Famous San Francisco Quotations

Here are some famous quotes about San Francisco, the City by the Bay.  Love it or hate it, 'Frisco' has made an indelible impression on everyone, especially those who live in the San Francisco Bay Area along the tourists who vacation in California's Golden Gate metropolis.

Enjoy these San Francisco quotations, but please don't 'leave your heart' --- it will get buried in the California blog archive.

Famous San Francisco Quotes

"San Francisco is 49 square miles surrounded by reality." - Paul Kantner

"San Francisco itself is art, above all literary art.  Every block is a short story, every hill a novel.  Every home a poem, every dweller within immortal.  That is the whole truth." - William Saroyan 

"I was married once --- in San Francisco.  I haven't seen her for many years.  The great earthquake and fire in 1906 destroyed the marriage certificate.  There's no legal proof.  Which proves that earthquakes aren't all bad." - W. C. Fields 

"San Francisco is perhaps the most European of all American cities." - Cecil Beaton 

"I will sing in San Francisco if I have to sing in the streets, for I know that the streets of San Francisco are free." - Diva Luisa Tetrazzini 

"You can go one block to the next in San Francisco and get a completely different opinion of what the issue is." - Don Johnson 

"But oh, San Francisco!  It is and has everything --- you wouldn't think that such a place as San Francisco could exist.  The lobsters, clams, crabs.  Oh, Cat, what food for you.  And all the people are open and friendly." - Dylan Thomas

"I'm proud to have been a Yankee.  But I have found more happiness and contentment since I came back home to San Francisco than any man has a right to deserve.  This is the friendliest city in the world." - Joe DiMaggio

"San Francisco is one of the great cultural plateaus of the world --- one of the really urbane communities in the United States --- one of the truly cosmopolitan places and for many, many years, it always has had a warm welcome for human beings from all over the world." - Duke Ellington

"I always see about six scuffles a night when I come to San Francisco.  That's one of the town's charms." - Errol Flynn

"You are fortunate to live here.  If I were your president, I would levy a tax on you for living in San Francisco." - Mikhail Gorbachev

"The ultimate for me would be one perfect day in San Francisco.  There's no city like it anywhere.  And, if I could be there with the girl of my dreams, that would be the ultimate!" - Larry King

"The Bay Area is so beautiful, I hesitate to preach about Heaven while I'm here." - Billy Graham

"We're crazy about this city.  First time we came here, we walked the streets all day, all over town and nobody hassled us... Los Angeles?  That's just a big parking lot where you buy a hamburger for the trip to San Francisco." - John Lennon

"The extreme geniality of San Francisco's economic, intellectual and political climate makes it the most varied and challenging city in the United States." - James Michener

"San Francisco is a golden handcuff with the key thrown away." - John Steinbeck

"The San Francisco Bay Area, the playpen of countercultures." - R. Z. Sheppard

"In San Francisco, vulgarity, bad taste, ostentation are regarded as a kind of alien blight, an invasion or encroachment from outside." - Pauline Kael

"I used to travel in tennis shoes; I am just not allowed to anymore.  I'm an old hippie from San Francisco." - Amy Irving

"There is always inequality in life.  Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded, and some men never leave the country, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco... Life is unfair." - John F. Kennedy

"Leaving San Francisco is like saying goodbye to an old sweetheart.  You want to linger as long as possible." - Walter Cronkite

"I came out to California from Texas, to the Haight, and the Fillmore and all that stuff, and totally got the bug." - Christopher Cross

"San Francisco has only one drawback.  'Tis hard to leave." - Rudyard Kipling

"As many of you know, I came from San Francisco.  We don't have a lot of farms there.  Well, we do have one --- it's a mushroom farm, so you know what that means." - Speaker Nancy Pelosi

"The Golden Gate Bridge's daily strip tease from enveloping stoles of mist to full frontal glory is still the most provocative show in town." - Mary Moore Mason

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