social statuses Quotes

″My parents had raised me to recognize that automobiles are there to get you from point A to point B. They are utilitarian devices, not expressions of social status. And so I told Jai we didn’t need to do cosmetic repairs.We’d just live with the dents and gashes….that is my belief that you don’t repair things if they still do what they’re supposed to do. The cars still work. Let’s just drive ’em.″

“Owning and maintaining a fraud had a way of gradually demoralizing one. And yet from a social standpoint it had to be done, given the absence of the real article.”

“The thing to do was to act just like others acted, live like they lived, and while they were not looking, do what you wanted. ”

“I’m sure I looked no more elegant than a guest at an inn looks wearing a robe on the way to the bath. But I’d never before worn anything nearly so glamorous on my body.”

“It is as if I had been going downhill while I imagined I was going up. And that is really what it was. I was going up in public opinion, but to the same extent life was ebbing away from me. And now it is all done and there is only death.”

“Estevan and I talked about everything you could think of. He asked me if the alligator was a national symbol of the United States, because you saw them everywhere on people’s shirts, just above the heart.”

“In our school there were different groups you would run with, depending on your station in life. There were the town kids, whose daddies owned the hardware store or what have you—they were your cheerleaders and your football players. Then there were hoodlums, the motorcycle types that cut down trees on Halloween. And then there were the rest of us, the poor kids and the farm kids. Greasers, we were called, or Nutters. The main rule was that there was absolutely no mixing.”

“If you can control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one.”

“Father said it used to be a gentleman was known by his books; nowadays he is known by the ones he has not returned.”

“His voice was full of a ringing authority that I had only really heard once—the night he let me into the garden. He was much more attractive when he was using his status for a purpose.”

“Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls Of Magnus Martyr hold Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.”

“Though Chicago was rapidly achieving recognition as an industrial and mercantile dynamo, its leading men felt keenly the slander from New York that their city had few cultural assets.”

“She is not béké like you, but she is béké, and not like us either.”

“After all, they have money and position and Ann has none. It’s amazing how often you can be right as long as you have those two things working in your favor.”

“Now, it is very important that you conduct yourself in a manner befitting to your station while at Spence. It’s fine to be kind to the lesser girls, but remember that they are not your equals.”

“‘Happiness Begins Within.’ Money, social status, plastic surgery, beautiful houses, powerful positions – none of these will bring you happiness.”

“How come he didn’t know that? Because no one ever wonders where a cleaning woman lives, that’s why. But he wasn’t like that, was he?”

“Also, they don’t want to think about me. They don’t like reminding I exist. Me, and those like me. We’re living proof that everything’s not all right and we make the place untidy.”

“You can’t judge a person by the job they do or by their station in life; you must judge a person by their actions.”

“I know your kind: punks like you wander the streets of nice neighborhoods searching for prey.”

“His parents – who had never rented out rooms before and therefore behaved toward the roomers with excessive politeness – did not even dare to sit down on their own chairs.”

“Brother and sister were products of the highest strata of humanity’s evolution. In them the primitive had long ago been swept aside, been submerged by mechanization, been swamped by scientific development, been nullified by the standardized pattern of the white man’s way of life.”

“The White Flowers operated on chaos, on constant movement. But the climb to power was one of choice, and those who remained low within the gang did so by their own desire.”

“Order is present in the earthly kingdom when all beings understand their place.”

“You might live here at Penbrook Park, and you might share lessons with my daughters, but you are nothing... and that is all you will ever be. Don’t you ever, ever make the mistake of thinking you are as good as the rest of us.”

“You might live here at Penbrook Park, and you might share lessons with my daughters, but you are nothing... and that is all you will ever be. Don’t you ever, ever make the mistake of thinking you are as good as the rest of us.”

″...he had to admit to himself that as time passed, his memories of that night grew less vivid, and he could no longer recall his mystery woman’s voice with perfect clarity. Besides, Sophie’s accent, while exceptionally refined for a housemaid, was not as uppercrust as hers had been.′

“You might live here at Penbrook Park, and you might share lessons with my daughters, but you are nothing... and that is all you will ever be. Don’t you ever, ever make the mistake of thinking you are as good as the rest of us.”

“She dressed simply, being unable to afford anything better, but she was every whit as unhappy as any daughter of a grand family who has come down in the world.”

“It’s a big deal how many roses you get. You can tell who’s popular and who isn’t by the number of roses they’re holding. It’s bad if you get under ten and humiliating if you don’t get more than five—it basically means that you’re either ugly or unknown. Probably both. Sometimes people scavenge for dropped roses to add to their bouquets, but you can always tell.”

“I’m dying to be exclusive myself.”

“I haven’t the least idea what such young ladies expect a man to do. But I really think that you had better not meddle with little American girls that are uncultivated, as you call them. You have lived too long out of the country. You will be sure to make some great mistake.”