Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? Quotes

“That's my point: if you own thirty or more books, or you are reading any book at this moment, you may protest all you want, but you were born on the wrong continent.”
― Thomas Geoghegan, Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life

“Putting more money into education is a waste of effort. Putting more money into basic research is a waste of effort. We already spend enough. In fact, we have every factor of production going for us: we have much more land, more labor, more capital, much higher levels of formal education. But with our flexible labor markets we cannot develop the human capital or knowledge needed to wean ourselves away from turning out crap.”
― Thomas Geoghegan, Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life

“So I began to dream of going back to Berlin. Yes, it had to be Berlin. It's not because it's the German town for Germans who can't cut it in the rest of Germany. No,it had to be Berlin because it was the only place I'd ever been really idle, as idle as the man in the movie Claire's Knee.”
― Thomas Geoghegan, Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life

“Yes, Germany is dark, and Berlin is darker. But it is not so clear in Berlin what part of the dark is now faux dark and what part of the dark is real.”
― Thomas Geoghegan, Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life

“The USSR model was never a serious threat to anyone's bottom line. People blow up over Germany because, for all its left-wing bent, it may be a more plausible form of capitalism than ours.”
― Thomas Geoghegan, Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life