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Florence King Quotes

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Famous Florence King Quotes

“Owning your own home is America's unique recipe for avoiding revolution and promoting pseudo-equality at the same time. To keep citizens puttering in their yards instead of sputtering on the barricades, the government has gladly deprived itself of billions in tax revenues by letting home owners deduct mortgage interest payments.”

HomeGovernmentAmericaHouseWomenInterestRevolutionCitizensTaxesUniqueBillionsOwnersYardsAvoidingRecipesRevenuePromotingDeprivedRebelliousPaymentMortgagePseudoBarricades
Book:Reflections In A Jaundiced Eye
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“In its purest sense, nicknaming is an elitist ritual practiced by those who cherish hierarchy. For preppies it's a smoke signal that allows Bunny to tell Pooky that they belong to the same tribe, while among the good old boys it serves the cause of masculine dominance by identifying Bear and Wrecker as Alpha males.”

NamesCausesBoysBearsMalesSmokeCherishRitualTribesSignalsMasculineHierarchyAlpha MaleDominanceIdentifyingBunniesElitistAlphasSmoke Signals
Author:Florence King
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“The American way of stress is comparable to Freud's 'beloved symptom', his name for the cherished neurosis that a patient cultivates like the rarest of orchids and does not want to be cured of. Stress makes Americans feel busy, important, and in demand, and simultaneously deprived, ignored, and victimized. Stress makes them feel interesting and complex instead of boring and simple, and carries an assumption of sensitivity not unlike the Old World assumption that aristocrats were high-strung. In short, stress has become a status symbol.”

WorldWayWantFeelsDoeImportantNamesSimpleInterestingDemandStressComplexesPatientBusyBoringSymbolsBelovedAssumptionCarrieIgnoredSensitivitySymptomsDeprivedNeurosisOld WorldOrchidsStatus SymbolHigh Strung
Author:Florence King
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“Any hope that America would finally grow up vanished with the rise of fundamentalist Christianity. Fundamentalism, with its born-again regression, its pink-and-gold concept of heaven, its literal-mindedness, its rambunctious good cheer... its anti-intellectualism... its puerile hymns... and its faith-healing... are made to order for King Kid America.”

MadeKidsChristianAmericaOrderHeavenGrowsBornHealingChristianityGrowing UpAtheismKingsConceptsGoldPositive AtheismCheerFundamentalismLiteralBorn AgainHymnsFundamentalistIntellectualismRegressionGood CheerFaith Healing
Book:Reflections In A Jaundiced Eye
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“The vitamin has been reified. A chemical intangible originally defined as a unit of nutritive value, it was long ago reified into a pill. Now it is a pill; no one except a few precise scientists define it as anything else. Once the vitamin became a pill, it became real according to the precepts of American Cartesianism: I swallow it, therefore it is.”

LongHas BeensRealValuesHealthScientistDefinedChemicalsLong AgoUnitsPrecisePillsVitaminsIntangible
Author:Florence King
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“We want a president who is as much like an American tourist as possible. Someone with the same goofy grin, the same innocent intentions, the same naive trust; a president with no conception of foreign policy and no discernible connection to the U.S. government, whose Nice Guyism will narrow the gap between the U.S. and us until nobody can tell the difference.”

WantGovernmentPresidentDifferencesNicePolicyConnectionsIntentionInnocentGapsConceptionForeign PolicyNaiveTouristsGoofyNice Guy
Book:Reflections In A Jaundiced Eye
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