All Virginia Postrel Quotes
- Glamour is all about transcending this world and getting to an idealized, perfect place. All
- Glamour is translucent — not transparent, not opaque. It invites us into the world but it doesn’t give us a completely clear picture. Clear
- Aesthetics has become too important to be left to the aesthetes. To succeed, hard-nosed engineers, real estate developers, and MBAs must take aesthetic communication, and… Aesthetes
- The glamour of air travel - its aspirational meaning in the public imagination - disappeared before its luxury did, dissipating as flying gradually became commonplace. Air
- Glamour doesn’t just happen, people don’t wake up in the morning glamorous. Doesn
- European nations began World War I with a glamorous vision of war, only to be psychologically shattered by the realities of the trenches. The experience… Battle
- At the simplest level, only people who know they do not know everything will be curious enough to find things out. Curious
- Dialysis does not make patients well. It simply postpones their deaths. Deaths
- Kidney disease is a low-profile, unglamorous problem, a disease that disproportionately strikes minorities and the poor. Its celebrity spokesman is blue-collar comedian George Lopez, who… Blue
- The intimate contest for self-command never ends, and lifetime happiness requires finding the right balance between present impulses and future well-being. Balance
- We know we need bosses and deadlines to help us get work done. But sometimes we can also use an external push to make us… Appreciate
- As a general rule, durable-goods production tends to be the most volatile sector of the economy. Since people usually have a stock of durables in… Big
- As discomfiting as it is to both market optimists and policy activists, a certain amount of instability is inherent to the economy. Activists
- The growth of medical expenditures in the U.S. is not caused by administrative costs but by increases in the technical intensity of care over time… Administrative
- The evergreen story of people in debt becomes even sexier in an economic downturn, when debts inevitably get harder to pay. Becomes
- As borrowers, we may feel guilty about running up debt, anxious about making payments, and resentful of the constraints that old obligations (and old credit… Anxious
- When credit is cheaper to use and easier to arrange, people do use more of it. Arrange
- In a media culture, we not only judge strangers by how they look but by the images of how they look. So we want attractive… Attractive
- Rich people in poor places want to show off their wealth. And their less affluent counterparts feel pressure to fake it, at least in public.… Affluent
- Barack Obama has brought glamour back to American politics - not the faux glamour-by-association of campaigning with movie stars or sailing with the Kennedys, but… American
- Like John Kennedy in 1960, Obama combines youth, vigor, and good looks with the promise of political change. Like Kennedy, he grew up in unusual… American
- When Baby Boomer women started choosing hotel-like birthing centers over hospital delivery rooms, hospitals quickly wised up. Now even rural hospitals offer well-designed labor-delivery-recovery suites. Baby
- Unlike painting, sculpture, or music, typefaces must be useful to someone. Fortunately for designers, the digital age has produced new problems to solve - developing… Age
- At the basic consumer level, the profusion of fonts appeals to a culture that celebrates expressive individualism. Appeals
- Standardized sizes made inexpensive, off-the-rack garments economically feasible. They gave shoppers a reliable guide to finding clothes in self-service shops. Clothes