Lewis H. Lapham - Money and Class In America (1988)

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We might make a public moan in the newspapers about the decay of conscience, but in private conversation, no matter what crimes a man may have committed or how cynically he may have debased his talent or his friends, variations on the answer Yes, but I did it for the money, satisfy all but the most tiresome objections.

Lewis H. Lapham
If a foreign country doesn't look like a middle-class suburb of Dallas or Detroit, then obviously the natives must be dangerous as well as badly dressed.

Lewis H. Lapham
The state of perpetual emptiness is, of course, very good for business.

Lewis H. Lapham
The world goes on as before, and it turns out that nobody else seems to to notice the unbearable lightness of being.

Lewis H. Lapham
I sometimes think that the American story is the one about the reading of the will.

Lewis H. Lapham
Most of the ladies and gentlemen who mourn the passing of the nation's leaders wouldn't know a leader if they saw one. If they had the bad luck to come across a leader, they would find out that he might demand something from them, and this impertinence would put an abrupt and indignant end to their wish for his return.

Lewis H. Lapham
Given lesser opportunities, Kissinger would have done very well as a talk show host. Fortunately for him, although not so fortunately for the United States, he found his patron in Nelson Rockefeller instead of William Paley.

Lewis H. Lapham
Once having proclaimed our loyalty to the abstract idea that all men are created equal, we do everything in our power to prove ourselves unequal. Among the world's peoples, none other belongs to so many clubs, associations, committees and secret societies.

Lewis H. Lapham