'… Fish has stayed true to their core belief in the value of academic professionalism: the value, that is, of refusing to justify the value of what you do.'

'Their view of the world around them is a deeply lonely one.'

'Of course. Money, money. Money is all, and the rest, without money, is nothing. And that is why, instead of stuffing his head with fine maxims that he would have to forget or else beg for bread, when I possess a louis, which isn't often, I take up my stand in front of him. I take the coin out of my pocket. I show it him with admiration. I roll my eyes to heaven. I kiss the louis in front of him. And to make him appreciate still more the importance of the sacred coin, I stammer out the names and point out with my finger all the things you can acquire with it—a child's frock, a nice bonnet, a lovely biscuit. Then I put the coin back into my pocket. I strut about proudly, lift my waistcoat and tap my fob pocket. In this way I make him understand that the state of self-confidence he sees me in comes from the coin in there.'

The rich get richer.

Locke's tract on making commonplace books

'For months I felt that the preceding pages were beyond my abilities, and I now no longer felt equal to my own work.'

'… this awareness of the medium creates a sense of intimacy with the reader.'

'… what was most modern was the rejection of authority…'

'Here in America there is no difference between a man and his economic fate. A man is made by his assets, income, position, and prospects. The economic mask coincides completely with a man's inner character. Everyone is worth what he earns and earns what he is worth. He learns what he is through the vicissitudes of his economic existence. He knows nothing else. The materialistic critique of society once objected against idealism that existence determined consciousness and not vice versa, and that the truth about society did not lie in its idealistic conception of itself but in its economy; contemporary men have rejected such idealism. They judge themselves by their own market value and learn what they are from what happens to them in the capitalistic economy. Their fate, however sad it may be, is not something outside them; they recognize its validity. A dying man in China might say, in a lowered voice:

Fortune did not smile upon me in this world.
Where am I going now? Up into the mountains
to seek peace for my lonely heart.

I am a failure, the American says—and that is that.'