You can’t stop a committee once it’s made up its mind to waste money

‘She can’t take on the government,’ Blatt and Unwin agreed at lunchtime the next day. ‘Not when it’s in spending mood. You can’t stop a committee once it’s made up its mind to waste money. She’ll just have to compromise and climb down in face of competition,

P. Fitzgerald, At Freddie’s (1982), 155

His power base wasn’t his congressional district, it was Herman Brown’s bank account

The new power he possessed did not derive from Roosevelt’s friendship, or from Rayburn’s. It did not derive from seniority in the House, not even – despite the relationship that power in a democracy bears to the votes of the electorate – to his seat in it. His power was simply the power of money. To a considerable extent, the money was Herman Brown’s…. His power base wasn’t his congressional district, it was Herman Brown’s bank account

R. Caro, the years of Lyndon Johnson, volume 1: the path to power (1982), 659

It is a very solemn undertaking to adore a millionaire

'I adore him,' Sally told me, repeatedly and very solemnly, whenever we were alone together. She was intensely earnest in believing this. It was like a dogma in a newly adopted religious creed; Sally adores Clive. It is a very solemn undertaking to adore a millionaire. Sally's features began to assume, with increasing frequency, the rapt expression of the theatrical nun. And indeed, when Clive, with his charming vague- ness, gave a particularly flagrant professional beggar a 47 twenty-mark note, we would exchange- glances of genuine awe. The waste of so much good money affected us both like something inspired, a kind of miracle.

C. Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin (1939), 64

As soon as I could afford it I bought a house in Mayfair

It was fortunate for me that I suddenly achieved popularity as a dramatist and so was relieved of the necessity of writing a novel once a year to earn my living. I found plays easy to write; the notoriety they brought me was not unpleasing; and they earned for me enough money to enable me to live less straitly than I had been obliged to. I have never had the bohemian trait of being unconcerned for the morrow. I have never liked to borrow money. I have hated to be in debt. Nor has the squalid life had any attraction for me. I was not born in squalid circumstances. As soon as I could afford it I bought a house in Mayfair.

There are people who despise possessions. Of course when they say that it ill becomes the artist thus to cumber himself they may be right, but it is not a view that artists themselves have held. They have never lived from choice in the garrets in which their admirers like to see them. They have much more often ruined themselves by the extravagance with which they conducted themselves.

W.S. Maugham, The summing up (1938), 169-70

Starting her list of expenditures with 'Flowers... £490'

Muv made sporadic efforts to interest us in the subject of household economy, and once offered a prize of half a crown to the child who could produce the best budget for a young couple living on £500 a year; but Nancy ruined the contest by starting her list of expenditures with 'Flowers... £490'.

J. Mitford, Hons and Rebels (1960), 45

These billions have done more to chart the universe than did Galileo Galilei, Christopher Columbus and Charles Darwin

During the last 500 years modern science has achieved wonders thanks largely to the willingness of governments, businesses, foundations and private donors to channel billions of dollars into scientific research. These billions have done more to chart the universe than did Galileo Galilei, Christopher Columbus and Charles Darwin. If these particular geniuses had never been born their insights would probably have occurred to others. But if proper funding were unavailable, no intellectual brilliance could he compensated for that.

Y.N. Hariri, Sapiens (2011), 303

All their vitality has been drained away by lack of money

It was through Hilda that I first got a notion of what these decayed middle-class families are really like. The essential fact about them is that all their vitality has been drained away by lack of money. In families like that, which live on tiny pensions and annuities — that’s to say on incomes which never get bigger and generally get smaller — there’s more sense of poverty, more crust-wiping, and looking twice at sixpence, than you’d find in any farm-labourer’s family, let alone a family like mine. Hilda’s often told me that almost the first thing she can remember is a ghastly feeling that there was never enough money for anything. Of course, in that kind of family, the lack of money is always at its worst when the kids are at the school-age. Consequently they grow up, especially the girls, with a fixed idea not only that one always IS hard-up but that it’s one’s duty to be miserable about it.

G. Orwell, Coming up for air (1939), 136-7