Nothing is so clear in history that is it happens for any one thing. It seems that a lot of things come together to make great changes.

By its nature, the metropolis provides what otherwise could be given only by traveling; namely, the strange.

By the end of the book, it is quite different than the way you thought it would be when you started the book - both in form and what it contains and what you think. Well, you tipped in a lot and you digested a lot - it wasn't pre-digested in your view. And it changed what you thought and how you see things.

My husband was a hospital architect and he was working on some hospitals in Alberta, and I told him to try to find out what they thought about separatism. He would come back on weekends. He said "well, I think I found out how they feel about separatism. I brought it up at lunch in the cafeteria, and everybody at the table was silent and then somebody said 'Let's change the subject'."

Everyone is aware that tremendous numbers of people concentrate in city downtowns and that, if they did not, there would be no downtown to amount to anything--certainly not one with much downtown diversity.

Virtually all ideologues, of any variety, are fearful and insecure, which is why they are drawn to ideologies that promise prefabricated answers for all circumstances.

It may be that we have become so feckless as a people that we no longer care how things do work, but only what kind of quick, easy outer impression they give. If so, there is little hope for our cities or probably for much else in our society. But I do not think this is so.