“There’s always a fascination in watching anybody do a job which he really understands. Watch a woman—a woman who really knows how to cook, I mean—rolling dough. She’s got a peculiar, solemn, indrawn air, a satisfied kind of air, like a priestess celebrating a sacred rite.”
― Coming Up for Air
― Coming Up for Air
“I wasn’t a highbrow any longer. I was down among the realities of modern life. And what are the realities of modern life? Well, the chief one is an everlasting, frantic struggle to sell things. With most people it takes the form of selling themselves”
― Coming Up for Air
― Coming Up for Air
“Paradoxically, it is the “convertible competencies” of the present elites, the fact that they are equally fit to run a bank in Bulgaria or in Bangladesh or to teach in Athens or Tokyo, that makes people so suspicious of them. People fear that in times of trouble, the meritocrats will opt to leave instead of sharing the cost of staying.
In this sense, meritocratic elites contrast with land-owning aristocratic elites, who are devoted to their estates and cannot take their estates with them in case they want to run away. They also contrast with communist elites, who always had better goods, better health care, and better education. But what they did not have was the power to leave; it was always easier for an ordinary person to emigrate.”
― After Europe
In this sense, meritocratic elites contrast with land-owning aristocratic elites, who are devoted to their estates and cannot take their estates with them in case they want to run away. They also contrast with communist elites, who always had better goods, better health care, and better education. But what they did not have was the power to leave; it was always easier for an ordinary person to emigrate.”
― After Europe
“Putin does not dream of conquering Warsaw or re-occupying Riga. On the contrary, his policies, to repeat, are an expression of aggressive isolationism, an attempt to consolidate one’s own civilizational space. They embody his defensive reaction to the threat to Russia posed by global economic interdependency and digital interoperability as well as the seemingly unstoppable diffusion of Western social and cultural norms.”
― The Light that Failed: A Reckoning
― The Light that Failed: A Reckoning
“In the case of the Levant, it is mere question-begging rhetoric to insist that similarities are more fundamental or essential than differences. For who is to say, where human groups and their interestsare in question, what is fundamental and what is secondary, what is essential and what is accidental? And even if the answers were clear, they could not by themselves determine a political decision. Political decisions are not scientific conclusions; they are rather the promptings of the practical judgment, in which play their part inclination and duty, circumstance and foresight.”
― The Chatham House Version: And Other Middle Eastern Studies
― The Chatham House Version: And Other Middle Eastern Studies
EB’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at EB’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by EB
Lists liked by EB












































