Flannery O'Connor Quotes

A Rolex watch or an expensive car are the things guys often use to show status, wealth, and basic desirability.

The bigger the hat, the smaller the property.

You are the only person here who has a right to say: "I told you so.

I own three homes. I drive a Jeep. I'm cool with that.

Oh, Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz - My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.

And I'm sure than in Poland, or somewhere, it is considered cool to drive a Porsche and wear necklaces and black silk, but at least back in Brooklyn if you did those things you were either a drug dealer or from New Jersey.

I don't need anybody, I'm successful in life enough to buy myself a f'ing sandwich.

For me success was always going to be a Lamborghini. But now I've got it, it just sits on my drive.

Perhaps the less we have, the more we are required to brag.

Give a man a car of his own and he leaves humility and common sense behind him in the garage.

But what's the good of freedom? What can you do with it? What one wants is to live well and have a beautiful house and be respected by people.

It is modest of the nightingale not to require anyone to listen to it; but it is also proud of the nightingale not to care whether any one listens to it or not.

My shoes are worth more......than your house!

Making money, getting yourself status in this world is not everything at all. But it has become everything in America. That you really have to get going and keep up with the Jones'. Get a house and a car and other things. And pretty soon you're stymied. Things own you.

If men are to respect each other for what they are, they must cease to respect each other for what they own.

It's always been jewelry, clothes, appearance. Those are things that compete with the car. But the car is the ultimate. Get that car right and it doesn't matter what you got on or what you wear once you step out of that car.

I'm the hero of this story, I don't need to be saved

It's not hard to own something. Or everything. You just have to know that it's yours, and then be willing to let it go.

I'm not against people having new cars. I'm against them having you. We spend a tremendous amount impressing somebody at the stoplight who we'll never meet. It makes you broke and keeps you broke.

I got me a car and I got me some gas,Told everybody they could kiss my ass.

The quasi-peaceable gentleman of leisure, then, not only consumes of the staff of life beyond the minimum required for subsistence and physical efficiency, but his consumption also undergoes a specialisation as regards the quality of the goods consumed. He consumes freely and of the best, in food, drink, narcotics, shelter, services, ornaments, apparel, weapons and accoutrements, amusements, amulets, and idols or divinities.

Fine clothes are good only as they supply the want of other means of procuring respect.

The more wants a man has, the less freedom.

These days, the media is defining what cultural capital is, and it's easily learned. If you have money, anything can be bought. We see this in China and Russia with what I call the "Bling Dynasty and New Oligarchy" in Generation Wealth. As people got rich and everybody started buying Louis Vuitton bags, it became clear that to distinguish yourself you had to have more than an expensive bag. People began to want the things that money is not supposed to be able to buy - history, tradition, education, and culture.

See me in that new thing, bums is gaggin