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41 " Really it’s just down to a handful of guys piling up everything they can grab and sitting on top of it. And a million poor jerks like Papu still hoping they can get into the club. How long can that last? Five or six more years? "
― Barbara Kingsolver , Unsheltered
42 " One percent of the brotherhood has their hands on most of the bread. They own the country, their god is the free market, and most people are so unhorrified they won’t even question the system. If it makes a profit, that’s the definition of good. If it grows, you have to stand back and let it. The free market has exactly the same morality as a cancer cell. "
43 " Mary and Thatcher had lived in enviable times, when biologists were discovering new species right and left, not watching them go extinct. "
44 " Willa believed in the power of worry to keep another human from flying out of orbit. "
45 " Iano ordered her back to Ivins to finish her degree in biology. Willa wondered when he would notice Tig was immune to his directives. Tig informed her parents she refused to take out bank loans, with tuition exchange no longer an option, and anyway she’d already learned more than she wanted to know about a ravaged biosphere. The latter was no news to Willa, who’d seen how the girl always took the truth of human selfishness harder than any of her friends, even the history majors. "
46 " When someone mattered like that, you didn’t lose her at death. You lost her as you kept living. "
47 " I suppose it is in our nature,” she said finally. “When men fear the loss of what they know, they will follow any tyrant who promises to restore the old order. "
48 " When men fear the loss of what they know, they will follow any tyrant who promises to restore the old order. "
49 " This particular brand of tyrant, though. Yikes,” Willa said. “I can’t take him seriously. He’s going to burn out before the first primary.” “Don’t count on it. There’s a lot of white folks out there hanging on to their God-given right to look down on some other class of people. They feel it slipping away and they’re scared. This guy says he’s bringing back yesterday, even if he has to use brass knuckles to do it, and drag women back to the cave by their hair. He’s a bully, everybody knows that. But he’s their bully. "
50 " Holding and synthesizing information in your brain creates your personality. You’re surrendering your personality to an electronic device in your pocket. "
51 " A mother can be only as happy as her unhappiest child. "
52 " Zeke embodied the contradiction of his generation: jaded about the fate of the world, idealistic about personal prospects. "
53 " Plus,” Tig said, “it reminds me to be patient. Seeing all these people that have passed on. I get frustrated sometimes, waiting.” “For people to die?” “Yeah. To be honest. The guys in charge of everything right now are so old. They really are, Mom. Older than you. They figured out the meaning of life in, I guess, the nineteen fifties and sixties. When it looked like there would always be plenty of everything. "
54 " The thing is, Mom, the secret of happiness is low expectations. That’s a good reminder, right there. If you didn’t lose your husband and kids all in one year, smile! You’re ahead of the game. "
55 " A person can succeed and fail at the same time. Maybe letting me down was your way of getting me to be me. "
56 " Unsheltered, I live in daylight. And like the wandering bird I rest in thee. "
57 " Really it was her mother she’d wanted to call right after the bad news, or in the middle of it, while Mr. Petrofaccio was blowing his nose. First thing in the morning, last thing at night, whenever a fight with Tig left her in pieces, it had been her mother who put Willa back together. When someone mattered like that, you didn’t lose her at death. You lost her as you kept living. "
58 " His confidence was enviable and maddening. Most of the time she didn’t want him to solve or contradict her worries, she just needed him to listen and agree with her on the awfulness at hand. This was a principle of marriage she’d explained many times. "
59 " Beautiful people liked to claim looks didn’t matter, while throwing that currency around like novice bank robbers. "
60 " The Middle East and North Africa are almost out of water. Asia’s underwater. Syria is dystopian, Somalia, Bangladesh, dystopian. Everybody’s getting weather that never happened before. Melting permafrost means we’ve got like, a minute to turn this mess around, or else it’s going to stop us. "