“Chicago has disappointed her enemies and astonished the world”

“I must confess a shameful secret: I love Chicago best in the cold.”

“At present," he said, "I am responsible for conveying my associates to a place called Chicago. I understand it is somewhere in the hinterland.”

“Place has always been important to me, and one thing today's Chicago exudes, as it did in 1893, is a sense of place. I fell in love with the city, the people I encountered, and above all the lake and its moods, which shift so readily from season to season, day to day, even hour to hour.”

“At one point during the Holmes investigation Chicago's chief of police told a Tribune reporter he'd just as soon have a squad of reporters under his command as detectives.”

“It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so very easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root. This was Chicago, on the eve of the greatest fair in history.”

“No system which implies control by privilege seekers has ever ended in any other way than collapse.”