John Barnes Quotes

If you want to learn a culture, you have to learn how to like what it likes, rather than go looking for something that you like.

There’s just no fight left in her; that’s what happens when you really believe in something, and find out that it was never true.

In discussing the existence, or not, of the soul: "I am Caledon. Quite a few of my fellow Caledons still believe there is some essence to a human being, something that makes a person unique." "And you don't." "I don't. I see that people who believe in anything beyond plain physical reality are mainly engaged in making themselves or others miserable."

With diligent effort he has established that there is no statistical basis for Murphy’s Law. He has also established that he believes in it anyway.

Are you up to faking being sincere underneath faking being fake?

He’s always known the real way to money is not through production but through control; “The hotel owner gets rich owning the keys, the maids stay poor keeping the toilets clean,” as one of his biz profs back at Madison used to say.

Papa always says there’s room for everyone, but some people certainly take theirs up without making it interesting.

When all else fails, admit you’re an idiot.

The only thing Carla has ever learned to like about dealing with power is how easy it is to embarrass people who have it.

You thought you could treat me the way you did everybody else and beat me up for being smarter than you. Because you’ve always been the big king of the class, haven’t you, Your Majesty? Well, you’re not anymore. You were never anything but the plain old class bully, and now you’re the ex-bully. And the only reason people are bullies is because they’re stupid.

Philosophic clarity has been a key to his life in business, and he doesn’t fall for facile or self-flattering descriptions—not even, usually, for the self-flattery of thinking he is immune to self-flattery.

After a long interval, Margaret said, “Sorry. Effects of upbringing.”
“We none of us escape them,” I said.

The drive to see what’s over the next hill is in part the fear that one may never know, that if one doesn’t go over the hill today, one may never get farther than the village graveyard.

I know I pretend to be the apolitical businessman a lot, but the reality is that like anybody who’s interested in getting people together with the things they need and want, I have an agenda. I want people to get what they want, and I want them ideally to get it from me, but most of all I want them to be free to want it and to make offers to get it. Those poor stupid fanatics have been sold on the idea that what they want is the ability to give themselves little priggish congratulations over having done the right thing. They’d rather be right than happy. More importantly, they’d rather that I be right than happy and they’re not about to leave the choice up to me. I say, let ’em die, and I hope it’s slow and it hurts.

Brains don’t exactly run in that family—they sort of dribble slowly away.