town

The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty to think, feel, do just as one pleases.We go on a journeychiefly to be free of all impediments and of all inconveniences; to leave ourselves behind, much moretoget rid of others.It is because I want a little breathing space to muse on different matters†that I absent myself from thetown for a while.

—Marples, Morris

   Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any town?

—Twain, Mark pseudonym of  Samuel Langhorne Clemens

anyone lived in a pretty how town (with up so floating many bells down) spring summer autumn winter he sang his didn't he danced his did

—cummings, e e pen name of  Edward Estlin Cummings

Architecture provides the framework for a civilization (housing, work, leisure, circulation); so architecture is also town planning. It is no longer possible to separate architecture and town planningötheyare one and the same thing.

—Le Corbusier pseudonym of  Charles EŁ  douard Jeanneret

Il pleure dans mon c½ur Comme il pleut sur la ville. The tears fall in my heart As the rain over the town.

—Verlaine, Paul

ATown Like Alice

—Shute, Nevil originally Nevil Shute Norway

The last bear, shot drinking in the Dakotas Loped under wires that span the mountain stream. Keen instruments, strung to a vast precision Bind town to town and dream to ticking dream.

—Crane, (Harold) Hart

This bloody town's a bloody cussö No bloody trains, no bloody bus, And no one cares for bloody usö In bloody Orkney.

—Blair, Hamish pseudonym of  Andrew James Fraser Blair

Madam, a circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge!† Depend upon it, Mrs Malaprop, that they who are so fond of handling the leaves, will long for the fruit at last.

—Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

He was a braw gallant, And he play'd at the ba'; And the bonnie Earl of Murray Was the flower amang them a'. He was a braw gallant, And he play'd at the glove; And the bonnie Earl of Murray, O he was the Queen's luve. O lang will his lady Look owre the castle Doune, Ere she sees the Earl of Murray Come sounding thro'the toun.

—Ballads

Rus in urbe. Country in the town.

—Martial full name MarcusValerius Martialis

New York is one of the capitals of the world and Los Angeles is a constellation of plastic. San Francisco is a lady, Boston has become Urban Renewal, Philadelphia and Baltimore and Washington blink like dull diamonds in the smog of Eastern Megalopolis, and New Orleans is unremarkable past the French Quarter. Detroit is a one- trade town, Pittsburgh has lost its golden triangle. St Louis has become the golden arch of the corporation, and nights in Kansas City close early. The oil depletion allowance makes Houston and Dallas naught but checkerboards for this sort of game. But Chicago is a great American city. Perhaps it is the last of the great American cities.

—Mailer, Norman Kingsley

He gives direction to the town, To cry it up, or run it down.

—Swift,Jonathan

The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the crown: The Lion beat the Unicorn all round the town. Some gave them white bread, some gave them brown; Some gave them plum-cake and drummed them out of town.

—Dodgson

The Duke takes a town in the same light-hearted way as he seduces a woman.

—Pomfret,John

A foggy day in LondonTown Had me low and had me down.

—Gershwin, Ira originally Israel Gershowitz

There was a girl in our town, Silk an'satin was her gown, Silk an'satin, gold an' velvet, Guess her name, three times I've telled it.

—Anonymous

Martha and Jasmine smiled at each other†the future they dreamed of seemed just around the corner; they could almost touch it. Each saw an ideal town, clean, noble and beautiful, soaring up over the actual town they saw, which consisted in this area of sordid little shops and third-rate cafe¤  s.

—Lessing, Doris May ne¤  e Tayler

When a man takes a farm from which another has been evicted, you must show him on the roadside when you meet him; you must show him in the streets of the town; you must show him in the fair and the market place; and even in the house of worship, by leaving him severely aloneöby putting him into a moral Coventry, by isolating himfromhiskindasif hewerea leperofold.You must show himyourdetestationofthe crimesthat hehas committed.

—Parnell, Charles Stewart

An annibaptist is a thing I am not a member of:öI am a Pisplikan just now & a Prisbeteren at Kercaldy my native town which thugh dirty is clein in the country.

—Fleming, Marjory

There's a one-eyed yellow idol to the north of Khatmandu, There's a little marble cross below the town, There'sa broken-heartedwomantendsthegrave of Mad Carew, And theYellow God forever gazes down.

—Hayes,J Milton

The departed was a 'Roman', and the majority of the town were otherwiseöbut unionism is stronger than creed. Drink, however, is stronger than unionism; and, whenthehearse presentlyarrived, morethantwo-thirds of the funeral were unable to follow.

—Lawson, Henry Hertzberg

God made the country, and man made the town.

—Cowper,William

It is portentous, and a thing of state That here at midnight, in our little town A mourning figure walks, and will not rest, Near the old courthouse pacing up and down.

—Lindsay, (Nicholas) Vachel

To begin at the beginning: It is spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and- rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea.

—Thomas, Dylan Marlais

   It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.

—Anonymous

   A populous railway town of hideous brick shops and habitations.

—Thorne,James

Are my poems spoken in the factories and fields, In the streets o'the toon? Gin they're no', then I'm failin'to dae What I ocht to ha'dune.

—Grieve

He likes the country, but in truth must own, Most likes it, when he studies it in town.

—Cowper,William

The widening river's slow presence, The piled gold clouds, the shining gull-marked mud, Gathers to the surprise of a large town: Here domes and statues, spires and cranes cluster Beside grain-scattered streets, barge-crowded water, And residents from raw estates.

—Larkin, Philip Arthur

There was an old man of St Omer Who objected,'This town's a misnomer; You've no right to translate And beatificate A simple digamma in Homer.'

—Quiller-Couch, SirArthurThomas known as  'Q'

Though this was fair, and that was braw, And yon the toast of a'the town, I sigh'd, and said amang them a', 'Ye are na Mary Morison.'

—Burns, Robert

Below him, in the town among the trees, Where friends of other days had honored him, A phantom salutation of the dead Rang thinly till old Eben's eyes were dim.

—Robinson, Edwin Arlington

Surelyarchitecture is the organization for pleasure of enclosed space. And what more magnificent enclosure than a town, a place, a place where the spirit is cuddled, made serene, made proud, happy, or excited depending on the ceremony, the day, the hour.

—Johnson, Philip Cortelyou

   To begin with, I was born with an unreasonably large stock of relations, who have increased and multiplied ever since. My aunts and uncles were legion, and my cousins as the sands of the sea without number. Consequently, even a low death-rate meant, in the course of mere natural decay, a tolerably steady supply of funerals for a by no means affectionate but exceedingly clannish family to go to. Add to this that the town we lived in, being divided in religious opinion, buried its dead in two great cemeteries, each of which was held by the opposite faction to be the ante- chamber of perdition, and by its own patrons to be the gate of paradise.

—Shaw, George Bernard

ThistownhastwogreatteamsöLiverpool and Liverpool reserves.

—Shankly, Bill (William)

   A town of narrow streets, old houses, shops curiously low, with little in it to interest any one.

—Thorne,James

   It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but, as matters stood it was a town of unnatural red and black as the painted face of a savage.

—Dickens, CharlesJohn Huffam

Ye Lilies male! think (as your tea you sip, While theTown small-talk flows from lip to lip; Intrigues half-gathered, conversation-scraps, Kitchen-cabals, and nursery-mishaps), If the vast world may not some scene produce, Some state where your small talents might have use.

—Crabbe, George

There is no manner of doubt that a town surrounded by water is a very fine sight; but a town surrounded by land is much finer.Can there be any comparison in point of beauty, between the dull monotony of a watery surface, and the delightful variety of gardens, meadows, hills and woods ?

—Moore,John

Musicians wrestle everywhereö All dayöamong the crowded air I hear the silver strifeö Andöwakingölong before the mornö Such transport breaks upon the town I think it that 'New Life!'

—Dickinson, Emily Elizabeth

Ye lovers of the picturesque, if ye wish to drown your grief, Take myadvice, and visit the ancient town of Crieff; The climate is bracing, and the walks lovely to see Besides, ye can ramble over the district, and view the beautiful scenery.

—McGonagall,William

   Auld Reikie! wale o' ilka town That Scotland kens beneath the moon; Whare couthy chiels at e'ening meet Their bizzing craigs and mous to weet.

—Ferber, Edna

Washington is a resigning town. Nothing else holds the special excitement of a rumored resignation.

—Shultz, George P(ratt)

Washington is a town where more people probably contemplate writing a book than finish reading one.

—Geracimos, Ann

We have seen Good men made evil wrangling with the evil, Straight mindsgrown crooked fighting crooked minds. Our peace betrayed us; we betrayed our peace. Look at it well.This was the good town once.

—Muir, Edwin

Wee Willie Winkie rins through the toun, Up stairs and doun stairs in his nicht-gown, Tirling at the window, crying at the lock, 'Are the weans in their bed, for it's now ten o'clock?'

—Miller,William