Quotes & Sayings About Coney Island

Souls dance undressed/ together/ and like loiterers/ on the fringes of a fair/ we ogle the unobtainable/ imagined mystery/ Yet away around on the far side/ like a stage door of a circus tent/ is a wide vent in the battlements/ where even elephants/ waltz thru
pg. 31// A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

And I am waiting/ for Alice in Wonderland/ to retransmit to me/ her total dream of innocence
pg. 52// A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Coney Island is and always will be 'the people's playground.' It's a place where people of all backgrounds come to have a good time. — Harold Feinstein

I had a great education. From kindergarten to John Dewey High School in Coney Island, I am public-school educated. — Spike Lee

Her eyes downcast all the while/ and singing to herself
pg. 18// A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Time, Eddie had decided during this period, was in large part created by external events. When a lot of interesting shit was happening, time seemed to go by fast. If you got stuck with nothing but the usual boring shit, it slowed down. And when everything stopped happening, time apparently quit altogether. Just packed up and went to Coney Island. Weird but true. — Stephen King

Watching the world walk by
in its curious shoes
pg. 61// A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

From reinforcing beaches in the Rockaways to installing generators at the Coney Island Houses and sealing holes in the subway system, New York is fortifying our ability to withstand future storm surges. — Frances Beinecke

Never had there been such an opportunity for the dissemination of knowledge ... . But the obverse is also true. We can have thrust upon us a false picture of reality as distorting as the trick mirrors in a Coney Island funhouse. — Howard E. Koch

Economics is really about two stories. One is the story of the old economist and younger economist walking down the street, and the younger economist says, 'Look, there's a hundred-dollar bill,' and the older one says, 'Nonsense, if it was there somebody would have picked it up already.' So sometimes you do find hundred-dollar bills lying on the street, but not often - generally people respond to opportunities. The other is the Yogi Berra line 'Nobody goes to Coney Island anymore; it's too crowded.' That's the idea that things tend to settle into some kind of equilibrium where what people expect is in line with what they actually encounter. — Paul Krugman

...here on Coney Island, we learn to take each other as we are. — H.P. Wood

Now I know why I had that dream last night. It was a premonition forewarning me of the death of my cooking career!"
"I doubt that your cooking career is over. You may be working at Coney Island until you retire, but you'll still be a chef," smiled Colleen.
Alice laughed, her face softened.
"Hey! Maybe if you're lucky you could work at Denny's!" said Melaine. "They're open twenty-four-seven and have an incredible breakfast menu. I would definitely come and support you."
"Thanks Mel, but I'm more of a IHOP girl," said Alice. — Katie Mattie

Slowly the sky turned from the color of cornflower to that of hyacinth, and the Ferris wheel at Coney Island appeared like a ring of diamonds against the twilight. New York-that city made of canyons between tall buildings, and ornate houses filled with glittering things that might trap a girl forever-was nothing more than a few dots on an infinite landscape. The atmosphere was crystalline and afforded her a perfect view. Only from this place was she able to see how limited the city was, after everything, and how wide open the world could all of a sudden become. — Anna Godbersen

I flew too near the sun
and my wax wings fell off
pg. 62// A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I'm one of relatively few stage-trained actors who doesn't much like acting on stage. It feels kind of like riding the Cyclone at Coney Island, which I did when I was eight. When it was all over, I was glad I had done it, but most of the time when it was actually happening, I was just kind of hanging on for dear life. — Fred Melamed

Back when I lived in Brooklyn, I'd sometimes take the Q train all the way out to Coney Island and back, and work on my laptop. There's something about pushy New Yorkers looking over your shoulder that really makes you produce sentences. — Joshua Foer

They can't hurt me. Sure, they can crush you and kill you. They can lay you out on 42nd and Broadway and put hoses on you and flush you in the sewers and put you on the subway and carry you out to Coney island and bury you on the Ferris wheel. But I refuse to sit here and worry about dying. — Bob Dylan

I was born in Coney Island. I like to think I fell out of the womb onto the fun park's giant Parachute Jump while eating a Nathan's hot dog. — Harold Feinstein

Sometimes I feel like the Tom Hanks character in Big. But my life is not a movie. I never have to go back to Coney Island to find the fortune-teller machine so I have to grow up again. — Shaquille O'Neal

My family originally lived in Brooklyn. Our first apartment was a little place above my father and uncle's hardware store in Coney Island. Now, don't get the impression that we were surrounded by merry-go-rounds, roller coasters and Ferris wheels. Nope, this was a little side street. — Gilbert Gottfried

Is where I first/ fell in love/ with unreality
pg. 35// A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Blink at the sunned scratch
and stumble into silence
pg. 55// A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Telling over to myself/ how beauty never dies/ but lies apart/ among the aborigines/ of art/ and far above the battlefields/ of love
pg. 23// // A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

There's a different kind of comfort that comes from knowing that you are putting your best foot forward. It's called psychological comfort. Look at a picture of the Coney Island boardwalk in 1925. Men were in full-on three-piece suits, hats. They may have only had one suit. But they pressed it. They made it look as good as possible. — Tom Ford

I have dreamt that all my teeth fell out but my tongue lived to tell the tale
pg. 65// A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

When I started off as an actress, I did at a play at the Taper Too Theatre here in Los Angeles, called 'In The Abyss Of Coney Island.' That was more of a dramatic play. It was a small theater house. This was the first time I was literally on the road, doing a play, for four months. — Vivica A. Fox

I came from a poor family in Coney Island. I learned to write by reading the 'Post.' This was my education. — Jerry Della Femina

It is with roses and locomotives (not to mention acrobats Spring electricity Coney Island the 4th of July the eyes of mice and Niagara Falls) that my poems are competing. — E. E. Cummings

And balancing on eye beams/ above a sea of faces/ paces his way/ to the other side of day
pg. 30// // A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

This place is packed with beautiful hipsters. While the Coney Island bombast radiated sincerity, everything here seems more ironic. When someone in the crowd ironically chants, 'USA!' someone else ironically chants back, 'Mother Russia. — Jon Ronson

Heaven: the Coney Island of the Christian imagination. — Elbert Hubbard

I took my son to Coney island, I said "wanna go in the crazy house?", he said "save your money we'll be home soon"! — Rodney Dangerfield

Yes, I was born in Coney Island. The Holy Land. — Arlo Guthrie

You and me could really exist
pg. 22// // A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I'd go to Coney Island to hang out, and I saw a magician doing a rope trick on the boardwalk. I was fascinated. I guess that's how it started. — David Blaine

In Fort Wayne, Indiana, a must-stop is Fort Wayne Coney Island Weiner Stand, where you get the hot dog with way too many fresh-cut onions and a dollop of chili on top. How dogs that are prepared this way in the Midwest are known as "Coney Island hot dogs" but have really nothing to do with Coney Island, New York. The only thing that I can figure out about the origin of the name is that a hundred years ago when someone from Fort Wayne, Indiana, decided to open a hot dog place, they named it after Coney Island, because that seemed like a faraway place where people ate hot dogs and they would probably sell more "Coney Island hot dogs" than "chili dogs" (as everyone else called them) because Coney Island sounded more romantic. Yes, to people in Fort Wayne in 1914, Coney Island seemed romantic. Fort Wayne Coney Island Weiner Stand has been serving their hot dogs that way since, well, since people wanted a pound of fresh onions and chili on their hot dog. — Jim Gaffigan

And heard the green birds singing/ from the other side of silence
pg. 36// A Coney Island of the Mind — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I would love to be the poet laureate of Coney Island. — Thornton Wilder

Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap — Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Coney Island was the centre of the world for me. I loved the rides, the hot dogs - I've never gotten over it. — Harold Feinstein