Hollywoodland Sign Quotes & Sayings

H. L. Mencken called it "the one authentic rectum of civilization," but for most people Hollywood was a place of magic. In 1927, the iconic sign on the hillside above the city actually said HOLLYWOODLAND. It had been erected in 1923 to advertise a real estate development and had nothing to do with motion pictures. The letters, each over forty feet high, were in those days also traced out with electric lights. (The LAND was removed in 1949.) — Bill Bryson

Excerpted From Chapter 18
The most famous sign in the world was only a few hundred yards above me, and the sight of it stopped me in my tracks. The light bulbs surrounding the letters must have been controlled by a timer of some kind because they were off now. But what shocked me was the scale. I was used to seeing the sign from a distance. From this perspective there was no sense of the word HOLLYWOODLAND. All I saw were gigantic letters looming dimly above me in the moonlight like ancient monoliths erected in tribute to the gods of some long-extinct tribe.
A primal feeling of foreboding prickled the hairs on the back of my neck. I could imagine the traveler of an earlier age coming across Stonehenge in the dark and experiencing a similar sensation. — H.P. Oliver

It's just the way things are." she shrugged. "It's no one's fault."
"Or everyone's. — Scott Westerfeld

He's not weird. He's just not exactly like you. — Amber L. Johnson

Imagination is the first faculty wanting in those that do harm to their kind ... — Margaret Oliphant

I think the response I get to one 'New Yorker' cover outweighs five books that I publish. — Adrian Tomine

The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment. Whereas the groanings of the righteous are but short, and their jubilee and triumph shall be everlasting. — Ebenezer Erskine