The Perils of Wealth

"Having only riches enough to be able to gratify reasonable desires, and yet make their gratifications always a novelty and a pleasure, the family occupied that just mean in life which is so rarely attained, and still more rarely enjoyed without discontent."

--- The Gilded Age / Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner


Kurt Vonnegut and novelist Joseph Heller were once at a party hosted by a billionaire hedge-fund manager. Vonnegut pointed out that their wealthy host made more money in one day than Heller ever made from his novel Catch-22.

Heller responded, “Yes, but I have something he will never have: enough.”