John Burdett Quotes

Most people think of Las Vegas, and they think of extravagance. But it's really a mix between fantasy and laziness.

I only ever play Vegas one night at a time. It's a hideous, gaudy place; it may not be the end of the world per se, but you can certainly see it from there.

I do think that people go to Las Vegas for 'whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.' They go for the spectacle.

Las Vegas is about distraction.

Vegas is like the old definition of writing: though I don't enjoy writing, I love having written. Though I didn't enjoy Vegas, I love having lived there.

The corruption of the American soul is consumerism.

Luxury! more perilous to youth than storms or quicksand, poverty or chains.

I look at Las Vegas, and I see the absolute best of what we are as Americans, and I see the absolute worst, in the same city.

There are a lot of things to get seduced by in America.

The mood of the 80s - Get what you can, can what you get, and sit on the can.

Vegas is a celebration.

To fulfill his double social function of non-producer and over-consumer, the capitalist was not only obliged to violate his modest taste, to lose his laborious habits of two centuries ago and to give himself up to unbounded luxury, spicy indigestibles and syphilitic debauches, but also to withdraw from productive labor an enormous mass of men in order to enlist them as his assistants.

Las Vegas is Everymans cut-rate Babylon. Not far away there is, or was, a roadside lunch counter and over it a sign proclaiming in three words that a Roman emperors orgy is now a democratic institution. 'Topless Pizza Lunch'.

Everybody knows about Las Vegas. It's a state of mind. Some people want to come with their kids and have a great weekend. Some people want to shop. Some people want to find hookers. Some people want to eat. Some people just want to gamble. It's a potpourri of decadence.

Bangkok, like Las Vegas, sounds like a place where you make bad decisions.

'As Long As I Know I'm Getting Paid' is a satire. Lyrically, I want to be direct. With my history in Fall Out Boy, there's some expectation that I'm going to be lyrically obtuse. But that song is a straight-faced satire of consumerism.

My years of living the jet-set life were fun, but they weren't fulfilling. The perks and benefits were lovely, but all of the fabulous furs, fancy jewelry and fun fetes simply weren't enough to fill my soul.

I don't really go out much at all. But there are times when I'm like, 'I gotta get out.' Then we go to Vegas, and we'll gamble.

I think one of the most pervasive evils in this world is greed and acquiring money for money's sake. Once you have six houses and a plane, it's just about a number. It's never been anything I understood.

I didn't much like Las Vegas. The noise of the place and the whole 24-hour, 'let's play the slot machines all night' culture of the place just left me cold.

I have always loved Las Vegas. It's a traditional place for lounge comics to perform, and I love that.

The more money an American accumulates, the less interesting he becomes.

I like Vegas for its spontaneity.

We are shallow because we have become enslaved by gross materialism, the glitter of gold and its equivalents, for which reason we think that only the material goods of this earth can satisfy us and we must therefore grab as much as can while we are able.

We seem to live in an age where we are quietly appalled by the idea of appetites, whether they be for sex, food or diamonds.