Hillbilly Elegy

Vance’s memoir is the story of how upward mobility really feels.

Favorite quotes from the book:

“What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives. Yet the message of the right is increasingly: It’s not your fault that you’re a loser; it’s the government’s fault.”

“whenever people ask me what I’d most like to change about the white working class, I say, “The feeling that our choices don’t matter.”

“Pajamas? Poor people don’t wear pajamas. We fall asleep in our underwear or blue jeans. To this day, I find the very notion of pajamas an unnecessary elite indulgence, like caviar or electric ice cube makers.”