Detroit History Quotes & Sayings

Since its founding, Detroit has been a place of perpetual flames. Three times the city has suffered race riots and three times the city has burned to the ground. The city's flag acknowledges as much. Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus: We hope for better things; it shall rise from the ashes. — Charlie LeDuff

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

In May of 2010, the newest pitching phenom, Stephen Strasburg, played a minor league game in Syracuse. A huge crowd turned out, the largest in the history of the stadium. The game was broadcast on regional television. Gazing over the enormous crowd, the play-by-play man asked his partner on the air if he had ever seen a pitcher draw such a crowd all by himself. The color commentator, ex-Detroit Tiger pitcher Steve Grilli, answered without hesitation, "Yea, Mark 'The Bird' Fidrych - every time he went out. — Doug Wilson

...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

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

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

General manager Frank Lane made his mark on the club by making several unpopular or unsuccessful trades. Among the guys he traded to other teams are Rocky Colavito, Roger Maris, Norm Cash, and ... manager Joe Gordon? Uh, yes. Lane and Detroit GM Bill DeWitt traded managers - Joe Gordon for Jimmy Dykes. Lane's tenure ended shortly thereafter, long before the damage he caused. — Tucker Elliot

In the fourth grade, my history teacher gave us a project: Why was the auto industry located in Detroit, Michigan? I didn't know I was going to be an economist, but I knew I was going to do something that was involved in answering questions like that one because I thought that was a fascinating question. — Mark Zandi

There ain't no haints in Detroit. — Angela Flournoy

When Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Detroit caught fire. Atlanta caught fire. Los Angeles caught fire. Memphis didn't catch fire... [...] We went under curfew, tanks went up and down the streets, all of that's true. [...] ...And... The city fathers chose this opportunity to tear down a black community that represented black history... — James Luther Dickinson

The first thing I encountered on entering the museum was the earliest steam engine built in England. As I walked on, marveling at each successive mechanical wonder, I realized that I was witnessing the history of machinery, as if on parade, from its primitive beginnings to the present day, in all its complex and astounding elaborations.
Henry Ford's so-called "pile of scrap iron" was organized not only with scientific clarity but with impeccable, unpretentious good taste. Relics of the times associated with each machine were displayed beside it. To me, Greenfield Village, inside and out, was a visual feast. — Diego Rivera

Baseball is known for superstitious players and cursed teams - and at the root of every curse there's a story. Boston's curse was to trade Babe Ruth to the Yankees. Cubs fans claim a billy goat is responsible for their futility. And Cleveland's curse? The club struggled after its Pennant-winning 1954 season, but it was rich with optimism just two years later as an onslaught of new talent promised to lift the club once more to the ranks of baseball's elite - and by 1959 the club was contending for the Pennant again. And then GM Frank Lane traded Rocky Colavito to the Detroit Tigers and cursed everything. — Tucker Elliot

A couple of years ago I was seated in an auditorium in Detroit where Reverend Cleage was explaining to a conference of priests that what they called "black separatists" were in reality men who recognized the implacability of a white-imposed separation. — John Howard Griffin

Very few cities in the NHL have the history or the following of the Detroit Red Wings. — Steve Yzerman

I really like John Legend as an artist and as a person. As well as Lyfe Jennings. Jeezy is good people as well. I like to interview Nick Cannon. He always has something interesting to say. I still enjoy talking to Jay-Z or Nas which was weird since we had so much history. I also enjoyed talking to the Mayor of Detroit as politicians because they need to hear the hip hop side of the community that they don't hear from on a regular basis. — MC Serch