Chicago Quotations

I was born in Chicago in 1927, the only child of Morris and Mildred Markowitz, who owned a small grocery store. We lived in a nice apartment, always had enough to eat, and I had my own room. I never was aware of the Great Depression.

I took an improv class in 2005 in Chicago at ComedySportz, which was short-form, more of a games-based improv. I remember it being real fun and helping with my stand-up. If I did an improv class, and then I did stand-up later, I felt looser on stage and more comfortable.

My younger sister's a comedian. She has a sketch comedy group in Chicago called Schadenfreude and I look at her with such admiration and envy because it's such an amazing thing to make someone laugh.

When you're a Chicago artist, to play Lollapalooza, that's not a normal thing. It's artists on a path to a certain place that do that. Chief Keef did it; Kids These Days did it; Cool Kids did it. And I'm the next Cool-Kids-Chief, if you will.

I am back in Los Angeles after a very successful run in Chicago as Billy Flynn.

I was not a great guitarist, so I sold my 1960 Fender Stratocaster in exchange for a Shure Microphone, made in Chicago, and a flute.

The last job I applied for was to be a bus driver for the Chicago Transit Authority in 1957.

Chicago was where I realized that improv is its own thing, its own art form. And through that, you kind of develop a work ethic of not selling it short.

Jamie Moyer was in his third year as a major league pitcher and was, by his own admission, still wide-eyed, watching everything going on around him and soaking it in. He paid particular attention to older teammates on his Chicago Cubs squad, hoping to emulate habits that had allowed those veterans to extend their careers.

And we had a DJ - my childhood friend from Chicago came to be the DJ at our party out in LA. It was a party, rockin' and rolling, and it was dancing and fun. For me it was different; just to have family with us.

If I have one special memory, it was when we recreated the trial of the Chicago Seven - and I'd known about it before - but this was a pivotal moment in my life. If my father had been found guilty of conspiracy, I wouldn't be here.

I was always very curious about what a scientist's life was like when I was young. Of course, when I was young, you didn't have very many opportunities to find out with no web, TV. I was very lucky: I was born in the city of Chicago and went to the University of Chicago where I actually saw things.

I just know that I could never spend a winter in Chicago or some place like that. Im just not a cold weather person.

I grew up in Chicago, so I've always been a Bears fan.

Coming from Chicago, I like a white Christmas.

I'd been doing the Chicago theatre thing for years. The money was kinda good - thanks to a push by my old pal Capone, who, let's say, persuaded theatre owners to book me.

It was Chicago with its World's Fair which vivified the national desire for civic beauty.

I miss everything about Chicago, except January and February.

And then when I went to Chicago, that's when I had these outer space experiences and went to the other planets.

I went home one night and told my dad that an older kid was picking on me. My Dad, a Korean War vet and a Chicago cop for 30 years, told me, 'You better pick up a brick and hit him in the head.' That's when I thought, 'Wow, I'm going to have to start dealing with things in a different way.'

Germany was the cause of Hitler as much as Chicago is responsible for the Chicago Tribune.

I grew up in Chicago, and I understand what Michael Jordan symbolizes.

Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs.

Before the Great Chicago Fire, no one took notice of Patrick and Catherine O'Leary, two Irish immigrants who lived with their five children on the city's West Side.

But when I go to Chicago, I know I'm home.

My own interest in basic aspects of electron transfer between metal complexes became active only after I came to the University of Chicago in 1946.

Chicago is not the most corrupt American city. It's the most theatrically corrupt.

I think that what comes through in Chicago humor is the affection. Even though youre poking fun at someone or something, theres still an affection for it.

The Illinois Constitution was written before they realized they'd have a city the size of Chicago in the state. The constitution had severe limits on the ability of any city to raise monies through taxes and bonds. When Chicago grew explosively, they had to come up with ways of getting more money to do more things.

Chicago fans cheer and boo who they want. They're great fans whether they like me or not. They show you how they feel. I don't like crowds that sit on their hands.

In my hometown of Chicago, I'm kind of a medium deal.

I worked hard learning harmony and theory when I was growing up in Chicago in the 1920s.

I grew up in Chicago, and there was always snow. In Los Angeles there never was, so we would always import snow!

When I was a kid, my father brought home the autobiography of Sid Luckman, the great Chicago Bears quarterback - probably an extra copy from the sports department where he worked. It was the first sports biography I ever read.

In the States, it takes you a lifetime just to get from Chicago's South Side to the West Side.

I did a lot of commercial and theater work when I got out of school and was living in Dallas, and I moved to Chicago to go through the Second City Conservatory Program.

I'd studied dance in Chicago every summer end taught it all winter, and I was well-rounded. I wasn't worried about getting a job on Broadway. In fact, I got one the first week.

If properly dried and trimmed, New York-style pizza could be used to make a box for Chicago-style pizza.

It was Muddy Waters who took the Delta blues north to Chicago, electrified the sound, and changed the course of popular music as we know it. That's pretty much the judgment of history, and it is mine as well.

But I like being nasty. I like being cranky. Especially if it's a cold day in Chicago, it's nice to just take it out on Kyle, because he's so easy to scream at, you know?

My main graduate training was received at the University of Chicago from which I received the Ph.D. in 1938.

I didn't grow up with my Kenyan family. I grew up in a small, conservative suburb of Chicago.

No city embraced privatization more eagerly than Chicago, where I live.

For over 20 years, I have been saying that Chicago is by far one of the greatest food cities in the world.

Chicago always hit me as such a gloomy place - I just remember all the snow getting dirty as soon as it would fall, all the decaying brown brick buildings around where we lived, all this soot all over the place.

I've been very engaged in Illinois and Chicago civic activities for a long time; mostly around building businesses and helping entrepreneurs grow companies, but also around education and education reform.

Whether I'm reading a national publication or one of my local Chicago newspapers, I don't need to turn too many pages before I stumble upon another scandal. Not only do ethics violations deteriorate the public trust, but they also disrupt and undermine legitimate debate and policy.

I met my wife, Margaret L. Mack, at the University of Chicago. We were married in 1936. She died in 1970.

The West coast money and the East coast money, in an ever-increasing manner, is finding its way to Chicago.

I did a lot of theater in the South side of Chicago.

I've never been arrested. I've been stopped, searched and had a gun put to my head by the Chicago cops.

I'm from Chicago. My grandfather was a policeman, and my aunts are married to policemen.

Chicago seems a big city instead of merely a large place.

I went to the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago.

I'm from Chicago, my family started a chain of movie theaters in Chicago that were around for 70 years and then one of them became the head of Paramount and the other was the head of production at MGM and we all came out of Chicago.

Currently, I am overseeing the construction of the new Trump Tower in Chicago. I am involved in meeting with the construction crews, architects and sales teams. I am learning a lot and working with some of the best in the business.

My first paying gig was a play called 'The Voice of the Prairie' at a theater that no longer exists in Chicago called Wisdom Bridge. I played a fast-talking radio huckster - a salesman of crystal sets in the 1920s - and I actually won an award. Look at that! And then promptly didn't get hired for a year.

In 1958, I came to Chicago where I have remained.

Being Irish was a big thing for me, particularly growing up in Chicago.

Improv changed my life in the best way. I gained so much confidence and really learned how to use my sense of humor to do something other than make sarcastic comments to the TV, though that remains one of my best skills. I stayed in Chicago for college mainly to continue doing improv, which was an awesome decision for me.

You know what I'd really like to do? I'd like to record some white Chicago jazz.

I was assigned to the heavy cruiser Chicago.

Chicago is incredibly gracious. People here have so much pride.

I grew up in Dolton, just south of Chicago, about a 20-minute drive from old Comiskey Park.

I worked a lot in Chicago's theater scene as a fight choreographer. And so I do have a lot of experience in stage combat and also in Kabuki dance and Kabuki theater.

Chicago is many things to many people, and to me, it is a place where you can write.

I was never exposed to a great deal of racism, but the Chicago I grew up in was very, very segregated.

Even before I came to Chicago, I had gotten interested in the existence of dispersion of prices under conditions which economic theory said would yield a single price.

I was knocked out by the show, Chicago.

I live and die with the Chicago Cubs

If you work in Chicago in the improv scene, anyone is happy for you if you get a job.

We started very slow in America. It was small acoustic shows. We played places like Los Angeles, New York and Chicago and everywhere there has been a great reaction. It has been really lovely. They listen to the lyrics and the melody over there and the reaction has been fantastic.

I did Chicago on Broadway the year before last. That was a great opportunity and I had a blast.

No realistic, sane person goes around Chicago without protection.

When I was training for the Chicago Marathon, I would eat a cup of cereal after an 18-mile long run, and then I'd have to get out the door with nothing but a granola bar in my hand. I can't change my busy schedule with my kids, but I can work harder to improve in this area. I think it's a part of training that most of us find difficult.

Chicago will give you a chance. The sporting spirit is the spirit of Chicago.

Aside from a few master teachers that we have had over the years, this has been a completely local talent development. But people have started to come now from Chicago, we have a number of students from Chicago and different places of the country and even in the world.

My mother, she worked in the mayor's office in Chicago when I was growing up and has been in democratic politics for a long time.

But my favorite band is Curbside Life, out of Chicago.

I really don't know the Chicago School. You see, I never walk. I always take taxis back and forth to work. I rarely see the city.

For some Chicago expats, food is the medicine that blunts the pain of separation.

Um, 'Soul Food'... Another wonderful little movie that could. Here's a film that, I think our budget was maybe $6 million. We shot it in Chicago in six weeks. I was so proud of the film, because it showed America that an African-American film about family could sell, could do well, could cross over and have true meaning.

I wrote my first novel and my second novel in Chicago. It was the place where I became a writer. It's my favorite city.

If nothing else came out of all of this debacle over Obamacare, one thing that should is a class-action lawsuit against the University of Chicago Law School for people that had Obama as their constitutional law professor.

Chicago's one of the rare places where architecture is more visible.

Right away when I got to college, I realized that being a politician sucks. It's really hard! It wasn't for me. B.J. Novak is convinced that I will run for mayor of Chicago at some point. He begs me to do it. It'd be a tough gig, but I was always very attracted to the idea of helping people and trying to make the city a better place.

I was the highest-paid street performer, probably, in the history of Chicago. I was making like $800 a day.

I tell people in Chicago to take care of themselves.

I came from the South Side of Chicago wanting to be a rap artist and make videos.

Sometimes I do feel hopeless when I look out and scream out through my music, and I scream out through these interviews, and I scream out to people to kind of get their attention back on the things that are meaningful. There's people dying on the streets of Chicago - young people, young men and women who are losing their lives.

I grew up in Chicago and was a huge fan of 'The Second City', so when I moved to L.A., I was looking for anything that resembled that... then I started 'The Groundlings', so I went to a show and it was very much like 'Second City'. I was so impressed that that same night I went backstage and I went up to the funniest person there.

Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse. One comfort we have - Cincinnati sounds worse.

For me, I never wore my religion on my sleeve, you know what I'm saying? I never put myself out there as Lupe Fiasco, he's Muslim, he's from Chicago, he likes to ride a skateboard.

I moved to Chicago when I was 28, and I wasn't completely idealistic about going to Second City and making a living from comedy, but I knew it would be great for the resume.

Sometimes words are just music themselves. Like 'Chicago' is a very musical sounding name.

I sometimes feel it is to my disadvantage that I have not conducted the Cleveland Orchestra or the Boston or Chicago symphonies, but then I have had to sacrifice something in order to have enough time with my orchestras.

The first band I identified with from Chicago was the Muddy Waters band.

Back in his Chicago Senate days, when he was seeking greater black credibility, Obama was happy enough to attend the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ.

I'd love to do a film like 'Chicago.' Something musical because I've obviously come from that background.

I've been to Chicago a lot - it's one of my favorite places. My wife is from Chicago, and I worked in the theater there a lot.