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Man at Bar: The acid test is whether you take any pleasure in responding to the question "What do you do?" I can't bear it.
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Audrey Rouget: What Jane Austen novels have you read?
Tom Townsend: None. I don't read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelists' ideas as well as the critics' thinking. With fiction I can never forget that none of it really happened, that it's all just made up by the author.
Tom Townsend: None. I don't read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelists' ideas as well as the critics' thinking. With fiction I can never forget that none of it really happened, that it's all just made up by the author.
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Charlie Black: Fourierism was tried in the late nineteenth century... and it failed. Wasn't Brook Farm Fourierist? It failed.
Tom Townsend: That's debatable.
Charlie Black: Whether Brook Farm failed?
Tom Townsend: That it ceased to exist, I'll grant you, but whether or not it failed cannot be definitively said.
Charlie Black: Well, for me, ceasing to exist is — is failure. I mean, that's pretty definitive.
Tom Townsend: Well, everyone ceases to exist. Doesn't mean everyone's a failure.
Tom Townsend: That's debatable.
Charlie Black: Whether Brook Farm failed?
Tom Townsend: That it ceased to exist, I'll grant you, but whether or not it failed cannot be definitively said.
Charlie Black: Well, for me, ceasing to exist is — is failure. I mean, that's pretty definitive.
Tom Townsend: Well, everyone ceases to exist. Doesn't mean everyone's a failure.
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Jane Clark: Why should we believe you over Rick? We know you're a hypocrite. We know your "Polly Perkins" story was a fabrication...
Nick Smith: A composite.
Jane Clark: Whatever. And that you're completely impossible and out of control, with some sort of drug problem and a fixation on what you consider Rick Von Sloneker's wickedness. You're a snob, a sexist, totally obnoxious and tiresome, and lately you've gotten just weird. Why should we believe anything you say?
Nick Smith: I am not tiresome.
Nick Smith: A composite.
Jane Clark: Whatever. And that you're completely impossible and out of control, with some sort of drug problem and a fixation on what you consider Rick Von Sloneker's wickedness. You're a snob, a sexist, totally obnoxious and tiresome, and lately you've gotten just weird. Why should we believe anything you say?
Nick Smith: I am not tiresome.
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Nick Smith: The titled aristocracy are the scum of the earth.
Sally Fowler: You always say "titled" aristocrats. What about "untitled" aristocrats?
Nick Smith: Well, I could hardly despise them, could I? That would be self-hatred.
Sally Fowler: You always say "titled" aristocrats. What about "untitled" aristocrats?
Nick Smith: Well, I could hardly despise them, could I? That would be self-hatred.
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[to Serena Slocum] I haven't been giving you the silent treatment. I just haven't been talking to you.
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I've always planned to be a failure anyway. That's why I plan to marry an extremely wealthy woman.
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It’s a tiny bit arrogant of people to go around worrying about those less fortunate.
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Rick Von Slonecker is tall, rich, good-looking, stupid, dishonest, conceited, a bully, liar, drunk and thief, an egomaniac, and probably psychotic. In short, highly attractive to women.
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We hear a lot about the great social mobility in America, with the focus usually on the comparative ease of moving upwards. What's less discussed is how easy it is to go down. I think that's the direction that we're all heading in. And I think that the downward fall is going to be very fast—not just for us as individuals—but for the entire Preppie Class.