255 Quotes by Jon Ronson

I wondered what sort of woman loved a man like that.

Bedlam: an institution with a history so fearsome it gave its name to a synonym for chaos and pandemonium.

I think we all care deeply about things that seem totally inconsequential to other people. We all carry around with us the flotsam and jetsam of perceived humiliations that actually mean nothing. We are a mass of vulnerabilities, and who knows what will trigger them?

We see ourselves as nonconformist, but I think all of this is creating a more conformist, conservative age."Look!" we're saying. "WE'RE normal! THIS is the average!"We are defining the boundaries of normality by tearing apart the people outside it.

What a brilliant cover story. In a success-obsessed society like this one, what's the best rock to hide something under? It's the rock called failure.

The word forever had been coming up a lot during my two years among the publicly shamed. Jonah and Justine and people like them were being told, 'No. There is no door. There is no way back in. We don't offer any forgiveness.' But we know that people are complicated and have a mixture of flaws and talents and sins. So why do we pretend that we don't?

Shame internalized can lead to agony. Whereas shame let out can lead to freedom, or at least a funny story, which is a sort of freedom too.

The NSA is looking for terrorists. They’re not getting psychosexual pleasure out of their schadenfreude about you.”—

A stab had clearly once been made at de-uglifying these public spaces by painting a corridor a jaunty yellow. This was because, it turned out, babies come here to have their brains tested and someone thought the yellow might calm them. But I couldn’t see how. Such was the oppressive ugliness of this building it would have been like sticking a red nose on a cadaver and calling it Ronald McDonald.