Local Interaction Quotes

Few Americans have ever met their Congresspeople. They don't see them at the grocery store; they don't meet them at the bowling alley. They're more likely to see their representatives in photographs from the Daily Grill in Washington, D.C., than at a local town hall.

Pick a destination, go there, be open-minded and talk to the locals. Eat the things they eat and go where they go. You don't need to be fluent, just as long as you've got a smile on your face- people will be jumping over themselves to show you the stuff they're proud of.

I like to know about football and everything about a club when I play there, so I talk to people when they come up to me in the street.

Growing up, I would go to Darjeeling and Kurseong a lot and most of the locals would only talk to me in Nepali!

I represent a rural state and live in a small town. Small merchants make up the majority of Vermont's small businesses and thread our state together. It is the mom-and-pop grocers, farm-supply stores, coffee shops, bookstores and barber shops where Vermonters connect, conduct business and check in on one another.

The Olympics is this big global event, but when neighbours come up and wish you well, it feels more personal.

I'm not a good tourist. I don't like walking around and looking at things. I like being in a city and working and finding out how other people live.

The hotel was once where things coalesced, where you could meet both townspeople and travelers. Not so in a motel. No matter how you build it, the motel remains the haunt of the quick and dirty, where the only locals are Chamber of Commerce boys every fourth Thursday. Who ever heard the returning traveler exclaim over one of the great motels of the world he stayed in? Motels can be big, but never grand.

People think New York is this big city where no one knows each other, but when you live in the Village, it's the opposite.