David Lammy Quotes

It is not the walls that make the city, but the people who live within them.

This is the city, and I am one of the citizens/Whatever interests the rest interests me

The beautiful thing about New York is, you have to expose yourself to other people the minute you step outside the door. There is no choice. And I love that.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

I love cities.

I love Philadelphia. I was shocked at what a great city this is. For me, it is the cat's pajamas. I love everything about it. I love where I live. I love the people. I have been met with such kindness and affection here.

You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

A city is a large community where people are lonesome together.

In New York you can just walk out and be among people. You're on the subway among people, you go to cafes, you can talk to people.

Livability has always struck me as a consolation prize.

Citizens, thank you for all your birthday wishes. I am 88 years old today and still lucky to live in the greatest city in the world.

Everybody ought to have a lower East Side in their life.

I like how they are. I think they're great. And their communities are communities. I have a greater sense of community in New York than almost anywhere I've ever lived. Really, it's terrific.

We're just welcoming people to our city.

It's a nice neighborhood, like the one I left. My home borough is Brooklyn and Queens.

When you grow up in the city, New York is so big that you can kind of stay in your own little corner of the city and think that that's it because you don't need anything. You don't have to venture out; you don't have to touch the boroughs. You can kind of stay in your neighborhood, and there's everything there.

... a metropolis rarely of one mind

A big city is a big ocean; the one who doesn’t know how to swim finds himself at its bottom!

When 125,000 people are gathered together on 10 square miles of land they must of necessity give up certain of their liberties. It is a sacrifice they must make for the sake of the advantages of city life.

Liberals stand for tolerance, magnanimity, community spirit, the defense of the weak against the powerful, love of learning, freedom of belief, art and poetry, city life, the very things that make life worth dying for. Conservatives stand for tax cuts … and use of the tax refund to buy a gun and an attack dog to take with you when you drive your all-terrain vehicle through the barriers of Republicanville.

London and L.A. are two opposites - I like the difference.

I simply love to live here. London is a world city. There is so much you can do. There are many different cultures here, and I just feel very, very comfortable.

There's so much to London, so many different kinds of people and people are the key to life, but my favourite part? It's got to be Bow, where I come from.

My social life's moved up a few notches since moving back to London from Surrey because I'm near friends and family again and I'm really enjoying it.

The times in my life I've felt the most alive is when I'm having a connection with people. We need to hack cities in a way to bring back that community culture.