How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
Billy gets how s***ty the place makes him feel, the quick sink of depression in his gut, but he thinks it's just an allergic reaction to rich people. He clenched the moment he walked in and felt the money vibe. He wanted to back right out of there. He wanted to punch someone. Rich people make him nervous for no particular reason, they just do, and standing by the hostess station in his kudzu-green class A's Billy felt about as belonging here as a wino pissing his pants. (Virtue.3)
There's actually a name for this, folks: It's plutophobia. No, it has nothing to do with Disney…it's the fear of rich people. We can, uhh, relate to this, actually. With all that power and influence, rich people can be really scary sometimes.
Quote #5
Billy has made sure to sit next to Dime and Albert, because whatever they say he means to hear it. He knows he doesn't know enough. He doesn't know anything, basically, at least nothing worth knowing, the measure of worth at this point in his life being knowledge that quiets the mind and calms the soul. (Virtue.10)
Billy sees people like Dime and Albert—and especially Shroom—as a different class of people entirely. Their philosophical viewpoints and mature, pragmatic worldview make them seem almost supernatural to the kid from Stovall, Texas. So by sitting next to them, he's hoping to be able to someday assimilate into their class.
Quote #6
"Listen," Albert says, "what Bravo did that day, that's a different kind of reality you guys experienced. People like me who've never been in combat, thank God, no way we can know what you guys went through, and I think that's why we're getting push-back from the studios. Those people, the kind of bubble they live in? It's a major tragedy in their lives if their Asian manicurist takes the day off. For those people to be passing judgement on the validity of your experience is just wrong, it goes beyond wrong, it's ethics porn. They aren't capable of fathoming what you guys did." (Virtue.32)
Sing it, Albert. The American people, and especially the rich people who are twice removed from reality by virtue of all that money, really have no frame of reference to understand anything the Bravo boys have done. They'll sure blather about it to make themselves look good, though.