JD Vance Quotes

The measure of a man is how he treats the women in his family.

So many people abuse the system, it’s impossible for the hardworking people to get the help they need,” she’d say. This was the construct she’d built in her head: Most of the beneficiaries of the system were extravagant moochers, but she — despite never having worked in her life — was an obvious exception.

My parents’ mistakes were not my fault, so I had no reason to hide them.

I think that I'm going to vote third party because I can't stomach Trump. I think that he's noxious and is leading the white working class to a very dark place. And ultimately I just don't share Hillary Clinton's politics.

[On NPR, August 2016] I can't stomach Trump

The rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check. And since you’re fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on.

We’ll get fired for tardiness, or for stealing merchandise and selling it on eBay, or for having a customer complain about the smell of alcohol on our breath, or for taking five thirty-minute restroom breaks per shift. We talk about the value of hard work but tell ourselves that the reason we’re not working is some perceived unfairness: Obama shut down the coal mines, or all the jobs went to the Chinese. These are the lies we tell ourselves to solve the cognitive dissonance — the broken connection between the world we see and the values we preach.

For kids like me, the part of the brain that deals with stress and conflict is always activated - the switch flipped indefinitely. We are constantly ready to fight or flee, because there is constant exposure to the bear, whether that bear is an alcoholic dad or an unhinged mom. We become hard-wired for conflict. And that wiring remains, even when there's no more conflict to be had.

We didn’t have cell phones, and we didn’t have nice clothes, but Mamaw made sure that I had one of those graphing calculators. This taught me an important lesson about Mamaw’s values, and it forced me to engage with school in a way I never had before.

Sounds like we got some fans and some haters.

What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives. Yet the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault. My

The day I graduated from boot camp was the proudest of my life. An entire crew of hillbillies showed up for my graduation —

Today people look at me, at my job and my Ivy League credentials, and assume that I’m some sort of genius, that only a truly extraordinary person could have made it to where I am today. With all due respect to those people, I think that theory is a load of bullshit.

Donald Trump is frankly dangerous.

The professors are the enemy.