Nightlife Quotes

“I have people in my life, of course. Some write; some don't. Some read; some don't. Some stare vacantly into space when I talk the geeky talk and walk the geeky walk, but they make killer chocolate chip pancakes and so all is forgiven.”
― Rob Thurman

“When life gives you lemons. . . You might as well shove 'em where the sun don't shine, because you sure as hell aren't ever going to see any lemonade.”
― Rob Thurman, Nightlife

“There is no night life in Spain. They stay up late but they get up late. That is not night life. That is delaying the day. Night life is when you get up with a hangover in the morning. Night life is when everybody says what the hell and you do not remember who paid the bill. Night life goes round and round and you look at the wall to make it stop. Night life comes out of a bottle and goes into a jar. If you think how much are the drinks it is not night life.”
― Ernest Hemingway, 88 Poems

“Bulgaria, I reflected as I walked back to the hotel, isn’t a country; it’s a near-death experience.”
― Bill Bryson, Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe

“Moon in the sky, stars out, the wide-open expanse of nothing: it made him feel free and alive as the daytime never did.”
― Chuck Wendig, Wanderers

“A history of nightlife!--what an interesting concept. A history of a people, told not through their daily travails and successive political upheavals, but via the changes in their nightly celebrations and unwindings. History is, in this telling, accompanied by a bottle of Malbec, some fine Argentine steak, tango music, dancing, and gossip. It unfolds through and alongside illicit activities that take place in the multitude of discos, dance parlors, and clubs. Its direction, the way people live, is determined on half-lit streets, in bars, and in smoky late-night restaurants. This history is inscribed in songs, on menus, via half-remembered conversations, love affairs, drunken fights, and years of drug abuse.”
― David Byrne, Bicycle Diaries

“Everybody has their security blankets in this world.Some are just sharper than others.”
― Cal Leandros

“The world you once knew is no more for you.”
― Travis Luedke, The Nightlife: New York

“The start and unexpected miracle of a night fades out with the lingering death of the last starts and the premature birth of the first newsboys. The flame retreats to some remote and platonic fire; the white heat has gone from the iron and the glow from the coal.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

“Like Mardi Gras and Halloween rolled into a public party at the Playboy mansion, Rio during Carnaval is like no other place on earth. And the freak-flags fly like the color guard of an invading army.”
― James Schannep, Murdered: Can You Solve the Mystery?

“Pregnancy sucks the nightlife out of you.”
― Laurie Perez, The Power of Amie Martine

“In fact, I didn't care about getting laid anymore. Wandering around Shinjuku on a noisy Saturday night, observing the mysterious energy created by a mixture of sex and alcohol, I began to feel that my own desire was a puny thing.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“She sat there, a wild heart on a chair with gin lips and nightlife eyes. The Gatsby Girl. Longing for more in the shallowness of it all.”
― Marie-Kristin Hofmann, Remember the wild girl

“In the doorway of Fortnum & Mason a young couple were kissing, oblivious to the world. The neon signs mounted on the buildings cast a glossy veneer over the streetscape, glowing through the smog. Around the statue of Eros there were crowds of youngers. The girls were a mass of bobby pins and ribbons, hardly dressed for the cold weather. The boys wore suits with thin ties. They were bantering on their way from the cinemas and theatres to the bars, dance halls and music clubs further along.
“I fancy you, Kitty Dawson,” a lone boy shouted.”
― Sara Sheridan, London Calling

“He also stayed awake all night many times in the neon-lit insomnia of cities where the all-nighter is culturally certified and commercially mandated. But the all-nighter of the bohemian heroes was something else: it was spiritual work, the night shift; they stayed awake so the demons that haunt the world wouldn’t get them in their sleep.”
― Andrei Codrescu, Wakefield

“De noche, el mundo lucía feliz, ligero, ajeno a los problemas de la vida diaria; en la obscuridad el caos es el orden.”
― Ahtziri Lagarde, Las Cenizas de Ícaro

“We can’t tell if ever night falls asleep
Our slumber veils many secrets: deep
The moonlit visage of this city life
Shines through the blade from a glistening knife

From the poem "City Night”
― Munia Khan

“Statistically, GHB is most commonly used by POC and LGBTQ+ groups from low-income backgrounds who cannot afford the limitless amount of ketamine, coke, and alcohol during their nights out. Why not put the energy into educating and providing your community with providing harm reduction guides on how to use it rather than shame and condemn it. The ban approach hasn't worked for the scene in the past decade, if anything it's killing more people, harming more communities and scrutinizing our spaces even more.”
― Salman Jaberi, Rave Scout Cookies Handbook

“There were lights. There was music. There was laughter. There were white sofas piled with cushions scattered all over the massive terrace. Glass tables with golden legs rested in front of each well-nested area. Servers slipped between the tables carrying trays with colorful drinks. What drew Tara’s attention was the skyline overlooking the entire terrace. It was magical.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“too late for discretion, too early for breakfast”
― Anthony Tao, We Met in Beijing

“Allow me to be more broad. Festivals in the daytime: splendid. But there's just something extraordinary about nightlife.”
― Karah Khalia

“Allir í hringnum höfðu hátt um sig og gripu hver fram í fyrir öðrum. Hitalampi brann í loftinu fyrir ofan þau. Lilja fékk sér sopa af bjórnum og þegar hún setti hann aftur á borðið, fann hún að hávaðinn og skarkalinn á reykingasvæðinu fjaraði smátt og smátt út þar til herbergið varð fullkomlega hljóðlaust. Allt stöðvaðist. Fólk hætti að hreyfast; varð líkara útklipptum pappamyndum af sjálfu sér. Hún fann hitalampann brenna á hnakkanum og leit á
strákinn sem sat við hliðina á henni og sá birtuna streyma á andlitið á honum. Haka hans lyftist upp í sömu andrá og hljóðið skall aftur á. Einhver kveikti sér í sígarettu. Kolla lyfti bjór að vörum sér og saup. Mannfólkið varð aftur raunverulegt. „Ég ætla á klósstið,“ kallaði Kolla í eyrað á Lilju og stuggaði við henni. Rödd hennar skar rönd í hávaðann. Þær stóðu upp í sömu andrá og glas skall í gólfið og molnaði. Hlátrasköll brutust út á borðinu á móti þeim. Kolla ýtti við öxlinni á Lilju og þær stauluðust út um dyrnar á reykingasvæðinu og aftur inn á barinn.”
― Ísak Regal, Sara og Dagný og ég

“Some nights on the Strip felt like the universe dared us to survive.”
― J.D. DeCosta, Backstage Pass: Decades of Sex, Drugs, Tragedy and the Darker Side of Rock & Roll

“The Roxy taught me that chaos has a rhythm if you're brave enough to listen.”
― J.D. DeCosta, Backstage Pass: Decades of Sex, Drugs, Tragedy and the Darker Side of Rock & Roll

“After the Stonewall riots the gay activists had their idealistic hearts in the right place but it turned out they had underestimated the realpolitik of organized crime. Indeed, as gay liberation blossomed in the wild 1970s the bars and bathhouses became increasingly lucrative enterprises, and the Mafia had no intention of abandoning a racket it had controlled for decades. The Mafia families maintained their control by exercising the proverbial carrot and stick. The wise guys seemingly embraced the gay rights movement and cut more so-called Auntie Gays into the action as their fronts, and resorted to violent threats and sometimes murder against others who refused to play ball with the crime families. There were few legitimate businessmen in gay nightlife of the 1970s.”
― Phillip Crawford Jr., The Mafia and the Gays