Quotes & Sayings About Detroit

Ten Delta Airlines baggage handlers were arrested for smuggling drugs into Detroit. Yeah, you can tell Delta was involved, because the drugs were supposed to be smuggled into Chicago. — Jimmy Fallon

It's great to see the people of Metro Detroit coming out to volunteer and help build homes for those affected by the recent Gulf Coast hurricanes. With all the Super Bowl excitement, it's nice for people to participate in an event that will make such a significant impact in people's lives while also being a part of the Super Bowl festivities. — David Daniels

I know that's blasphemous when you are from Detroit, but I was never a fan of Motown stuff. I don't care for the production much. — Jack White

There are very few courses around Detroit I haven't played. — Smokey Robinson

You don't have to be best friends as basketball players but I do believe in chemistry. I think it makes everything different if a team is really together and they're all on that same page. They might not like each other, per se, but if you're on the same page and the chemistry is there, you can play great basketball. You can go back to teams like Detroit, the Bad Boys. Those guys had great chemistry, that's why they won. — Dwight Howard

It is a tough city to live in (Detroit) but a great city to be around. There is so much promise. There just needs to be a movement to help push the city beyond the automobile industry. The music business needs to learn how to support itself. — MC Serch

As I witness and participate in our visionary efforts to revitalize Detroit and contrast them with the multibillion dollars' worth of megaprojects advanced by politicians and developed that involve casinos, giant stadiums, gentrification, and the Super Bowl, I am saddened by their shortsightedness. At the same time I rejoice in the energy being unleashed in the community by our human-scale programs that involve bringing the country back into the city and removing the walls between schools and communities, between generations, and between ethnic groups. And I am confident just as in the early twentieth century people came from around the world to marvel at the mass production lines pioneered by Henry Ford, in the twenty-first century they will be coming to marvel at the thriving neighborhoods that are the fruit of our visionary programs. — Grace Lee Boggs

There's a lot of influences that I have from Detroit that are subliminal. I mean, I spent the first 10 years of my life there. My mom and dad were born and raised there, so a lot of that rubbed off on me. When I get angry, sometimes a Detroit accent comes out. — Lizzo

The Detroit String Quartet played Brahms last night. Brahms lost. — Bennett Cerf

By 1946, I knew Detroit was the best hockey city in the Original Six. — Ted Lindsay

People think that Detroit is this barren wasteland. While there are parts that are not as nice as others, the misconception is not true. It is definitely not a thriving community in Detroit, but it is getting there. There is a lot of heart and love in this city. — Steven Yeun

Michigan is very racially separated and the city of Detroit itself is 84 percent African-American and the surrounding suburbs are 86 percent White. — Kwame Kilpatrick

Look what venison does to a goofy guitar player from Detroit? I'm going to be 54 this year and if I had any more energy I'd scare you. — Ted Nugent

People know Detroit for the cars, but the suburban areas of the city are really beautiful. It's much more inhabitable than people think. Many believe it's like Berlin at the end of World War II. — Leonard Slatkin

Here in Turin you can write because past and future have greater prominence than the present, the force of past history and the anticipation of the future give a concreteness and sense to the discrete, ordered images of today. Turin is a city which entices the reader towards vigour, linearity, style. It encourages logic, and through logic it opens the way toward madness. — Italo Calvino

I was born in Missouri, but I was raised in Detroit. One of my stock and trades is accents. — Denis O'Hare

For me to own land in Detroit, it was a badge of honor, and it was support for the city. — Manuel Moroun

I care about the children of Detroit. — John Engler

Detroit is drunken idiots. It was no surprise to me. I performed with Kenny Rogers for one year as his opening act, and I got to visit every major American city and notice the audience, and Detroit was one of the worst. — Gallagher

I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974. — Jeffrey Eugenides

Even drunk, I knew any escape plan that involved going to Detroit, Michigan, was a harbinger of doom. — Mat Johnson

We don't hear our president [Barack Obama] talking about the need for high-quality jobs for everybody, giving it priority, not just giving a speech in Detroit. That's fine, but speaking to Tim Geithner, speaking to Larry Summers. When are you going to make jobs, jobs, jobs a priority rather than Wall Street, Wall Street, Wall Street a priority? That's what I'm concerned about. — Cornel West

I was born in Detroit, in an all black neighborhood. — Steven Seagal

I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and I hate Michigan. — Jerome Bettis

We hear a lot about rebuilding Detroit, and we just spent $70 billion to bail out the auto industry - well, they need to be cost competitive, too. If they have high-cost energy, those suppliers are going to move to Japan or Mexico instead of Michigan and Tennessee. — Lamar Alexander

I wish we could have acted quicker on Detroit or other failing schools. — John Engler

My adoptive mother tirelessly worked most of her life to build up my self-esteem. So what happened was finding her started to shed light and destroy my mythos. So for the first year of knowing [biological mother], my mom kind of actually literally visited me in Detroit and kind of gave me a tour of my life - where I was conceived, where I was born, where she found out she was pregnant. It was amazing and very emotional. — Keegan-Michael Key

Ironworkers also settled in Detroit and Buffalo. They were, for the first time in the history of Native Americans, creating a new class--the urban Indian. — David Weitzman

I was raised on gospel. I remember hip-hop and rock music were secular, so basically, for my first ten years living in Detroit, I was on gospel. But when I moved to Houston, that's when I got to open up my musical horizons. — Lizzo

I'm deeply in love with my wife, and she's my best friend, and yet we share different viewpoints of life, which I think is one of the things that holds our marriage together. She came from Texas, and she has an optimistic view of life. I came from Detroit and have a very pessimistic view. — David Small

My step-dad started playing hockey in Detroit so we moved and I had to start home school. I started watching movies since I had a bunch of free time and then I was like, 'You know what? I want to give this a shot, move back to L.A., and audition.' The first show I booked was a show called Threshold with Carla Gugino and it was obviously a terrifying experience and I felt out of my comfort zone, but it made me want to keep going because it was fun. — Steven R. McQueen

It was dusk when I drove back into downtown Detroit. I was annoyed by how much traffic there was at that hour of the day. Being a guy with two good legs who doesn't mind ankling, I hadn't realized the car situation had gotten so bad in the city. I almost had two smack-ups with people who refused to yield to me. Then I bumped someone from behind, intentionally, at the new flashing traffic light on Jefferson. The guy in the car had refused to move - he just sat there waiting because the light was red. After I bumped him (not that hard), the squirt hopped out of his car red in the face, and I must admit the sight of him gave me my first laugh in two days. He said, "Can't you see it's a red light?" I told him a red light is just a suggestion. Then I pressed the gas lightly and started pushing his car further out into the intersection whilst he stood there in disbelief. "Better get back in, your car is leaving without you," I said. — W.K. Berger

She was a thin, gypsyish woman, and her face was very keen; she could put on a manner when she felt like it, but she didn't care a damn who saw her when she didn't, and she gave her sharp, greenish-eyed grin. He wasn't rattled by her; he had decided she was going to be a nuisance, and she caught on at once that he was bent on giving her the shove-ho. She was an experienced woman, rough from being so much on the losing side and from having knocked around from town to town, Washington to Brooklyn to Detroit, with what other stops you'd never know, getting gold teeth here and a slash in the cheek there. But she was an independent and never appealed for any sympathy; was never offered any either. — Saul Bellow

It was a time of uncommon possibility and freedom, when Detroit created wondrous and lasting things. But life can be luminescent when it is most vulnerable. — David Maraniss

I don't run a non-profit. There are lots of non-profits in America - in Detroit, parts of Wall Street, etc. I run a not for profit. We're a business. The only difference is that instead of selling soap or sneakers, we sell hope and leadership. — Nancy Lublin

This is the Detroit I want to write about," he says, feeling urbane as fuck. "Tattoo seances and nutty street art and text-message millionaires. People don't even know this is happening."
"Of course we know it's happening, shithead," Anorexic Thor says. "You don't know it's happening. — Lauren Beukes

Detroit is an urban hell. But even in this city of the dying auto industry, there is reason to hope, if they manage to combine the creative forces of designers and other intellectual "suppliers" in other ways. — Charles Landry

I am a huge Pistons fan. Those were some of my best times in college, watching the Detroit Pistons. — Steven Yeun

Girls in New York look like giraffes.
Long neck, long legs, tiny tits and ass.
Girls from L.A rock over sized shades.
And chill all day cause they already paid.
Girls in Miami ... string bikinis and bump techno by Dj Tiesto.
Girls from Detroit like electro
And dance all night till they break they neck yo. — Shwayze

How wonderful it would be to meet an angel, I mused, but then I immediately realised that I already had. Not an archangel like Saint Michael, but my human engel from Detroit, wearing an overcoat and no hat, with lank brown hair and eyes the coler of water. — Patti Smith

Detroit is a city that really stands out. It's been through a very difficult time. There's been a lot of pain here, and the city, physically, has suffered. You can see it in certain neighborhoods, and there's buildings downtown that have been abandoned. — Michael Imperioli

Well, there were several things. One was that the industry itself built in Detroit was abandoning the city - taking factories elsewhere, the corporate headquarters elsewhere. — David Maraniss

I consider the Detroit Red Wings one of the greatest franchises in any sport. For a player to come in and play, it's so special to wear the jersey. — Steve Yzerman

There are many really good teams in our conference this season. Miami, Indiana and Detroit will be our fiercest opponents this year. But we just have to focus on our game and be patient with the realistic hope that we'll be on top after all is said and done. — Jason Kidd

New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling. But there are other cities. Detroit. Poughkeepsie. New York City has been taken away from you. So my advice is: Find a new city. — Patti Smith

So we believe. Leo has to be alive." "You remember the time in Detroit, when he flattened Ma Gasket with a car engine?" "Or those dwarfs in Bologna. Leo took them down with a homemade smoke grenade made from toothpaste." "Commander Tool Belt," Jason said. "Bad Boy Supreme," Piper said. "Chef Leo the Tofu Taco Expert." They laughed and told stories about Leo Valdez, their best friend. — Rick Riordan

In Detroit, it was an average night to go and hear the Stooges, Parliament-Funkadelic and the MC5 on the same show. We were all into the 'Free Jazz' movement, the musics of Ornette Coleman and Sun Ra; and experimenting with guitar sounds, and trying different beats, and pushing the rhythm farther... — Wayne Kramer

Detroit is right now a new Mecca for Hip Hop. — Obie Trice

Some people are doomed from birth because their environment is so toxic. — Charlie LeDuff

High school football in Detroit was not easy at all. There were talented players everywhere. — Antonio Gates

As [William] Valentiner noted in his uncompleted memoirs Remembering Artists, [Diego] Rivera's [Detroit Industry] murals rooted the Detroit Institute of Arts to the many-faceted jewel of its central court because of the harmonious, fertile relationship between "the industrialist" and "the artist." Rivera remarked to Valentiner how especially struck he was that "Edsel had none of the characteristics of the exploiting capitalist, that he had the simplicity and directness of a workman in his won factories and was like one of the best of them." Their relationship was like the murals themselves, a superb expression of pluralism, toleration, and empathy for the other, and of a cosmopolitan sense of all the Americas, not just of the United States of America or Detroit alone. — John Dean

As clear as it is important, the death of Detroit is still mostly ignored. Generally, the slow destruction of a major city would get a fair amount of attention, but the lack of coverage is hardly surprising. After all, the "bad guys" aren't the popular ones. In most circles, condemning taxation, regulation, unionization, welfarism and protectionism is unfashionable. It's necessary to check political correctness at the door and appreciate that the case of Detroit isn't an isolated tragedy. What happened in Detroit could be coming to a city near you. — Dan Greenup

When I came to Detroit, if you threw a stone up in the air and it came down, it would hit an autoworker because the Chrysler Jefferson plant where my husband worked was very close also to where we lived. — Grace Lee Boggs

Most Web activities do not generate jobs and revenue at the rate of past technological breakthroughs. When Ford and General Motors were growing in the early part of the twentieth century, they created millions of jobs and helped build Detroit into a top-tier U.S. city. Today, Facebook creates a lot of voyeuristic pleasure, but the company doesn't employ many people and hasn't done much for Palo Alto; a lot of the "work" is performed more or less automatically by the software and the servers. You could say that the real work is done by its users, in their spare time and as a form of leisure. Web 2.0 is not filling government coffers or supporting many families, even though it's been great for users, programmers, and some information technology specialists. Everyone on the Web has heard of Twitter, but as of Fall 2010, only about three hundred people work there. — Tyler Cowen

All agree that, the first responsibility for the alleviation of poverty and distress and for the care of the victims of the depression rests upon the locality - its individuals, organizations and Government. It rests, first of all, perhaps, upon the private agencies of philanthropy, secondly, other social organizations, and last, but not least, the Church. Yet all agree that to leave to the locality the entire responsibility would result in placing the heaviest burden in most cases upon those who are the least able to bear it. In other words, the communities that have the most difficult problem, like Detroit, would be the communities that would have to bear the heaviest of the burdens. And so the State should step in to equalize the burden by providing for a large portion of the care of the victims of poverty and by providing assistance and guidance for local communities. Above and beyond that duty of the States the national Government has a responsibility. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Oh God almighty, another Detroit monster is Chad Smith of the Chili Peppers. Their music is intoxicating between Flea and Chad Smith. They're contemporary because they're still making good records, but I don't think there's anything new that has a groove and soulfulness. The Chili Peppers just stink of soul-and that's the ultimate compliment. They continue what James Brown created. — Ted Nugent

[S]tart at the turn of the last century, in 1901, with the celebration of Detroit's bicentennial. That was the Detroit that came before--before all the racket that attended the making of the modern world, which happened here first and faster than anywhere else on this planet. — Jerry Herron

My mum's American. She's from Detroit. — Rebecca Hall

Downtown Detroit has more vacant buildings over 10 storeys than any city in the world. — Meg White

In Detroit, in a city that in many cases the world has rejected, that's where God shows up. Every example in the Gospels where God shows up, it's always when the seas are the stormiest, where there is discontinuity. — Clark Durant

I am no stranger to loud music. I've been to a Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels concert. I once dated a woman with two kids. — P. J. O'Rourke

In the 1890's horses, carrying people to work, dropped 4.5 million tons of manure on the streets of Manhattan, every year. That was the big environmental problem of the day. "NYC will be buried in horse manure by 1950!" screamed the headlines. It doesn't matter what your opinion about this was. None of the people living in NY solved the problem despite the 1000s of opinions. People with passion for mechanics in Detroit made something called a car. Problem solved. — James Altucher

From an early age, music was my only thing. You come from Detroit, you learn how to make the most of what you can do best. — Danny Brown

I was born Joseph Lane, but when I applied to the actors union, they said they already had a Joe Lane on the books and I'd have to change my last or first name. I had played the character of Nathan Detroit, whom I liked very much, in 'Guys and Dolls,' so I took the name Nathan. — Nathan Lane

The odor of burning sulphur shifted on the night air, acrid, a little foul. Somewhere, the Canaan dwellers had learned of a supplier of castor - an extract from the beaver's perineal glands. Little packets containing the brown-orange mass of dried animal matter arrived from Detroit at the Post Office's "general delivery." At home, by the kerosene light, the recipients unwrapped the packets. A poor relative sometimes would be given some of the fibrous gland, bitter and smelling slightly like strong human sweat, and the rest would go into a Mason jar. Each night, as prescribed by old Burrifous through his oracle, Ronnie, a litt1e would be mixed with clear spring water. And as it gave the water a creamy, rusty look, the owner would sigh with awe and fear. The creature, wolf or man, became more real through the very specific which was to vanquish him. — Leslie H. Whitten Jr.

Two years ago, George Bush felt prompted to address this issue. More spending on public education, said the president, isn't "the best answer." Mr. Bush went on to caution parents of poor children who see money "as a cure" for education problems. "A society that worships money ... ," said the president, "is a society in peril." The president himself attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts - a school that spends $11,000 yearly on each pupil, not including costs of room and board. If money is a wise investment for the education of a future president at Andover, it is no less so for the child of poor people in Detroit. But the climate of the times does not encourage this belief, and the president's words will surely reinforce that climate. — Jonathan Kozol

Detroit 8-1 vs. Baltimore, Chicago. — Wayne Lynch

Let Detroit go bankrupt. — Mitt Romney

Race always comes up in the conversation of Detroit. — Julie Mehretu

My brother and late sister and I were raised in Detroit; it was where the middle class across racial lines, the middle class was able to develop, build a home, have for the first time retirement benefits, have a job, and yes, their kids began to go to college. — Sander Levin

Faygo's like a Detroit thing, and you can't really find it everywhere, but the difference between Faygo Creme Soda and other cream sodas is that it's foamy. Faygo Creme Soda is almost like Sprite, but it's cream soda, so that's ill! — Danny Brown

That was Sydney Sage," said Lissa. "I thought they were all in West Virginia. Why isn't she with Rose?"
"That," said Abe darkly, "is an excellent question."
"Because they were apparently kidnapping Jill Mastrano in Detroit," said Christian. "Which is weird. But not the craziest thing I can think of Rose doing. — Richelle Mead

I think Detroit is starting to get it. We consider it a victory for the grassroots, CalCars, and the Internet-led effort. — Felix Kramer

I was just about 6 weeks old when we moved to Detroit. — Eddie Floyd

Detroit was an exaggeration of what was going on across the country. You could see the divisions, even within the Civil Rights Movement of that period. At the same time that Martin Luther King was talking about his dream, Malcolm X gave his most famous address in Detroit during that same period, "The Message To The Grass Roots," dismissing the notion of integration. — David Maraniss

There's nowhere like Detroit; it's a modern necropolis: all these art deco masterpieces crumbling away. — Malik Bendjelloul

I'm not super thin, but I'm thin, for like, Detroit — Lena Dunham

Detroit - and I'm not blowing smoke at anybody - is probably the greatest fan sports town in the country. They'll support anything. — William Clay Ford, Sr.

Detroit turned out to be heaven, but it also turned out to be hell. — Marvin Gaye

So, I mean, there's still vast swaths of the city that are suffering from a lack of jobs and poor housing and poor public schools, but they are building momentum - you know, techies, foodies, artists, musicians, all coming to Detroit. So there is this vibrancy. You see it in the newspapers every day - some story about the new Detroit. — David Maraniss

...Americans didn't stick to cities, which makes us different from the people in other industrialized countries. We no sooner arrived in town, turning those towns into great mid-century metropolises, than we decided to take off for the green world beyond, so that by the 1970 Census, we had become the first suburban nation in the history of the world. And Detroit led the way, with a population curve up and down just like everywhere else, but with its urban decline a lot steeper over the past sixty years - so typical a place that it only looks like an exception. — Jerry Herron

So far, Vancouver is my favorite relocation city. It feels like home. Parts of it remind me of the east coast. It's very clean. The food is great. And the people are lovely. Not that I didn't love working in other glamorous locations like Downey, Detroit, Cleveland or Bulgaria ... but, damn, it is fun to be Canadian. — Rachel Nichols

I've gone to Detroit. I've been to Ferguson; I've been to Baltimore, because I want our party to be bigger, better and bolder, and I'm the only one that leads Hillary Clinton in five states that were won by President Obama. I'm a different kind of Republican. — Rand Paul

The civil rights movement didn't deal with the issue of political disenfranchisement in the Northern cities. It didn't deal with the issues that were happening in Northern cities like Detroit, where there was a deep process of deindustrialization going on. So you have this response of angry young people, with a war going on in Vietnam, a poverty program that was insufficient, and police brutality. All these things gave rise to the Black Power Movement. It was not a separation from the civil rights movement, but a continuum of this whole process of democratization. — Danny Glover

The greatest single moment Ive ever known in Detroit was Jim Northrups triple in the seventh game of the World Series in St. Louis. It was a stunning moment because not only were the Tigers winning a world championship that meant so much to an entire city, they were beating the best pitcher I ever saw-Bob Gibson. — Ernie Harwell

I'm the 1st black platinum artist in Detroit, solo artist in Detroit. — Obie Trice

One of the best things I found out about Detroit is that bears have started returning to the city. When bears are gentrifying your neighborhood and opening Thai restaurants, that's a poor neighborhood. — Eugene Mirman

One of my strongest memories is my father playing bongos in the living room in Detroit listening to Motown radio. He was this skinny white bald guy, but he was really moved by blues and Motown and funk. — Sufjan Stevens

It's been a great honor for me to be a player for the Detroit Red Wings, to play for an Original Six franchise. I know I'm far from perfect, but I learned a lot. — Steve Yzerman

The Hell's Angels are very definitely a lower-class phenomenon, but their backgrounds are not necessarily poverty-stricken. Despite some grim moments, their parents seem to have had credit. Most of the outlaws are the sons of people who came to California either just before or during World War II. Many have lost contact with their families, and I have never met an Angel who claimed to have a hometown in any sense that people who use that term might understand it. Terry the Tramp, for instance, is "from" Detroit, Norfolk, Long Island, Los Angeles, Fresno and Sacramento. As a child, he lived all over the country, not in poverty but in total mobility. Like most of the others, he has no roots. He relates entirely to the present, the moment, the action. — Hunter S. Thompson

New Orleans is just a microcosm of Newark and Detroit and hundreds of other troubled urban locales. — Douglas Brinkley

I grew up in Detroit. I grew up in an environment where you were supposed to be Democrat, where they told you that Republicans were evil people and that they were racist. — Benjamin Carson

too. -In the Jets Super Bowl III win over the Colts, Matt Snell would put together the first 100 yard rushing game in Super Bowl history when he carried the ball 30 times for 121 yards and a touchdown. -Singer Aaron Neville was the first person to sing the national anthem at two different Super Bowls. He first did it at Super Bowl XXIV in New Orleans and then did it again at Super Bowl XL in Detroit. -Quarterback Joe Namath won the MVP Award of Super Bowl III without even throwing a touchdown pass. -At one point in Super Bowl XLI the Colts called eight straight rushing plays and all of them were hand offs to running back Dominic Rhodes. --Cowboys running back Duane Thomas was the — Mark Peters

The story of Detroit's bankruptcy was simple enough: Allow capitalism to grow the city, campaign against income inequality, tax the job creators until they flee, increase government spending in order to boost employment, promise generous pension plans to keep people voting for failure. Rinse, wash and repeat. — Ben Shapiro

Detroit is saying that the hydrogen vehicle is the vehicle of the future. But it's 15 years from now. — Ed Markey

The industrial powerhouse of 1950 [Detroit] is now a crime-ridden wasteland with a functioning literacy rate equivalent to West African basket-cases. — Mark Steyn

What our generation failed to learn was the nobility of work. An honest day's labor. The worthiness of the man in the white socks who would pull out a picture of his grandkids from his wallet. For us, the factory would never do. And turning away from our birthright - our grandfather in the white socks - is the thing that ruined us. — Charlie LeDuff

When I came in, the city was on the edge of bankruptcy. I'm proud of what I did. I built the foundation that mayors after me built upon - particularly Bloomberg. But the foundation was essential because if it hadn't occurred, we would have been another Detroit. — Ed Koch

You ingest the automobile in the very air of Detroit. Or at least you did in the 1940s and 1950s. — Edward Herrmann

I believe that Detroit has a terrific geographic position. It still is a hub of one of the most important industries in the world. There's incredible engineering and other talent. — Daniel L. Doctoroff