"Could anything be more indicative of a slight but general insanity than the aspect of the crowd on the streets of Chicago?"
      - Charles Horton Cooley, "Human Nature and the Social Order," 1902

"[Chicago is] a facade of skyscrapers facing a lake and behind the facade, every type of dubiousness."
      - E.M. Forster

"Chicago is the product of modern capitalism, and, like other great commercial centers, is unfit for human habitation."
      - Eugene Debs, 1908

"Chicago was a town where nobody could forget how the money was made. It was picked up from floors still slippery with blood."
      - Norman Mailer, 1968

"In the twilight, it was a vision of power."
      - Upton Sinclair, "The Jungle"

"I give you Chicago. It is not London and Harvard. It is not Paris and buttermilk. It is American in every chitlin and sparerib. It is alive from snout to tail."
      - H.L. Mencken

"It's a hundred and six miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes; it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it!"
      - The Blues Brothers