When the Going Was Good Quotes

“Whatever you do, whatever you build, it has to have a point.”
― Graydon Carter, When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines

“F.I.S.K.—a guide to romantic partners. I tell my kids that these are the essential ingredients you should look for in a mate: funny, interesting, smart, and kind.”
― Graydon Carter, When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines

“Put yourself in the movie. This is an easy one—especially when it comes to dealing with others. When a confrontation arises, just ask yourself: Are you the hero in this story, the villain, or someone in between? Would you root for yourself if you saw yourself in the film? You’d be surprised how useful this is in life. I have always tried to do the right thing, hoping that my actions would cause the objective me to root for the real me. It doesn’t always work, but it works a lot better than not trying it at all.”
― Graydon Carter, When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines

“Nothing can kill a party faster than a dead actress.”
― Graydon Carter, When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines

“When a confrontation arises, just ask yourself: Are you the hero in this story, the villain, or someone in between? Would you root for yourself if you saw yourself in the film? You’d be surprised how useful this is in life.”
― Graydon Carter, When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines

“When you are in a conflict, try to remove yourself from the ground surface and look down on the scene from above. It is only there that you can examine the problem, if there is one, and do so objectively.”
― Graydon Carter, When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines

“It’s hard enough to control events in your own life—don’t spend a second on the events that could affect others’ lives in a negative way.”
― Graydon Carter, When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines

“It’s not so much what you say yes to in life as what you say no to.”
― Graydon Carter, When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines

“The presidency of George W. Bush was an eight-year warm-up act for the final stage of a dumbed-down America: a Trump presidency. You can draw a relatively straight line from the Florida recount of 2000, which took Bush into office, right through to the shambolic Trump campaign. The election of Bush led to the invasion of Iraq, which led to the destabilization in the Middle East (Libya, Egypt, Syria), which led to the migrant crisis, which led to European nationalism, Brexit, and, at the tail end of all these disasters, Trump.”
― Graydon Carter, When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines

“we got fed up, and after consulting an actuary—giving him Trump’s physical details, age, eating habits, and whatnot—we began a monthly countdown to his own demise, under the headline “Death Be Not Short-Fingered.”
― Graydon Carter, When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines

“Vanity Fair article: “The behavior of our money people is still treated as a subject for specialists. This is a huge cultural mistake. High finance touches—ruins—the lives of ordinary people in a way that, say, baseball does not, unless you are a Cubs fan. And yet, ordinary people, even those who have been most violated, are never left with a clear sense of how they’ve been touched or by whom. Wall Street, like a clever pervert, is often suspected but”
― Graydon Carter, When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines