San Francisco

"Usually no one sees the city of his birth until he leaves and then returns to it with new eyes, but, ridiculously proud of my brand-new press badge, I was discovering San Francisco as though it were a strange city. I began to realize the citys many hills, as if they had been erected only last month. You go up and down those hills by cable car or auto, and a dozen times a day you catch your breath in the suddenness of beautiful vistas—water, ships, wooded hills across the bay . . . and sea gulls, no matter where the neighborhood, never once letting you forget the nearness of the ocean. They really dominated the Embarcadero, that long stretch of San Franciscos beautiful harbor. On one side were brine-encrusted piers, their pilings creaking against the sides of ships with exciting cargoes from all parts of the world. Across the way were shabby marine stores, pawnshops, tattoo parlors, bedraggled flophouses, and seedy bars. The constant calling of the sea gulls often had to compete with the sirens of police cars."

"Chinese children are in American schools in San Francisco. None of our children are in Chinese schools, and probably never will be, though in some things they might well teach us valuable lessons. Contact with these yellow children of the Celestial Empire would convince us that the points of human difference, great as they, upon first sight, seem, are as nothing compared with the points of human agreement. Such contact would remove mountains of prejudice."

"I dont believe that there is a blasé person in the State. Credit that to the earthquake. The catastrophe, too, will be a great factor in the future greatness of San Francisco, just as the fires of London were in the making of that city a world metropolis."

"If I do go to heaven, Im going to do what every San Franciscan does who goes to heaven. He looks around and says, "It aint bad, but it aint San Francisco."

"Such was life in the Golden Gate: Gold dusted all we drank and ate, And I was one of the children told, We all must eat our peck of gold."

"Dimanche, le vent du large tempère le soleil sur la jetée de San Francisco. Les familles se promènent, sans souci des regards d‘autrui. Chacun est dans la recherche de son bien-être. Un esprit bricoleur et commerçant a fabriqué une sorte de pédalo collectif qui permet de se déplacer à cinq ou six, chacun pédalant pour avancer, mais tous pouvant se regarder, être ensemble. Ils passenr sur la jetée en pédalant, en se souriant et en dansant à la fois sur une musique de Stevie Wonder : Isnt’ she lovely ! J’emporte avec moi ce cliché de l’Amérique. translation: On Sunday, the offshore wind tempers the sun on the . Families walk around, without worrying about the looks of others. Everyone is looking for their own well-being. The inventive and commercial spirit has made a sort of collective pedal boat which allows five or six people to move around, each pedaling to move forward, but all being able to look at each other, to be together. They pass by the pier, smiling at each other and pedal-dancing to music by Stevie Wonder: Isn’t she lovely! I take this cliché of America with me."