“It was queer. All over England young men were eating their hearts out for lack of jobs, and here was he, Gordon, to whom the very word 'job' was faintly nauseous, having jobs thrust unwanted upon him. It was an example of the fact that you can get anything in this world if you genuinely don't want it.”

— George Orwell , book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 3

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George Orwell 473

English author and journalist 1903–1950

Related quotes

“[…] you can get anything in this world if you genuinely don't want it.”

George Orwell book Keep the Aspidistra Flying

Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying

“And the college business: My parents wanted me to go, I didn’t want to go, and I didn’t go. I got what I wanted. Those who don’t go to college have to get jobs. I agreed with all this. I told myself all this over and over. I even got a job—my job breaking au gratin dishes. But the fact that I couldn’t hold my job was worrisome.”

Susanna Kaysen book Girl, Interrupted

Girl, Interrupted (1994)
Context: And the college business: My parents wanted me to go, I didn’t want to go, and I didn’t go. I got what I wanted. Those who don’t go to college have to get jobs. I agreed with all this. I told myself all this over and over. I even got a job—my job breaking au gratin dishes. But the fact that I couldn’t hold my job was worrisome. I was probably crazy. I’d been skirting the idea of craziness for a year or two; now I was closing in on it.

“You can make more money on unemployment than you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job, but it doesn't pay as much. And so that's what's happened to us is that we have put in so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry and said you don't want the jobs that are available.”

Sharron Angle (1949) Former member of the Nevada Assembly from 1999 to 2007

interview with KRNO, 2010-07-14
Angle: Unemployed are "Spoiled"; It's not my job to fight for Nevadans' jobs
2010-06-18
YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK-YtM52aPE
2010-10-23
on unemployment benefits