London Quotes

Psychogeograph - "just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape". - Joseph Hart, "A New Way of Walking,"

"Saturday afternoon in central London is my favourite time and location for observing the madness of crowds. In particular, I prize the purlieu of Westminster Bridge, because it is here, in the sickly sweet aroma-cloud of caramelising peanuts and to the accompaniment of a torturous bagpiper, that the great mass of tourists iPads its way between the dubious cultural delights of the South Bank and the more solid sights of the abbey" - Will Self, New Statesman September 2013

"I had never felt any particular affection for Soho. The self-conscious bohemianism its denizens went in for always just seemed annoying" - Alexi Sayle.

"London goes beyond any boundary or convention. It contains every wish or word ever spoken, every action or gesture ever made, every harsh or noble statement ever expressed. It is illimitable. It is Infinite London".- Peter Ackroyd, London The Biography

“The city’s genius is being the sum of its disparate, otiose, non-functioning and outright redundant parts” – Will Self

Knightsbridge - "about as prestigous as a multi-storey car park after a tramp's bladder infection convention" - AA Gill

"There are two things scarce matched in the universe the sun in heaven and the Thames on earth" - Sir Walter Raleigh 1552-1618

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford". - Samuel Johnson

"I'm leaving because the weather is too good. I hate London when it's not raining". - Groucho Marx

Bulgari Hotel - "post-minimal megalomaniacs mausoleum" - AA Gill

"Earls Court is for people you can't quite place. Young couples with battered luggage" - Peter York 

"The Thames is London’s great secret, hidden in full view. We do very little with it, or on it, except complain how difficult it is to get over and under".- A.A. Gill, New York Times 27th April

Battersea Power Station – “The sight of a late train emerging from the silhouette of the power station to head over the railway bridge towards Victoria always summons De Chirico’s canvases to my mind’s eye” – Will Self

 I love this great polluted place
Where popstars come to live their dreams
Here ravers come for drum and bass
And politicians plan their schemes
The music of the world is here
The city can play any song
They came to here from everywhere
'Tis they that made the city strong 

Benjamin Zephaniah, The London Breed (1998)