“The problem was not that Americans spent beyond their means but that their means had not kept up with what the larger economy could and should have been able to provide them. the American economy had been growing briskly, and America's middle class naturally expected to share in that growth. But it didn't. A larger and larger portion of the economy's winnings had gone to people at the top.”

“To begin with, I turn back time. I reverse it to that quaint period, the thirties, when the huge middle class of America was matriculating in a school for the blind. Their eyes had failed them, or they had failed their eyes, and so they were having their fingers pressed forcibly down on the fiery Braille alphabet of a dissolving economy.”

“He had a hint of a British accent; either he was American and had been educated in England or was English and had been living in America too long. (Or he just could have been an asshole.)”

“Parker suspected that Jace had been born an adult. At nineteen he had a larger sense of duty and responsibility than ninety percent of the people Parker knew.”

“I want to remind you right quick what this country has been through, and the challenges this economy had faced over the last three years. First, we went through a recession. That means we were going backwards.”

“THERE IT IS,’ my mother says, and what she means is that the dot we’ve been nearing for weeks, the one that’s been growing into a larger dot with two smaller dots circling it, has now become even larger than that, growing from a dot to a disc, shining back the light from its sun, until you can see the blue of its oceans, the green of its forests, the white of its polar caps, a circle of colour against the black beyond.”