Quotes & Sayings About Kansas City

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, and knowing nothing about Picasso, I had the audacity to knock on his door, became his friend, and took thousands of photographs, of him, his studios, his life and his friends. — David Douglas Duncan

A portrait of the young Charlie Parker with a degree of vivid detail never before approached ... [Kansas City Lightning is] a deft, virtuosic panorama of early jazz ... This is a mind-opening, and mind-filling, book. — Tom Piazza

Compared with Iowa, Kansas City was a strange world. The Halls where she worked was in the most elegant place she'd ever been at that point, a made-up town for shopping, a Fifth Avenue on the prairie (when she got to the real Fifth Avenue, she wasn't very impressed, because the Country Club Plaza had spoiled her). — Jane Smiley

My older brother Mike is an excellent trumpet player. By the time he was 12, he was playing around Kansas City in classical situations. He was already an amazing talent. — Pat Metheny

Because our right to worship freely and safely, that right was denied to Christians in Charleston, South Carolina, and that was denied Jews in Kansas City, and that was denied Muslims in Chapel Hill, and Sikhs in Oak Creek. They had rights too. Our right to peaceful assembly, that right was robbed from movie goers in Aurora and Lafayette. — Barack Obama

Being born in Kansas City, Missouri and raised in the very rural parts of Kansas led me to believe that everything was simple, everything made sense and that anything was possible. — Chely Wright

All I'm saying is we got plenty of Texans, and people from Montana, and New Jersey, and Wyoming, or Kansas City. We got plenty of actors. So we don't need some cat from Cardiff-upon-Rosemary-upon-Thyme, or whatever the hell it is, playing people from Montana. And in the reverse, they got plenty of people from Cardiff-upon-Rosemary-upon-Thyme that they don't need our asses coming over there trying to do British accents. — Billy Bob Thornton

In February of 1972, a snowstorm blew into Kansas City, and I decided to hitchhike to California. The roads were icy, snowflakes howling, and nobody would drive me to the highway, so I humped through the snow and ice and caught a ride with a concerned cop to the Kansas Turnpike. — Daniel Woodrell

I credit Kansas City with my work ethic and learning from the amazing artists that are in that town. — Katherine McNamara

Further south, there are some airports, but none our size. Our airport is the gateway to the southern Kansas City. — James Green

With the Chiefs, you can't live in Kansas City and not like the Chiefs. To go catch a game at Arrowhead is a pretty great experience. I haven't had the chance to go to games anywhere else, but, from what I'm told, I don't really need to. — David Cook

I obviously wanted to play for the Kansas City Royals. (Laughter) I also knew that was far-fetched. The truth is I don't really know what I wanted to do. — Josh Earnest

I have a special feeling for Blue Hills CC, where I won perhaps the most important tournament of my life when I was 14 - the Kansas City Match Play Championship. It gave me a dream of becoming a professional golfer. — Tom Watson

Although I grew up in Kansas City, ... I have always kept more or less au courant of Texas barbecue, like a sports fan who is almost monomaniacally obsessed with basketball but glances over at the N.H.L. standings now and then. — Calvin Trillin

I'm not saying these flying discs don't really exist, but nobody living in Kansas City has seen them and that's a dry state. — Jack Paar

Most of us have complicated backstories, messy histories, multiple narratives. It was a high-wire strategy, for Obama, this invocation of our collective human messiness. His enemies latched on to its imprecision, emphasizing the exotic, un-American nature of Dream City, this ill-defined place where you could be from Hawaii and Kenya, Kansas and Indonesia all at the same time, where you could jive talk like a street hustler and orate like a senator. — Zadie Smith

I have family dotted everywhere - Dad's in California; I've got aunts in Scotland and Virginia; family in Kansas City; family in Manchester and London. — Hayley Atwell

I guess it kind of stemmed from my father. He was a union guy working for the meat plant down in Kansas City. He was a union guy, and I guess it was just in my blood. — David Cone

You learn just by trying and experimenting. By the time I was 14, I had my own comic strip in the Kansas City paper. — Mort Walker

Robert Altman made that movie Kansas City about the jazz scene in the city, and we saw that band all together, and that was an amazing show. That's what I got into. I like jazz. — Nick Kroll

'Hound Dog' took like twelve minutes. That's not a complicated piece of work. But the rhyme scheme was difficult. Also the metric structure of the music was not easy. 'Kansas City' was maybe eight minutes, if that. Writing the early blues was spontaneous. You can hear the energy in the work. — Jerry Leiber

I talked with Quentin about where the character came from, and he told me Kansas City. I don't know how somebody talks from Kansas City, so I made him from New York. — Steve Buscemi

I did not go to fashion school. I arrived in New York in 1986 from Kansas City and was working as accessories editor for Mademoiselle Magazine. While working at Mademoiselle I noticed that the market lacked stylish and sensible handbags, so I decided to create my own. — Kate Spade

It was my first time in Kansas City. In about two or three days I had a gig at a place called The Monroe Inn. — Jay McShann

Like every other place, I guess, Kansas City was quite a different city when I was a youngster there. They had quite a few clubs, and we had what we used to call jam sessions every night. — Ben Webster

I have been robbed of three million dollars all told. Everyone today is playing my stuff and I don't even get credit. Kansas City style, Chicago style, New Orleans style hell, they're all Jelly Roll style. — Jelly Roll Morton

I never thought I would be the oldest quarterback in the National Football League at one point, not in a million years. I never thought I would play as long as I did, either, seventeen years from start to finish, with stops in Houston, Minnesota, Seattle, and Kansas City. — Warren Moon

Whenever I'm in Kansas City, I think back to all the jazz-blues greats who played the blues here - like Count Basie, Charlie Parker and Jay McShann. I watched those guys jam in different places and heard a lot of things - but I couldn't do what they did. They were too good. — B.B. King

I was Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. As you know, there are twelve banks and they have their citizens board, and I got elected to the Fed Chairmanship for the Federal Reserve Kansas City Bank back in the mid-'90s. It might have been 1995-'96. — Herman Cain

The first professional training I received of any kind was when I was 14 years old and we were in Kansas City, Missouri. I attended the Kansas City Art Institute for one summer. — Marc Davis

Kansas City, that's like in Kansas, right?" I ask. "Missouri," Frank and Dad both correct. — Julie Cross

Gone to Kansas City, Nick thought. For all I know, that could be it, too. Everybody left on the poor sad planet picked up by the Hand of God and either rocked in the everlasting harms of Same or set down again in Kansas City. — Stephen King

Government barriers on Business For example, the Endangered Species Act prevents 'disturbing the habitat' of the spotted owl. That has restricted 4.2 million acres of forest from development, leading to the loss of 30,000 lumber-related jobs and the annual loss of 1.1 billion board feet of lumber. This has driven up the cost of houses by at least $4,000 each. In addition, regulators ordered a Kansas City bank to install a Braille keypad on its drive-through automatic teller machine, presumably to aid any blind drivers. The list goes on and on. — Rush Limbaugh

The year after I graduated from high school, they came to shoot 'Mr. and Mrs. Bridge' in Kansas City. — Jason Wiles

I mean, people need to remember without the grassroots, Ronald Reagan probably doesn't become president of the United States of America and he worked the grassroots on a regular basis during his political career and especially between the years of 1976 and 1980 after the loss in Kansas City. — Michael Reagan

What I love about jazz is that it's full of legends, full of myths. It's an oral history because it started in New Orleans and Kansas City, under the radar. — Damien Chazelle

I think you need to, as an architect, understand the essence of a place and create a building that feels like it resonates with the culture of a place. So my buildings in India or in Kansas City or in Arkansas or in Singapore, they come out different because the places are so different. — Moshe Safdie

Philanthropy Advantage provides the best nonprofit business consulting in Kansas city, USA. As a leading Microsoft Dynamic CRM consultant in the Kansas city, we are specialized in providing high end MS CRM solutions for Nonprofit and foundations. — Matthew Walker

Kansas City Lightning succeeds as few biographies of jazz musicians have ... This book is a magnificent achievement; I could hardly put it down. — Henry Louis Gates

I spent a majority of my life in Kansas City, so I am a Chiefs and Royals guy. I used to work for the Royals for like five years in the suites department and in the stadium club restaurant. — David Cook

Nobody knows this, but one of us has just been traded to Kansas City. — Casey Stengel

Many of us can't go home again, whether home is Seville, Cabo Sur, Nastas, Havana, or Kansas City. Thus, we must recognize that home really lies in the eternal peace, dormant or conscious, that dwells in each human heart ... Quote from "Ms. Quixote Goes Country", a truthful novel. — LEVega

It has long been acknowledged that the single best restaurant in the world is Arthur Bryant's Barbecue at Eighteenth and Booklyn in Kansas city. — Calvin Trillin

There are people walking around the streets of Kansas City who are unemployed, while one of our largest employers is not only sending jobs aboard, but then turning around and making a statement about preserving jobs. — Emanuel Cleaver

Starbucks has stores in America in many, many communities that are governed by many, many different municipalities. Starbucks cannot dictate to a municipality in Cincinnati or Kansas City or Sacramento how or why or when there should be a recycling program. — Howard Schultz

The E Street band casts a pretty wide net. Our influences go all the way back to the early primitive garage music, and also, we've had everything in the band from jazz players to Kansas City trumpet players to Nils Lofgren, one of the great rock guitarists in the world. — Bruce Springsteen

In spite of the incident, my experience in Kansas City was wonderful and I thank all the warm and supportive people, including so many veterans, who came to welcome me last night. — Jane Fonda

I feel so fortunate to have grown up in a town like Kansas City that has such a vibrant theater community. — Katherine McNamara

Daddy, how come in Kansas City the bagels taste like just round bread? — Calvin Trillin

Indians love baseball," jokes Charlie Hill, "but we don't set up camp in the ballpark! Hey, if the Atlanta Braves think that using Indians as mascots is simply harmless fun, then why not have them dress up some white guy in a three-piece suit and have him shuffle around a mobile home parked in the middle of the outfield every time their team scores a hit? Or how about changing the names of a few of these sports teams? Why not have the Atlanta White Boys or the Kansas City Caucasians or the Chicago Negroes, the Washington Jews or New York Rednecks?" My — MariJo Moore

Most confidence games depend on the mark not knowing they're being conned. The Kansas City Shuffle depends on the mark knowing it. Not only do they have to see you coming, they have to figure out your entire plan before it happens." "Problem being," Corman said, "they're working to stop the wrong con. You get 'em looking left, while you rob 'em blind on the right." "We can't take the coin out of the building," I said, "but Royce can. So let's give him a reason to do it. — Craig Schaefer

If you're playing for the Kansas City Royals about all you can do is beat your head against the wall. — John Kruk

If Shakespeare had been in pro basketball, he never would have had time to write his soliloquies. He would have always been on a plane between Phoenix and Kansas City. — Paul Westhead

At Kansas City, Kansas, before the saloons were closed, they were getting ready to build an addition to the jail. Now the doors swing idly on the hinges and there is nobody to lock in the jails. — Billy Sunday

Growing up in Kansas City, I was always neat, the teacher's pet, know-it-all type. — Gretchen Rubin

The hero surviving his own murder, his own suicide, his own addiction, surviving his own disappearance from the scene — Allen Ginsberg

The first comic book I ever bought, I was in third grade. It was 'Avengers,' I think, #240. I grew up in Kansas City. And I walked into a 7-11. I had seen, like, 'The Hulk' TV series. I knew about comic book heroes. I knew about it, but I hadn't actually had a physical comic in my hands until that time. And it was a big deal for me. — David Dastmalchian

While I was writing the book, I went to see Louise Brooks's most famous film, Pandora's Box, at the Tivoli in Kansas City, and it was a lovely experience. You can watch old silent films on DVD or even on YouTube, but it was a different feeling watching her up on the big screen, seeing the film the way people saw it all those years ago. — Laura Moriarty

And the City, in its own way, gets down for you, cooperates, smoothing its sidewalks, correcting its curbstones, offering you melons and green apples on the corner. Racks of yellow head scarves; strings of Egyptian beads. Kansas fried chicken and something with raisins call attention to an open window where the aroma seems to lurk. And if that's not enough, doors to speakeasies stand ajar and in that cool dark place a clarinet coughs and clears its throat waiting for the woman to decide on the key. She makes up her mind and as you pass by informs your back that she is daddy's little angel child. The City is smart at this: smelling and good and looking raunchy; sending secret messages disguised as public signs: this way, open here, danger to let colored only single men on sale woman wanted private room stop dog on premises absolutely no money down fresh chicken free delivery fast. And good at opening locks, dimming stairways. Covering your moans with its own. — Toni Morrison

There were canvases in our backseat. We had tried to flog them at Max's Kansas City the night before, but we had failed. Paintings that nobody wanted. Still, we had carefully arranged them so they wouldn't get scratched. We had even placed bits of styrofoam between them to keep them from rubbing one another. if only we had been so careful with ourselves. — Colum McCann

Cowgirl Interlude (Bonanza Jellybean)
She is lying on the family sofa in flannel pajamas. There is Kansas City mud on the tips and heels of her boots, boots that have yet to savor real manure. Fourteen, she knows she ought to remove her boots, yet she refuses. A Maverick rerun is on TV; she is eating beef jerky, occasionally slurping. On her upper stomach, where her pajama top has ridden up, is a small deep scar. She tells everyone, including her school nurse, that it was made by a silver bullet.
Whatever the origin of the extra hole in her belly, there are unmistakable signs of gunfire int he woodwork by the closet door. It was there that she once shot up one half of an old pair of sneakers. "Self-defense," she pleaded, when her parents complained. "It was a [sic] out-law tennis shoe.
Billy the Ked. — Tom Robbins

Growing up in the Midwest, I was very close to my maternal grandmother, who, as a young widow running a small business in 1920s Kansas City, had known firsthand the old Pendergast regime and its classic combine of politics and organized crime. — Roger Morris

Huddled in her mink in the Kansas City airport, she had a vision of women writing about sex as openly as male writers, but quite, quite differently. Some women would treat sex much as men did,as conquest, as adventure
in a way as McCarthy had. Other women would treat female sexuality far less romantically then men who did not consider themselves romantics, like Hemingway, were wont to. The earth would not move, no, there would be more biology and less theatrics. Women had less ego involvement in sex than men did, but far more at stake economically. — Marge Piercy

We the People - shelling the Vietcong — Allen Ginsberg

I don't know if I want to go to New York. They'll have to pay me a lot more money because I like it here in Kansas City. — Roger Maris

From the time I won the Kansas City Match Play championship at age 14, I never wanted to be anything but a golfer. — Tom Watson

And now to sleep, to dream...perchance to fart. — Anthony Bourdain

I was able to work with the best musicians in Kansas City starting when I was really young. — Pat Metheny

Ev'rythin's up to date in Kansas City. — Oscar Hammerstein II

We were 6-4 and everybody doubted us. We lost to the Kansas City Chiefs and that week we had a players meeting and really talked about where we really want to go. It's not about the record. At the end of the day it comes down to are we going to keep focusing on each other and are we going to keep getting better day by day? We ignored the noise, we ignored all the talk from the outside. — Russell Wilson

Well, I got pretty good and went on the road with a group. We starved. At that time I didn't realize that you'd work one gig in Kansas City, the next in Florida and the next gig will be in Louisville. You know, a thousand miles a night. That was really rough, man. — Wes Montgomery

And Kansas City is at Chicago tonight, or is it Chicago at Kansas City? Well, no matter as Kansas City leads in the eighth 4 to 4. — Jerry Coleman

Over a 10-season stretch from 1967 to 1976, eight Super Bowl champions either were the Raiders or had to beat the Raiders in the playoffs. The Jets, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Baltimore Colts, Miami, the Steelers each of the first two times ... we all had to deal with the Raiders. — Joe Greene

Kansas City, I would say, did more for jazz music, black music, than any other influence at all. Almost all their joints that they had there, they used black bands. Most musicians who amounted to anything, they would flock to Kansas City because that's the place where jobs were plentiful. — Jesse Stone

I'm not one to insist that a man can't possibly make it without a lot of formal education, since my own formal education pretty much stopped when I graduated from Independence High School in 1901. And then there was a twenty-two-year gap, while I worked on a farm and as a railroad timekeeper and served in the Army and did a lot of other things, before I started to attend night classes at Kansas City Law School - and I left there in 1925 and never got a degree. But I've tried to increase my knowledge all my life by reading and reading and reading, — Harry Truman

The people who say: 'You are what you eat' have always seemed addled to me. In my opinion, you are what you think, and if you don't think, you can eat all the meat in Kansas City and still be nothing but a vegetable. — Russell Baker

My first job was with an auto plant, Kansas City - they treated you like slaves. From there I went back to Chicago, worked in steel mills, drove a cab, stuff like that. — Ed Asner

When I was a prosecutor in Kansas City, my job was to fight for justice and safety for all citizens in my community. Equal access to justice under the law is an American value embedded in the fabric of our legal and political system - the idea that anybody, powerful or not, can have their day in court. — Claire McCaskill

When I was in Kansas City everything was going well for me. My marriage was good and I was very successful in baseball but something was missing in my life. That something was Christ. Every human being is born with a little defect in his heart. That defect is a hole in the heart that can only be filled by Jesus Christ. — Carlos Beltran

Where else but in America could a schoolteacher from Kansas City end up the governor of her adopted state? — Jane D. Hull

I really like Kansas City Royals stadium - Kauffman Stadium. — Bert Blyleven

I remember when I got a call and was told I was traded [to the Yankees in 1974], I actually cried because I liked Kansas City. But coming to the Yankees was the best thing that ever happened to me in my baseball career. — Lou Piniella

I was at the 1976 Republican Convention in Kansas City. I was running 'Nobody for President' at the time. I printed up these press releases and handed them out to the crowd at the Kemper Arena. 'Nobody keeps campaign promises.' 'Nobody lowers your taxes.' 'Nobody should have that much power.' 'Nobody is in Washington working for you.' — Wavy Gravy

I grew up in Arkansas and that's the law. My dad was a high school basketball coach, so I was raised as a coach's son and I was a baseball player back in Arkansas, and I lived in Texas, too, so I was just surrounded by sports. So that's what I was going to do: Pitch for the St Louis Cardinals. I had no idea I was going to be an actor. So I got my collar bone broken in the Kansas City Royals training camp. And once I got hurt I started doing other things for a while. — Billy Bob Thornton

Fear of black independence and self-determination took a Freudian form: rape hysteria. In one town after another, racial violence was sparked by rumors that a Negro had harmed a white woman. This happened in Washington; Omaha, Neb.; Kansas City, Kan.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Longview, Tex.; and Rosewood, Fla. — Anonymous

Theater owners dodged construction costs, cutting corners and employing nonunion labor. Shoddy methods caused the death of vaudeville comedian Rube Dickinson in Kansas City. Booked at a brand-new venue, Dickinson stepped outside to have a smoke and was standing underneath the large wooden marquee advertising him when it collapsed. As the marquee caved, so too did his head - killed under the weight of his own name. — Kliph Nesteroff

Although I grew up in London, I spent summers in Missouri, where my dad lived. It's quite a liberal town, Kansas City. You'd be surprised. — Hayley Atwell

On the rare occasions when my family talked about business, the subject was Kansas City's Boss Pendergast and his potential for muscling my dad's small gravel-and-sand operation. — Carol Loomis

Bain also asked Kansas City for a $3 million tax break. The Bain executives were taking home $36 million in borrowed funds and were asking Kansas City to forfeit $3 million in public money for police officers, roads and schools? More free stuff! — Jennifer Granholm

I cant think of anything more humiliating than losing a ballgame to a guy who steals home on you. It happened to me one time against Kansas City. I had a 2-2 count on the hitter - and Amos Otis broke from third. The pitch was a ball and slid in safe. I felt like a nickel. — Nolan Ryan

I like Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. With the waterfall and things like that, I think it's pretty cool. — CC Sabathia

In river rescues, members of the Kansas City Fire Department rescue squad yell profanity-laced threats at victims before they get to them. If they don't, the victim will grab on to them and push them under the water in a mad scramble to stay afloat. "We try to get their attention. And we don't always use the prettiest language," says Larry Young, a captain in the rescue division. "I hope I don't offend you by saying this. But if I approach Mrs. Suburban Housewife and say, 'When I get to you, do not fucking touch me! I will leave you if you touch me!' she tends to listen. — Amanda Ripley

It isn't necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy. — Groucho Marx

If I had the hand strength to sign autographs for everybody in Kansas City, I would ... but its just impossible to get to everyone. — Dante Hall

August in Kansas City is hotter than two rats f**king in a sock. — Ichiro Suzuki

With a lot of help from my high school teachers, I went to college and became a medical tech at a clinic outside Kansas City. — Karolyn Grimes

Shon was the man in charge of the biggest drug operation in Kansas City, Missouri. When he was fourteen years old, he was put on by one of the biggest drug dealers KC has ever seen. He went by the name of Big Tone. When Shon came to Tone looking for work, he wasn't feeling it. He didn't like the idea of a fourteen-year-old working for him. But as time went by, Tone gave in; he like that Shon was persistent. Shon would show up every week at the coffee shop downtown that Tone chilled at on Sundays, until Tone put him on. He took Shon under his wing and gave it to him straight, no chaser. Before long, Shon and his boys were moving dumb weight for Tone. Tone took a real liking to Shon; he started to look at him as a son he never had. He knew Shon would go far in his line of work. — Shaniqua Desha

I rent a small brick bungalow within a loop of other small brick bungalows, all of which squat on a massive bluff overlooking the former stockyards of Kansas City. Kansas City, Missouri, not Kansas City, Kansas. There's a difference. — Gillian Flynn