John Lanchester Quotes
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It seems to me obviously axiomatic that markets are not magical, that they're organised in a range of regulated entities created by men. We decide in what we will have markets, and we decide how the rules work and how they'll conduct themselves.
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I'd like to pretend to be all Olympian and above it, as if this is a phenomenon I'm observing from a great height, nothing to do with my own behavior at all - but the fact is I'm absolutely one of those people in the cafe staring at my phone.
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I don't think quantitative easing is deliberately misleading, but I do think it's suspiciously bland and reassuring. It doesn't sound like anything big, experimental, scary and strange - which is what many economists think it is.
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One of the things I have noticed about my novels is that they all concern people who can't quite bring themselves to tell the truth about their own lives... I've come to realise that this interest in damaged, untellable stories comes from my parents.
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You can't explain collateralized debt obligation in a novel - it's too draggy.
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The deconstructed, postmodern pizza has been with us for ages, and the fact is that pretty much every ingredient in the world has been used as a pizza topping and liked by somebody, somewhere.
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A preoccupation with money and, especially, with what money meant was, in our family, an inherited thing. My father's father, Jack, who died before I was born, was very much possessed by the idea that money was freedom.
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Fact doesn't have to be plausible; it just has to be fact.
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Once I've properly finished a book, my ideal state of being would be to never think about it again. But with 'Capital,' I felt I'd spent so much time with the characters that they were very, very real, and I definitely had a sense of loss about leaving them behind in a way I've not quite had before.
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If European monetary policy is run according to German interests, huge structural imbalances will accumulate. The Germans will then either have to pay to correct those imbalances or agree that the euro should not be run primarily according to German interests. If they are unwilling to do either of those things, the euro can't survive.
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Cheap money feels like the most natural thing in the world - if you don't think about why it's so cheap.
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I think smartphones are one of humanity's most remarkable creations: computers are amazing enough, but a supercomputer you can carry in your pocket and communicate instantly with anyone, anywhere... it's no wonder they're troublingly addictive.
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Once you learn to 'speak' money - which is what I felt I did through the research that led me to write 'Whoops!' - you start to see it at work all around you. It's like a language, a code written on the surface of things; it's in flow all around us, all the time.
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In my view, a review should be like talking to a friend who's just asked you, 'What was it like?' You're giving a verdict on an experience, not trying for a definitive last judgment.
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'Community,' that loaded word so beloved of politicians, is simply not a reality in most people's lives. It's normal for us to be cut off from each other.
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In a democracy, people tend to get the kind of government they deserve.
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One of the things that happens to you if you write about restaurants - one of the reasons restaurant critics are the real heroes - is that whenever anyone has a grievance about any aspect of the business, they tell you about it.
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I think 'community,' in the sense in which politicians use, it is largely a cant term.
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We don't want to think about money in an ideal life; in a well-lived life, money wouldn't be one of our primary concerns, and we prefer to adopt the ostrich position.
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Nando's is a casual restaurant rather than a fast-food one - another aspirational touch. The food is energetically spiced, where so many of its competitors are bland and grilled to order, where the competition fries food and then lets it sit around.
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It would be too glib, not a hundred per cent true, to say that my father's career as a banker was what made me a writer. But it would be slightly true, and it was certainly the case that his work as a banker made me see that the trade-offs people make between their work and their lives are often badly skewed.
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Hospitality is central to the restaurant business, yet it's a hard idea to define precisely. Mostly, it involves being nice to people and making them feel welcome. You notice it when it's there, and you particularly notice it when it isn't. A single significant lapse in this area can be your dominant impression of an entire meal.
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Often, in horror films, the single most effective device for building a sense of scariness is the soundtrack: the clanking of chains, the groaning of off-stage ghouls, the unmistakable sound of a cannibal rustic firing up a chainsaw.
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Nobody in the developing world is going to take, as an answer to their aspirations, the developed world's reply: 'Sorry, you can't; we've already used it all up.' To earn the right to look the developing world in the eye and start this conversation, we need a reassessment of how we live and what we want.