for so long that it begins to ask where it came from.”

WayYearsHumansHeartLongHomeMightHappensAsksBornCommonProductsCivilizationMessagesDiscoveryBillionsWanderEvolveCosmicGalaxyMixturesSan FranciscoStardustHydrogenMilky WayLineageSudanHelium
Author:Jill Tarter
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“I still feel needles in my back when I think about all the horrible disasters that would have befallen me if I had permanently moved to San Francisco and rented a big house, joined the company dole, become national-affairs editor for some upstart magazine—that was the plan around 1967. But that would have meant going to work on a regular basis, like nine to five, with an office—I had to pull out.”

IfsThinkingFeelsStillsBigsHouseCompanyFivePlansOfficeBasesMovedAffairDisasterNineHorribleMagazinesEditorsGoing To WorkSan FranciscoNeedlesBack WhenBig HousesUpstart
Book:Conversations with Hunter S. Thompson
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“I was staying in a hotel in San Francisco for a couple of nights, before flying back to the UK. My hotel was a desperate grey block made from paper and people’s screams. At night the sound of strangers having icy sex echoed off the building and poured through the broken air conditioning, like tiny daggers I couldn't see, reminding me of just the tip of what I was missing.”

PeopleMadeNightSexSoundAirMissingBuildingBrokenCouplePaperStrangerTinyFlyingBlockDesperateHotelStayingScreamGreySan FranciscoConditioningRemindingIcyDaggersAir Conditioning
Author:Craig Stone
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“Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it is not enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House. I wonder if our politicians, among whom armchair arguments about war are being glibly bandied about in the name of state politics, have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.”

IfsShouldWarStatesEnoughCertainHouseNamesTermWhiteUnitedWonderBreakUnited StatesSacrificeVictoryPoliticianArgumentPreparedFinalsOutcomesJapanMarchWhite HouseHawaiiSan FranciscoHostilityHave ConfidenceBreak OutPhilippinesArmchairsGuam
Author:Isoroku Yamamoto
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“I got into medical school at the University of California in San Francisco and did well. A lot of smart kids in medical school, and believe me, I wasn't not nearly the smartest one, but I was the most focused and the happiest kid in medical school. In 1979, I graduated as the valedictorian and was honored with the Gold Cane Award.”

BelieveWellsKidsSchoolSmartGoldUniversityFocusedMedicalCaliforniaAwardsBelieve In MeHonoredSan FranciscoMedical SchoolValedictoriansSmart Kid
Author:Richard Carmona
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“The first thing I did when I was forty years old, I put handcuffs on and I jumped off Alcatraz prison and swam to San Francisco handcuffed. That made national publicity. Then, there were three or four years where I would do more difficult feats. Another birthday I towed a thousand pound boat across the Golden Gate. On my 65th Birthday I towed 65 boats a mile and a half in Tokyo. On my 70th Birthday I towed 70 boats with 70 people in it with my feet and hands tied a mile and a half in Long Beach.... My next Birthday I will be 93. I'm gonna tow my wife across the bathtub.”

PeopleYearsFirstsLongMadeHandsThreeNextDifficultHalfFourWifeFeetThousandPrisonMy WifeMilesGoldenBoatBeachFortyPoundsGatesFour YearsTiedSan FranciscoPublicityFeatsTokyoBathtubsHandcuffsTowHands TiedForty Years OldLong BeachAlcatraz
Author:Jack LaLanne
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“That's the words: "So I'm back to the velvet underground" - which is a clothing store in downtown San Francisco, where Janis Joplin got her clothes, and Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane, it was this little hole in the wall, amazing, beautiful stuff - "back to the floor that I love, to a room with some lace and paper flowers, back to the gypsy that I was."”

LittlesBeautifulStuffRoomsGraceFlowerWallPaperClothesStoresHolesClothingsAirplaneSan FranciscoGypsyVelvetDowntownLaceSlickI'm BackVelvet UndergroundAmazing BeautifulPaper Flowers
Author:Stevie Nicks
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“The Da Vinci Code may well be the only novel ever written that begins with the word 'renowned'... I think what enabled the first word to tip me off that I was about to spend a number of hours in the company of one of the worst prose stylists in the history of literature was this. Putting curriculum vitae details into complex modifiers on proper names or definite descriptions is what you do in journalistic stories about deaths; you just don't do it in describing an event in a narrative... Why did I keep reading? Because London Heathrow is a long way from San Francisco International.”

ThinkingWayFirstsWellsMayLongBookStoriesReadingLiteratureNamesLanguageHoursNumbersCompanyNovelWrittenWorstEventsComplexesInternationalDetailsLondonNarrativeCodeProseDescriptionDefiniteLong WaySan FranciscoDescribingCurriculumStylistJournalisticRenownedDa Vinci Code
Author:Geoffrey K. Pullum
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“Already renewable energy advocates are noting that the 42 miles of above-ground right-of-way between Yosemite and the city could be fitted with enough solar panels to generate at least 40 megawatts per year - a proposal the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has never seriously considered because they currently aren’t required to do so.”

WayYearsEnoughEnergyCitiesMilesSan FranciscoProposalUtilityRenewable EnergyYosemiteSolar Panels
Author:Matt Gonzalez
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“if there is one place in the United States where private styles make up for public images, it is San Francisco, where all lapsed lovers of America, even loyalists like me experiencing spasms of disillusionment, should be taken for refresher courses. The tides of all-American conformity beat vainly against the San Franciscan rock.”

IfsShouldStatesAmericaCoursesUnitedUnited StatesTakenRocksStyleLoversBeatsLike MeConformityTidesSan FranciscoDisillusionmentFranciscansPublic ImageLoyalists
Author:Jan Morris
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“My mother imparted her daily truths so she could help my older brothers and me rise above our circumstances. We lived in San Francisco's Chinatown. Like most of the other Chinese children who played in the back alleys of restaurants and curio shops, I didn't think we were poor. My bowl was always full, three five-course meals every day, beginning with a soup full of mysterious things I didn't want to know the names of.”

ThinkingKnowsWantChildrenHelpingMotherThreeCoursesNamesPoorFamilyFiveBrotherCircumstancesMysteriousChineseMealsRestaurantsShopsBowlsSoupSan FranciscoRise AboveAlleysOlder BrotherMysterious ThingsChinatownBack Alleys
Book:The Joy Luck Club
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“whatever San Francisco is or is not, it is never dull. Life there is in a perpetual ferment. It is as though the city kettle had been set on the stove to boil half a century ago and had never been taken off. The steam is pouring out of the nose. The cover is dancing up and down. The very kettle is rocking and jumping. But by some miracle the destructive explosion never happens.”

HappensCitiesHalfTakenCenturyMiracleDancingNosesCaliforniaDullDestructivePerpetualJumpingSan FranciscoUp And DownExplosionsSteamPouringStovesKettlesHalf A CenturyDull Life
Author:Inez Haynes Irwin
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