When every benefit received is a right, there is no place for good manners, let alone for gratitude.
Theodore DalrympleThere is nothing an addict likes more, or that serves as better pretext for continuing his present way of life, than to place the weight of responsibility for his situation somewhere other than on his own decisions.
Theodore DalrympleIf the history of the 20th Century proved anything, it proved that however bad things were, human ingenuity could usually find a way to make them worse.
Theodore DalrympleLife is a biography, not a series of disconnected moments, more or less pleasurable but increasingly tedious and unsatisfying unless one imposes a purposive pattern upon them.
Theodore DalrympleChildhood in large parts of modern Britain, at any rate, has been replaced by premature adulthood, or rather adolescence. Children grow up very fast but not very far. That is why it is possible for 14 year olds now to establish friendships with 26 year olds - because they know by the age of 14 all they are ever going to know.
Theodore Dalrymple