Herb Caen Quotes

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Herb Caen

Profession : Journalist

Birth : April 3, 1916

A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew.

Herb Caen

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

Herb Caen

I hope I go to Heaven, and when I do, I'm going to do what every San Franciscan does when he gets there. He looks around and says, 'It ain't bad, but it ain't San Francisco.'

Herb Caen

Americans are pragmatic, relatively uncomplicated, hearty and given to broad humor.

Herb Caen

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

Herb Caen

I tend to live in the past because most of my life is there.

Herb Caen

The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around.

Herb Caen

A city is a crazy concrete jungle whose people at the end of each day somehow make a small step ahead against terrible odds.

Herb Caen

When a place advertises itself as 'World Famous,' you may be sure it isn't.

Herb Caen

Philosophically, I don't like doing commercials.

Herb Caen

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.

Herb Caen

Old San Francisco - the one so many nostalgics yearn for - had buildings that related well to each other.

Herb Caen

Logic is no answer to passion.

Herb Caen

A city is a state - of mind, of taste, of opportunity. A city is a marketplace - where ideas are traded, opinions clash and eternal conflict may produce eternal truths.

Herb Caen

New Yorkers are stuck in a gloomy mucilage of mutual commiseration.

Herb Caen

A good column is one that sells paper. It doesn't matter how beautifully it is written and how much you admire the author... if it doesn't sell any papers, it's not a good column. It's a terrible yardstick to use, but in the newspaper business, that's the whole thing.

Herb Caen

San Franciscans have a bond of self-satisfaction bordering on smugness.

Herb Caen

The only way to fight a thing like 50 is to stay au courant if it kills you.

Herb Caen

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

Herb Caen

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

Herb Caen