“As one observer noted, “In traveling across America, the Scots-Irish have consistently blown my mind as far and away the most persistent and unchanging regional subculture in the country. Their family structures, religion and politics, and social lives all remain… — J.D. Vance Copy Share Image
“Wed don't need to live like the elites of California, New York, or Washington, D.C. We don't need to work a hundred hours a… — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“Within two generations, the transplanted hillbillies had largely caught up to the native population in terms of income and poverty level.” — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“Powerful people sometimes do things to help people like me without really understanding people like me.” — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“Research does reveal a genetic disposition to substance abuse, but those who believe their addiction is a disease show less of an inclination to… — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“the first impulse is escape, but people who lurch toward the exit rarely choose the right door.” — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“was my first indication that the policies of Mamaw’s “party of the working man”—the Democrats—weren’t all they were cracked up to be. Political scientists… — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“A young man was sitting at home when a terrible rainstorm began. Within hours, the man’s house began to flood, and someone came to… — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“As a culture, we had no heroes. Certainly not any politician--Barack Obama was then the most admired man in America (and likely still is),… — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“To this day, being able to “take advantage” of someone is the measure in my mind of having a parent. For me and Lindsay,… — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“As one book, Appalachian Odyssey, notes about the influx of hill people to Detroit: “It was not simply that the Appalachian migrants, as rural… — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“As a 2011 Brookings Institution study found, “compared to 2000, residents of extreme-poverty neighborhoods in 2005–09 were more likely to be white, native-born, high… — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“There was, and still is, a sense that those who make it are of two varieties. The first are lucky: They come from wealthy… — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“We spend to pretend that we’re upper-class. And when the dust clears—when bankruptcy hits or a family member bails us out of our stupidity—there’s… — J.D. Vance Copy Share
“Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Chaos begets chaos. Instability begets instability.” — J.D. Vance Copy Share
