I get nostalgic about having lived in Ames, Iowa, even though being a vegetarian in Iowa is not fun. But I really love Durham more than any place I've ever been; some small towns can be really provincial and strangling, but Durham is the best city in the world.

John Darnielle

Growing up in Georgia, I used to think people up north or out west were so different. They're really not. They're just regular people who live in small towns. They grow up and try to raise families and have a job and go to church and play softball. It's that way everywhere.

Alan Jackson

There is a comfortable feeling in small towns. It is salubrious.

Andie MacDowell

It is interesting to be here and to see that for certain actors they have to live in a way that you think of nobody living anymore except for in small towns. They have such elaborate double lives.

Bill Condon

A lot of small towns in Texas have only volunteer fire departments. And even though they're called volunteer fire departments, they are usually very professional and have great training and usually have good equipment.

Bill Flores

People from small towns have to have their edges roughed up to get along in the world. But as a street reporter, you learn quickly.

Bill Kurtis

What we don't talk about enough is Ohio's unique and remarkable quality of life. We are a state of cities, small towns and growing suburbs where life is affordable and destinations within reach. There is no better place to raise a family.

Bob Taft

I don't think I'll ever lose the feeling that I had when I read 'To Kill a Mockingbird' - Harper Lee was going back into her childhood. I grew up in a real small town - Lee's was in the South, mine the Northwest - but small towns have a lot in common. There was such a revelation in knowing that a story could be told like that.

Chris Crutcher

In the years when teenagers really need to be connected to somebody, they aren't; especially in small towns where kids are bored and look for something to get them going.

Dash Mihok

I was born in New York City. But my family moved when I was still an infant. Except for a year and half when we lived in Youngstown, Ohio, I grew up in small towns in Pennsylvania. I graduated from high school in Farrell, Pennsylvania.

E. L. Konigsburg

TV is very mass, especially now that boxes are shifting to small towns.

Ekta Kapoor

I have lived most of my life in small towns, and I'm in the habit of knowing and talking to everyone.

Ellen Gilchrist

I think in small towns like this one, whether you're a man or a woman, you basically do what there is to do.

Estelle Parsons

It's very hard for people that live in the small towns to be able to buy a certain kind of clothes because they're not available to them, you know. They only see them in beautiful magazines.

Fabio Lanzoni

The secrets of small towns have fascinated writers and readers since the first psychological thriller was penned.

Fiona Barton

But instead of that stuff you get relationships with people and neighbors that you would never get in a city. People in small towns are a lot more open.

Genevieve Gorder

I enjoy going on motorcycle trips and stopping in small towns and enjoying drinks with the locals.

George Clooney

Walmart's period of explosive growth coincided with decades of wage stagnation and deindustrialization. By applying relentless downward pressure on prices and wages, the company came to dominate both consumer spending and employment in small towns and rural areas across the middle of the country.

George Packer

I've had gay friends who grew up in small towns in France who had to lie for most of their lives, even to themselves. But eventually such lies become stronger than the people, and they have to face them.

Guillaume Canet

A manufacturing resurgence is what will give local communities and small towns across America a fighting chance for survival. Many of today's American entrepreneurs come from those very places but make their wealth elsewhere. We need to change that.

Hamdi Ulukaya

One of the best ways of reducing both CO2 emissions and poverty in the South would be to strengthen the existing, decentralised demographic pattern by keeping villages and small towns alive. This would allow communities to maintain social cohesion and a closer contact with the land.

Helena Norberg-Hodge