Pete Jordan > Quotes

“I failed to understand what was so enviable about having a position that a pack of phonies sucked up to. Dishwashing suited me because nice people were nice to me and assholes were assholes to me, yet no one ever sucked up to me.”
― Pete Jordan

“I’ve been in Amsterdam, I’ve been able to enjoy many aspects of cycling here. One thing I have not been able to do yet is bike with my sweetheart. But now that you’re here, I’m so excited to ride around town with you among all the thousands of other cyclists while I hold your wrist or you hold mine.”
― Pete Jordan, In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist – A Love Letter to Dutch Cycling Culture and History

“Cycling nowadays is tantamount to attempting suicide.”
― Pete Jordan, In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist – A Love Letter to Dutch Cycling Culture and History

“Forgotten by everyone, that is, except by the city’s youths who used these bikes to indulge both their inherent mechanical skills and their penchant for vandalism. Under their guidance such bikes followed a familiar pattern of decay: “First, the bell disappears. Then the light and back rack. Finally, the seat, the tires and, sometimes, even entire wheels. But the frame remains standing—for hours, days, months, years. . . .”
― Pete Jordan, In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist – A Love Letter to Dutch Cycling Culture and History

“handlebars. From the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, during various confrontations between young people and the Amsterdam police, it”
― Pete Jordan, In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist – A Love Letter to Dutch Cycling Culture and History

“In 1955, one sign—on the façade of a secondhand bookshop on Oudezijds Achterburgwal—read: BICYCLES PARKED HERE WILL BE DESTROYED.”
― Pete Jordan, In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist – A Love Letter to Dutch Cycling Culture and History

“Many kids would hit the streets at about 4 a.m., though early birds got started even earlier; the first calls regarding disorderly behavior usually reached the police by 2 a.m. Celebrants of Luilak (which means “lazybones”) would ring doorbells, beat drums, blow horns, crash pot lids together, scream “Luilak!,” sing a Luilak song, drag strings of empty tin cans behind their bikes, overturn garbage cans, bang windows, break windows, light bonfires, ignite fireworks, drink bottles of milk left out by the milkman, set buckets of water over doorways and trigger false fire alarms. They did anything and everything to annoy sleeping adults. This yearly debauchery—particular to Amsterdam and a few surrounding towns and with unknown origins—was centuries old.*”
― Pete Jordan, In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist – A Love Letter to Dutch Cycling Culture and History

“Each year, the city government, the police department and the local newspapers warned adult Amsterdammers to take precautions. Before going to bed the night before Luilak, adults were advised to: disconnect their doorbells, bring garbage cans indoors, close all windows, avoid sleeping in street-facing rooms and wear earplugs.”
― Pete Jordan, In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist – A Love Letter to Dutch Cycling Culture and History

“The Dutch life is beautifully attuned to the deliberate pace of bicycle riding. It has the same calm and slow rhythm which allows the Hollander time off for coffee in the middle of the morning, for tea in the afternoon, and tea again in the evening. . . . To a Dutchman a bicycle becomes a matter of individual expression, almost a part of the body, controlled subconsciously and leaving him free to meditation. There is no noise, no smell of gasoline, so he can notice little things like birds and flowers, which the automobilized American leaves in the roar and dust. An”
― Pete Jordan, In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist – A Love Letter to Dutch Cycling Culture and History

“Though I was able to use the four months at the warehouse job to read twenty-six Mark Twain books in a row, I made no friends and got lonely.”
― Pete Jordan, Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States

“The last guy was a lazy shit,' he continued, 'but he never missed a day of work and you won't find too many dishwashers in America you can say that about.' ¶ I didn't bother to tell him he didn't find one in me.”
― Pete Jordan, Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States

“You into Charlie Parker?” he asked. “No,” I had to say again. “Well, Bird was a dishwasher just like me and you,” he said. “Worked at Jimmy’s Chicken Shack in New York. You can hear it in his sax.”
― Pete Jordan, Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States

“When a costumed chicken came up and tried to teach me the freakin' chicken dance, without thinking, I barked, 'Get away from me!' Then, through the chicken's beak, I saw a dejected teenage girl. What a jerk I am, I thought, and apologized to her. Despite the fact that there were still more hours of pay to earn by doing nothing, yelling at six-foot chickens was a clear indication that it was time to go.”
― Pete Jordan, Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States

“The warning about not chopping off one's face by stepping into the helicopter's tail rotary wing made a strong impression on me.”
― Pete Jordan, Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States

“For decades, he held a steady job at a customs office. He always arrived on time, worked without complaining and was the model employee. But those who got ahead, it seemed, were the bullshitters and the backstabbers. Being the good employee counted for little. He was passed over for promotions and raises . . . and remained poor.”
― Pete Jordan, Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States

“During my bus ride out to the nursing home, I filled ou the rest of the story: After more than a thousand years of keeping their meat and dairy separated, along came Jesus who apparently told the Jews that it wasn't a big deal after all. He told anyone who'd listen that boiling a young goat in his mother's milk wasn't really a commandment from above, rather just a helpful culinary tip like 'Don't oversalt' or 'Thaw before eating.”
― Pete Jordan, Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States