Quotessence
Home / Books / Birnam Wood

Birnam Wood

Book by Eleanor Catton · 4 quotes · Billionaires, Rich, Wealth

Filter quotes by topic

AllBillionairesRichWealthWealthyAngerCapitalismChangeDecisionsDemocratsKiwisLeftLiberalsNew ZealandersPoliticsPowerProgressives2016AdministrationAmateursAmericans

Birnam Wood Quotes

“So what is it about billionaires and survivalism?’ she’d asked him, the third or fourth time they met. ‘Is it just an arms race? Like, just a pissing contest? Or do you all know something that we don’t?’ ‘Both,’ he said, quite calmly. ‘I mean, of course it’s a pissing contest. What isn’t?’ She tried to think of something that wasn’t, then decided that that was too predictable. ‘So what do you know that the rest of us don’t?’ she said instead. ‘I know how easy it was,’ said Lemoine. Mira didn’t follow. ‘How easy what was?’ ‘All of it,’ he said, shrugging. ‘Getting rich. Staying rich. Winning. It was all so easy. I just took what I wanted, and it was mine. I said what I wanted, and people got it for me. I did what I wanted, and nobody stopped me. So simple. And if it was easy for me, then it could be easy for anybody, and that’s a very frightening thought. Apart from anything else, it would be untenable. Everyone can’t be on top, or it wouldn’t be the top any more, would it? That’s just a fact.’ ‘And I’ve been in the citadels of power,’ he added. ‘I’ve eaten at the high tables; I’ve seen behind the doors that never open. Everyone’s the same. You reach a certain level and it’s all exactly the same: it’s all just luck and loopholes and being in the right place at the right time, and compound growth taking care of the rest. That’s why we’re all building barricades. It’s in case the rest of you ever figure out how incredibly easy it was for us to get to where we are.’ ‘Jesus,’ Mira said. ’That’s fucking dark.’ ‘Well, if you get too depressed, remember that it’s also just a pissing contest.”

WinningWealthRichWealthyIncome InequalityBillionairesSurvivalismWealth DisparityPissing Contests
Book:Birnam Wood
Create image

“And what’s even more fucked up is that you totally have it in your power to make things better. Like, in all of history, there has literally never been a group of people better equipped to avert catastrophe than the billionaires alive today. The technology you have access to, and the resources, and the money, and the influence, and the connections—literally, no one in history has ever been more powerful. Ever.’ ‘Yes. We’re like gods,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘But gods can be capricious, Mira. They don’t always do what you want them to. They move in mysterious ways.”

WealthMoneyTechnologyPowerRichInfluenceResourcesConnectionsWealthyBillionaires
Book:Birnam Wood
Create image

“Tony had never considered himself to be particularly patriotic—he did not accept, in fact, that there was any material difference between the patriot and the nationalist—and so he had been surprised, and even a little ashamed, to realise just how strongly his nationality had shaped him, not just in his actions and his expectations, but in his political convictions, which he would have liked to think had been formed through his powers of reason and his intellect alone. His loathing of the super-rich, for example, was on some level not a political stance at all, but merely a very Kiwi expression of disdain—disdain for those who lived in childish comfort, and who delegated labour, and—to put it plainly—who simply weren’t hardcore enough to do without; their luxuries had not been earned or exerted for, but had been merely purchased, and that was something any fool could do.”

PoliticsRichComfortLuxuryPatriotismNationalismWealthyKiwisNew ZealandersPolitical Convictions
Book:Birnam Wood
Create image