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I complain to one of my fellow servers that I don't understand how she can go so long without food. "Well, I don't understand how you can go so long without a cigarette," she responds in a tone of reproach. Because work is what you do for others; smoking is what you do for yourself.

— Barbara Ehrenreich Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (2001)

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More quotes by Barbara Ehrenreich

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.

Personally, I have nothing against work, particularly when performed, quietly and unobtrusively, by someone else. I just don't happen to think it's an appropriate subject for an "ethic."

Goodbye to the Work Ethic (1988)

In the new version of the law of supply and demand, jobs are so cheap — as measured by the pay — that a worker is encouraged to take on as many of them as she possibly can.

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (2001)

From an entertainment point of view, the Solar System has been a bust. None of the planets turns out to have any real-estate potential, and most of them are probably even useless for filming Dune sequels.

Crime seems to change character when it crosses a bridge or a tunnel. In the city, crime is taken as emblematic of class and race. In the suburbs, though, it's intimate and psychological
resistant to generalization, a mystery of the individual soul.

The Political Junkie Handbook (2004)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Barbara Ehrenreich (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.