America thinks of itself as a meritocracy, so people have more respect for success and more contempt for failure. – 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
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
For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder. – F. Scott Fitzgerald
For one seldom hears a genuine laugh nowadays, and much of the phraseology of laughter is a mere fashion of speech. There are many people whose sides have never ached from over-indulgence in the outward expression of mirth…. With some persons a wheeze or a chuckle is the utmost they can compass. – “Laughter,” in The Spectator for the week ending Saturday, January 19, 1889