Quotes from Jake Halpern

My mother was being hounded by a debt collector over a debt that she didn't owe, and she eventually just paid it because she wanted the calls to stop. I was very surprised. It sounded so strange. I started poking around on the Internet and found this was extremely common.

It's difficult to write about poverty in a way that doesn't feel cliched.

Every time that I'm in the dark, I imagine what might be lurking in the shadows. It's kind of like a drug in that way - darkness seems to change the way I think - making me way more prone to fear.

We take it for granted that we can see at all times of day and night. But there was a time, not all that long ago, in the age before electricity, when night brought total darkness - and with it, a not-so-small amount of terror. We get a sense of this when we go camping or when there's a power outage, and our fear of the darkness is primal.

Deities can actually own property in India, though the law treats them as minors, and they must be represented by an official guardian.

Most of us, myself included, have forgotten what real darkness is like. We live in a world where light is inescapable. It comes from street lamps, headlights, security floodlights, and even the faint glow of our alarm clocks.

Ultimately, our obsession with celebrities isn't about them; it's about us and our needs. Many of us look at these people—who have glamour, beauty, wealth, and youth—and familiarize ourselves with them until they begin to feel like real people in our lives. We discuss them at work, in the park, and over dinner. We develop feelings for them. We love them, or hate them, or pity them, or profess not to care but secretly do.

Only facts will help you escape -- not hopes, fears or wishes.

The interlocking of their fingers was the only scrap of comfort left to them.

Too much hope could make it harder to accept reality when the time came.

Only children entertain the fantasy that adults know how and why everything works. Being an adult is accepting the not knowing.

I'd be a bum on the street with a tin cup if the markets were efficient.

Night has fallen. And it will last for a very long time.