Rick Vetrone

“What we miss - what we lose and what we mourn - isn't it this that makes us who, deep down, we truly are. To say nothing of what we wanted in life but never got to have.”
― Sigrid Nunez, The Friend

“You must show him your monkey: I am sure he will like that.”
― Elizabeth Bowen, The House in Paris

“The playing field isn't level, and the people at the top often don't notice that. Perspective matters—it matters. Because a multi-millionaire can say to himself, 'I give away money to the poor, and I've never shoved a poor person in line' (if rich people ever actually stand in lines)—'so I'm a good guy.' And therein lies the danger. The 'I'm a good guy' standard doesn't work. Sure, there are rich people who use their money for good causes that do nothing to advance their own financial interests. But when people with money use their money to get more money, they aren't evil, they're just acting rationally. And they're also acting rationally in the narrowest sense of that word when they use that money to buy favors from the government. But when they buy favors from the government, they are taking something that belongs to the rest of us. And when enough rich people or rich corporations buy enough favors, the whole economic and political system starts to tilt their way.

And if the American people allow this to go on long enough, there will come a point when the rich and powerful will be using so much of their money to buy so much influence over our government, that it will unwind the whole premise of democracy.

Instead of one person, one vote—giving each of us a say in how this country is run—we will become an oligarchy, a nation in which the powerful few make sure that the government runs in order to serve their interests.”
― Elizabeth Warren, This Fight Is Our Fight: The Battle to Save America's Middle Class

“It is best as one grows older to strip oneself of possessions, to shed oneself downward like a tree, to be almost wholly earth before one dies.”
― Sylvia Townsend Warner, Lolly Willowes