Good Rich People Quotes

“Everyone is playing a game all the time. It only matters when you’re losing.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“It’s the hardest job in the world, not having a job.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“And special thanks to the benefits system in England, for supporting my late husband and, consequently, me. These systems save lives and are desperately needed everywhere.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“Don’t do that,” I say again. I sound unhinged. He slouches moodily and keeps driving. And he will. I know he will. I am beginning to realize that I can’t even fathom all the things that he’s done, all the terrible things, all his life. All the terrible things he’s gotten away with, will keep getting away with. Unless somebody stops him.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“No, I am done.” I stand. “I don’t work for you. You don’t know me, so let me tell you who I am: I’m poor. And last night I fucked your son. And you know what? It was strictly ordinary.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“Up close, her face is a mask of fillers and stiffeners, swollen as a stone balloon. But her eyes are extraordinary. Even watery with age they have a purple cast. She holds out her hands.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“It seemed like a contradiction in terms, a conflict of interest. But this morning, I wrote Astrid a check. I could have fired her. I could have ruined her. I had all the money. I had all the power. And instead, I warned her. Instead, I let her go. Maybe there are good rich people. Maybe I could be one of them.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“If you’re looking for fair, you won’t find it here. If you’re looking for peace or happiness or some kind of resolution, you won’t find it with these people. The only thing rich people have is money.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“Rich people never get points for creativity. There are about eighteen bottles of Dom scattered on the table. They’re mixing it with top-shelf whisky. Graham is drinking along with everyone else but he is sitting with me in the far corner, away from the action. He hasn’t left my side all night.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“THE SCENT OF heroin is almost comforting when I step back into the guesthouse. I should have stayed inside. I definitely shouldn’t have gone shopping. It’s like I’m losing touch with reality. This place brings me back to earth.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“I dropped tens of thousands of dollars on designer clothes I didn’t need and I can’t even toss a dollar out the window.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“He chases another line, then leans against the counter. “They hoard beauty, too, along with their money.” He speaks like an oracle, a heroin prophet. “The world is a beautiful place, or it would be, but they take it all. All the beauty, and what do we get? Broken sidewalks and spattered blood.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“That’s why we have the guesthouse. To help people like you. This world is so hard to access, you know. We want to give people a leg up. Do whatever we can to help our tenants succeed.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“wonder if wealth isn’t a little like heroin. My dad once explained to me the feeling of being high: You don’t feel good. You don’t feel bad. It’s the absence of feeling. Good and bad cease to exist. Dressed in Demi’s clothes, at the top of this elaborate garden, standing with a man in a three-piece suit cradling a rabbit, I feel nothing. And it’s the best feeling in the world.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“When I married you, I thought, ‘This is a woman who will never bore me.’ But I’m bored.” He says it like it’s the worst thing in the world.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“Your friends are horrible,” she tells me. “I know.” “Why are you even friends with them?”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“He got a man hooked on fentanyl. The man left his wife and children to live in the guesthouse. He is currently living on the street.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“It’s all right,” he says, brushing her hair, rocking her gently back and forth. “It’s all right.” It’s spooky, the way Graham becomes someone else for other people. He never does it for me. I get to see the real him. I don’t always think that’s a privilege.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“Margo worships Graham like something she created by will alone. She never talks about his father; you would think Graham were the virgin birth. I once asked Graham about him and he explained that his father ran off with the maid. “Do you ever see him?” I asked. He seemed confused: “Of course not. He’s dead.” I didn’t ask if Margo killed him. I just assumed she had.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“She would look ridiculous anywhere else—but in her own garden, she looks divine. Even I can appreciate that.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“We always drive to Margo’s house. Graham thinks walking is barbaric. We pull around her long, circuitous drive and the house gets closer, then farther, then pounces. One of Margo’s staff”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“All those hours walking and I never thought he would be here. I never thought he would be worried. Even now it’s hard to determine whether this is real or whether it’s a tactic, whether he is running a secret game.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“can’t deny that things have not been going well with Graham for a while. Maybe from the beginning. But like other couples have children or jobs or hobbies to distract them from their imperfect pairing, Graham has the game. I let him play. I tolerated it. I didn’t interfere. Until Elvira. That is when the tide well and truly turned.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“I don’t believe that the disadvantaged can “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”; they’re born without boots. But I’m not poor anymore. I have been (re)born to privilege. And I can’t let Michael or my past or my own poor-minded self keep me down.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“Like most poor men I know, he is convinced he is gaming the system. He brags about how he doesn’t have to work, how he stole his brother’s identity and now gets food stamps for two people, how he’s walked out on multiple hospital bills.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“It’s almost endearing, how important these hideous creations are to him.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“And then I feel a different species of anger. My dad did drugs. His friends did. And they were called the scum of the earth. Demi is called back to work. There is no such thing as a rich junkie.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“I’m kind of shocked. If I’d admitted to using heroin at any of my small-time jobs, I would have been fired without compensation. I might have even been arrested. Demi’s lead doesn’t care that she almost (except actually) died.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“And I won’t remember what it feels like to sleep on cardboard, won’t know the smell of blood and urine, won’t taste fear on my tongue first thing every morning or lie back dreaming of sleep. I will be someone else. All I have to do is set my old self on fire.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People

“He leans back on the couch. “Do you know how many homeless people die in this city? Ha.” His shoulders jerk on the laugh. “You think they ID every body? They don’t even count. They don’t want anyone to guess how many people actually live on the street.”
― Eliza Jane Brazier, Good Rich People