I journeyed to London, to the timekept City, / Where the River flows, with foreign flotations. / There I was told: we have too many churches, / And too few chop-houses.

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), The Rock

London opens to you like a novel itself . . . It is divided into chapters, the chapters into scenes, the scenes into sentences; it opens to you like a series of rooms, door, passsage, door. Mayfair to Piccadilly to Soho to the Strand.

Anna Quindlen (b.1953), Imagined London: A Tour of the World’s Greatest Fictional City

Go where we may, rest where we will, Eternal London haunts us still.

Thomas Moore (1779-1852), Rhymes on the Road, The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore

A bad day in London is still better than a good day anywhere else.

Anon

Having a lovely time. Stop. If I ever find you in London, I will break your neck. Stop.

Lieutenant Colonel Charles Rathbone, Telegram sent to brutal Schweidnitz POW camp commander, Karl Niemeyer, after Rathbone’s 150 mile escape through Germany into Holland, 1918