Public Accounts

Famous quotes containing the words public and/or accounts:

“The designers [of the 1930s] were populists, you see; they were trying to give the public what it wanted. What the public wanted was the future.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)

“The mystical nature of American consumption accounts for its joylessness. We spend a great deal of time in stores, but if we don’t seem to take much pleasure in our buying, it’s because we’re engaged in the acts of sacrifice and self-definition. Abashed in the presence of expensive merchandise, we recognize ourselves ... as supplicants admitted to a shrine.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)