Quotes & Sayings About Southern California

Southern California doesn't know whether to bustle or just strangle itself on the spot. — Neal Stephenson

If you're a kid in Southern California, somebody - whether it's you or your parents - somebody throws your hat into the ring and I think everyone had a commercial or two. — Danny Bonaduce

Southern California is a landscape of edges and contradictions set upon by a variegated human population that at times seems hell bent to leave its destructive footprints from desert to ocean, mountain to flat coastal plain. I have discovered that the sharp divisions and false syntheses of this place reflect the inconsistencies and unexplored edges in my personality, and that as much as I might have longed to live quietly in some less densely populated place, this would never do...When I settled in Malibu I discovered the strong pull of place and began to incorporate landscape as a dominant character in my writing. — Penelope Grenoble

The Urban Literate Southern California Sub-Group of the Early Atomic Period has not yet produced a distinct body of folk music of its own. — Sam Hinton

Adultery - which is the only grounds for divorce in New York - is not grounds for divorce in California. As a matter of fact, adultery in Southern California is grounds for marriage. — Allan Sherman

A Pike, in the California dialect, is a native of Missouri, Arkansas, Northern Texas, or Southern Illinois. The first emigrants that came over the plains were from Pike County, Missouri; but as the phrase, 'a Pike County man,' was altogether too long for this short life of ours, it was soon abbreviated into 'a Pike.' — Bayard Taylor

People were always saying how ugly Southern California was, especially when they came back from their summer vacations. They said it looked plastic or fake or whatever, and talked about all the cool things they saw in Ohio, where their grandparents lived. Or in Pennsylvania. The wall behind the arcade was made of giant sparkling white bricks, just like all the other buildings connected to it. There was graffiti on it, indecipherable gang writing. It was dark now and getting a little cold and then the super-bright lights they have behind stores to keep bums from sleeping by the dumpsters came on, and I thought, people who don't think Southern California is the most beautiful place in the world are idiots and I hope they choke on their tongues. — John Darnielle

I live in one of the coastal cities in Southern California, and every so often I like to take a walk down the boardwalk in Venice during the weekends when it is abuzz with lively activity. — Al Seckel

I grew up with fantastic Southern food. In Southern California. — Nora Ephron

Had a powerful meditation just now - caused an earthquake in Southern California ... Was meditating on Shiva mantra & earth began to shake. Sorry about that. — Deepak Chopra

Being raised a Jew in southern California in the 1950s and 1960s, my religious training emphasized learning the Hebrew language and Jewish festivals, history, and culture. We also remembered the Holocaust and supported the newly formed Jewish state of Israel. — Rick Strassman

El Salvador has the scenery of northern California and the climate of southern California plus - and this was a relief - no Californians. — P. J. O'Rourke

Los Angeles is a town where status is all and status is only given to success. Dukes and millionaires and playboys by the dozen may arrive and be glad-handed for a time, but they are unwise if they choose to live there because the town is, perhaps even creditably, committed to recognising only professional success, and nothing else, to be of lasting value. The burdensome obligation imposed on all its inhabitants is therefore to present themselves as successes, because otherwise they forfeit their right to respect in that environment ... There is no place in that town for the "interesting failure" or for anyone who is not determined on a life that will be shaped in a upward-heading curve. — Julian Fellowes

There was nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure. — Ross Macdonald

Living here in southern California, I'll miss hearing Rocky Top for an entire week at the end of December. I was actually looking forward to it. Tennessee has a better fight song than Nebraska. — Al Michaels

Southern California, which is shaped somewhat like a coffin, is a giant sanatorium with flowers where people come to be cured of life itself in whatever way .... This is the last stop before the sun gives up and sinks into the black, black ocean, and night - usually starless here - comes down. — John Rechy

In 1969, I wrote a musical called 'Mother Earth.' It was a rock musical with an ecology theme. We did it at the South Coast Repertory Theatre in Southern California where I was a member. It was a smash hit in this small theater. — Toni Tennille

These are all good things, I said. But no one knows where your country is or who you are. You don't have a familiar ethnic cuisine; your diaspora , from what I understand, is mostly in Southern California, three time zones removed from the national media in New York; and you don't have a recognizable, long-simmering conflict like the one between the Israelis and the Palestinians, where people in the richer nations can take sides and argue over at the dinner table. The best you can do is get the United Nations involved, as in East Timor. Maybe they'll send troops."
"We don't want the United Nations" Mr. Nanabragov said. "We don't want Sri Lankan troops patrolling our streets. We're better tan that. We want America. — Gary Shteyngart

I know one thing - very few writers in Southern California get to write what they want to write. We are more or less worker ants, working for either film companies or tv companies or Internet companies. We do a lot of assigned work. Feelings hardly ever enter into it. If they do, they tend to be on a sort of soap opera level. — Larry Gelbart

Southern California, they have been amazing. They're totally with us. — Chita Rivera

I'm pursuing soundtrack work in the southern California area and down the line I plan to make a moody, intense acoustic album. Not all acoustic, but an acoustic - oriented guitar record that I've already written most of the material for. — Ronnie Montrose

I guess I never really had a high school experience. I went for about a month, and on the first day one of my friends got punched in the eye. It was Southern California Public High School. Needless to say, I wasn't there for long. — Penn Badgley

The wild mustard in Southern California is like that spoken of in the New Testament ... Its gold is as distinct a value to the eye as the nugget gold is in the pocket. — Helen Hunt Jackson

Disneyland remains the central attraction of Southern California, but the graveyard remains our reality. — Charles Bukowski

As someone who has grown up living in Southern California, I know all too well about the costs and scarcities of water. — Ed Begley Jr.

My parents separated before I was 1 year old. I moved in with my aunt and uncle when I was in fourth grade. I was, like, 8 or 9 years old. I was getting in a lot of trouble when I was in Southern California. My older sisters were in gangs. My older brother was in gangs. — Troy Polamalu

I'd like to be able to use Storm's powers for good, like have it rain more in Southern California. We could do with it. — Halle Berry

I speak as much Spanish as anyone who has grown up in Southern California or Texas or Arizona. I had my three years of high-school Spanish and a couple of semesters in college. — Will Ferrell

Oh, yeah. I grew up in Southern California in the 1960's. It was very different. I was an only child as opposed to having siblings. My brothers all lived with my step-mom. I am very close to them, but we were not raised in the same house. — David Cassidy

Los Angelesand all of southern california is destined to become the greatest metropolitan area the world has ever known. — Otis Chandler

The young Lucas may have been ambivalent about movies, but there was one entertainment, in fact one place, he was very passionate about. "I loved Disneyland," Lucas said - and so, it seemed, did George Lucas Sr., who flew the entire family to southern California to be there for the park's opening day in July 1955.81 — Brian Jay Jones

I was a surf bum wannabe. I left home at age 17 and moved to Southern California to try to take up surfing as a vocation, but this was in 1964, and there was this nasty little thing called the Vietnam War. As a result, I got drafted. — Craig Venter

One day I was meditating on a cliff overlooking the ocean in Southern California and I was absorbed in a state of high meditation. As I came out of the meditation and became aware of the sense world the world around me I knew that I had a new name. And the name, of course, was Rama. — Frederick Lenz

In Southern California along the coast, if the only thing you can do with the land is agriculture, it would be substantially less (in value) than property that has almost any other allowable use. — Bill Vaughan

In 2006 I had begun the discernment process for locating my rightful geographic home. By the time my corporate pink slip arrived I had spent two years researching and taking recon trips to five different cities in southern California. Having crossed them off my list, in February 2008 I visited Sarasota, Florida, at the urging of a friend who winters in a neighboring town. Though Florida had never been on my radar, only minutes in Sarasota I knew I'd found home. — Gina Greenlee

With the initial focus groups and the initial look-sees, the Rams are a very popular team in Southern California. And so one of the reasons that it was attractive to us to work against them is because they have that good flavor. — Jerry Jones

I didn't actually figure out how to get guidance, so I just decided to go to school at University of Southern California because they sent me a glossy brochure. — Bonnie Jo Campbell

In December 1935, Louie graduated from high school; a few weeks later, he rang in 1936 with his thoughts full of Berlin. The Olympic trials track finals would be held in New York in July, and the Olympic committee would base its selection of competitors on a series of qualifying races. Louie had seven months to run himself onto the team. In the meantime, he also had to figure out what to do about the numerous college scholarships being offered to him. Pete had won a scholarship to the University of Southern California, where he had become one of the nation's top ten college milers. He urged Louie to accept USC's offer but delay entry until the fall, so he could train full-time. So Louie moved into Pete's frat house and, with Pete coaching him, trained obsessively. All day, every day, he lived and breathed the 1,500 meters and Berlin. — Laura Hillenbrand

One of the first things a British visitor to Southern California discovers is that he must have a car. Freeways. Bad public transport. I took driving lessons. — Christopher Lee

I'm from Southern California, so I feel much more comfortable with a golf club in my hand than I do a weapon. — Bert Blyleven

If you've had good gin on a hot day in Southern California with the people you love, you forget Nebraska. The two things cannot coexist. The stronger, better of the two wins. — Ann Patchett

Well, I think it's real important that people understand, first and foremost, those of us that have lived in Arizona or in southern California, we have a very diverse population. The Hispanic population has been part of all of our lives since we've been born here or since we've grown up here. — Jan Brewer

Los Angeles was the kind of place where everybody was from somewhere else and nobody really droppped anchor. It was a transient place. People drawn by the dream, people running from the nightmare. Twelve million people and all of them ready to make a break for it if necessary. Figuratively, literally, metaphorically
any way you want to look at it
everbody in L.A. keeps a bag packed. Just in case. — Michael Connelly

The setting sun burned the sky pink and orange in the same bright hues as surfers' bathing suits. It was beautiful deception, Bosch thought, as he drove north on the Hollywood Freeway to home. Sunsets did that here. Made you forget it was the smog that made their colors so brilliant, that behind every pretty picture there could be an ugly story. — Michael Connelly

Accommodate the quickly expanding population. Intrigued, Warren contacted religious leaders in Southern California who told him that many locals self-identified as Christian but didn't attend services. In the dusty, dimly lit basement of that university — Charles Duhigg

I grew up on the beaches of Southern California surfing and sailing and I've always loved horses so it was part of my dream that I was able to fulfill to have horses. — Bo Derek

As one went to Europe to see the living past, so one must visit Southern California to observe the future. — Alison Lurie

It is ironic that Mr. Berger learned of this espionage in exactly the same month that Mr. Gore was attending his now famous fund-raiser with Buddhist nuns in Southern California. — Lamar Alexander

It's nine thirty as night, and it's still eighty-seven degrees outside. Besides, this is Southern California. When God makes it snow here, it's not a plan; it's a miracle. — Debbie Viguie

Hidden Highlands was maybe a little richer but not that different from many of the other small, wealthy and scared enclaves nestled in the hills and valleys around Los Angeles. Walls and gates, guardhouses and private security forces were the secret ingredients of the so-called melting pot of southern California. — Michael Connelly

On 'Justified', we're driving all around Southern California trying to find a location that we can call Kentucky. — Timothy Olyphant

I grew up in Southern California, and I particularly did not fit in. I always felt like a fish out of water in my hometown because everyone was very happy, and I was thinking about death and anxiety, and not many other people around me seemed to be thinking about that. — Rachel Bloom

Probably the first time I was a boss was when I was associate dean of the graduate school at the University of Southern California. I was in my early 30s. — Ruth J. Simmons

I feel so fortunate. I was brought up along the beaches in Southern California, and then got to have horses. — Bo Derek

When man sends colonies into space, he will be able to mount moveable, sun-reflecting mirrors to simulate rhythms of day and night and even the terrestial seasons ... But he doubtless will follow the longstanding American habit of thinking that outer space should, as much as possible, resemble Southern California. — Lance Morrow

Like a physically beautiful but otherwise rather dull person who trades on his or her looks, Southern California swings perpetually between a profound inferiority complex and an equally profound sense of entitlement. — Meghan Daum

In an expansive attempt to establish a foothold among California's intelligentsia and create America's first truly national newspaper, The New York Times launched a slimmed-down West Coast edition in October 1962... The result in LA was a sorry stepsister of the great gray New York Times for its West Coast readers... Reprocessed news dictated from 3,000 miles away by editors who knew zip about what made Southern California tick. — Dennis McDougal

Canadians shouldn't come down to Southern California and take jobs away from Mexicans. — Stanley Ralph Ross

Even Hollywood millionaires are now clamoring for legal protections for their illegal-alien nannies and gardeners, though such elites would hardly countenance a similar legal laxity that would allow foreign film technicians, screenwriters, and actors to flood southern California to work in their industry for a fourth of their own pay. — Victor Davis Hanson

Only in Southern California do camping grounds actually have wifi, so I was sitting in my tent and I started reading it on my computer, and I couldn't put it down. More importantly, I kept getting up in the middle of the night going, "Oh, this is cool," so I pitched them an idea that they seemed to like. — Remi Aubuchon

It ended up being a great quarter across the country. The national trend was more on the IT (information technology) side of things. When you look at Southern California and San Diego specifically, it's driven largely by the life sciences and biotech side of things. — Don Williams

My parents divorced when I was 3 years old. They had a lounge act in Las Vegas, where I was born. The band broke up and the marriage dissolved, and my mother, my sister and I moved to Southern California. And I didn't see my dad a lot growing up; he was on the road a lot. I'd see him every couple years. — Jenny Lewis

In the White House now was James Polk, a Democrat, an expansionist, who, on the night of his inauguration, confided to his Secretary of the Navy that one of his main objectives was the acquisition of California. His order to General Taylor to move troops to the Rio Grande was a challenge to the Mexicans. It was not at all clear that the Rio Grande was the southern boundary of Texas, although Texas had forced the defeated Mexican general Santa Anna to say so when he was a prisoner. The traditional border between Texas and Mexico had been the Nueces River, about 150 miles to the north, and both Mexico and the United States had recognized that as the border. However, Polk, encouraging the Texans to accept annexation, had assured them he would uphold their claims to the Rio Grande. Ordering troops to the Rio Grande, into territory inhabited by Mexicans, was clearly a provocation. — Howard Zinn

I think in the old days, the nexus of weirdness ran through Southern California, and to a degree New York City. I think it's changed so that every bizarre story in the country now has a Florida connection. I don't know why, except it must be some inversion of magnetic poles or something. — Carl Hiaasen

I'm a California girl, and I'd love to restore a sense of place to Southern California. — Rene Russo

It's simply a national acknowledgement that in any kind of priority, the needs of human beings must come first. Poverty is here and now. Hunger is here and now. Racial tension is here and now. Pollution is here and now. These are the things that scream for a response. And if we don't listen to that scream - and if we don't respond to it - we may well wind up sitting amidst our own rubble, looking for the truck that hit us - or the bomb that pulverized us. Get the license number of whatever it was that destroyed the dream. And I think we will find that the vehicle was registered in our own name.
[from a Commencement Address at the University of Southern California; March 17, 1970] — Rod Serling

A lot of people don't understand how cargo coming into our ports matters, not just to Southern California but to every single congressional district. I want to educate on that issue. — Janice Hahn

I first saw the ocean as a kid. We would drive from Arizona in the summer and arrive as the sun was starting to come down over the hill near Laguna in southern California. We would always sing a song, and it was a big joyous family moment when we came over the hill. — Ted Danson

Growing up in Southern California, it's all car culture. When I was a kid, I knew every single model of every single car dealer; I knew every style of every year. — Cheech Marin

Hot, dry katabatic winds, like the south foehn in Europe, the sharav in the Middle East, and the Santa Ana of Southern California, are all believed to have a decided effect on human behavior and are associated with such health problems as migraines, depression, lethargy, and moodiness. Some scientists say that this is a myth. — Tim Cahill

Like so many named places in California it was less an identifiable city than a grouping of concepts
census tracts, special purpose bond-issue districts, shopping nuclei, all overlaid with access roads to its own freeway. — Thomas Pynchon

Any seed or insect or lizard or mammal that found itself in LA had to believe that there was a chance to thrive. Living in Southern California was like waking up in a children's book titled Would Be If I Could Be. — Walter Mosley

As weird as it is, as much as I love Southern California, the reality is I'm going to be somewhere else next season. — Kassim Osgood

One of my most vivid memories from 1974 was the gas station at the foot of the hill below my Southern California high school - car lines snaking out into the street, heralding the failure of the government's price controls and lame ideas such as odd-even rationing. — Nina Easton

I grew up in southern California in the '80s. Yes, I am a walking cliche. — John Scalzi

When I was signing up for the University of Southern California's music program, I flipped a coin to decide my major. If it came up heads, it would be flute - tails would be voice. — Sondra Radvanovsky

Well, I'll tell you, one of things I'm proud of is for someone from Southern California, who didn't grow up around coal mines, I learned a lot that tragic day we lost twenty-nine miners at Upper Big Branch coal mine. — Hilda Solis

Future historians, I hope, will consider the American fast food industry a relic of the twentieth century
a set of attitudes, systems, and beliefs that emerged from postwar southern California, that embodied its limitless faith in technology, that quickly spread across the globe, flourished briefly, and then receded, once its true costs became clear and its thinking became obsolete. — Eric Schlosser

It was there that I wanted, out there somewhere, when I sat elbow-to-elbow with my giggling friends and let my thoughts swirl up and away from the three-mile radius of our small town lives. In my head, I careened out of town and across state lines, until the landscape became strange and unfamiliar. I wanted to see all of it. Everything. The vast expanses of the flat Midwest, miles of horizontal earth with the curving horizon at its end. Strange, stunted trees and driftwood skeletons on the lonely windswept beaches of the farthest coasts. Towering oaks hung thick with the gray lace of Spanish moss, looming like hovering parents over shaded southern dirt. The California sun, dipping and disappearing into the ocean, tipping the waves with orange light. — Kat Rosenfield

When this genre of music started in America, Metallica was up north in California, we were in Southern California, Anthrax was on the East Coast. We each developed our own metal music, and after 30 years, we're still playing our metal music. — Tom Araya

I started to meditate formally at about 18. I would sit on a mountaintop in Southern California around twilight and focus on my third eye. Everything would become still and rings of light would appear, and I'd go through them. I would be beyond time and space. — Frederick Lenz

For everything there is a season. I'd miss having the seasons, people from New York like to say by way of indicating the extraordinary pride they take in not living in Southern California. In fact Southern California does have seasons (it has for example "fire season" or "the season when the fire comes," and it also has the season when the rains comes, but such Southern California seasons, arriving as they do so theatrically as to seem strokes of random fate, do not inexorably suggest the passage of time. Those other seasons, the ones so prized on the East Coast, do. Seasons in Southern California suggest violence, but not necessarily death.
Seasons in New York-the relentless dropping of the leaves, the steady darkening of the days, the blue nights themselves-suggest only death. — Joan Didion

One identity is as a television writer, which is very classically Southern California, but another of my personae is as a New Yorker cartoonist. — Bruce Eric Kaplan

Then I left that school and I went to Cerritos College, which was in southern California; they had one of the best big band programs in the country at the time. — Bobby McFerrin

I spent so much of my life reading about spirituality and reading about neuroscience and trying different meditation practices. It's a really big part of my life. But it's sometimes hard to talk about. There are so many people in the world who don't live in Southern California and don't spend their time meditating. — Moby

What is Southern California but an ever-changing dreamscape backdrop for the postmodern ideal? The psychology of the postmodern world is the continual state of change as we live in its idealist manufactured dream, built by developers. — John Van Hamersveld

I hate these people (the Rams and their owner, Georgia Frontiere) for what they did, taking the Rams logo with them when they moved to St. Louis. That logo belonged to Southern California. — Fred Dryer

In the rural South, 'Bubba' is like how people say 'dude' in California. It's a name for a regular Southern man. I know a Chinese Bubba, a black Bubba. — Bubba Sparxxx

Well, I know a guy, he's from far far away
He's a songwriter, he got something to say
He says, "People in this city are too busy to hang out
This town's so spread out, no one would hear you if you shout"
Everyone's got a script to sell and someplace else they want to be
There's always a lock that would open if you could just find the key"
(It Ain't Easy Being Green) — Shannon McNally

I'm originally from southern California, so I, like, say 'like', like, a lot. I've been trying to scrub any traces of Valley Girl from my speech since I moved to New York, but it's, like, totally way harder than anyone thinks, you know? — Mara Wilson

The University of Southern California has a wonderful social work department, and I was thrilled to find out that they have a whole veterans' initiative program there. They approached me, and I set up a scholarship that would go to a military-oriented person to learn techniques and skills to better help veterans. — Gary Sinise

I've enjoyed my time in the American League, the fans of Southern California and other friendships. — Joe Torre

The police had a practice of entrapping people. This was done all over the country, but we had a particularly vicious group here in Southern California because of the Hollywood situation. They knew they could get a lot of them. They were shaking down people for thousands in blackmail. — Harry Hay

The first two pictures I did, I played a young student in prep school. When I did Lifeguard, everyone was saying, You're so Southern California. It was a surprise to me. — Parker Stevenson

I have always identified with Joan Didion's depiction of Los Angeles and Southern California, ever since reading 'Play It As It Lays,' 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem' and 'The White Album.' — Henry Rollins

I grew up in Southern California, Simi Valley. I've lived in the same house all my life. — Jason Dolley

I went West and took part in the strike of the machinists - the Southern Pacific Railroad, the corporation that swung California by its golden tail, that controlled its legislature, its farmers, its preachers, its workers. — Mary Harris Jones

Children all over the world do ridiculous, borderline dangerous things, and no one around them questions it, because it's ingrained in their culture. So it was with child acting in Southern California. — Mara Wilson

Southern California is the land of crazy crimes. — Don Carpenter

Royalty has traditionally been vulnerable to psychic frauds. In ancient China and Rome astrology was the exclusive property of the emperor; any private use of this potent art was considered a capital offense. Emerging from a particularly credulous Southern California culture, Nancy and Ronald Reagan relied on an astrologer in private and public matters - unknown to the voting public. Some portion of the decision-making that influences the future of our civilization is plainly in the hands of charlatans. If anything, the practice is comparatively muted in America; its venue is worldwide. — Carl Sagan