The Ricketts family

Rahm rejected their ask for $200 million in subsidies to renovate Wrigley Field. “And guess what? Just a few years later [they] paid for the entire thing themselves, and they’re making out just fine.”

Staffers who managed the Adirondack chair installation on the Riverwalk

“Six weeks later there were still no chairs. I called them again. They said they were still evaluating. ‘Okay. Stop evaluating now and go to Crate & Barrel and buy forty chairs today.’ ”

Rocky Wirtz

“He threatened to cancel his plans to put the [Blackhawks’] training facility in the city as an act of retribution for not extending the tax break. I turned up the heat on him a bit. The Blackhawks’ new downtown training facility is really beautiful.”

Bruce Rauner

“Our fight became personal and acrimonious. We started as good friends, but that is not how our relationship ended.”

Former transportation commissioner Gabe Klein

“Each member of my team … had a homework assignment to bring one bold idea to the [former U.S. secretary of transportation Ray] LaHood meeting. Gabe had forgotten his homework.”

The federal government

“Slow and sclerotic,” “sclerotic, partisan, and broken,” “sclerotic, clumsy, inflexible, wounded, and weak, unable to move forward.”

The Trump administration

“A disastrous anomaly,” “constant turmoil, shadiness, and sheer ineptitude,” “chaotic and incompetent.”

The Trump Tower sign

“Ugly.”

The Nation City: Why Mayors Are Now Running the World comes out February 25.