Street Conversations Quotes

Very few people are fortunate enough to walk through countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, and I had seen them all. I had spoken to many on the street.

Sit around the bars, talked to people, ate in the restaurants, and chatted with the old ladies on the street. Fishermen are pretty much that way.

If I miss anything, it's being able to hang out in the city of New York meeting people and talking to them on the corner.

My peers at the time: you know, young black kids from off the streets of Harlem, having these conversations with me in my small, dirty little studio up in Harlem.

Sound sounds are terrible in the city, but it's great to listen and to walk and listen to people talk to each other. There are birds. You hear spring. I like listening to the city.

I often talk to myself while walking down the street. I did it as a kid.

I'm greedy about cities - I like to form my impressions of them on my own, and on foot as far as possible, looking and listening, having conversations with bridges and streets and riverbanks, conversations I tend not to be aware of until a little later, when I find myself returning to those places to say hello again, even if only in memory.

I like to go to the subway and hear what people are thinking and feeling and what their concerns are. You learn so much that way. You really do.

Flaubert called himself a human pen; I would say that I am a human ear. When I walk down the street and catch words, phrases, and exclamations, I always think - how many novels disappear without a trace! Disappear into darkness.

I do a lot of eavesdropping. That's one of the things I miss about New York: just checking people out.

I will say, though, that San Francisco is a very friendly city. It's the kind of place where people smile at you and you can strike up conversations on the street, so there's always an adjustment when I come back to New York. If I smile at someone on the street in New York, then they think there's something up - like, "Why is she smiling?"

It's a very immersive and intense form of travel to walk around with an interpreter and stop random people on the street and ask them about their lives.

I only come up with things when I am talking to myself, which I do constantly. The sidewalk and the subway are the best places for this. I speak at full volume and then laugh at myself if I like what I just said.