Quotes About Consumption

European medicinal cannibalism depersonalized and objectified the human being whose body parts were eaten. Along with this went the desocialization and individualization of the meaning of eating human substance. This kind of cannibalism served no larger communal or religious purposes; its sole objective was to enhance the well-being of the individual eater. Human body parts were commercial commodities, bought and sold for profit.

Love isn't like a cup of sugar that gets used up

I think the thing we see is that as people are using video games more, they tend to watch passive TV a bit less. And so using the PC for the Internet, playing video games, is starting to cut into the rather unbelievable amount of time people spend watching TV.

Making things (cement, steel, plastic) 31% Plugging in (electricity) 27% Growing things (plants, animals) 19% Getting around (planes, trucks, cargo ships) 16% Keeping warm and cool (heating, cooling, refrigeration) 7%

I do not believe making money in order to consume goods is mankind's sole purpose on this planet.

Americans are gluttons. We shop with forklifts. We have a holiday where we stuff food into other food. Our strippers wrestle in Jell-O, where other countries have to use mud.

I wouldn't touch a hot dog unless you put a condom on it! You realize that the job of a hot dog is to use parts of the animal that the Chinese can't figure out how to make into a belt? -timecode 1:11:10

It's as if we'd conjured up out of nowhere a second human population that's capable of burning coal and oil and gas nearly as fast as we do.

we use TV as we use tranquilizers- to even things out, to blot out unpleasantness, to dilute confusion, distress, unhappiness, loneliness.

The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone. Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter.

A taco is an economic good because we will go to a restaurant and buy one.

My spinach feta wrap usage rate is off the charts.

I never use organic vegetables. Why would you want to? The idea of taking a courgette grown in a third-world country in an organic field, packed into a polystyrene box, flown across the oceans, washed in chlorinated water, packed into a foam box, driven halfway across the country, wrapped in plastic and stamped 'organic,' what's the point?

Plastic straws might be everything terrible about American consumerism, individually wrapped. But paper straws put the lie to the belief that we can consume our way out of the problems created by consumerism.

With approximately 75 per cent of our rubbish generated by packaging, a few simple steps - buying loose fruit and veg, choosing products with recyclable packaging, and avoiding individually wrapped portions - can have a big impact.

If you just hold your cell phone for 30 seconds and think backwards through its production, you have the entire techno-industrial culture wrapped up there. You can't have that device without everything that goes with it.

The television business is based on managed dissatisfaction. You're watching a great television show you're really wrapped up in? You might get 50 minutes of watching a week and then 18,000 minutes of waiting until the next episode comes along.

As far as I remember, I was always a big eater. I eat just as much as the wrestler guys.

I can't tell you how much money I waste on plaid shirts, whisky that I hate the taste of, and Moleskine notebooks that I never write in.

In a repressive society, a writer can be deeply influential, but in a society that's filled with glut and repetition and endless consumption, the act of terror may be the only meaningful act.

And a recipe on this page. It says 'Of apples with black skin and white flesh: to fill the stomach with greed unto Death.

When deciding what to buy, remember that some things are easy to buy—but then we have to use them. If they're not used, they don't enhance our lives; they just contribute to guilt and clutter.

But not wearing clothes is as wasteful as throwing them away.

Overbuyers, by contrast, find excuses to buy. They accumulate large quantities of office supplies or kitchen gadgets or travel paraphernalia with the thought "This will probably come in handy someday." When trying to shape a habit, overbuyers tend to load up on equipment or services that they imagine will help them keep their good habits.