Elizabeth Wilson > Quotes

“We who live here wear this corner of the city like a comfortable old coat, an extension of our personalities, threadbare yet retaining a beauty of its own.”
― Elizabeth Wilson, The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and Women

“Perhaps we should be happier in our cities were we to respond to them as to nature or dreams: as objects of exploration, investigation and interpretation, settings for voyages of discovery.”
― Elizabeth Wilson, The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and Women

“We will never solve the problems of cities unless we like the urban-ness of urban life. Cities aren't villages; they aren't machines; they aren't works of art; and they aren't telecommunications stations. They are spaces for face to face contact of amazing variety and richness. They are spectacle - and what is wrong with that?”
― Elizabeth Wilson, The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and Women

“Love', the word, is at the centre of tennis. It is embedded in the unique and eccentric scoring system. Love meaning nothing - zero. Playing for love. That it was, uniquely, a sport in which woman and men played together made it a 'love game' in a social and romantic sense.”
― Elizabeth Wilson, Love Game: A History of Tennis, from Victorian Pastime to Global Phenomenon

“To approach tennis with 'love' may be dangerous if, as Oscar Wilde wrote, 'each man kills the thing he loves' - whether because that love is too obsessive or too critical. Many critics believed that 'love' in tennis was dangerous - that the very fact of this word being used in the scoring system rendered it unmanly. But love is also a hopeful word of celebration; and in the end, the point of writing about tennis is to celebrate the beauty, the glamour and the joy of this unique game.”
― Elizabeth Wilson, Love Game: A History of Tennis, from Victorian Pastime to Global Phenomenon