Quotessence
Home / Topics / Smog Quotes

Smog Quotes

Browse 52 quotes about Smog.

Related topics

Ifs

Smog Quotes

“The Hope factory was menacing in the distance, for it was one of the few buildings that somehow managed to present itself through the smog. Its hulking form consumed almost all of the horizon, and its many pistons, pillars, chimneys and flumes ate into the heavens. For the parts of the sky it could not reach, those towers sent up endless streams of smoke, and this smoke devoured the natural clouds and left an unnatural haze in the heavens. The factory was a greedy mass of brick, a ravenous form of iron. As much as it gobbled up all the landscape, it threatened that it might eat the onlookers too.”

HopeBuildingIndustrySmokeSmogIndustrialFactoryChimney
Book:Hopebreaker
Create image

“Scotland was a coal economy and it was from the coalfields of Fife, the Lothians, Lanarkshire and Ayrshire that modest six-coupled steam locomotives of late-Victorian design hauled trains of wagons to the towns and cities, where coal was then used for heating, industry and transport. Practically every room in every household had a coal fire and the belching chimneys of factories ensured that the air in industrial areas was usually filthy with sooty smoke and, in autumn and winter, thick smogs enveloped the cities. The porous sandstone from which most of central Scotland's buildings were constructed was consequently uniformly black with absorbed pollution. People smoked everywhere - at home, at work, on transport, in cafes, bars and restaurants and even at their seats in the cinema. Clothing became saturated in smoke from coal and tabacco alike and so, for housewives, doing the washing was a constant burden.”

SmokingPollutionScotlandCoalSmogInterwar YearsLanarkshireAyrshireFifeLothians
Book:Art Deco Scotland: Design and Architecture in the Jazz Age
Create image

“I spoke with the crows before leaving for Los Angeles. They were the resident storytellers whose strident and insistent voices added the necessary dissonance for color. They had cousins in California, and gave me their names and addresses, told me to look them up. They warned me, too, what they had heard about attitude there. And they were right. Attitude was thick, hung from the would-be's and has-beens and think-they-ares, so thick that I figured it was the major source of the smog.”

ThinkingLooksHas BeensWould BeNamesVoiceAttitudeHeardColorSourceMajorsLeavingCaliforniaAddressesSpokesLos AngelesThickHungStorytellerCousinCrowResidentsDissonanceSmog
Book:How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems 1975-2002
Create image

“All of a sudden, I feel very old and very tired. Maybe when I get to California, the smog, brush fires, floods, and earthquakes will cheer me up.”

FeelsFunnyFireTiredCaliforniaCheerFloodBrushesEarthquakesSmogCheer Me Up
Book:The Erma Bombeck Collection: If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?, Motherhood, and The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank
Create image

“Imagine if Congress always put the interests of polluters ahead of the health of our families. Our rivers and lakes would be choked with sewage. Acid rain would pour down from smog-filled skies. Hundreds of thousands more of our neighbors, friends, and loved ones would be victims of cancer, heart disease, and asthma.”

IfsHeartWould BeInterestImagineSkyDiseaseRainRiversVictimFilledCongressCancerNeighborOur FamilyLakesLoved OnesAcidHeart DiseaseAsthmaSmogSewageRivers And LakesAcid RainNeighbors Friends
Author:Jeff Merkley
Create image

“A protest meeting on the issue of environmental abuse is not a convocation of accusers, it is a convocation of the guilty. The realization ought to clear the smog of self-righteousness that has always conventionally hovered over these occasions, and let us see the work that is to be done.”

SelfDoneIssuesClearOughtAbuseMeetingsEnvironmentalGuiltyRealizationOccasionsProtestRighteousnessStewardshipSelf RighteousnessAccusersSmogConvocation
Author:Wendell Berry
Create image

“If you visit American city, You will find it very pretty. Just two things of which you must beware: Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air. Pollution, pollution, They got smog and sewage and mud. Turn on your tap and get hot and cold running crud. See the halibuts and the sturgeons Being wiped out by detergents. Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly, But they don't last long if they try. Pollution, pollution, You can use the latest toothpaste, And then rinse your mouth with industrial waste.”

IfsTryingLongTwoUseRunningLastsTurnsWaterCitiesAirColdDrinkWasteBirdMouthsHotEnvironmentalFishesBreatheTwo ThingsSwimPollutionMudTurn-onAmerican CitiesToothpasteAir PollutionSmogSewageHot And ColdHalibut
Author:Tom Lehrer
Create image

“You can just imagine if everyone on earth did have one day where we just put all our minds together regardless where the force is, as long as it's positive, and just meditate for even a hour that day. And just live nice with them nice meditation. I mean, now, the climate would be nice, the smog would a leave”

IfsMindMeanLongWould BeEarthTogetherForceHoursNiceMeditationImagineOne DayClimateBeing NiceJust LiveSmog
Book:Listen to Bob Marley: The Man, the Music, the Revolution
Create image

“Expanding the Toronto Island Airport will undermine the downtown's economy and liveability and intensify pollution and smog from Oshawa to Oakville. I urge Torontonians to close down this dangerous Trojan horse and get on with planning constructive and delightful ways of using our magnificent lakeside assets.”

WayEconomyDangerousHorsePlanningIslandsUrgesAssetsPollutionMagnificentDelightfulExpandingAirportsConstructiveTorontoDowntownSmogTrojansTrojan Horse
Author:Jane Jacobs
Create image

“Here's the problem - carbon dioxide doesn't contribute to smog and isn't a health threat. All of this is being done because some people believe carbon dioxide is causing global warming, and that preventing carbon dioxide from entering the air is the only answer. Never mind that there is still an ongoing scientific debate about global warming itself, and that some respected climate scientists believe that methane is a better target, California legislators have locked their sites on carbon dioxide.”

PeopleMindBelieveStillsDoneProblemAnswersAirScientistThreatClimateDebateCaliforniaGlobal WarmingTargetLockedSiteCarbonEnteringOngoingPreventingLegislatorsBeing DoneCarbon DioxideSmogMethane
Author:Kenneth P. Green
Create image

“The setting sun burned the sky pink and orange in the same bright hues as surfers' bathing suits. It was beautiful deception, Bosch thought, as he drove north on the Hollywood Freeway to home. Sunsets did that here. Made you forget it was the smog that made their colors so brilliant, that behind every pretty picture there could be an ugly story.”

MadeStoriesHomeBeautifulForgetBehindsSunSkyColorHollywoodUglyBrilliantSettingSettingsSuitsDeceptionSunsetBurnedOrangeForget ItHueBathingSurferFreewaysBathing SuitsSmogPretty Picture
Book:The Black Echo
Create image

“Some molecules - ammonia, carbon dioxide, water - show up everywhere in the universe, whether life is present or not. But others pop up especially in the presence of life itself. Among the biomarkers in Earth's atmosphere are ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons from aerosol sprays, vapor from mineral solvents, escaped coolants from refrigerators and air conditioners, and smog from the burning of fossil fuels. No other way to read that list: sure signs of the absence of intelligence.”

WayShowsEarthLife IsUniverseWaterAirPopsAbsenceListsBurningAtmosphereFuelDestroyingCarbonFossilsFossil FuelMoleculesSprayMineralsRefrigeratorsCarbon DioxideVaporOzoneSmogAir Conditioner
Author:Neil deGrasse Tyson
Create image

“It's time now to rent a car, roll down the windows and prepare for your first big thrill: the freeways. They're so much fun they should charge admission. Never fret about zigzagging back and forth through six lanes of traffic at high speeds; it erases jet lag in a split second. You're now heading toward Hollywood, like any normal tourist. Breathe in that smog and feel lucky that only in L.A. will you glimpse a green sun or a brown moon. Forget the propaganda you've heard about clean air; demand oxygen you can see in all its glorious discoloration.”

FeelsShouldFirstsBigsFunForgetSunHeardAirCarLuckyMoonDemandNormalSixWindowHollywoodGreenCleanBreatheSpeedPropagandaGloriousBrownSplitsTrafficThrillGlimpseOxygenBack And ForthEraseJetTouristsLanesHeadingsAdmissionFreewaysHigh SpeedLagClean AirSmogJet Lag
Book:Crackpot, the Obsessions of John Waters
Create image

“As we watch the sun go down, evening after evening, through the smog across the poisoned waters of our native earth, we must ask ourselves seriously whether we really wish some future universal historian on another planet to say about us: "With all their genius and with all their skill, they ran out of foresight and air and food and water and ideas," or, They went on playing politics until their world collapsed around them.”

WorldIdeasEarthAsksWishWaterWatchesSunAirPlanetsGeniusFutureSkillsUniversalEveningRanNativeHistorianForesightSave Mother EarthSmog
Author:U Thant
Create image

“It's amazing how people can get so excited about a rocket to the moon and not give a damn about smog, oil leaks, the devastation of the environment with pesticides, hunger, disease. When the poor share some of the power that the affluent now monopolize, we will give a damn.”

PeopleGivingChurchPoorEnvironmentShareMoonDiseaseEnvironmentalHungerCorruptionExcitedOilDamnPollutionRocketsLeaksDevastationAffluentPesticidesSmog
Book:An Organizer's Tale: Speeches
Create image

“Thanksgiving. It proved you had survived another year with its wars, inflation, unemployment, smog, presidents. It was a grand neurotic gathering of clans: loud drunks, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, screaming children, would-be suicides. And don't forget indigestion. I wasn't different from anyone else: There sat the 18-pound bird on my sink, dead, plucked, totally disemboweled. Iris would roast it for me.”

YearsChildrenDifferentWarWould BePresidentForgetBirdSuicideLoudSatGrandmotherPoundsSurvivedUnemploymentThanksgivingGatheringInflationAuntNeuroticClansIndigestionAnother YearIrisesSmog
Author:Charles Bukowski
Create image