Richard Ben Cramer Quotes

Who wouldn't fancy Brian Epstein? He was tall and handsome and had money and class.

The American Dream is really money.

There is more opportunity for a nobody to become a somebody in Washington than in the whirl-pool of New York.

I came here because I wanted to live the American dream that I had heard of. And I'm a perfect example. I came to New York; I knew no one. I've made a career, a life, so I still believe in that.

Bad boys are classy and refined. For example, even though Donald Trump came from money and a privileged lifestyle, he's a man's man.

The richest man is the one with the most powerful friends.

America's the one country in the world where anybody who comes here does better than where they came from.

Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo.

I'll know I'm famous when I have five Ferraris, seven houses, Cameron Diaz on my arm and a little man following me with a huge bag of money.

Money has nothing to do with style at all, but naturally it helps every situation.

During the Reagan eighties, the idea that money was a good thing - it was good to be rich; that wealth was a reflection of your character. We see this today in perceptions of Donald Trump: the idea that money is an expression of success and even goodness. I compare that with my dad's generation, where the American Dream was about giving your kids a better life, but not just in material terms. The American Dream was also about doing something good in the world. The home was at the center of the dream, but home also represented community, shelter, and stability for your family.

It is not in everyone's power to secure wealth, office, or honors; but everyone may be good, generous, and wise.

And you know something, because everything that I've gotten - my career, my money, my family; everything that I've gotten and achieved is because of California.

In the same way the eminence attaching to the mere possession of great wealth disappoints us nine times out of ten, especially if the wealth has been accumulated rapidly. For great wealth is accumulated rapidly by cunning or chance, or a mixture of the two. Cunning has nothing to do with high qualities; it is rather a presumption against them; while chance has nothing to do with them either. Therefore it is that men are always complaining after meeting So-and-so, that he seemed to be astonishingly stupid, though he made a million in ten years and started as a pauper.

An American who can make money, invoke God, and be no better than his neighbor, has nothing to fear but truth itself.

It was kind of an amazing class. I went to the Strasberg Institute in New York for a little while after I got there, and I've never seen anybody who was in any of my classes there ever again. I mean, that's not to say they didn't become somebody. I'm not sure. I mean, Sam Jackson could've been in my class, for all I remember.

The American dream was not, at least at the beginning, a rags-to-riches type of narrow materialism.

Money is a topic that touches all races, all religions, all sexes, all ages, all tax brackets. It's a universal language that truly has been held up to us in society as a thing that determines whether we are successful, worthy, whether we have contributed something to life or not.

Tonight, the daughter of an immigrant from Italy has been chosen to run for vice president in the new land my father came to love.

Might sound crazy but I just left the private plane, promoter paid 100 k and I ain't even stay the whole day.

High descent and meritorious deeds, unless united to wealth, are as useless as seaweed.

At the time, I was reading this Miles Davis book, and he was talking about coming to New York right after he was in high school. It kind of made me feel like, "Yeah." I didn't want to go to college; I wanted to do stand-up. And I figured, "What's the point of doing stand-up around DC? I'm always going to be under-appreciated there because I started there." I felt like I was strong enough and unique enough that I should give it a big leash to shine. New York was the best thing that ever happened to me as a comedian.

Money to some extent sometimes let you be in more interesting environments. But it can't change how many people love you or how healthy you are.

America has been another name for opportunity.

If you become famous and you start making money, then people want to give you things. It's the exact opposite of how it's supposed to be.