“I value loyalty more than money”
“Don t compare the size of your roof with the size of the sky.”
“Mr. Albert? Mr. Albert?” Harley said. “Just Albert’s fine,” Albert said tersely. “Me and Janice are thirsty.” “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any water on me.” He managed a tight smile and moved on. But now Janice was crying and Harley was pleading. “We used to live with Mary and she gave us water. But now we have to live with Summer and BeeBee and they said we have to have money.” “Then I guess you’d better earn some money,” Albert said. He tried to soften it, tried not to sound harsh, but he had a lot on his mind and it came out sounding mean. Now Harley started to cry, too. “If you’re thirsty, stop crying,” Albert snapped. “What do you think tears are made of?”
“I was thinking earlier that to know this city you must first become penniless, because pennilessness (real pennilessness, I mean not having $2 for the subway) forces you to walk everywhere and you see the city best on foot.”
“The most successful people started from NOTHING... they didn t wait for the opportunity to knock but created the opportunity on their own... worked hard and made history.”
“my first recommendation to people in charge of science education is, more money for public libraries and museums. Public libraries and museums ought to be as common as schools.”
“In general, poor is polite and rich is rude.”
“You grab a bit of connection wherever you can to survive. You have no idea how strong the pull to feel worthwhile is. It s more basic than food. You go to these people who make you feel lovely for an hour that one time, and that s all you get. You re probably not compatible with them for anything long term, but right this minute they can make you feel powerful and valuable. It does not matter what will happen in a month. Whatever happens in a month is probably going to be just about as indifferent as whatever happened today or last week. None of it matters. We don t plan long term because if we do we ll just get our hearts broken. It s best not to hope. You just take what you can get as you spot it. I am not asking for sympathy. I am just trying to explain, on a human level, how it is that people make what look from the outside like awful decisions. ”
“Albert had created a currency based on gold bullets and McDonald’s game pieces. He’d wanted to call the currency something else, but no one remembered what. So, ’Bertos they were, a play on “Albert,” coined by Howard, of course, who had also come up with “the FAYZ” to describe their weird little world. Sam had thought Albert was nuts with his obsession with creating money. But the evidence was in: Albert’s system was producing just enough food for kids to survive. And a lot more kids were working. Far fewer were just hanging out. It was no longer impossible to get kids to go into the fields and do the backbreaking work of picking crops. They worked for ’Bertos and spent ’Bertos, and for now at least starvation was just a bad memory.”
“ You grab a bit of connection wherever you can to survive. You have no idea how strong the pull to feel worthwhile is. It s more basic than food. You go to these people who make you feel lovely for an hour that one time, and that s all you get. You re probably not compatible with them for anything long term, but right this minute they can make you feel powerful and valuable. It does not matter what will happen in a month. Whatever happens in a month is probably going to be just about as indifferent as whatever happened today or last week. None of it matters. We don t plan long term because if we do we ll just get our hearts broken. It s best not to hope. You just take what you can get as you spot it. I am not asking for sympathy. I am just trying to explain, on a human level, how it is that people make what look from the outside like awful decisions. ”
“Absolute money (gold) makes limited-states and localized-wars (Pre-1913); Substitute money (fiat) makes Absolute States & Wars (Post-1913)”
“Many people are actually poor because the only thing they have is money.”
“The way of the consumerist culture is to spend so much energy chasing happiness that it has none left to be happy.”
“There s plenty of money out there. They print more every day. But this ticket, there s only five of them in the whole world, and that s all there s ever going to be. Only a dummy would give this up for something as common money. Are you a dummy?”
“Mig angrer av mit hjertens grund jeg bogen skulde lære at jeg for alt det jeg har slitt fik intet andet til profit end umag og besvære. Hvad har vi nu, fordi vi gik vel 20 aars tid i skole, Og mangt et slag i Haanden fik, samt banket rygg og kjole?”
“In pursuit of your Purpose, don t miss the plot by concentrating on making money. Rather focus on helping people by presenting solutions to their problems for it is a guaranteed route to making money in the future.”
“My ship – the Demeter, was a star-liner operated by the Red Star Line. I say ‘was’ because of the events you will read about in this account. This is a long letter, I know, but I had quite a long time to write it. You probably already know this, having seen the commercials running on all the major channels for the last twenty years or so, but the Red Star Line is the largest cruise operator in the known universe. Unless something has changed between now and by the time you read this, this is probably still true. In fact, customers of the Red Star Line get more quality, value for money – and smiles by Demeter than they do anywhere else. Okay, okay. It’s an old joke – corny for sure, but what the hell.”