“Isn't it crazy? Rich people in the United States don't even know how to use money properly.”
“You could love your crazy people, even admire them, instead of resenting that they're not self-sufficient.”
“Food culture in the United States has long been cast as the property of a privileged class. It is nothing of the kind. Culture is the property of a species.”
“What keeps you going isn't just some fine destination but the road you're on and the fact you know how to drive.”
“Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can't even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain.”
“I know how people are, with their habits of mind. Most will sail through from cradle to grave with a conscience clean as snow...I know people. Most have no earthly notion of the price of a snow-white conscience.”
“Back in Georgia everybody we knew had an automobile." A bu, don't tell stories. That is not possible." Well, not everybody. I don't mean babies and children. But every single family." Not possible." Yes, it is! Some families even have two!" What is the purpose of so many automobiles at the same time?" Well, because everybody has someplace to go every day. To work or to the store or something." And why is nobody walking?" It's not like here, Anatole. Everything's farther apart. People live in big towns and cities. Bigger cities than Leopoldville, even." Beene, you are lying to me. If everyone lived in a city they could never grow enough food." Oh, they do that in the country. In big, big fields. Peanuts and soybeans and corn, all that. The farmers grow it, then they put it on big trucks and take it all to the city, where people buy it from the store." From the market." No, it isn't a bit like the big market. It's a great big house kind of thing, with bright lights and all these shelves inside. It's open every day, and just one person sells all the different things." One farmer has so many things?" No, not a farmer. A storekeeper buys it all from the farmers, and sells it to the city people." And so you don't even know whose fields this food came from? That sounds terrible. It could be poisoned!" It's not bad, really. It works out." How can there be enough food, Beene? If everyone lives in a city?" There just is. Things are different from here.”