The Right People Quotes

“One is not startled on the Main Line to hear a businessman conclude a deal with a cheerful “All righty-roo!” Or to depart from a party with a bright “Nightie-noodles!” to his host and hostess. As for the accent, Barbara Best calls it “Philadelphia paralysis,” or “Main Line lockjaw,” pointing out that it is not unlike “Massachusetts malocclusion.” Mrs. Best recalls that when she first moved to the area a native said to her, “My dear, you have the most beautiful speaking voice. I can understand every word you say!”
― Stephen Birmingham, The Right People: The Social Establishment in America

“Beginning with roughly a hundred acres (before he had finished he had added another three hundred), Mr. Lawrence decided to build a town. When his contractor asked him where to put the streets, Lawrence looked at the cow paths meandering up and down the hills and said, “Why not make the streets follow the cow paths?” And so, following the rules of bovine common sense, there the streets are for Mr. Mumford to admire.”
― Stephen Birmingham, The Right People: The Social Establishment in America

“Power,” states an old Chinese proverb, “is ancient wealth.” And it is to this thinking that most American rich, knowingly or not, subscribe. The adjective here is most important. In order for the power—the influence, the prestige, the ability to control other people and shore up reserves against the world’s inequities—to be at its fullest, the money must age. This is why the newly rich are very different from the anciently rich. Money, like a good strand of pearls, improves and grows more lustrous with each generation that wears it.”
― Stephen Birmingham, The Right People: The Social Establishment in America

“one of Mr. Boyden’s devices is riding around the Deerfield campus in a horse-drawn buggy. There have been dark hints that other headmasters, to compete, have had to dream up devices or eccentricities or “trademarks” of their own. Seymour St. John at Choate, for instance, has been seen with a pet otter flopping at his heels, and the Reverend Matthew Warren, headmaster of St. Paul’s, was given a red-and-white golf cart by an appreciative alumnus in which to tool around the campus.”
― Stephen Birmingham, The Right People: The Social Establishment in America

“The British public schools have become, so to speak, the property of the British public, through alumni who have given themselves to England. But American private schools have remained for the most part “private.” And, in the tradition of American private enterprise, which believes that a share of the profits should be plowed back into the corporation, American prep school alumni have given largely to the treasuries of their alma maters.”
― Stephen Birmingham, The Right People: The Social Establishment in America

“Great stress is placed on manners. “Never point,” one San Francisco mother teaches her children, “except at French pastry.” Do’s and don’ts are rampantly important. “We’d never wear diamonds before lunch,” says one woman. “Anyone who’d wear a mink stole in the daytime is automatically out,” says another.”
― Stephen Birmingham, The Right People: The Social Establishment in America

“It is a social accent that is virtually the same in all American cities, and it is actually a blend of several accents. There is much more to it than the well-known broad A. Its components are a certain New England flatness, a trace of a Southern drawl, and a surprising touch of the New York City accent that many people consider Brooklynese”
― Stephen Birmingham, The Right People: The Social Establishment in America

“One can frequently recognize a woman of Real Society by the way she dresses. Real Society women’s clothes have a way of staying in style longer than other people’s because Real Society fashions do not change markedly from year to year. Neither the junior-cut mink coat nor the beaver jacket has gone through many transitions since the introduction of the designs, nor has the cut of the classic camel’s hair topper. The short-sleeved, round-collared McMullen blouse is ageless, and the hemline of the Bermuda short has hardly been known to fluctuate. What is more classic than a double strand of good pearls? The poplin raincoat is as suited to suburban shopping today as it was to the Smith campus in 1953.”
― Stephen Birmingham, The Right People: The Social Establishment in America