“Play on lively, diversified sidewalks differs from virtually all other daily incidental play offered American children today: It is play not conducted in a matriarchy.Most city architectural design...”

“As children get older, this incidental outdoor activity--say, while waiting to be called to eat--becomes less bumptious, physically and entails more loitering with others, sizing people up, flirtin...”

“To approach a city, or even a city neighborhood, as if it were a larger architectural problem, capable of being given order by converting it into a disciplined work of art, is to make the mistake o...”

“Most sentimental ideas imply, at bottom, a deep if unacknowledged disrespect.”

“What is more dramatic, even romantic, than the tumbled towers of lower Manhattan, rising suddenly to the clouds like a magic castle girdled by water? Its very touch of jumbled jaggedness, its tower...”

“When distance and convenience sets in; the small, the various and the personal wither away.”

“Eighth grade's a distant rumor, a tabled issue, and Dylan knows from experience that the summer between might change anything, everything. He and Mingus Rude too and even Arthur Lomb for that matte...”

“But youre out of another world old kid You ought to live on top of the Woolworth Building in an apartment made of cutglass and cherry blossoms.”

“[Poem: Slates of Grey]Sullen faces like slates of greyWhat Id seen on a walk today.Bodies rushing bodies boltingTime for life a disregarding.Money to make and to grow oldWhat about the hands to hol...”

“I would describe the distinction between city and landscape like this: cities tend to excite and agitate me; they make me feel big or small, self-confident, proud, curious, excited, tense, annoyed....”

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

“It's the fricking reality that destroys plans.”

“An exceedingly well-informed report,' said the General. 'You have given yourself the trouble to go into matters thoroughly, I see. That is one of the secrets of success in life.”