John Lanchester Quotes

• We wouldn't care so much what people thought of us if we knew how seldom they did.

  John Lanchester

  People, Care, Ifs

  John Lanchester (2000). “Mr. Phillips”, Putnam Adult

  46 Copy quote

• 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.

  John Lanchester

  People, Fifty, Thirty

  John Lanchester (2012). “Capital”, p.81, Faber & Faber

  26 Copy quote

• 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.

  John Lanchester

  Knowing, Gone

  John Lanchester (2012). “Capital”, p.228, Faber & Faber

  6 Copy quote

• Richness, the ideas of having plenty of money, is not ... an absolute state. Richness is about the amount of money you have compared to the people you see around you. It is about where you are in relation to others, and where they are in relation to you ... and whether you can have the things you want and other people have.

  John Lanchester

  Ideas, People, Want

  8 Copy quote

• Sometimes, the only way of doing something is to do it.

  John Lanchester

  Way, Sometimes

  John Lanchester (2012). “Capital”, p.256, Faber & Faber

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  John Lanchester

  People, Hundred, Areas

  4 Copy quote

• Any flights would be taken business class, since Roger thought that the whole point of having money, if it had to be summed up in a single point, which it couldn't, but if you had to, the whole point of having a bit of money was not to have to fly scum class.

  John Lanchester

  Taken, Class, Would Be

  John Lanchester (2012). “Capital”, p.24, Faber & Faber

  4 Copy quote

• The standard personality type for a writer is a shy megalomaniac.

  John Lanchester

  Personality, Shy, Type

  15 Copy quote

• Somebody told me ... that he overheard a banker's wife saying her husband was working for free this year-this was 2009. What she meant was, he was just getting his basic salary of £300,000, and no bonus. Their sense of entitlement is, in the proper sense of the word, psychotic.

  John Lanchester

  Business, Husband, Years

  7 Copy quote

• It has been a masterful fight-back by the big banks. We the paying public can't do anything much except admit defeat and settle back for the next set of bills. In the meantime, perhaps, we should try and think of a name for the new economic system, which certainly isn't capitalism ... The most accurate term would probably be "bankocracy".

  John Lanchester

  Fighting, Thinking, Names

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  John Lanchester

  Scotland, Political, Bail

  6 Copy quote

• The City is, in terms of its basic functioning, a far-off country of which we know little.

  John Lanchester

  Country, Business, Cities

  John Lanchester (2010). “I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay”, p.23, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• In an ideal world, one populated by vegetarians and Esperanto speakers, derivatives would be used for one thing only: reducing levels of risk. The list of individual traders who have lost more than a billion dollars at a time betting on derivatives is not short.

  John Lanchester

  Business, Risk, Lists

  7 Copy quote

• The person doing the worrying experiences it as a form of love; the person being worried about experiences it as a form of control.

  John Lanchester

  Worry, Worried, Form

  John Lanchester (2012). “Capital”, p.225, Faber & Faber

  7 Copy quote

• The seven Ps: Proper Planning and Preparation Prevent Piss-Poor Performance

  John Lanchester

  Preparation, Planning, Seven

  John Lanchester (2012). “Capital”, p.308, Faber & Faber

  6 Copy quote

• It can be a way of knowledge, a path, an inspiration, a Tao, an ordering, a memory, a fantasy, a seduction, a prayer, a summoning, an incantation murmured under the breath as the torchlights sink lower and the forest looms taller and the wolves howl louder and the fire prepares for its submission to the encroaching dark.

  John Lanchester

  Prayer, Memories, Inspiration

  8 Copy quote

• Economics as a discipline has in effect become the study of capitalism. The two are taken as the same subject.

  John Lanchester

  Taken, Two, Discipline

  4 Copy quote

• It's as if people used the invention of seat belts as an opportunity to take up drunk driving.

  John Lanchester

  Business, Opportunity, People

  John Lanchester (2010). “I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay”, p.80, Simon and Schuster

  5 Copy quote

• The financial system in its current condition poses an existential threat to Western democracy far exceeding any terrorist threat.

  John Lanchester

  Democracy, Financial, Existential

  4 Copy quote

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