Hubert Selby Jr. Quotes

I think there is some kind of disillusionment in the West about the gains of modernity and of economic growth and it takes a form of skepticism about the gains of prosperity generally.

The American way of life, as I see it, is really the American way of death. Everything is determined by greed and the insatiable desire to be the richest and most powerful. And that desire is limitless.

This America has been the country of greed rather than the country of need.

Money doesn't mind if we say it's evil, it goes from strength to strength. It's a fiction, an addiction, and a tacit conspiracy.

Money commands everything because that's our interpretation of capitalism... what kind of world is that? It's a very uncomfortable interpretation of a human being. We have been turned into robots.

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.

I've felt a little culpable that we entrepreneurs often invent businesses just to drive people to buy more things.

This great, though disastrous, culture can only change as we begin to stand off and see... the inveterate materialism which has become the model for cultures around the world.

Capitalism carries in itself war, like clouds carry rain.

The selfish spirit of commerce which knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.

The world no longer permits the stronger to kill the weaker, but it allows the wealthy to oppress the poor. Money is holier than man. Human life is less sacred than property. To save a dollar is regarded as a more necessary virtue than to save a human heart. Society cares more for fortune than for truth.

Capitalists are generating death.

Money can destroy people. It really can.

America has gone crazy with greed. I really have to say that.

There was no safety. There was no pride. All there was, was money. Everything became money, and money became everything. Money treated us as if we were things, and we died.

It was left for the present age to endow Covetousness with glamour on a big scale, and to give it a title which it could carry like a flag. It occurred to somebody to call it Enterprise. From the moment of that happy inspiration, Covetousness has gone forward and never looked back.

There is a strange and mighty race of people called the Americans who are rapidly becoming the coldest in the world because of this cruel, man-eating idol, lucre.

It is the system, rather than individuals, that is the source of pollution and degradation. My prison-house environment is but another manifestation of the Midas-hand, whose cursed touch turns everything to the brutal service of Mammon.

Make money. Make more money. Make others produce so as to make money... However you get them in or why, just do it.

The tourist business is a trap, it is a tained honey; Man clearly should have stayed in bed, and not invented money.

The negative side of the American Dream comes when people pursue success at any cost, which in turn destroys the vision and the dream.

This is a wonderful planet, and it is being completely destroyed by people who have too much money and power and no empathy.

In an age robbed of religious symbols, going to the shops replaces going to the church. We have a free choice, but at a price. We can win experience, but never achieve innocence. Marx knew that the epic activities of the modern world involve not lance and sword but dry goods.

This is so American, man: either make something your God and cosmos and then worship it, or else kill it.

Making money is certainly the one addiction I cannot shake.