Los Angeles is a city like no other so it's not surprising that visitors and locals tend to have a love/hate relationship with it. LA has been praised as everything from 'laidback' to 'balmy' and reviled as everything from 'superficial' to 'alienating.' What follows is a list of quotes about Los Angeles by famous visitors and locals from all manner of backgrounds--literary, arts, film and musical.
Generally Favorable Quotes About LA
"I've seen a lot of LA and I think it's also a place of secrets: secret houses, secret lives, secret pleasures. And no one is looking to the outside for verification that what they're doing is all right."
-Victoria Tennant, LA Story
"You know, you're really nobody in LA unless you live in a house with a really big door."
-Steve Martin, LA Story
"I see your hair is burnin'. Hills are filled with fire. If they say I never loved you. You know they are a liar. Drivin' down your freeways. Midnight alleys roam...LA Woman, you're my woman." -The Doors, 'LA Woman'
"I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're beautiful. Everybody's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic." -Andy Warhol
"So, I live in Los Angeles, and it's kind of a goofy place. They have an airport named after John Wayne. That ought to explain it. It has a charming kind of superstitious innocence." -George Carlin
"Sometimes I feel like my only friend is the city I live in, the city of angels. As lonely as I am together we cry. I drive on the streets 'cause she's my companion. I walk through the hills 'cause she knows who I am. She sees my good deeds..." -Red Hot Chili Peppers, City of Angeles
"Los Angeles is a microcosm of the United States. If LA falls, the country falls." -Ice T
"People cut themselves off from their ties of the old life when they come to Los Angeles. They are looking for a place where they can be free, where they can do things they couldn't do anywhere else." -Tom Bradley
"Always take Fountain." -Bette Davis
Generally Unfavorable Quotes About LA
"I mean, who would want to live in a place [Los Angeles] where the only cultural advantage is that you can turn right on a red light? -Woody Allen, Annie Hall
"What the hell am I doing drinking in LA at 26? With my mind on my money and my money on my... Beer, beer! I know that life is for the taking, so I better wise up, and take it quick. Yeah, one more time at Trader Vic's." -Bran Van 3000, 'Drinking in LA'
“[Los Angeles is] a city with all the personality of a paper cup.” -Raymond Chandler
"As far as loneliness, I feel Los Angeles and its layout, having to drive everywhere - it is a lonely place. It's an isolated city in that respect because you're driving to places alone listening to the radio." -Jason Schwartzman
"I lived in Los Angeles in the '80s, which was not the best place to be." -Corey Haim
"When it's 100 degrees in New York, it's 72 in Los Angeles. When it's 30 degrees in New York, in Los Angeles it's still 72. However, there are 6-million interesting people in New York, and 72 in Los Angeles." -Neil Simon
"Los Angeles is a constellation of plastic." -Norman Mailer
"People are afraid to merge on freeways in Los Angeles." -Brett Easton Ellis, 'Less Than Zero'
"I had a colonic irrigation in this clinic in Santa Monica, because people in Los Angeles cannot do anything for themselves, much less take a sh#%." -Margaret Cho
