Love Quote by George Dzundza

This is the sound of an outsider arriving with low expectations and then overcorrecting into delight, and that swing is the whole point. Dzundza doesn’t just compliment Philadelphia; he narrates his own surprise at loving it, which slyly acknowledges the city’s national reputation as gritty, blunt, even hostile. “I was shocked” is doing cultural work: it flatters locals by implying Philly is better than the story people tell about it, and it positions the speaker as honest enough to admit he bought that story at first.

The praise is deliberately excessive and a little old-fashioned. “The cat’s pajamas” is a corny idiom, almost vaudevillian, and coming from an actor it reads like a wink: a performer choosing a phrase with theatrical charm, not just civic boosterism. It softens what could be read as PR and makes the affection feel lived-in, like he’s trying to describe happiness without sounding like a brochure.

Notice the repetition: “I love... I love... I love...” It’s less argument than incantation, the verbal equivalent of someone insisting they’re not just passing through. For a working actor, that matters. Careers in entertainment often force a rootless life; the subtext here is about finding an actual home, not just a place to rent. And when he ends on “kindness and affection,” he’s praising the most un-Philly stereotype imaginable, which is exactly why it lands: it gives residents permission to see themselves as more than their tough shell, without pretending that shell doesn’t exist.