I drive a motorbike, so there is the whiff of the grim reaper round every corner, especially in London.

Benedict Cumberbatch (b.1976)

Whenever a stranger is bold enough to hail a cab, not one, but half a dozen come at once, obedient to his call; and the eagerness the drivers display is truly touching.

Max Schlesinger (1822-1881), Saunterings in and about London

I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is.

Bram Stoker (1847-1912), Dracula

It’s a sad fact of modern life that if you drive long enough, sooner or later you must leave London behind.

Ben Aaronovitch (b.1964), Moon Over Soho

The dismal quarter of Soho seen under these changing glimpses, with its muddy ways, and slatternly passengers, and its lamps, which had never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful re-invasion of darkness, seemed, in the lawyer’s eyes, like a district of some city in a nightmare.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), The Carew Murder Case