San Quotes & Sayings

This was in San Francisco, in 1987. A bunch of kids were camped out in the Riviera Hotel - boy hustlers and their sugar daddy. One boy, Tank, showed us his gun. 'It's not loaded,' he said. He pointed the gun to his head, then out the window, and then to the ceiling. When the gun was pointed to the ceiling, he pulled the trigger and it went off. The gun was loaded after all. — Jim Goldberg

The history of the world shows that peoples and societies do not have to pass through a fixed series of stages in the course of development. — Aung San Suu Kyi

I love that there are beaches you can walk your dog on in San Francisco. Fort Funston is big and always packed with hundreds of dogs and their people. A great place to hike and get some exercise and fresh air with your well-mannered pup. Not recommended for antisocial dogs; there's just too much commotion there. — Jane Wiedlin

He talked a lot about girls, too. His brother, Sam Houston Johnson, recalls that more than once, when he visited his brother at San Marcos, Lyndon, coming back into the room naked after a shower, would take his penis in his hand, and say: "Well, I've gotta take ol' Jumbo here and give him some exercise. I wonder who I'll fuck tonight. — Robert A. Caro

I am the grandson of immigrants from Japan who went to America, boldly going to a strange new world, seeking new opportunities. My mother was born in Sacramento, California. My father was a San Franciscan. They met and married in Los Angeles, and I was born there. — George Takei

I've been interested in China ever since I was a kid. When I was a kid, I grew up in San Francisco about a mile from China Beach. — Russell Freedman

If you do not learn to deny yourself, you can make no progress in perfection. — San Juan De La Cruz

A natural disaster in one American city is a natural disaster in every American city, including Fresno and, for that matter, every city and small town in the San Joaquin Valley, — Alan Autry

The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear — Aung San Suu Kyi

I have done more for San Francisco than any of its old residents. Since I left there it has increased in population fully 300,000. I could have done more - I could have gone earlier - it was suggested. — Mark Twain

Sammy Sosa grew up without a father in the back of a converted public hospital in San Pedro de Macoris, a dusty seaside town in the Dominican Republic. His father, Juan Montero, died when Sosa was 5. — Bill Dedman

My grandfather was an architect, and his father, and his father; one of them built houses only for millionaires in California, and that was where the family wealth came from, and one of them was certain that houses could be made to stand on the sand dunes of San Francisco, and that was where the family wealth went. — Shirley Jackson

If a man wishes to be sure of the road he's traveling on, then he must close his syes and travel in the dark. — San Juan De La Cruz

Few literary depictions of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake match the intensity and visceral power of those in Flacco's gripping first novel. The author's screenwriting talent shines in this story of the earth's destructive power and humanity's moral depravity. The emerging maniacal personality, revealed in increasingly gruesome and venomous detail, rivals the Ripper.Dickens meets Hannibal Lecter. Brace yourself. — William Bernhardt

If you feel helpless, go help someone. — Aung San Suu Kyi

In general people feel more relaxed about participating in politics. They aren't frightened as they used to be. — Aung San Suu Kyi

I live a half mile from the San Andreas fault - a fact that bubbles up into my consciousness every time some other part of the world experiences an earthquake. I sometimes wonder whether this subterranean sense of impending disaster is at least partly responsible for Silicon Valley's feverish, get-it-done-yesterday work norms. — Gary Hamel

This (San Francisco) is the most beautiful city in America, Probably because it looks nothing like America — Ilya Ilf

The will's operation is quite distinct from the will's feeling: By its operation, which is love, the will is united with God and terminates in him, and not by the feeling and gratification of its appetite that remains in the soul and goes no further. The feelings only serve as stimulants to love, if the will desires to pass beyond them; and they serve for no more. Thus the delightful feelings do not of themselves lead the soul to God, but rather cause it to become attached to delightful feelings. But the operation of the will, which is the love of God, concentrates the affection, joy, plea sure, satisfaction, and love of the soul only on God, leaving aside all things and loving him above them all. — San Juan De La Cruz

One person alone can't do anything as important as bringing genuine democracy to a country. — Aung San Suu Kyi

When you work with web design companies in San Francisco, you end up with a bunch of twenty-somethings who have their own cultural peculiarities, including obscurity for its own sake. You give those guys a website for a banking institution and they screw it up, because they are designing for themselves. — Brenda Laurel

What does Burma have to give the United States? We can give you the opportunity to engage with people who are ready and willing to change a society. — Aung San Suu Kyi

The San Francisco skyline sparkles in the distance, the bay spread out before it like a shark-infested welcome mat. — T.T. Monday

McDonald's, meanwhile, continues busily to harass small shopkeepers and restaurateurs of Scottish descent for that nationality's uncompetitive predisposition toward the Mc prefix on its surnames. The company sued the McAl an's sausage stand in Denmark; the Scottish-themed sandwich shop McMunchies in Buckinghamshire; went after Elizabeth McCaughey's McCoffee shop in the San Francisco Bay Area; and waged a twenty-six-year battle against a man named Ronald McDonald whose McDonald's Family Restaurant in a tiny town in Il inois had been around since 1956. — Naomi Klein

Google has already tested robot cars in San Francisco. If they can navigate San Francisco, they can probably manage just about anywhere. — Norman Foster

San Francisco is one of the great cultural plateaus of the world - one of the really urbane communities in the United States - one of the truly cosmopolitan places and for many, many years, it always has had a warm welcome for human beings from all over the world — Duke Ellington

Could be off one of your own boats, Lavette," Whittier said. "The crab I mean." Whittier was hostile, contriving his hostility in witless remarks. Dan said nothing, only thinking that if this small, pompous, foolish man, so uninformed about the essence of his own business, was a measure of the hundred tycoons who ruled the hills of San Francisco, then his own way up would be none too difficult. It came down to money; if you had money, you functioned and you could do without guts or brains; and if you had money, you saw a girl like Jean Sheldon more than once, more than by accident. — Howard Fast

I haven't heard any music on the BBC World Service in a long time. Maybe I'm listening at the wrong times. But not one single piece of music. — Aung San Suu Kyi

Now that I no longer desire all, I have it all without desire. — San Juan De La Cruz

Weak logic, inconsistencies and alienation from the people are common features of authoritarianism. The relentless attempts of totalitarian regimes to prevent free thought and new ideas and the persistent assertion of their own lightness bring on them an intellectual stasis which they project on to the nation at large. Intimidation and propaganda work in a duet of oppression, while the people, lapped in fear and distrust, learn to dissemble and to keep silent. — Aung San Suu Kyi

We're going to San Francisco. The flowers in your hair are optional. — Neil Gaiman

We will surely get to our destination if we join hands. — Aung San Suu Kyi

This is nothing more than a public land grab for private profit. The BLM is literally giving this away to corporations ... This may be out in the desert today, but tomorrow it could be in your backyard ... Already over a dozen projects are proposed in San Diego and Imperial County. — Robert Scheid

The one thing that might have stopped San Bernardino, that might have stopped 9/11 would have been stricter controls on those who came here. — Ted Cruz

I worry that even those who want to reform are not quite sure how to go about it. There is so much to be done. — Aung San Suu Kyi

To be forgotten, is to die a little. — Aung San Suu Kyi

Suffering degrades, embitters and enrages. — Aung San Suu Kyi

I think Hitchcock had a thing about hills: think of the house on the hill in 'Psycho.' Then, in 'Vertigo,' Scottie is forever traversing the city, going downhill all the time as he goes deeper and deeper into himself. It's as if Hitchcock is using San Francisco as a psychological map. — Allen Coulter

Zeena's first published sermon at 7 years old. From "The Cloven Hoof" periodical, 1970, San Francisco, CA, USA.:
"The question, 'What is the difference between God and Satan?,' was put to Zeena LaVey, seven-year-old daughter of the High Priest. Her answer was ...
'SATAN MADE THE ROSE AND GOD MADE THE THORNS. — Zeena Schreck

I didn't like Los Angeles very much but I like San Francisco. — Mick Ralphs

The Rough Riders brought honor to San Antonio by winning battles in Cuba throughout the summer of 1898, and Roosevelt became a Texas folk hero overnight. — Douglas Brinkley

Well, in San Francisco if someone's against you, they know how to vote you out of an area. If someone's against you in Louisiana, or if I wrote a book and they did not like it or me in Louisiana, they might shoot me anytime. — Ernest J. Gaines

I started sfCiti because I believed that technology companies needed to take a 'One City' approach and build a shared sense of community and civic responsibility in San Francisco. — Ron Conway

I was in Tower Records in San Francisco a few weeks ago, buying some cassettes, and a couple of people recognized me and ran up with albums, and I just wanted to cover my face and have a seizure or something. I want people to just go away. — Christine McVie

Declaring the San Gabriel Mountains a national monument will make this natural wonder more accessible. It will welcome people from all walks of life and maintain the mountains' wild character at the same time. — Frances Beinecke

We don't want sympathetic liberals, we want gays to represent gays ... I represent the gay street people-the 14-year-old runaway from San Antonio. We have to make up for hundreds of years of persecution. We have to give hope to that poor runaway kid from San Antonio. They go to the bars because churches are hostile. They need hope! They need a piece of the pie! — Harvey Milk

Julie nearly fainted when I showed up at home that night with the new Lexus. The first thing she wanted to do was drive it. I let her drive all over San Francisco with the windows rolled up, because we didn't want to lose one precious whiff of that new-car smell. — Lee Goldberg

Sometimes it was hard to breathe, knowing how small my world could be. Maybe in San Francisco it wouldn't feel like the universe was conspiring to keep me in a bubble. — Heather Demetrios

In the end, I think people prefer the good to win rather than the bad. — Aung San Suu Kyi

To crank up a noisy bad stance out in a place like San Francisco and start yelling about "getting things done in Washington" is like sitting far back in the end zone seats at the Super Bowl and screaming at the Miami linebackers "Stop Duane Thomas! — Hunter S. Thompson

Why is she afraid?" he asked. "She's not Anjin-san. Just a little nervous. Please excuse her. She's never seen a foreigner close to before." "Tell her when the moon's full, barbarians sprout horns and fire comes out of our mouths like dragons. — James Clavell

I would love to shoot in San Francisco permanently. It would be such a joy to come back home full circle. — Michael Trucco

All through my twenties, I lived in very walkable cities - Philadelphia, San Francisco, and New York. — Elizabeth Banks

As the mother of the ten-month-old hospitalized in San Diego said, if people want to make that choice, they should go live on an island with its own schools and doctors: "their own little infectious disease island. — Deborah Blum

But, Mameha-san, I don't want kindness!"
"Don't you? I thought we all wanted kindness. Perhaps what you mean is that you want something more than kindness. And that is something you're in no position to ask. — Arthur Golden

Vancouver is the most wonderful place. I put it up there with San Francisco and Sydney as a kind of magic sort of harbor city. — Terence Stamp

It is essential to institute a legal framework that would ensure justice and improve the quality of life in Burma immediately, because the greatest suffering among the people at the moment is caused by lack of justice and lack of the rule of law. — Aung San Suu Kyi

Christ, invisible to the bodily eye, manifests Himself on earth clearly through His Church ... The Church is the Body of Christ both because its parts are united to Christ through His divine mysteries and because through her Christ works in the world. — John Of Shanghai And San Francisco

It cannot be doubted that in most countries today women, in comparison to men, still remain underprivileged. — Aung San Suu Kyi

My childhood was spent in my local library in a San Diego suburb. It's where I became a writer - by 1st becoming a reader! — Tess Gerritsen

Lawful residents of San Francisco are being stripped of their freedom because of an illegal measure that defies common sense. I believe that we will prevail. — Wayne LaPierre

The democracy process provides for political and social change without violence. — Aung San Suu Kyi

When I first came into the league, I was with Tim Dwight in San Diego, and a guy named Eric Parker, who really showed me the work ethic it takes to be an NFL receiver, and I've really tried to keep that with me. — Wes Welker

O how gently and how lovingly dost thou lie awake in the depth and centre of my soul, where thou in secret and in silence alone, as its sole Lord, abidest, not only as in Thine own house or in Thine own chamber, but also as within my own bosom, in close and intimate union. — San Juan De La Cruz

I got lucky. I won the San Francisco Stand-Up Comedy Competition in 1977 while I was still at San Francisco State. — Dana Carvey

I always wanted to travel around and see lots of America, I'd never been to Boston, I'd never been to San Francisco even, so I'm quite excited to just go the places. — Noel Fielding

I'm originally from San Francisco. I might move there some day. But, I like L.A., I have fun in L.A. It's a fun town if you've got money in your pocket. It's a good town. — Sam Rockwell

WHO'S GOT A TAMPON? I JUST GOT MY PERIOD, I will announce loudly to nobody in particular in a women's bathroom in a San Francisco restaurant, or to a co-ed dressing room of a music festival in Prague, or to the unsuspecting gatherers in a kitchen at a party in Sydney, Munich, or Cincinnati. Invariably, across the world, I have seen and heard the rustling of female hands through backpacks and purses, until the triumphant moment when a stranger fishes one out with a kind smile. No money is ever exchanged. The unspoken universal understanding is: Today, it is my turn to take the tampon. Tomorrow, it shall be yours. There is a constant, karmic tampon circle. It also exists, I've found, with Kleenex, cigarettes, and ballpoint pens. — Amanda Palmer

Freedom and democracy are dreams you never give up. — Aung San Suu Kyi

McDermott and two colleagues - James H. Fowler of the University of California, San Diego, and Nicholas A. Christakis of Harvard University - published a paper titled 'Breaking Up is Hard to Do, Unless Everyone Else is Doing it Too.' Their study shows that divorce can spread like a virus among friends, siblings and co-workers. — Katie Hafner

If I'm still wistful about On the Road, I look on the rest of the Kerouac oeuvre
the poems, the poems!
in horror. Read Satori in Paris lately? But if I had never read Jack Kerouac's horrendous poems, I never would have had the guts to write horrendous poems myself. I never would have signed up for Mrs. Safford's poetry class the spring of junior year, which led me to poetry readings, which introduced me to bad red wine, and after that it's all just one big blurry condemned path to journalism and San Francisco. — Sarah Vowell

19. Before the divine fire is introduced into the substance of the soul and united with it through perfect and complete purgation and purity, its flame, which is the Holy Spirit, wounds the soul by destroying and consuming the imperfections of its bad habits. And this is the work of the Holy Spirit, in which he disposes it for divine union and transformation in God through love. The very fire of love that afterward is united with the soul, glorifying it, is what previously assailed it by purging it, just as the fire that penetrates a log of wood is the same that first makes an assault on the wood, wounding it with the flame, drying it out, and stripping it of its unsightly qualities until it is so disposed that it can be penetrated and transformed into the fire. Spiritual writers call this activity the purgative way. — San Juan De La Cruz

Horacio paused to pour himself another glass of brandy. "Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you, Prudencia? You can't build yourself a world made to measure, but you can build a village. In a way, all of us here belong to a club of refugees. Your employer is one of the few inhabitants with family roots in San Ireneo. He came back a few years ago and set it all up. You may not know it, but his father's family has lived here for centuries." Miss — Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera

Maybe I should call Aaya!(Shigure)
If you call him ... (Yuki)
I'll make you eat that phone.(Kyou)
-Shigure-san,Yuki-san, Kyou-kun Shoma — Natsuki Takaya

Ritsu: Please, Onii-san, please write with takoyaki power!
Mitsuru: Yes, sensei! With ikyayaki or takoyaki or whatever it takes! Write quickly, without hesitation! Ah ... Um ... W-what is takoyaki power?
Ritsu: Well, that is
! When Shigure-niisan eats takoyaki, he transforms into a great warrior ...
Shigure: No I don't. — Natsuki Takaya

I don't want Burma to be a basket case forever. — Aung San Suu Kyi

At the suggestion of Professor Itaru Watanabe, and with his help, I left Japan at the age of twenty-three to pursue graduate study at the University of California at San Diego. — Susumu Tonegawa

Encino is a small community in the San Fernando Valley smashed up against and completely indistinguishable from all other Valley communities. You can drive from one to the other, passing the same dry cleaners, dubious sushi restaurants, and gas stations, without so much as a sign to mark your transition. It does, frankly, matter much where are you. If anything at all marks Encino from its clone neighbors, it's that it isn't aging quite as well. Sherman Oaks and Woodland Hills have kept their figures and shown up on time for regular collagen injections while Encino is really starting to let itself go. — Ashley Ream

I went to college in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University ... studied acting there. Then I went to New York for about five years. I moved out here about 10 years ago. — Laura San Giacomo

I missed my entrance in a production of 'Blade to the Heat' at Thick Description in San Francisco. I came into the scene very late and hugged the punching bag. I had no idea what to do! Unfortunately, that mishap was recorded for archives at UC Berkeley. It goes down in history. — Colman Domingo

I don't think you can work on feelings in politics, apart from anything else, political change can come very unexpectedly, sometimes overnight when you least expect it. — Aung San Suu Kyi

Of agitating good roads there is no end, and perhaps this is as it should be, but I think you'll agree that it is high time to agitate less and build more. [Here is] a plan whereby the automobile industry of America can build a magnificent "Appian Way" from New York to San Francisco, having it completed by May 1, 1915 and present it to the people of the United States. — Carl G. Fisher

Industry, the "enigmatic municipality, [that] sprawls across the map of the San Gabriel Valley like an underfed dragon — Victor Valle

A lot of the roads, bridges, railways, and such are built through the use of forced labor, and that is causing the people great suffering. What we put into this in the form of human suffering is not worth what comes out of it. — Aung San Suu Kyi

If San Francisco is indeed a city of leaders, then I think we should lead, and if we don't want a chain store, then we should say so loudly. — Chicken John

We pray that Aung San Suu Kyi and her country are now on a path to freedom — Desmond Tutu

Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.
Cesar Chavez
Address to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Nov. 9, 1984 — Cesar Chavez

Outside the gates of the finca, watching the passing rows of tin-roofed shacks which represented the residential section of San Francisco de Paula, I began to think about The Old Man and the Sea, and I realized it was Ernest's counterattack against those who had assaulted him for Across the River. It was an absolutely perfect counterattack and I envisioned a row of snickering carpies bearing the likenesses of Dwight Macdonald and Louis Kronenberger and E.B. White, who in the midst of cackling, "Through! Washed Up! Kaput!" suddenly grab their groins and keel over. It is a rather elementary military axiom that he who attacks must anticipate the counterattack, but the critics, poor boys, would never make General Staff. As Ernest once said, "One battle doesn't make a campaign but critics treat one book, good or bad, like a whole goddamn war. — A. E. Hotchner

When I started Sosa & Associates, there were only 3 million Latinos in the U.S. and only four Hispanic-specialized marketing agencies.I had one little goal for our small San Antonio-based agency: to be the largest Hispanic-specialized agency in the United States. We planned for our success and achieved our goal. — Lionel Sosa

thunder should have rumbled in a Robert Mitchum sky that promised far worse before long. I should have seen tree branches whipping. Heard the plash of drops on stone, sprung shutters whapbapbapping. But the gods had decided to turn on the sun and set it in a Spielberg sky with a thumbs-up sign from Disney. Hello to San Francisco, where the party never stops. — Reb MacRath

At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love (CCC 1022; by St. John of the Cross) — San Juan De La Cruz

I want Otter to run back to San Diego and go back to the stupid fucking boyfriend, who Ive never met but cannot stand. — T.J. Klune

A lot of the people in San Francisco think of themselves as healers - not just as people delivering this base service, but giving their clients spiritual help. It's almost like being an actor, playing a different part for each trick. — James Franco

We are very proud of our design for the Transbay Transit Center. This will be a beautiful, functional and sustainable building for San Francisco. — Cesar Pelli

The [Burmese] government appears to be more interested in stamping out political activity than drug addiction. Very few university students on the campus could get away with engaging in political activities, but they seem to be able to get away with taking drugs. We have heard that it is very easy to obtain drugs on the university campuses. — Aung San Suu Kyi

I love San Francisco and Brighton has something of San Francisco about it. It's by the sea, there's a big gay community, a feeling of people being there because they enjoy their life there. — Brian Eno

In politics, you also have to be cautiously optimistic. — Aung San Suu Kyi

There's no question this is where I want to live. Never has been. — Robin Williams

Investment that only goes to enrich an already wealthy elite bent on monopolizing both economic and political power cannot contribute toward egalite and justice
the foundation stones for a sound democracy. — Aung San Suu Kyi

The 1890s was a decade when life began to change in urban America. Modern conveniences that we now take for granted came into use; women's roles became less restrictive; and San Francisco, a port city with influences from all over the world, was a lively place in which to reside. — Marcia Muller