David Byrne Quotes

A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.

Where a city is only focused on one aspect, it becomes a city without a soul, not a city people want to live in.

London's got less of a group identity because it's a melting pot and it's bigger. Whereas if you're from Glasgow or Newcastle or wherever, the group atmosphere is already there.

Kolkata does not look like a Delhi or Mumbai. The city has its identity.

This is Manchester, we do things differently here.

The haunting of history is ever present in Barcelona. I see cities as organisms, as living creatures. To me, Madrid is a man and Barcelona is a woman. And it's a woman who's extremely vain.

There's something about Brooklyn that reminds me of Toronto. I think because it's so community-minded.

There's a lot about New York that is unique, and there's always a culture and a subculture going on everywhere.

When you travel like I do, just within our own country the atmosphere is different. The environment is different; the way people talk is different. The energy is different. And that's just material-wise, with the local culture.

I think, probably, socially, in some ways New York may be the least American city. It represents too many things that Americans really don't entirely want in their lives.

I like it when I go to a city and it puts its personality out there to be readily experienced.

I think it's important to learn about the culture of the place where you live.

London, Ontario, sits halfway between Detroit and Buffalo, a description that applies as much to its soul as to its geographical coordinates.

It is the vibe of a city that makes it unique.

I think there's a big difference between New York and Chicago.

Real cities have something else, some individual bony structure under the muck. Los Angeles has Hollywood -- and hates it. It ought to consider itself damn lucky. Without Hollywood it would be a mail order city. Everything in the catalogue you could get better somewhere else.

It may sound weird, but I don't really look for culture, particularly in an American city.

Each city has strengths. Cities should be developed with their own individuality and characteristics.

Cities have sexes: London is a man, Paris a woman, and New York a well-adjusted transsexual.

No rural community, no suburban community, can ever possess the distinctive qualities that city dwellers have for centuries given to the world.

I am a different person in NYC. My energy is way different. I just make sense here.

The question of identity has separated from the issue of 'assimilation', having lost much of its drama and become, so to speak, a secular problem.

The crucial differences which distinguish human societies and human beings are not biological. They are cultural.

How is the newcomer to deal with Rome? What is one to make of this marble rubble, this milk of wolves, this blood of Caesars, this sunrise of Renaissance, this baroquery of blown stone, this warm hive of Italians, this antipasto of civilization?

I would warn any minority student today against the temptations of self-segregation: take support and comfort from your own group as you can, but don’t hide within it.