Pavement Quotes
More Pavement Quotes
The city overwhelmed our expectations. The Kiplingesque grandeur of Waterloo Station, the Eliotic despondency of the brick row in Chelsea … the Dickensian nightmare of fog and sweating pavement and besmirched cornices.
john updike— On London, in “A Madman,” New Yorker (22 December 1962)
What is it in man that for a long while lies unknown and unseen only one day to emerge and push him into a new land of the eye, a new region of the mind, a place he has never dreamed of? Maybe it's like the force in spores lying quietly under asphalt until the day they push a soft, bulbous mushroom head right through the pavement. There's nothing you can do to stop it.
william least heat-moon— Part Four, Chapter 12
What is it in man that for a long while lies unknown and unseen only one day to emerge and push him into a new land of the eye, a new region of the mind, a place he has never dreamed of? Maybe it's like the force in spores lying quietly under asphalt until the day they push a soft, bulbous mushroom head right through the pavement. There's nothing you can do to stop it.
— Part Four, Chapter 12 (Blue Highways (1982))
Stand on the highest pavement of the stair Lean on a garden urn Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.
— 1917 Prufrock and Other Observations,'La Figlia Che Piange'.
'Dealing with a man,' said the night-watchman,' is as easy as a teetotaller walking along a nice wide pavement; dealing with a woman is like the same teetotaller, after four or five whiskies, trying to get up a step that ain't there.'
W.W. Jacobs— 1919 Deep Waters,:Ghost Story Collection 'Husbandry'.
Mary Poppins looked down at her feet and rubbed the toe of one shoe along the pavement two or three times. Then she smiled at the shoe in such a way that the shoe knew quite well that the smile wasn't meant for it.
— 1934 Mary Poppins, ch.2.
The sound of a jet, an engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage.
john steinbeck— Pt. 1 (Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962))
On the pavement of my trampled soul the steps of madmen weave the prints of rude crude words.
vladimir mayakovsky— "1" (1913); translation from Patricia Blake (ed.) The Bedbug and Selected Poetry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975) p. 53
The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet, A chafing savage, down the decent street; And passion rends my vitals as I pass, Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.
Claude McKay— The White House, l. 5-8
“How can you read such a beautiful book and turn your back on it?” “Never said it wasn’t a beautiful book. I just don’t believe there’s some man up there in the black who gets off on watching us pound our head on the pavement six times a day.
— Chapter 8 (p. 78) (God’s War (2011))
In Köln, a town of monks and bones, And pavement fang'd with murderous stones, And rags and hags, and hideous wenches, I counted two-and-seventy stenches, All well defined, and several stinks! Ye nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks, The River Rhine, it is well known, Doth wash your city of Cologne; But tell me, nymphs! what power divine Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?
Samuel Taylor Coleridge— Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Cologne; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 124.
Mammon led them on Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell From Heaven: for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold, Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed In vision beatific.
john milton— John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book I, line 678.
Seize the loud, vociferous bells, and Clashing, clanging to the pavement Hurl them from their windy tower!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Christus, The Golden Legend (1872), Prologue.
