Oprah is just this goddess presiding over so much of American life, and her story is really interesting – the way she made herself, and the ruthlessness it took, and also the fantasizing that it took. George Packer Read Quote
Jay-Z has kind of shown that you can get to the very top without waiting, without following rules. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. People will admire you more if you break the rules. George Packer Read Quote
The Princeton economist Alan Krueger has demonstrated that societies with higher levels of income inequality are societies with lower levels of social mobility. George Packer Read Quote
America’s vast population of working poor can only get so poor before even Walmart is out of reach. George Packer Read Quote
I am never going to be able to rest easy in having established a posthumous connection to my father. I’ll always be groping for what I can’t have. George Packer Read Quote
The Assassins’ Gate’ is a very tightly controlled story of the ideas that led to the war and the consequences of those ideas in Iraq, and there is no doubt about where it is going and what kind of groundwork is being laid. George Packer Read Quote
All over Africa, people are wearing what Americans once wore and no longer want. Visit the continent, and you’ll find faded remnants of secondhand clothing in the strangest of places. George Packer Read Quote
What I found in Silicon Valley is an industry that’s sort of been kept a very far remove from Washington and had an attitude of ‘Just let us do our thing and make the miracles that people love around the world and leave us alone.’ George Packer Read Quote
