Slum Quotes

“A world without huge regions of total wilderness would be a cage; a world without lions and tigers and vultures and snakes and elk and bison would be - will be - a human zoo. A high-tech slum.”
― Edward Abbey, Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

“Everyone’s mind has sort of a slum division—a flirtatious spot that doesn’t give a hoot about how grave a situation is but constantly endeavors to derail more earnest thoughts, almost like a death-wish backseat driver.”
― Pawan Mishra, Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy

“...If I ever got sloppy and maudlin, it would be for the streets of my childhood—but no self- respecting writer should ever eulogize a slum...”
― John Geddes, A Familiar Rain

“I was born in a slum, but the slum wasn't born in me.”
― Jesse Jackson

“Newark, New Jersey. The bad part. Almost a redundancy.
Decay was the first word that came to mind. The buildings were more than falling apart - they actually seemed to be breaking down, melting from some sort of acid onslaught. Here urban renewal was about as familiar a concept as time travel. The surroundings looked more like a war newsreel - Frankfurt after the Allies' bombing - than a habitable dwelling.”
― Harlan Coben, One False Move

“You look at a neighborhood like this and see a slum. I see the garden I was meant to tend.”
― Elizabeth Camden, Carved in Stone