Geoff Dyer Quotes

Class is something I know about. I've lived it every day of my life, and it shaped me in my identity.

I'm tired of people on trust funds telling people on food stamps how to live.

It's a very working-class thing, to get where you want and then not feel worthy.

I've always enjoyed studying the small clues that indicate a particular class level.

I felt like any other American kid. I already worked at a steady job as an ice cream scooper, but I didn't feel less in any way than my more affluent friends from school.

I was not born into a rich family or a family of government officials.

Our self image, strongly held, essentially determines what we become.

Class is real. It can't be faked.

There was a time in my life when I was going in and out of houses that were extraordinarily different - from a working-class terrace in Northampton to the homes of friends who were really very wealthy. It was quite an odd position to be in, I realise looking back, and quite a nice one.

I was a Sedgewick without the smarts. It infused its way into me and I feel like it formed my character in a big way because of what I was exposed to.

I don't think there's a whole lot of class literature at all. I think most of that has become racially based, and people don't think of it as being class literature.

We were working class, and you don't lose that. Later on, I bolted on media middle class... and now people like me are in the House of Lords.

It's not in our nature. Americans have never been a people that drive through a nice neighborhood and say, 'Oh, I hate the people who live in these nice houses.'

Everyone always said, 'When you're 10, you'll want to be Elizabeth, or when you're in college.' And every time, I was was just like, 'No, I'm Beanie. That's who I am.' So I love my name because I think it really suits me.

Because I sometimes shopped in Waitrose, I thought I was actually quite posh. I've realised that I'm basically a scullery maid. Even the middle-class people who I meet in parliament, people who live in London - which I think is remarkable because how can anybody afford to live there - seem much, much more middle class than me.

I know what my identity is.

I used to be obsessed with race. I'm more obsessed with class now.

I am the typical British aspiring working class. To be called 'elite' by people who have inherited wealth and run hedge funds or worked in the City of London, I don't criticise them for it, but the idea is frankly laughable. Just ridiculous.

I'm interested in how we understand ourselves in our relatioships and how we define ourselves.

I'm a working-class person, working with class.

It's so much easier to know who you are when there aren't a thousand people telling you who they think you are.

And understand: class differences will not save you.

I'm quite looking forward to the fact that people know me as Richard rather than Craig.

I'm aware that not all kids can pick up and fly to Panama. I'm very lucky.

I'm working class, and want people to know I'm not unintelligent and all the other cliches that come with it.