… if middle-aged white people were stabbed with the regularity of black teenagers, the army would be in the streets.
John Lanchester – “Capital”
… 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 – “Capital”
Middle-class mediocricity.
Suburban mediocricity.
A culture that openly worships the average.
A society that allows the idea of the elite to exist only in relation to sport.
A culture of fat people who aren’t interested in anything except celebrity, people who wat in the street, people who betray their ordinariness every time they open their mouths.
John Lanchester – “The Capital”
… he had the young man’s obliviousness to the old – to him, everyone over the age of sixty looked the same.
John Lanchester – “The Capital”
Shahid’s view: anybody who had to wear a suit to work died a little inside every day.