O'Grady

I have been told, more than once, that I am not good at getting to the point. I have also been told (mostly by my mother) that I am a great story teller. In either case, this is my attempt.

Oh, misanthropy and sourness. Gary wanted to enjoy being a man of wealth and leisure, but the country was making it none too easy. All around him, millions of newly minted American millionaires were engaged in the identical pursuit of feeling extraordinary - of buying the perfect Victorian, of skiing the virgin slope, of knowing the chef personally, of locating the beach that had no footprints. There were further tens of millions of young Americans who didn’t have money but were nonetheless chasing the Perfect Cool. And meanwhile the sad truth was that not everyone could be extraordinary, not everyone could be extremely cool; because whom would this leave to be ordinary? Who would perform the thankless work of being comparatively uncool?

Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections

No, I am not only reading things by Jonathan Franzen and/or turning this website into a Jonathan Franzen quote blog. This is just a coincidence.

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