Las Vegas

"Las Vegas is Everyman’s cut-rate Babylon. Not far away there is, or was, a roadside lunch counter and over it a sign proclaiming in three words that a Roman emperor’s orgy is now a democratic institution…. “Topless Pizza Lunch.”"

"Shoot, a fellow could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff."

"The kinda city I could run with, Las Vegas na-vi-dad, I love it!"

"Las Vegas is in front of them and then all around them and everything is lit up like they’re inside a pinball game. All of the trees look fake. Like someone read too much Dr. Seuss and got ideas. People are walking up and down the sidewalks. Some of them look normal. Others look like they just escaped from a fancy-dress ball at a lunatic asylum. Jeremy hopes they’ve just won lots of money and that’s why they look so startled, so strange. Or made they’re all vampires."

"[On his 50-year long marriage to his wife Shakira] [W]e went to Vegas for my 40th birthday, and we got married. It was where a lot of famous people had got married, because there were pictures of all of them on the wall. I was looking round thinking, f—g hell, I’m getting married where whatisname got married, and so-and-so. And then, at the end, I looked round, and realised every single person on the wall had got divorced. I thought, oh s—t, this isnt going to last long, then."

"Las Vegas is the only town in the world whose skyline is made up neither of buildings, like New York, nor of trees, like Wilbraham, but signs."

"Sympathy? Not for me. No mercy for a criminal freak in Las Vegas. This place is like the army: the shark ethic prevails-eat the wounded. In a closed society where everybodys guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity."

"Each city is an archetype rather than a prototype, an exaggerated example from which to derive lessons for the typical. Each city vividly superimposes elements of a supranational scale on the local fabric: churches in the religious capital, casinos in the entertainment capital. These cause violent juxtapositions of use and scale in both cities. Rome’s churches, off streets and piazzas, are open to the public; the pilgrim, religious or architectural, can walk from church to church. The gambler or architect in Las Vegas can similarly take in a variety of casinos along the Strip. The casinos and lobbies of Las Vegas are ornamental and monumental and open to the promenading public."

"Las Vegas has become, just as Bugsy Siegel dreamed, the American Monte Carlo—without any of the inevitable upper-class baggage of the Riviera casinos. At Monte Carlo there is still the plush mustiness of the nineteenth century noble lions.... There are still Wrong Forks, Deficient Accents, Poor Tailoring, Gauche Displays, Nouveau Richness, Cultural Aridity—concepts unknown in Las Vegas. For the grand debut of Monte Carlo as a resort in 1879 the architect Charles Garnier designed an opera house for the Place du Casino; and Sarah Bernhardt read a symbolic poem. For the debut of Las Vegas as a resort in 1946 Bugsy Siegel hired Abbot and Costello, and there, in a way, you have it all."