John Lanchester Quotes
You heard people say forty was the new thirty and fifty was the new forty and sixty was the new forty-five, but you never heard anybody say eighty was the new anything. Eighty was just eighty.
The person doing the worrying experiences it as a form of love; the person being worried about experiences it as a form of control.
The City is, in terms of its basic functioning, a far-off country of which we know little.
But knowing that you had gone wrong, and knowing how you had gone wrong, were not the same thing as knowing how to put it right.
In other words, RBS had its origins in a failed speculation, a bail-out, and a financial crash so big it helped destroy Scotland's status as a separate nation.
It's as if people used the invention of seat belts as an opportunity to take up drunk driving.
The financial system in its current condition poses an existential threat to Western democracy far exceeding any terrorist threat.
Economics as a discipline has in effect become the study of capitalism. The two are taken as the same subject.
People would rather earn 60 grand in an area where their neighbours earn 40, than earn 80 in an area where their neighbours earn a hundred.
of seatbelts as an opportunity to take up drunk-driving.
It’s as if people used the invention
In Shahid's view, the best way through difficult times, as through life in general, was just to go along with things. It was a rare problem that couldn't be solved by being ignored.
Although he too was heading to work, Shahid was glad he wasn't dragging himself off to some office job. Shahid's view: anybody who had to wear a suit to work died a little inside, every day.
Humans make their own history, but not under circumstances of their choosing.
The artist says to the cosmos: All I ask is infinite love-is that so very wrong? And the cosmos doesn't even bother to respond.