| The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996. |
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| NUMBER: | 54265 |
| QUOTATION: | The small Midwestern town achieves its legendary dullness by a process akin to evaporation—all the warm and energetic particles depart for coastal cities, leaving their place of origin colder and flatter than they found it. But the restless spirit in a small town knows he lives in the sticks and has a limited range of experience, while his suburban counterpart can sustain an illusion of cosmopolitanism in an environment which is far more constricted (a small town is a microcosm, a suburb merely a layer). |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Philip Slater, U.S. sociologist. The Pursuit of Loneliness: American Culture at the Breaking Point, ch. 1, Beacon Press (1970). |
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| | | The Columbia World of Quotations. Copyright © 1996 Columbia University Press. |
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