Social Climber Quotes

Raya knew this type of girl – they never liked her. Usually they’d make fun of her, behind her back, but loud enough for her to hear. She was too alternative, too poor and too cynical – the foster kid – to be of any interest to these social climbers.

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm? —But it’s nicer here… So you were born to feel ‘nice’? Instead of doings things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? —But we have to sleep sometime… Agreed. But nature set a limit on that—as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. You’ve had more than enough of that. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota. You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts.

SEE THE MAN NEXT TO HIM? WITH THE LITTLE MOUSTACHE AND THE GRIN LIKE A LIZARD? Death pointed with his scythe. 'Yes?' HIS COUSIN, THE DUKE OF STO HELIT. NOT THE NICEST OF PEOPLE, said Death. A HANDY MAN WITH A BOTTLE OF POISON. FIFTH IN LINE TO THE THRONE LAST YEAR, NOW SECOND IN LINE. BIT OF A SOCIAL CLIMBER, YOU MIGHT SAY.

Some prevailing signs of social climbers are their: - ticking cunning ambition - times of deceit - hand of wickedness - gloves of bigotry - hidden bunch of schemes - cup of pride - sip of prejudice - odour of greed - grit of hatred Their favorite hunger is comparing themselves to others. A thirst of competition with sloth, jealousy and anger at their spirits.

That is the great danger of meritocracy: the people who reach the top of the system are precisely the people who have most completely identified with the system and its demands, creating a vicious circle preventing any actual change. It is no accident that conservatives tend to employ the rhetoric of social mobility so readily, as social climbers generally do not ask questions about the ladder.

I wish to descend in the social scale. High society is low society. I am a social climber climbing downward And the descent is difficult. (- Junkman’s Obbligato)

You have always suspected that you are shallow when it comes to desire, and there it was: all of those factors flipped your brain inside out and turned your cunt to pudding. Maybe you were always some kind of hedonist-cum-social climber-cum-cummer and you just never knew it.

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for— the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm? —But it’s nicer here. . . . So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? —But we have to sleep sometime. . . . Agreed. But nature set a limit on that—as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. You’ve had more than enough of that. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota. You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts. Is helping others less valuable to you? Not worth your effort?

It was brief. Last year, I think. She’s a social climber. No wonder she has her sights set on Christian.” “Christian is taken. I told her to leave him alone or I would fire her.” Kate gapes at me once more, stunned. I nod proudly, and she lifts her glass to salute me, impressed and beaming. “Mrs. Anastasia Grey! Way to go!” We clink.

opinion she was being ‘maliciously’ depicted by her discarded friend ‘as a conniving social climber who had her sights on snagging a prince ever since she was in high school.’361 Priddy’s assessment

They’re so rich and revered that they have neither electricity nor running water. Only social climbers have a sauna and a Jacuzzi.

There’s enough of the social climber in most people so that they fall for this stuff and consider it a privilege to be admitted to a place that specializes in taking their money.

Social climbers strive to be aristocrats but their efforts prove them no such thing. Aristocrats do not strive; they have already arrived. Swing is a state of arrival.

Whether the person you are dealing with is playing a Monkey dominance game or is a pure predator, he wants to deal with a Monkey. When you are in your Monkey brain you are emotional and most of all predictable. Predators (rapists, robbers, murderers--but also the cold-blooded corporate ladder climber) thrive on this and count on you following your social scripts.

The next summer we went to France for six weeks, and I added another 420 words, most of them found in the popular gossip magazine, ‘Voici’. “Man-eater”, I’d say. “Gold digger, roustabout, louse”. “Who are you talking about?” my neighbors would ask. “What social climber? Where?

There is no difference between the principles, policies and practical results of socialism—and those of any historical or prehistorical tyranny. Socialism is merely democratic absolute monarchy—that is, a system of absolutism without a fixed head, open to seizure of power by all corners, by any ruthless climber, opportunist, adventurer, demagogue or thug.

smizing like she’d invented the form,

You’re either kind or you’re not. You’re born with it or you die without it.

You mean you didn’t know that everyone here are backstabbing, gutless, social climbers who would happily suck up to Gabe when they thought it would help them with their grades and future prospects because of your Bonds, but now that they’ve been reminded that all of you are like the strongest of the Top Tier Gifted, they’re back to talking trash like the spineless pieces of shit they all are?

I reminded myself to smile, to show teeth, to exude joy from my stance and my eyes. The more you look like you’re actively laughing, the harder it is for anyone to decipher what’s actually happening underneath.

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm? —But it’s nicer here. . . . So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? —But we have to sleep sometime. . . . Agreed. But nature set a limit on that—as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. You’ve had more than enough of that. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota. You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts. Is helping others less valuable to you? Not worth your effort?

If you put a group of professionally tanned and blown-out women in Alice + Olivia pencil skirts and four-inch Celine heels in a room together, it’s not a means to a feminist revolution, but a way to ensure you never want to work with women again.

Most marks come from the upper strata of society, which, in America, means that they have made, married, or inherited money. Because of this, they acquire status which in time they come to attribute to some inherent superiority, especially as regards matters of sound judgment in finance and investment. Friends and associates, themselves social climbers and sycophants, help to maintain this illusion of superiority. Eventually, the mark comes to regard himself as a person of vision and even of genius.

Ladies and gentlemen, you have made most remarkable Progress, and progress, I agree, is a boon; You have built more automobiles than are parkable, Crashed the sound-barrier, and may very soon Be setting up juke-boxes on the Moon: But I beg to remind you that, despite all that, I, Death, still am and will always be Cosmocrat. Still I sport with the young and daring; at my whim, The climber steps upon the rotten boulder, The undertow catches boys as they swim, The speeder steers onto the slippery shoulder: With others I wait until they are older Before assigning, according to my humor, To one a coronary, to one a tumor. Liberal my views upon religion and race; Tax-posture, credit-rating, social ambition Cut no ice with me. We shall meet face to face, Despite the drugs and lies of your physician, The costly euphenisms of the mortician: Westchester matron and Bowery bum, Both shall dance with me when I rattle my drum.

We spend our lives desperately seeking status; we are addicted to social esteem in a fairly literal sense, dependent on the neurotransmitters we get upon impressing people. Many of us claim to be self-sufficient, to have a moral gyroscope, to hold fast to our values, come what may. But people truly oblivious to peer approval get labeled sociopaths. And the epithets reserved for people at the other end of the spectrum, people who seek esteem most ardently—“self- promoter,” “social climber”—are only signs of our constitutional blindness. We are all self-promoters and social climbers. The people known as such are either so effective as to arouse envy or so graceless as to make their effort obvious, or both.

Die Unzulänglichkeiten ihres Herkunftsmilieus [der Arbeiterschaft], sich in Sprache und Kultur der mittleren und höheren Schichten ausdrücken zu können, erschwerten ihren Aufstieg – und trugen dazu bei, dass sich die sozialen Parvenüs oft geradezu demonstrativ nach unten abgrenzten, um in der Lebenswelt oben willkommen geheißen zu werden. Wohl auch deshalb nahm der spätere Bundeskanzler Schröder den Brioni so wichtig. Störend dabei war, dass der Übereifer in der Adaption der neuen Lebensmaximen die frühere soziale Inferiorität erst recht offenlegte und so auf die Unsicherheit im Stil hinwies; hier machte sich eine von den traditionellen Eliten robust errichtete Sperre bemerkbar, welche die social climbers trotz – besser: gerade wegen – ihres angestrengten Tuns nicht überwinden konnten.

The news that she had gone of course now spread rapidly, and by lunch time Riseholme had made up its mind what to do, and that was hermetically to close its lips for ever on the subject of Lucia. You might think what you pleased, for it was a free country, but silence was best. But this counsel of perfection was not easy to practice next day when the evening paper came. There, for all the world to read were two quite long paragraphs, in "Five o'clock Chit-Chat," over the renowned signature of Hermione, entirely about Lucia and 25 Brompton Square, and there for all the world to see was the reproduction of one of her most elegant photographs, in which she gazed dreamily outwards and a little upwards, with her fingers still pressed on the last chord of (probably) the Moonlight Sonata. . . . She had come up, so Hermione told countless readers, from her Elizabethan country seat at Riseholme (where she was a neighbour of Miss Olga Bracely) and was settling for the season in the beautiful little house in Brompton Square, which was the freehold property of her husband, and had just come to him on the death of his aunt. It was a veritable treasure house of exquisite furniture, with a charming music-room where Lucia had given Hermione a cup of tea from her marvellous Worcester tea service. . . . (At this point Daisy, whose hands were trembling with passion, exclaimed in a loud and injured voice, "The very day she arrived!") Mrs. Lucas (one of the Warwickshire Smythes by birth) was, as all the world knew, a most accomplished musician and Shakespearean scholar, and had made Riseholme a centre of culture and art. But nobody would suspect the blue stocking in the brilliant, beautiful and witty hostess whose presence would lend an added gaiety to the London season.

We'll have something private and very quiet, and above all, small,” she said. “It's the only choice, really.” “I agree,” he said readily. “On second thought, we don't need to invite more than three hundred guests.” Holly gave him an incredulous glance. “When I said ‘small,’ I had a different number in mind. Perhaps half a dozen.” His jaw set obstinately. “I want all of London to know that I've won you.” “They'll know,” she said dryly. “I'm sure the ton will talk of little else… and it's a certainty that none of my scandal-avoiding former friends would attend the wedding, extravagant or otherwise.” “Nearly all of mine would,” he said cheerfully. “Undoubtedly,” she agreed, knowing that he was referring to the crowd of ruffians, dandies and social climbers who ran the gamut from being bad ton to complete wastrels. “Nevertheless, the wedding will be as discreet as possible. You can save the doves and trumpeters and such for Elizabeth's wedding.” “I suppose it would be faster that way,” he said grudgingly. Holly stopped on the graveled path and smiled up at him. “We'll keep our wedding small, then, and get on with it.” She slid her arms around his lean waist. “I don't want to wait a day longer than necessary to belong to you.

This little colloquy in Adele's box was really the foundation of the secret society of the Luciaphils, and the membership of the Luciaphils began swiftly to increase. Aggie Sandeman was scarcely eligible, for complete goodwill towards Lucia was a sine qua non of membership, and there was in her mind a certain asperity when she thought that it was she who had given Lucia her gambit, and that already she was beginning to be relegated to second circles in Lucia's scale of social precedence. It was true that she had been asked to dine to meet Marcelle Periscope, but the party to meet Alf and his flute was clearly the smarter of the two. Adele, however, and Tony Limpsfield were real members, so too, when she came up a few days later, was Olga. Marcia Whitby was another who greedily followed her career, and such as these, whenever they met, gave eager news to each other about it. There was, of course, another camp, consisting of those whom Lucia bombarded with pleasant invitations, but who (at present) firmly refused them. They professed not to know her and not to take the slightest interest in her, which showed, as Adele said, a deplorable narrowness of mind. Types and striking characters like Lucia, who pursued undaunted and indefatigable their aim in life, were rare, and when they occurred should be studied with reverent affection... Sometimes one of the old and original members of the Luciaphils discovered others, and if when Lucia's name was mentioned an eager and a kindly light shone in their eyes, and they said in a hushed whisper "Did you hear who was there on Thursday?" they thus disclosed themselves as Luciaphils... All this was gradual, but the movement went steadily on, keeping pace with her astonishing career, for the days were few on which some gratifying achievement was not recorded in the veracious columns of Hermione.

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm? ‘—But it’s nicer here…’ So you were born to feel ‘nice’? Instead of doings things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? ‘—But we have to sleep sometime…’ Agreed. But nature set a limit on that—as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. You’ve had more than enough of that. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota. You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts.

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for— the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm? —But it’s nicer here. . . . So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? —But we have to sleep sometime. . . . Agreed. But nature set a limit on that—as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. You’ve had more than enough of that. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota. You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts.

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?” —But it’s nicer here.… So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? —But we have to sleep sometime.… Agreed. But nature set a limit on that—as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. You’ve had more than enough of that. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota. You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts. Is helping others less valuable to you? Not worth your effort?

1. At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?” —But it’s nicer here.… So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? —But we have to sleep sometime.… Agreed. But nature set a limit on that—as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. You’ve had more than enough of that. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota. You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts. Is helping others less valuable to you? Not worth your effort?

So blieb [den individuellen Aufsteigern aus dem Arbeitermilieu] allein die Imitation der Verhaltensweisen und Ideologien von der mindestens heimlich bewunderten privilegierten Schicht, in die einzutreten schließlich Ziel des langen Weges war. Doch das Original mag den Nachahmer nicht, verhält sich bestenfalls gönnerhaft-spöttisch, von oben herab. Der Kopierende gibt sich alle erdenkliche Mühe, wird oft gar zum aggressiven Apologeten des Vorbildes, was – so Norbert Elias – »zu ganz spezifischen Verkrümmungen des Bewußtseins und der Haltung« führt. Der sozialdemokratische Kotau vor den Imperativen der Privatisierung, der finanzkapitalistischen Entgrenzungen, der Steuerbefreiung für Kapitalinvestoren in den Jahren 1999-2005 – er mag damit zu tun haben.

1. At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?” —But it’s nicer here.… So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? —But we have to sleep sometime.… Agreed. But nature set a limit on that—as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. You’ve had more than enough of that. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota. You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts. Is helping others less valuable to you? Not worth your effort? 2. To shrug it all off and wipe it clean—every annoyance and distraction—and reach utter stillness. Child’s play. 3. If an action or utterance is appropriate, then it’s appropriate for you. Don’t be put off by other people’s comments and criticism. If it’s right to say or do it, then it’s the right thing for you to do or say.

Do you ever feel that same need? Your life is so very different from my own. The grandness of the world, the real world, the whole world, is a known thing for you. And you have no need of dispatches because you have seen so much of the American galaxy and its inhabitants—their homes, their hobbies—up close. I don’t know what it means to grow up with a black president, social networks, omnipresent media, and black women everywhere in their natural hair. What I know is that when they loosed the killer of Michael Brown, you said, “I’ve got to go.” And that cut me because, for all our differing worlds, at your age my feeling was exactly the same. And I recall that even then I had not yet begun to imagine the perils that tangle us. You still believe the injustice was Michael Brown. You have not yet grappled with your own myths and narratives and discovered the plunder everywhere around us. Before I could discover, before I could escape, I had to survive, and this could only mean a clash with the streets, by which I mean not just physical blocks, nor simply the people packed into them, but the array of lethal puzzles and strange perils that seem to rise up from the asphalt itself. The streets transform every ordinary day into a series of trick questions, and every incorrect answer risks a beat-down, a shooting, or a pregnancy. No one survives unscathed. And yet the heat that springs from the constant danger, from a lifestyle of near-death experience, is thrilling. This is what the rappers mean when they pronounce themselves addicted to “the streets” or in love with “the game.” I imagine they feel something akin to parachutists, rock climbers, BASE jumpers, and others who choose to live on the edge. Of course we chose nothing. And I have never believed the brothers who claim to “run,” much less “own,” the city. We did not design the streets. We do not fund them. We do not preserve them. But I was there, nevertheless, charged like all the others with the protection of my body. The crews, the young men who’d transmuted their fear into rage, were the greatest danger. The crews walked the blocks of their neighborhood, loud and rude, because it was only through their loud rudeness that they might feel any sense of security and power. They would break your jaw, stomp your face, and shoot you down to feel that power, to revel in the might of their own bodies.

You know, a government should be a good thing. The Anglo-Saxons and the Germans rejoice in the phenomenon of government. They think that the recipe for human happiness is that you should make your desires and actions concordant with those of the government. So a German and an American will try to make the government work for him, protect him, and he will be more than happy to murder to preserve that wonderful symbiosis. And if he has some money to invest, he will invest it in the government, buying government bonds. He does this regardless of whether his government happens to be trillions of dollars in debt—that is, practically bankrupt. Despite his rhetoric of private enterprise, a Westerner will invest in his government. And we, Eastern and Central Europeans, and particularly Slavs, we all consider our governments to be absolutely the worst in the world. We are ashamed of our governments, and, as a rule, our government is ashamed of us, trying to improve us statistically, to say that we work more and drink less than we do. We think that there's no greater obstacle to human happiness than the government. So even if we have an institution pregnant with democratic potential, such as workers' self-management, we never even bother to attend a meeting unless absolutely forced. And as for voting, we circle any name without looking at whose it is, out of spite. To a Slav, there is nothing more disgusting than voting. We have an aversion to investing trust in any human being. So how could we single out someone we haven't met but whom we know a priori to be a social upstart and climber? So we spend these workers' self-management meetings, where democracy could be practiced, in daydreams of sex and violence.

And just what sort of gentlemen do you imagine now will be paying me court? ... I see ... In other words, social climbers who will not care that I am desperate or old men as desperate as I ... I refuse to marry a mushroom for the manure from which he's sprung. Nor shall I marry an old man to be his broodmare.

Some words that sound English actually have Italian roots. “Snob” may date back to Renaissance Florence, when the burgeoning middle class sought acceptance in the upper strata of local society. To distinguish between the true noble families and the nouveau riche, census-takers wrote s.nob (senza nobiltà, for “without nobility”) next to the names of social climbers (known in contemporary Italian as arrampicatori sociali). Seemingly all-American “jeans” started off as blu di Genova for the color of the denim used by its sailors on their boats. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term migrated into French as bleu de Genes before its global reincarnation as jeans.

But sympathy in novels need not be simply a matter of the reader’s direct identification with a fictional character. It can also be driven by, say, my admiration of a character who is long on virtues I am short on (the moral courage of Atticus Finch, the limpid goodness of Alyosha Karamazov), or, most interestingly, by my wish to be a character who is unlike me in ways I don’t admire or even like. One of the great perplexities of fiction-and the quality that makes the novel the quintessentially liberal art form-is that we experience sympathy so readily for characters we wouldn’t like in real life. Becky Sharp may be a soulless social climber, Tom Ripley may be a sociopath, the Jackal may want to assassinate the French President, Mickey Sabbath may be a disgustingly self-involved old goat, and Raskolnikov may want to get away with murder, but I find myself rooting for each of them. This is sometimes, no doubt, a function of the lure of the forbidden, the guilty pleasure of imagining what it would be like to be unburdened by scruples. In every case, though, the alchemical agent by which fiction transmutes my secret envy or my ordinary dislike of “bad” people into sympathy is desire. Apparently, all a novelist has to do is give a character a powerful desire (to rise socially, to get away with murder) and I, as a reader, become helpless not to make that desire my own.

Merciful heaven, social status is something to be strived for, not born with, or, worse yet, displayed. Social status is a reward for social climbing, a pursuit that may get you the attention of other limelighthers but won't move you up one skinny rung as far as your social station in Dixie is concerned.

Zaphod, who is this man?” said Trillian shakily, wobbling to her feet. “What’s he doing here? Why’s he on our ship?” “He’s a very stupid man,” said Zaphod, “who wants to meet the man who rules the Universe.” “Ah,” said Trillian, taking the bottle from Zaphod and helping herself, “a social climber.

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm? —But it’s nicer here. . . . So you were born to feel “nice”? Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? —But we have to sleep sometime. . . . Agreed. But nature set a limit on that—as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. You’ve had more than enough of that. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota. You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they’re really possessed by what they do, they’d rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts. Is helping others less valuable to you? Not worth your effort?

Ask yourself the following questions to find profitable niches. 1. Which social, industry, and professional groups do you belong to, have you belonged to, or do you understand, whether dentists, engineers, rock climbers, recreational cyclists, car restoration aficionados, dancers, or other? Look creatively at your resume, work experience, physical habits, and hobbies and compile a list of all the groups, past and present, that you can associate yourself with. Look at products and books you own, include online and offline subscriptions, and ask yourself, “What groups of people purchase the same?” Which magazines, websites, and newsletters do you read on a regular basis? 2. Which of the groups you identified have their own magazines? Visit a large bookstore such as Barnes & Noble and browse the magazine rack for smaller specialty magazines to brainstorm additional niches. There are literally thousands of occupation- and interest/hobby-specific magazines to choose from. Use Writer’s Market to identify magazine options outside the bookstores. Narrow the groups from question 1 above to those that are reachable through one or two small magazines. It’s not important that these groups all have a lot of money (e.g., golfers)—only that they spend money (amateur athletes, bass fishermen, etc.) on products of some type. Call these magazines, speak to the advertising directors, and tell them that you are considering advertising; ask them to e-mail their current advertising rate card and include both readership numbers and magazine back-issue samples. Search the back issues for repeat advertisers who sell direct-to-consumer via 800 numbers or websites—the more repeat advertisers, and the more frequent their ads, the more profitable a magazine is for them … and will be for us.

World-class rower Craig Lambert has described how it feels in Mind Over Water (Houghton Mifflin, 1998): Rowers have a word for this frictionless state: swing. . . . Recall the pure joy of riding on a backyard swing: an easy cycle of motion, the momentum coming from the swing itself. The swing carries us; we do not force it. We pump our legs to drive our arc higher, but gravity does most of the work. We are not so much swinging as being swung. The boat swings you. The shell wants to move fast: Speed sings in its lines and nature. Our job is simply to work with the shell, to stop holding it back with our thrashing struggles to go faster. Trying too hard sabotages boat speed. Trying becomes striving and striving undoes itself. Social climbers strive to be aristocrats but their efforts prove them no such thing. Aristocrats do not strive; they have already arrived. Swing is a state of arrival. The

Why do you suppose the sky is blue? Why not green or red?” I shrug and follow her gaze. The sun has almost set, the pale blue of day transforming into dark velvet. “It has to do with the light waves. Blue scatters differently than red does.” Emily looks at me quizzically. “You say such odd things at times, Rebecca.” I smile, a little embarrassed. I probably shouldn’t show my nerdy side unless under duress. I’m pretty sure there’s a rule about that in the Social Climber’s Guide to Regency England. “What is this you speak of?” Alex’s voice is so deep and unexpected I jerk my eyes from the stars and look at him. “I’m sorry?” “The light waves. What do you mean by them?” Oh. Right. “Um, well, light comes from the sun in waves. Of color. And then they reflect on different things in the atmosphere and…Oh never mind.” It’s sort of stupid to explain the whole thing, given how complicated it is. Alex looks straight at me for a long moment, and then turns back to stare at the sky. “And who told you such a thing?” I snort. “People much smarter than you.” “I’m smarter than you think,” he says, avoiding my eyes. It’s almost dark out. What is he even looking at? “And I’m not as ignorant as you think,” I say. He turns so abruptly I’m surprised he doesn’t strain his neck. His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t say anything. I dare him to disagree. I wait for it. But then he just turns away.

When the good ones, the hardworking hill climbers, are displaced for any reason—bad legislation, ghetto diffusion, or political leveraging—social sewage will flood in to fill the void. It

Mrs. Simpson was politically and socially unacceptable as a queen consort. She was perceived as shallow, vain and hedonistic; a social climber, compelled by a desire for wealth and prestige rather than by genuine love for Edward.

Periodically, the news media reports that students at the University of Chicago are finally loosening up and having some fun. Don’t believe it. This place is for true intellectuals who don’t mind working hard for their degrees. Less selective than the top Ivies, but just as good. Social climbers should apply elsewhere. (The Elite Private Universities - University of Chicago)

....for those ascending the social ladder, other people are only rungs. And this is a town of climbers." (page 237)

He's back to eating cat food around the clock. And no abdominal workouts for that one. Every day of the year is fat cat day in his book.

And he loved her—with the exalted and romantic intensity that a social climber gives to a woman whom he thinks superior to his own class.

Samantha Markle, who suffered from multiple sclerosis and was confined to a wheelchair, described her half sister as a “shallow social climber” whose behavior was “certainly not befitting of a royal family member.” She went on to say that “being a princess was something Meghan always dreamed of as a little girl. She always preferred Harry—she has a soft spot for gingers.” Samantha also accused Meghan of failing to come to the aid of their cash-strapped dad. The Windsors, she went on, would be “appalled by what she’s done to her own family.” Soon

The bride's sleek dark hair was smoothed into an unusually restrained knot, but she'd stuck to her guns with the heavy black eyeliner. Her lacy black dress was a little funereal, but clearly a compromise between her own preference for Victoriana and the palace's idea of appropriate styling for a photo shoot that would make the history books. The groom was wearing a pink shirt, and his curls were fluffy. It was like a grown-up Emily the Strange marrying Bertie Wooster. The smiles were natural, the body language extremely affectionate, but their knuckles were white. Nerves or tension? Sylvie studied the cover shot for a few more seconds, then scrolled down to the article. The journalist would have had a lot of the copy sitting ready to go. This had been on the rumor mill since their first joint public appearance. The union between the king's eldest granddaughter and the youngest son of a baronet, who, according to this tabloid, had inherited neither land nor brain cells from his parents. The overgrown Goth princess and a stuttering social climber with all the poise and sophistication of a golden retriever. Charming.

We can double back now to the examples we discussed earlier, of mountain climbing, war, and raising children, and we can see how they fit our criteria. They all involve an impactful goal (this is hardest to see in the case of mountain climbing, but certainly the climbers themselves see it as impactful). They extend over a long period of time and involve a series of events; they have a narrative structure. When it comes to the optional criteria, they match some but not others: they are all social, and some are seen as morally valuable (again, mountain climbing the least of all), but, while religion can infuse all of these activities, it doesn’t have to.

The restaurants that you customarily patronize are deplorable. They are filled with nothing but expats, soap opera stars, social climbers, and—most disagreeable of all—foodies.

Not that I have anything against social climbers—I’ve always found the higher you climb in life the better the view.

I’m sure you’d have been able to sympathize if you could have heard the sort of things Social Climber said. I mean, who talks about cheese on a first date? How Gruyere is really superior to Manchego because it has a more subtle flavor? It doesn’t even make any sense! Believe me, the bitch really needed to die.

demanded to know. “You know she’s just using the Kennedy name for publicity. She’s just a social climber. At

Rowers have a word for this frictionless state: swing. . . . Recall the pure joy of riding on a backyard swing: an easy cycle of motion, the momentum coming from the swing itself. The swing carries us; we do not force it. We pump our legs to drive our arc higher, but gravity does most of the work. We are not so much swinging as being swung. The boat swings you. The shell wants to move fast: Speed sings in its lines and nature. Our job is simply to work with the shell, to stop holding it back with our thrashing struggles to go faster. Trying too hard sabotages boat speed. Trying becomes striving and striving undoes itself. Social climbers strive to be aristocrats but their efforts prove them no such thing. Aristocrats do not strive; they have already arrived. Swing is a state of arrival.

There is no lyric poetry that isn’t the gurgle or chuckle of egoists, the murmur of cheats, the babble of traitors, the burble of social climbers, the warble of faggots.

So your mother twisted Nesta’s creative joys into a social climber’s arsenal?

As an adult, my thoughts on the Golden Rule have evolved: do unto others the way they deserve to be treated. Give people what they’ve earned.