Proportion . . . You can’t help thinking about it in these London streets, where it doesn’t exist . . . It’s like listening to a symphony of cats to walk along them. Senseless discords and a horrible disorder all the way . . . We need no barbarians from outside; they’re on the premises, all the time.

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), Antic Hay

A flat black bug, that’s London.

Paul Verlaine (1844-1896), The Sky above the Roof

London is a splendid place to live in for those who can get out of it.

George John Gordon Bruce (1883-1967), The Observer, 1st October, 1944

Smiley was soaked to the skin and God as a punishment had removed all taxis from the face of London.

John le Carré (b.1931), Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy

London, with its monotonous and melancholy houses, seems like an inharmonious patchwork, as if pieced together without design. Yet it is lovable in its sprawling confusion.

Joseph Fort Newton (1876-1950), Preaching in London: A Diary of Anglo-American Friendship