#chicago

I've spent my whole life in Chicago being asked where am I from, so that I have a sense of displacement that also is very psychologically disorienting. ↗

— Ana Castillo

#am #asked #being #chicago #disorienting

Shortly before school started, I moved into a studio apartment on a quiet street near the bustle of the downtown in one of the most self-conscious bends of the world. The “Gold Coast” was a neighborhood that stretched five blocks along the lake in a sliver of land just south of Lincoln Park and north of River North. The streets were like fine necklaces and strung together were the brownstone houses and tall condominiums and tiny mansions like pearls, and when the day broke and the sun faded away, their lights burned like jewels shining gaudily in the night. The world’s most elegant bazaar, Michigan Avenue, jutted out from its eastern tip near The Drake Hotel and the timeless blue-green waters of Lake Michigan pressed its shores. The fractious make-up of the people that inhabited it, the flat squareness of its parks and the hint of the lake at the ends of its tree-lined streets squeezed together a domesticated cesspool of age and wealth and standing. It was a place one could readily dress up for an expensive dinner at one of the fashionable restaurants or have a drink miles high in the lounge of the looming John Hancock Building and five minutes later be out walking on the beach with pants cuffed and feet in the cool water at the lake’s edge. ↗

— Daniel Amory

#city #contemporary-fiction #contemporary-literature #downtown #lake

In Chicago, you can't swing a cat without hitting an Irish pub (and angering the cat), but McAnally's place stands out from the crowd. ↗

— Jim Butcher

#cat #chicago #anger

That weekend the city blushed with a great heat wave but on Monday it rained, cooling the ache in the street’s burn. ↗

— Daniel Amory

#city #downtown #dream #heat #hot

Life sure is easier when you're rich." "And a natural born charmer. Don't forget that part." "How could I?" she retorted. "It's the only thing we have in common. ↗

— Susan Elizabeth Phillips

#humor #natural-born-charmer #romance #susan-elizabeth-phillips #humor

People drive everywhere in L.A., so you get very little human interaction... but N.Y. and Chicago are like London... L.A. lacks the social interaction. ↗

— Seal

#drive #everywhere #get #human #interaction

Partying means drinking. It also means playing records by Lou Reed and Chicago, which I thought was a city but is also a band it turns out. ↗

— Ron Currie Jr.

#drink #everything-matters #fun #lou-reed #music

I was assigned to the heavy cruiser Chicago. ↗

— Jack Adams

#chicago #heavy #i

There have been times I have thought some dreams should never be dreamt, but I would hate a world where that was true. ↗

— Daniel Amory

#city #contemporary-fiction #contemporary-literarture #downtown #dream