There’s a hole in the world / Like a great black pit / And the vermin of the world / Inhabit it / And it goes by the name of London.

Stephen Sondheim (b.1930)

How can you ever be late for anything in London? They have a huge clock right in the middle of the town.

Jimmy Kimmel (b.1967), Jimmy Kimmel Live! 5th March, 2013

When it’s three o’clock in New York, it’s still 1938 in London.

Bette Midler (b.1945), The Unofficial Guide to London

Our haughty life is crowned with darkness, / Like London with its own black wreath.

William Wordsworth (1779-1850), Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg

A city like London was always going to be a paradox, the best of it so very riddled with the opposite, so Swiss-cheesed with moral holes.

China Tom Miéville (b.1972), Kraken