Alan Arkin Quotes

In terms of the class structure that you see so much in European portraiture, I don't think one feels that in America in the 21st century. But we have these other kinds of social structures now, like celebrity, who establish new hierarchies.

If a star or studio chief or any other great movie personages find themselves sitting among a lot of nobodies, they get frightened - as if somebody was trying to demote them.

Humans have evolved to be exquisitely sensitive to changes in status.

No real English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of a political economist.

Aristocracy is naturally abhorrent to me, and adored equality is my idol.

One notable feature is that English doesn't have much of a system for expressing relative social status.

Out in Hollywood, you get the feeling when people are talking to you, that they are looking right past you - like they're looking to see who else they can talk to.

Celebrities are the doormats to power.

Money sometimes makes fools of important persons, but it may also make important persons of fools.

The whole idea of hobknobbing and schmoozing and the concept of an "elite" class of celebrities better than the common people has always made my stomach turn.

It's the Met Gala - everyone is huge. It feels very hierarchical, and I get really nervous in hierarchical spaces because I feel like everyone deserves to feel just as special as everyone else, but that's just not the way it is in this business.

Hollywood is a lot like high school. Everyone was interested in what the head cheerleader was doing and what the captain of the football team was doing and if they were dating each other.

It was hugely helpful to me, being South African. I have never felt uncomfortable in posh society because I don't see what it is that I'm meant to be bowing the knee about.

Notwithstanding the supposed egalitarian ethos of some hunter-gatherer societies, humans are a hierarchical social species. We care greatly about where we stand in comparison to some relevant reference group.

There are hierarchies in B-Town regarding many things, not just gender. Men also go through a lot in this industry.

Class is a big issue here. And some people get picked on more than others. I think we probably do. I mean, it doesn't help that we wear waistcoats and tweed the whole time. But there is a reverse snobbishness in England towards that sort of stuff. And I think that's one of the reasons we really enjoy America, 'cos we're classless.

For the Anglo-Saxons, food determined a person's position in society.

If we were second class citizens we'd be driving old Cadillacs and living good. If we were first class we'd be driving a Rolls Royce.

To the reactionary ear every whispered criticism of the elite classes has always sounded like the opening shot of an uprising.

as the determinants of high status keep shifting, so, too, naturally, will the triggers of status anxiety be altered.

Whatever class and race divergences exist, top cats are tom cats.

Favor and disgrace are like fear. Favor is in a higher place, and disgrace in a lower place. When you win them you are like being in fear, and when you lose them you are also like being in fear. So favor and disgrace are like fear.

The more a ruling class is able to assimilate the most prominent men of a ruled class, the more solid and dangerous its rule.

The great always sell their society to the vanity of the little.

It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.