I got interested in the contradiction between people who are understanding the city by not moving a single inch, by remaining in the same place all the time, and people like me who are constantly roaming around. Iain Sinclair More Quotes by Iain Sinclair More Quotes From Iain Sinclair An involuntary return to the point of departure is, without doubt, the most disturbing of all journeys. Iain Sinclair journey doubt travel London is a city that sleeps too much. This is the mould of its quality. A magnetic contract: to reinvent itself on the other side of dream, each day. And such dreams, smouldering against the tidal spine of the river, telling and retelling the tales that must be told to manifest a city's bones. Whispering the night architecture back into stone. Iain Sinclair dream sleep night Life and career are the same thing. Every life has to have a plot and a plan. You have to recognize this early and be quite cold-blooded in the discovery and articulation of that plot. Iain Sinclair plot careers discovery Culture isn't all just about what can be tweaked and twitched in the simplest possible way. As people move around, they literally don't see what's around them, because they're wedded to earworms that are burrowing into their heads endlessly in a kind of negotiation with these tiny screens. Iain Sinclair culture people moving The line of traffic advancing towards the rising sun looked like a procession of the returning dead. Every one of them, solitaries in clean shirts, smoking, checking mirrors to see if their reflections were still there, wore dark glasses. Iain Sinclair glasses reflection dark For the bookish, London is a book. For criminals, a map of opportunities. For unpapered immigrants, it is a nest of skinned eyes; sanctioned gunmen ready to blow your head off as you run for a train. When the city of distorting mirrors revealed itself, through its districts and discriminations, I discovered more about London's past as a reworking of my own submerged history. Iain Sinclair eye running book You'd better make it your business to understand the market. The ability to charm or play the game is useful. Iain Sinclair business games play People are moving faster - you can see that in the streets. Partly that's because of the electronic devices, which encourage this. Iain Sinclair people moving As you become known, the demands on you are such that you get less and less time to do the things you want to do. But if there are no demands, then that means nobody wants to read what you're doing anyway, so you're stuck. Iain Sinclair demand want mean It's just a freak of fate that I'm paid to write, not paying to print my own books - but I'd be doing it anyway: it's my life. Iain Sinclair fate writing book Walking around becomes actually difficult. But the walking process is the oldest natural form of movement. It puts you literally in touch with the earth and the weather around you and allows you to get into conversation with people as you move, which seldom happens in the other ways we move. Iain Sinclair earth people moving As you withdraw energy from the city, you are also giving energy back. People are noticing you. You're doing something, you're there, the species around you absorb your presence into it, and you become part of this animate entity called the city. Iain Sinclair energy giving people The world changes, but I want that change to be necessary or respectful of what has happened before. Everything changes, and that's quite right. Iain Sinclair everything-changes change want world You can't impose a legacy. Iain Sinclair impose you legacy There is an obvious connection, on the declining Roman empire's bread and circuses model, between political enthusiasm for public spectacles and the periods when we are least able to pay for them. Iain Sinclair connection political enthusiasm bread If people are telling you a story about themselves, they gradually map their own local territories and know themselves by them. Iain Sinclair story know you people I don't feel proprietary, but I do feel there is a human identity to the borough of Hackney that's quite peculiar. It was always bloody-minded and difficult; it always stood up to central government. Iain Sinclair feel difficult government identity The kind of world I'm endlessly going on about is pretty well doomed, but nevertheless I think there are recesses of it worth celebrating. Iain Sinclair worth pretty think world The only times I'm not relaxed are when I haven't got a project on the go. Iain Sinclair project only go relaxed The negotiation of city space has been made more difficult with the idea that redevelopment is an improvement for some vague future - but it's never like that, is it? Once you get there, for economic reasons you have to generate the next project - so you're immediately starting to dig up something else, and so it goes on. Iain Sinclair city you future space
