The idea of social performance, that we're always performing identities, is something I got fairly obsessed with. I think it's probably because I am a person who went to 15 different elementary and middle schools. I moved all the time, often having to run out in the middle of the night because my mom couldn't pay the bills. There were schools where I'd be the poor loser kid. There were schools where I'd suddenly be the smart kid or the cool kid, although that was very seldom.
Robert GreeneEthics and power are separate. Ethics and morality. I think life would be miserable if there weren't some kind of code that people operated by, but history is full of many, many people who have gotten power by very unethical means, and people who were very ethical, who get no power, people who have the most brilliant, lovely, wonderful, nice intentions and bring about horrible things in the world because they don't know how to play the power game.
Robert GreeneI'll probably take the prize for the most irrelevant degree. Although some of the things now where they study, you know: "post feministic colonial film theory" - those kind of majors, yeah, that's probably worse. But I was, you know, classics, Greek and Latin, like what's more irrelevant than dead languages, you know?
Robert Greene