“Cruel and callous when on top, afraid and smiling all the way to the grave when not- that pretty much sums up the post-Reagan zeitgeist.”

—  Mark Ames

Part VI: Welcome to the Dollhouse, page 239.
Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion, From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond (2005)
Context: Cruel and callous when on top, afraid and smiling all the way to the grave when not- that pretty much sums up the post-Reagan zeitgeist. And if you're not just as cheerful as the rest, "you've got some personal problems." You're a weirdo if you complain. It's your own fault if you're traumatized by a massacre. It's your own fault if you're poor. It's your own fault if you get downsized, overworked, bullied, and fail. Get over it.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Cruel and callous when on top, afraid and smiling all the way to the grave when not- that pretty much sums up the post-…" by Mark Ames?
Mark Ames photo
Mark Ames 29
American writer and journalist 1965

Related quotes

Mark Ames photo

“Cruel and callous when on top, afraid and smiling all the way to the grave when not- that pretty much sums up the post-Reagan zeitgeist. And if you're not just as cheerful as the rest, "you've got some personal problems."”

Mark Ames (1965) American writer and journalist

You're a weirdo if you complain. It's your own fault if you're traumatized by a massacre. It's your own fault if you're poor. It's your own fault if you get downsized, overworked, bullied, and fail. Get over it.
Part VI: Welcome to the Dollhouse, page 239
Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion, From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond (2005)

Henry James photo

“.. her smile, which was her pretty feature, was never so pretty as when her sprightly phrase had a scratch lurking in it.”

Henry James Roderick Hudson

Source: Roderick Hudson Ch. 1

Charles Krauthammer photo

“Optimism' is the perfect way to trivialize everything that Reagan was or did. […] Optimism? Every other person on the No. 6 bus is an optimist. What distinguished Reagan was what he did and said. Reagan was optimistic about America amid the cynicism and general retreat of the post-Vietnam era because he believed unfashionably that America was both great and good.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

2000s, 2004, Reagan Was More Than Just An Optimist (2004)

Alex Haley photo

“Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help.”

Alex Haley (1921–1992) African American biographer, screenwriter, and novelist

As quoted in A Touch of Class (2003) by Carol Vanderheyden, p. 60.

Susanna Clarke photo

“The governess was not much liked in the village. She was too tall, too fond of books, too grave, and, a curious thing, never smiled unless there was something to smile at.”

Susanna Clarke book The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

Source: The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

Walter Raleigh photo

“Even such is time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days.
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust!”

Walter Raleigh (1554–1618) English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer

His Own Epitaph, written the night before his execution (1618) and found in his Bible in the Gate-house at Westminster; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tnk8RpOFWw "Even Such is Time" — Choir of Salisbury Cathedral

Winston S. Churchill photo

“The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Angus King photo

“My approach to the job can be summed up pretty simply — I never viewed politics as my career.”

Angus King (1944) United States Senator from Maine

Governor's Travels : How I Left Politics, Learned to Back Up a Bus, and Found America (2011)
Context: My approach to the job can be summed up pretty simply — I never viewed politics as my career. Important, yes, worthy of intense commitment, of course — but it was not my whole life. … I saw politics as a way to make a contribution and satisfy my penchant for public policy, but not as something I couldn't live without.

Alexandre Dumas photo

“Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,-Wait and hope.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Joanna Newsom photo

“So it would seem to be true:
when cruel birth debases, we forget.
When cruel death debases,
we believe it erases all the rest
that precedes.
But stand brave, life-liver,
bleeding out your days
in the river of time.
Stand brave:
time moves both ways”

Joanna Newsom (1982) American musician

Divers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divers_(Joanna_Newsom_album) (2015)

Related topics