America thinks of itself as a meritocracy, so people have more respect for success and more contempt for failure. – Toby Young
In Britain, by contrast, we still think that class plays a part in determining a persons life chances, so were less inclined to celebrate success and less inclined to condemn failure. The upshot is that its much easier to be a failure in Britain than it is in America. – Toby Young
Oddly, I do have a problem with authority. I find it very difficult to knuckle down and follow rules. Which are the classic symptoms of someone who has a troubled relationship with their father. And yet, I never had a problem with my father. – Toby Young
Ive become a professional failure – in order to pay the mortgage I have to remain unemployed. Luckily, a disaster always seems to befall me at exactly the right moment. – Toby Young
Linguists are no different from any other people who spend more than nineteen hours a day pondering the complexities of grammar and its relationship to practically everything else in order to prove that language is so inordinately complicated that it is impossible in principle for people to talk. – Ronald W. Langacker (b.1942), Language and Its Structure, 1973