53 Quotes by Herb Caen

The only thing wrong with immortality is that it tends to go on forever.

Isn't it nice that people who prefer Los Angeles to San Francisco live there?

The number of foggy days over the city is never reported, reportedly. But take it from me— there's enough to satisfy everyone, and dissatisfy somebody.

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.

Cockroaches and socialites are the only things that can stay up all night and eat anything.

A city is not gauged by its length and width, but by the broadness of its vision and the height of its dreams.

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.

I have a memory like an elephant. I remember every elephant I've ever met.

Satire of satire tends to be self-canceling, and deliberate shock tactics soon lose their ability to shock, especially when they're too deliberate.