London is a museum world, and the museum, like the cathedral or the palazzo in their day, is the dominant symbol of our postmodern times. A museum is an imposing assemblage of bits and pieces, history for attention-deficit amnesiacs.

Wendy Steiner (b.1949), The Scandal of Pleasure: Art in an Age of Fundamentalism

London is a city that has reinvented itself upon the remains of the past.

Leo Hollis (b.1972), London Rising: The Men Who Made Modern London

Behind everything in London is something else, and, behind that, is something else still; and so on through the centuries, so that London as we see her is only the latest manifestation of other Londons, and to lover her is to plunge into ancestor-worship.

H. V. Morton (1892-1979), In Search of London

London is a corporation by prescription, known by several names.

J. S. F., The Citizen’s Pocket Chronicle; Containing a Digested View of the History, Antiquity, and Temporal Government of the City of London

London is a huge, stony desert: even boredom feels endless there.

Sándor Márai (1900-1989), Portraits of a Marriage