Quotes & Sayings About Commuting

The daily activity that contributes most to happiness is having dinner with friends. The daily activity that detracts most from happiness is commuting. Eat more. Commute less. — David Brooks

The thing about commuting internationally is that you have to be a lawyer or an airline steward to do it successfully. — Joan Juliet Buck

As long as children are still getting kicked out of their homes by parents, getting bullied, commuting suicide, et cetera. it's definitely still worth talking about. — Rayvon Owen

After leaving Egypt, Moses and his people endured a forty-year commute, starting with a truly epic crossing of the Red Sea (which made getting through the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour seem like traipsing across a country bridge in a sundress on a spring afternoon). — BikeSnobNYC

Honestly, the average American spends about 52 minutes a day in commute traffic. And as much as I love driving my car and many people like driving their car, commuting has never been fun for me. — Sebastian Thrun

But surely the commute that defines the era was Noah's voyage aboard his eponymous ark, and to this day it remains the most epic commuting story ever told. As most people know, God felt that Earth had essentially "jumped the shark" (or "raped the angel" as they used to say back then), so rather than try to fix it, He instead decided to simply wash everyone away in a great flood and start over from scratch
just as you might do to your computer's hard drive if it has a really bad virus. So God spoke to Noah and commanded him to build an ark, aboard which he'd carry two of every animal in the world ... Thus was born humankind's lust for gigantic vehicles, for God's instructions to Noah were basically the world's first car commercial, and the sales pitch was this: Large vehicles are your salvation. — BikeSnobNYC

Sergey and I founded Google because we're super optimisitc about the potential for technology to make the world a better place. Think about how many people are underserved by transportation today, like those with disabilities, and how self driving cars will transform their lives. Or the wasted time you sit in your car every day commuting to and from work. Or the deaths and injuries that could be avoided. — Larry Page

An outdated view still prevails that a low-carbon lifestyle requires immense personal suffering and sacrifice. In my view, nothing could be further from the truth. All the evidence shows that people who do not drive, do not fly on planes, do shop locally, do grow their own food, and do get to know other members of their community have a much higher quality of life than their compatriots who still persist in making the ultimate sacrifice of wasting their lives commuting to work in cars. — Mark Lynas

The scene then as now was centered in New York. For the most part, I've kept a bit apart from that attractive and seductive city. I've done it by living in the country within commuting distance. — Kenneth Noland

I don't drive often, because the parking makes it too much of a nuisance. And I could never go back to commuting or anything. I'd just get fed up with it. — Raymond Pettibon

Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic. — Dan Rather

Our capitol punishment system is haunted by the demon of error- error in determining guilt, error in determining who among the guilty deserves to die ... The legislation couldn't reform it. Lawmakers won't repeal it. I won't stand for it. I had to act ... I am commuting the sentences of all death row inmates. — George Ryan

Trace listened to the story, but how could he get excited? Francis had no powers that would let him re-create a brush with death - particularly in the atmosphere of a commuting train, journeying through a sunny countryside where already, in the slum gardens, there were signs of harvest. — John Cheever

I am a commuter, not between the city and the village, although I do this frequently; not between the inane idealism of the classroom and the stifling reality beyond it, which I must do for survival and self-respect. I am a commuter between what I am now and what I was and would like to be and it is this commuting at lightning speed, at the oddest hours, that has done havoc to me. — F. Sionil Jose

When I meet some of my commuting acquaintances on the 6.21 home to Henley-on-Thames they occasionally enquire what I have done that day. I have been known to reply: 'I moved Africa 600 kilometres to the south.' They usually turn quickly to the soccer page. One — Richard Fortey

I have run a general election campaign pregnant and ran Ed Miliband's leadership campaign commuting to London with a new baby so I already have my system set up. — Lucy Powell

Yes, everybody's angry when it comes to commuting, and in a society in which racism is no longer acceptable, prejudice based on transport has rushed in to fill the void. — BikeSnobNYC

We're taught that domestic life is not a "serious" political topic, like war and peace, but the fact is that we spend most of our lives doing everyday things: at the dinner table, in the kitchen, washing dishes, grocery-shopping, commuting. These things make up the fabric of our lives. — Annia Ciezadlo

Commuting in a wheelchair is not easy. I live in a very old part of Rome. These cobbles everywhere ... terrible! In London, it is the same. Every pavement is uneven. — Bernardo Bertolucci

I liked Edinburgh as a university in a way that I'd never enjoyed King's College London. I realised after I came to Edinburgh that perhaps it was a mistake to have gone to a college which was bang in the centre of a vast city. It had a bad effect on the social life of the students because a lot of them were commuting from outer London. — Peter Higgs

Horses are in our DNA. We used them way before cars for commuting. — Randeep Hooda

These mortgages, which typically cost less per month than paying rent, were directed at new single-family suburban construction.c Intentionally or not, the FHA and VA programs discouraged the renovation of existing housing stock, while turning their back on the construction of row houses, mixed-use buildings, and other urban housing types. Simultaneously, a 41,000-mile interstate highway program, coupled with federal and local subsidies for road improvement and the neglect of mass transit, helped make automotive commuting affordable and convenient for the average citizen. — Andres Duany

Say you spend thirty minutes driving in rush hour every morning and another fifteen getting to your car and into the office. That's 1.5 hours a day, 7.5 hours per week, or somewhere between 300 and 400 hours per year, give or take holidays and vacation. Four hundred hours is exactly the amount of programmer time we spent building Basecamp, our most popular product. Imagine what you could do with 400 extra hours a year. Commuting isn't just bad for you, your relationships, and the environment - it's bad for business. — Jason Fried

No one likes doing chores. In happiness surveys, housework is ranked down there with commuting as activities that people enjoy the least. Maybe that's why figuring out who does which chores usually prompts, at best, tense discussion in a household and, at worst, outright fighting. — Emily Oster

For many people, commuting is the worst part of the day, and policies that can make commuting shorter and more convenient would be a straightforward way to reduce minor but widespread suffering. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

After endless days of commuting on the freeway to an antiseptic, sealed-window office, there is a great urge to backpack in the woods and build a fire. — Charles Krauthammer

Winter denial: therein lay the key to California Schadenfreude
the secret joy that the rest of the country feels at the misfortune of California. The country said: "Look at them, with their fitness and their tans, their beaches and their movie stars, their Silicon Valley and silicone breasts, their orange bridge and their palm trees. God, I hate those smug, sunshiny bastards!" Because if you're up to your navel in a snowdrift in Ohio, nothing warms your heart like the sight of California on fire. If you're shoveling silt out of your basement in the Fargo flood zone, nothing brightens your day like watching a Malibu mansion tumbling down a cliff into the sea. And if a tornado just peppered the land around your Oklahoma town with random trailer trash and redneck nuggets, then you can find a quantum of solace in the fact that the earth actually opened up in the San Fernando Valley and swallowed a whole caravan of commuting SUVs. — Christopher Moore

If a city is designed in a way that makes a long drive to work necessary, we harm the social health of that city. If a lot of people cycle, it's probably an indication that you live in a healthy neighborhood. This is something that should be seriously considered in urban planning, if you want to ensure a neighborhood togetherness and trust among locals. — Meik Wiking

Every mom in a minivan, every person commuting - anytime they are on the road, they should be able to go into driver mode and give a ride to a neighbor. That's how we achieve scale. — Logan Green

In such novels as This Side of Paradise and The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald depicts the spirit of the hour which is usually about 4 a.m. His suave young men, always commuting between Princeton and The Plaza in Stutz Bearcats never sat still for long. It was too uncomfortable, with a large flask in the hip pocket. — Richard Armour

I decided that I wanted a farm back in 1940 when I was with the Dodgers. I tried to find one within commuting distance of New York. — Larry MacPhail

It was one of the great pleasures of the age, to be safe and warm and dry - showered, deodorized, professionally clothed in espadrilles and a linen jacket, latte steaming up the radio display, taking in the world's troubles three minutes at a time. That was luxury. — Jess Row

Even short commutes stab at your happiness. According to the research,* commuting is associated with an increased risk of obesity, insomnia, stress, neck and back pain, high blood pressure, and other stress-related ills such as heart attacks and depression, and even divorce. But let's say we ignore the overwhelming evidence that commuting doesn't do a body good. Pretend it isn't bad for the environment either. Let — Jason Fried

I grew up in Zimbabwe in Southern Africa, and I moved to London when I was 17. And I started commuting and, actually, to go to college. And I used to really enjoy that part of my journey where the - it was actually a Tube train, but it was over ground, and it went right past the backs of people's houses, and I could actually see right in. — Paula Hawkins

Every morning before I left the house (IF I left, which I frequently didn't), I would log online and fly around the game world, harvesting herbs across the virtual globe to make potions. This hunter/gatherer trip would take about an hour or two each day, minimum. (Yes, I spent a large portion of my time inside World of Warcraft commuting.) — Felicia Day

I am maintaining my schedule of commuting to Washington, D.C. each week from Oregon so that I can spend my weekends and days when we are not in session traveling to communities throughout my district. — Greg Walden

In our everyday lives, if we intentionally set out to learn new things or do familiar things in new ways (such as commuting to work via a new route or taking the bus instead of a car), we effectively rewire our brains and improve them. A physical workout builds muscle; a mental workout creates new synapses to strengthen the neural network. — Deepak Chopra

I love commuting between languages just like I love commuting between cultures and cities. — Elif Safak

Particularly nauseous were the blank expressionless faces of people in trains and omnibuses; they seemed no more my fellow-creatures than dead bodies would be, so that I did not dare to travel unless I was assured of being alone. — H.G.Wells

To me the biggest waste of time is commuting. First, there is no place that is less than a two-hour commute from New York. You can be half a mile outside of the city limits; you're two hours away by car. I don't care how close they tell you it is. "Oh, it's only thirty miles." Thirty miles? At 8:30 in the morning, thirty miles outside New York, you might as well be starting out in Omaha. — Fran Lebowitz

... but every activity we pursue comes with an opportunity cost, as the economists remind us. Time spent commuting to work is time not spent with your kids. Time spent debating the relative merits of kale versus arugula is time not spent discussing the nature of beauty and truth. I look down at my plate of bland grub with newfound respect. — Eric Weiner

The automobile, both a cause and an effect of this decentralization, is ideally suited for our vast landscape and our generally confused and contrary commuting patterns. — Brock Yates

Use these scientifically rubber-stamped pointers to make better, brighter decisions: (a) Avoid negative things that you cannot grow accustomed to, such as commuting, noise, or chronic stress. (b) Expect only short-term happiness from material things, such as cars, houses, lottery winnings, bonuses, and prizes. (c) Aim for as much free time and autonomy as possible since long-lasting positive effects generally come from what you actively do. Follow your passions even if you must forfeit a portion of your income for them. Invest in friendships. — Rolf Dobelli

The office was large, with many women and men at desks, and she learned their names, and presented to them an amiability she assumed upon entering the building. Often she felt that her smiles, and her feigned interest in people's anecdotes about commuting and complaints about colds, were an implicit and draining part of her job. A decade later she would know that spending time with people and being unable either to speak from her heart or to listen with it was an imperceptible bleeding of her spirit. — Andre Dubus

Adapting to our Second Adulthood is not all about the money. It requires thinking about how to find a new locus of identity or how to adjust to a spouse who stops working and who may loll, enjoying coffee and reading the paper online while you're still commuting. — Gail Sheehy

In 1941 I finished at Allison Intermediate School (grades 7-9), and started at North High School, commuting by bicycle about 5 miles from home to school. — Vernon L. Smith

[Commuting by bicycle is] an absolutely essential part of my day. It's mind-clearing, invigorating. I get to go out and pedal through the countryside in the early morning hours, and see life come back and rejuvenate every day as the sun is coming out. — James L. Jones

Commuting in London is basically warfare. It's a constant campaign of claiming territory; inching forward; never relaxing for a moment. Because if you do, someone will step past you. Or step on you. — Sophie Kinsella

As Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert argues, 'You can't adapt to commuting, because it's entirely unpredictable. Driving in traffic is a different kind of hell every day.' — Tom Vanderbilt

It must be awfully frustrating to get a small raise at work and then have it all eaten by a higher cost of commuting. — Ben Bernanke

Human beings weren't designed to handle the amount of stress our modern life loads on us, which makes it difficult to hear our natural parenting instincts. It's almost as if we're forced to parent in our spare time, after meeting the demands of work, commuting and household responsibilities. — Laura Markham

I had a place in England and was commuting from England to Australia, which is pretty stupid, but after two years I sort of knew what I wanted to do, more or less. — Diane Cilento

I've spent so many years commuting, I kind of prefer a home office. — Hillary Clinton

The total average cost of driving, including depreciation, maintenance, and insurance, runs about 61 cents a mile, and since the average automobile used for commuting to work contains only 1.1 people, every commute costs a little more than 55 cents per passenger mile. This means that, if you're an automobile commuter traveling twenty-five miles each way to work, you're spending around $30 a day for the privilege, not including the cost, if there is one, to park. You're also spending an hour every day for which, unless you're a cabbie or bus driver yourself, you're not getting paid, and during which you're not doing anything productive at all. For the average American, that's another $24. In transportation, time really is money. — Samuel I. Schwartz