Urban Anonymity Quotes

For me, New York is about anonymity; that's the draw. It's not at all about other people in my business being nearby. It's that I can get on the subway and eavesdrop on conversations that I would never have access to otherwise. That's why I stay. That's why I could never leave.

Welcome to New York, where everybody's a stranger, and nobody is.

When you go to the big city - you're in New York, Boston, you're in L.A. - you walk in the streets, and nobody says anything to you. It becomes so impersonal because there's so many people.

[On living in New York City:] I'm oblivious to everything. I just don't notice anything. I sat in a coffee shop, drank half a cup of coffee before I noticed there was lipstick on the cup. There was wadded-up gum and lipstick on the napkin. I must have been sitting on that woman's lap for an hour.

People are so busy anyway they don't see you or recognise you in the street.

I think there's something very peculiar about living in the city and not part of the major metropolis; that actually makes it remarkably easy to disappear.

Where are you now?’ Where was I now? Gripping the receiver, I raised my hand and turned to see what lay beyond the telephone booth. Where was I now? I had no idea. No idea at all. Where was this place? All that flashed into my eyes were the countless shapes of people walking by to nowhere. Again and again, I called out for Midori from the dead center of this place that was no place.

I live in a high rise with my family part of the year in New York and I don't know three quarters of the people in the building. We live in the same square-footage and I wouldn't know who they were.

In New York there's a lot of interstitial spaces; spaces in between spaces, where you're changing, and New York gives you the anonymity to be who you want to be.

So we came to understand that small and important thing, that our lives could be large with interesting strangers who would pass us without any personal involvement.

In 1977, hip-hop literally wasn't outside the boroughs. But I was profoundly aware of the city through films like Saturday Night Fever, The French Connection, and Network. I had a friend who visited New York, and I asked him what it was like. He said, "Oh, it's great. Just wear a coat and don't look anyone in the eye."

The size of the city and the nature of how independent the neighborhoods are means that not only do people who live outside Chicago not know what is going on there, Chicagoans often don't know what is going on there.

I love the feeling of being anonymous in a city I've never been before.

A lot of the time in modern Britain, certainly in urban life, we barely have any contact at all with the people around us.

...the City is what they want it to be: thriftless, warm, scary and full of amiable strangers. No wonder they forget pebbly creeks and when they do not forget the sky completely think of it as a tiny piece of information about the time of day or night.

The people who move through the streets are all strangers. At each encounter, they imagine a thousand things about one another; meetings which could take place between them, conversations, surprises, caresses, bites. But no one greets anyone; eyes lock for a second, then dart away, seeking other eyes, never stopping...something runs among them, an exchange of glances like lines that connect one figure with another and draw arrows, stars, triangles, until all combinations are used up in a moment, and other characters come on to the scene.

One thing I do like about L.A. is the fact that you can be - whether you're famous or it's just a matter of, like, seeing people you know all the time on the street, you can be pretty anonymous and walk around and, like, not run into people, because it's such a big city and because a lot of people drive.

I believe we shall come to care about people less and less, Helen. The more people one knows, the easier it becomes to replace them. It's one of the curses of London. I quite expect to end my life caring most for a place.

What is the purpose of a city if not to grant the greatest of gifts, anonymity?

There's nowhere in New York to go and have your emotions to yourself. People just look the other way because every day people see someone crying on the subway!

Reclusive? The inner city will secure your privacy better than any desert cave.

I'm from a rural town outside of Stockholm, so in coming to L.A., I've been able to not think that much about my background. It's much easier for me in this big town, this big bubble to isolate myself from that and be a little more self-confident. I'm here to do my take on soul.

I am alone with the masses.

The city had defeated her, just like they said it would. Like some overcrowded party, no one had noticed her arrival, and would notice if she left.

In New York, the currency is money. You have money, and you get anonymity.