Top 115 Portland Quotes

Portland is where all the fringe groups went to escape. Where the outliers brought that DIY, punk rock attitude and made the city their own.

But I was also doing odd jobs around Portland, like spreading gravel and transplanting bamboo trees.

Portland has a long history of embracing the most important of American values. Those are the rights to assembly and the rights to free speech. And we’re proud of protecting those core American values.

Yes, Portland is governable. Yes, it’s challenging.

I don’t really like New York better than Portland. It’s just a different place.

We have an obligation at the local level to do everything we can with the resources we have. And we do those things. But we’re never going to solve homelessness – not here in Portland, not here in any major city in America – if we keep assuming that it is purely a local issue.

I got into journalism, actually, when I started my graduate program at Portland State and ended up becoming the multimedia editor of the student paper and covered very uninteresting stories on campus: this culture event, dance night.

Transitioning our households, businesses and government operations in Portland and Multnomah County to 100 percent clean energy by 2050 is achievable, but it will require strong policy guidance and innovative new sources of funding.

I don’t think I would live outside of the Northwest. I think the quality of life in Portland is really good. People move from intense, high-powered jobs, and move to Portland, work half as much and live twice as good.

I was working at a restaurant, I booked the role in ‘Twilight,’ put in my two weeks’ notice, got fitted, flew to Portland, filmed, and then it started getting hype. That helped me get my foot into certain doors before the movie even came out.

I didn’t mean to live in Portland. It was kind of an accident – I mean, the equivalent of my car breaking down there and me being like, ‘Well… I guess this is what I’m doing. I just can’t find a better alternate.’

I just wanted to move out of Portland to do something.

Portland and Oregon draw a certain kind of person to it. The city has extraordinarily talented people and sometimes it takes an outsider to see that.

Portland doesn’t read like a basketball town, unless you remember what the NBA was like before it exploded into the mainstream in the Eighties: back when cities like Seattle, Baltimore, and Philadelphia moved the needle.

I thought Portland had a really good chance. But after we didn’t win it, I knew my time was up there. But it wasn’t a totally bad situation for me there. It was a great situation coming out of high school.

It would be nice if we redefined what we meant by ‘war story.’ If you’re making $15,000 a year living in a certain area of Portland, trying to make it with three kids and no husband, that’s a kind of war.

The reason I like Portland is the idea of going to a supermarket and knowing there’s no way to be recognized. L.A. is so social.

I want Portland to be the cleanest city in America.

I went to college on the East Coast in Portland, Maine.

With me and Portland, it wasn’t moving anywhere. I wasn’t given a bigger role as I played more and more with the club. I felt I could have been utilized in a bigger way.

I miss playing basketball and the city of Portland and the Rose Garden.

I could’ve signed with a team after Portland cut me and just sat on the bench and collected paychecks, but that’s not my style. That just seems really unethical. Besides, money doesn’t matter to me. I’ve got enough money.

A strange potion runs through the basketball blood of Portland. It’s stayed hot from the days of games at the Memorial Coliseum, where the Blazers played from their inception in 1970 until 1995.

You know, I know a lot of lifeguards. Both my parents were lifeguards at a lake in El Paso, Texas. I was a lifeguard in a swimming pool in Portland, Ore. And I have known and met and befriended a number of oceangoing lifeguards in California where I live.

I feel like, of course, Portland didn’t want me to leave, but I feel like at the end of the day it’s good to have a fresh start.

Portland has a proud history of protest.

I was living down in this awful little redneck town in Oregon, and everyone else was living in Seattle, so we rented a house in Portland, between the two.

I have the biggest sweet tooth, and just recently a doughnut shop in Portland called Pip’s Original introduced a doughnut inspired by me called the ‘Dirty Wu.’ It is a cinnamon-sugar doughnut with sea salt, drizzled with honey and Nutella.

In Portland, it rains all the time – but who cares? That’s not funny. That’s not universal.

Liv’s dad comes to Portland to visit. He flies up on his little plane and we spoil him and feed him and give him a dose of real life. We take his cellphone and hide it from him.

Sometimes in L.A., we get accused of being superficial. I feel like Portland’s the opposite, in that there’s a greater depth of character, and sense of self.

I’m loyal to Portland. I want to play my whole career here, but at any moment, they can decide we want somebody else.

At a time when leadership on climate protection and clean energy are more vital than ever, Portland and Oregon must step up and lead.

I think working so hard in Portland to earn the right to have it be my team and to have my own team over the years and try to play at a high level, that was hard-earned.

I’m willing to take criticism all day long from Fox News. But I’m not willing to accept criticism from Fox News of the men and women of the Portland Police Bureau.

There are amazing behind-the-scenes technicians in Portland who didn’t want to raise their families in L.A.

The role of my job is I’m always trying to figure out where I need to be. Do I need to be at a college game, at an international game, with the team, at practice, with my coaches, with a few of the players, up in Portland, Maine? I mean, where do I need to be?

One of the things that I was taught in Portland is ‘Never too high, never too low.’

Once I was in a cafe in Portland and the woman at the next table and I began chatting and in the course of our conversation she strongly recommend I visit this web site called ‘The Rumpus’ so I could read this advice column called ‘Dear Sugar.’ It was so painful not to tell her that in fact I was Sugar, but I didn’t.

Is Portland worse off than other cities? Is Portland really ‘Tent City U.S.A.?’ I want to be clear: The answer is no. While the homeless situation in Portland is significant and unacceptable, it is not unique.

As mayor I don’t intend to be just a voice for Portland. I intend to be a voice for urban America.

Portland is utopia. My favorite thing would be it’s earnestness. I am earnest, too.

Portland, Oregon won’t build a mile of road without a mile of bike path. You can commute there, even with that weather, all the time.

I personally think of Linux development as being pretty non-localized, and I work with all the people entirely over e-mail – even if they happen to be working in the Portland area.

If I had to make a choice for the Hall of Fame… I would have gone in as a Portland Trail Blazer.

I play a lot of video games, cook meals for my best friends and chosen family in Seattle, and find time to visit my family in Portland, Oregon.

Portland took the lead on climate action more than 25 years ago when we became the first U.S. city to adopt a climate action plan.

Portland is a two-hour flight from L.A. It has wonderful talent, and it hasn’t been shot to death. I’m all in favor of it becoming a serious player in the industry.

In Portland, I am more involved in the details of trade discussions because I’ve been around that sport longer and can watch tape and can give some input to the drafting process. In football, not at all. It’s so specialized.

If Portland can truly have a true comics show that doesn’t become a media show but retains its focus on comics, I think it’s going to serve the city well. If this becomes a big show, it’s going to bring in a lot of money for the city.

Sometimes in Portland I’m like, ‘Who is funding this city?’ It’s doing great – there’s all these new shops; there’s a synthesizer store. Where is this coming from?

Something about Portland just really resonated with me.

The other day, a doughnut shop in Portland called Pip’s Originals tweeted me telling me that they named a doughnut after me called the ‘Dirty Wu.’ It is a cinnamon sugar doughnut drizzled with honey and Nutella. It was so good. I just won the Oscar in the sci-fi world.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Portland basketball fans are the best basketball fans in the world.

I live in Portland. I’m a man of the world, and I live in Portland.

From a small market, nobody had heard of me. ESPN had guts, they had courage, they rolled the dice. A guy flew into Portland, we got a rare snowstorm, he was stuck there four days, John McConnell listened to me, and he recommended me.

I think perfect dates involve walking a lot, and not a bunch of driving around in cars. Ideally, you can walk together and go to a restaurant, and then walk from there to another nice place – this is, I guess, because of really great dates that I’ve had with my wife here in Portland.