Thomas Frank Quotes & Sayings

“For-profit higher education is today a booming industry, feeding on the student loans handed out to the desperate.”

“Money has transformed every watchdog, every independent authority. Medical doctors are increasingly gulled by the lobbying of pharmaceutical salesmen.”

“When the entertainers of the Right aren't declaring their disgust with President Obama for groveling before foreign potentates, they're pretending to fear him as a left-wing thug, an exemplar of what they call 'the Chicago way.'”

“I was in a bad mood when I wrote that.”

“I think there's great potential for autonomy, but we have to remember that we live in a world where people may have free will but have not invented their circumstances.”

“In small towns, bored teenagers turn their eyes longingly to the exciting doings in the big cities, pining for urban amenities like hipster bars and farmers' markets and indie-rock festivals. Like everyone else, they want the vibrant and they will not be denied.”

“The great fear that hung over the business community in the 1970s was death by regulation, and the great goal of the conservative movement, as it rose to triumph in the 1980s, was to remove that threat - to keep OSHA, the EPA, and the FTC from choking off entrepreneurship with their infernal meddling in the marketplace.”

“There is no higher claim to journalistic integrity than going to jail to protect a source.”

“Governing was always difficult for conservatives, but as they return to the opposition, they are rediscovering their skill at blame evasion.”

“Government is, by its very nature, a destroyer of liberties; the Obama administration, specifically, is promising to interfere with the economy and the health care system so profoundly that Washington will soon have us all in chains.”