“If Mamaw's second God was the United States of America, then many people in my community were losing something akin to a religion. The tie that bound them to the neighbors, that inspired them in the way my patriotism had… — J.D. Vance Copy Share Image
“I’m the kind of patriot whom people on the Acela corridor laugh at. I choke up when I hear Lee Greenwood’s cheesy anthem “Proud to Be an American.” When I was sixteen, I vowed that every time I met a… — 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 Image
“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 Image
“Powerful people sometimes do things to help people like me without really understanding people like me.” — J.D. Vance Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“the first impulse is escape, but people who lurch toward the exit rarely choose the right door.” — J.D. Vance Copy Share Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
“Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Chaos begets chaos. Instability begets instability.” — J.D. Vance Copy Share Image
