Herb Caen quotes
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“A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew.”
-- Herb CaenSource : "Quotable Quotes". Reader's Digest, p.144, March 31, 1997.
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“Isn't it nice that people who prefer Los Angeles to San Francisco live there?”
-- Herb CaenSource : Herb Caen (1958). “New Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area”
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“A city is not gauged by its length and width, but by the broadness of its vision and the height of its dreams.”
-- Herb CaenSource : Herb Caen (1967). “San Francisco, City on Golden Hills”
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“There are a thousand viewpoints in the viewtiful city.”
-- Herb CaenSource : Herb Caen (1991). “Best of Herb Caen: 1960-1975”, Chronicle Books (CA)
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“Cockroaches and socialites are the only things that can stay up all night and eat anything.”
-- Herb Caen -
“Baffling late-life discovery: Golfers wear those awful clothes on purpose.”
-- Herb Caen -
“The only thing wrong with immortality is that it tends to go on forever.”
-- Herb CaenSource : Herb Caen, Irene Mecchi (1992). “Herb Caen's San Francisco, 1976-1991”, Chronicle Books Llc
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“I tend to live in the past because most of my life is there.”
-- Herb Caen -
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“The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around.”
-- Herb Caen -
“I hope I go to Heaven, and when I do, I'm going to do what every San Franciscan does when he gets there. He looks around and says, 'It ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco.'”
-- Herb Caen -
“Satire of satire tends to be self-canceling, and deliberate shock tactics soon lose their ability to shock, especially when they're too deliberate.”
-- Herb Caen -
“I have a memory like an elephant. I remember every elephant I've ever met.”
-- Herb Caen -
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“When a place advertises itself as 'World Famous,' you may be sure it isn't.”
-- Herb Caen -
“The waterfront without the Ferry Tower would be like a birthday cake without a candle.”
-- Herb Caen -
“A city is a state - of mind, of taste, of opportunity. A city is a marketplace - where ideas are traded, opinions clash and eternal conflict may produce eternal truths.”
-- Herb Caen -
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“Just two days in Manhattan and you find yourself looking for a place to wash your handkerchief after you wipe your forehead and it comes away black. Is there a dirtier or more fascinating city anywhere in the land? The answer to both parts of the question has to be positively negative.”
-- Herb Caen -
“The world of Manhattan is small and tightly knit, and the man on top retains a certain humility. He knows how far and fast he can fall by looking at the guy across the street. The view from the $250,000 apartment covers a lot of ground, most of it condemned.”
-- Herb Caen -
“Old San Francisco - the one so many nostalgics yearn for - had buildings that related well to each other.”
-- Herb Caen -
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“Americans are pragmatic, relatively uncomplicated, hearty and given to broad humor.”
-- Herb Caen -
“San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was.”
-- Herb CaenSource : Herb Caen (1967). “San Francisco, City on Golden Hills”
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“I sometimes worry about my short attention span, but not for long...”
-- Herb Caen -
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“You cover Q-tips with sandpaper and ram them up your nostrils as far as they will go. Then you sniff talcum powder while shredding hundred dollar bills.”
-- Herb Caen -
“We are reorganizing in order to eliminate duplication and redundancy.”
-- Herb Caen -
“We (San Francisco) have football weather during baseball season, and baseball weather during football season.”
-- Herb Caen -
“One day if I do go to heaven...I'll look around and say, 'It ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco.”
-- Herb Caen -
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“San Franciscans have a bond of self-satisfaction bordering on smugness.”
-- Herb Caen -
“A city is where you can sign a petition, boo the chief justice, fish off a pier, gaze at a hippopotamus, buy a flower at the corner, or get a good hamburger or a bad girl at 4 A.M. A city is where sirens make white streaks of sound in the sky and foghorns speak in dark grays. San Francisco is such a city.”
-- Herb CaenSource : Herb Caen (1967). “San Francisco, City on Golden Hills”
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“New Yorkers are stuck in a gloomy mucilage of mutual commiseration.”
-- Herb Caen -
“A city is a crazy concrete jungle whose people at the end of each day somehow make a small step ahead against terrible odds.”
-- Herb Caen -
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“Philosophically, I don't like doing commercials.”
-- Herb Caen -
“A good column is one that sells paper. It doesn't matter how beautifully it is written and how much you admire the author... if it doesn't sell any papers, it's not a good column. It's a terrible yardstick to use, but in the newspaper business, that's the whole thing.”
-- Herb Caen -
“The precise location of heaven on earth has never been established but it may very well be right here”
-- Herb Caen -
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