"Money? I lost all taste for it"
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"Money? I lost all taste for it" lands like a shrug with a blade tucked inside. The opening question mark turns money into a social reflex, the thing everyone expects you to want. Then Caldwell answers with "taste" - not "need", not "respect", not even "interest". Taste is sensual, cultivated, faintly decadent. Treating money as a flavor suggests she once savored it, or at least learned the palate society teaches: ambition as appetite, success as something you consume.
The subtext is less saintly than it first appears. "Lost all taste" implies saturation, not purity. You can only tire of a dish you've been served to excess. That small phrasing twist recasts renunciation as experience: the speaker isn't naive about money; they're bored by it, maybe even disgusted. It's a posture that quietly claims status - the luxury of indifference is rarely available to people still counting rent.
Caldwell's context matters here. She wrote big, idea-driven bestsellers where power, legacy, and moral cost collide - novels obsessed with the machinery of wealth and influence, not just their glitter. In that world, money is never neutral; it's a plot engine and a test of character. The line reads like a character's late-stage revelation: after watching what money does to families, lovers, and self-respect, the craving finally flips. It's not anti-capitalist rhetoric so much as a psychological turn: when you stop calling wealth "freedom" and start recognizing it as another form of dependence, the appetite breaks.
The subtext is less saintly than it first appears. "Lost all taste" implies saturation, not purity. You can only tire of a dish you've been served to excess. That small phrasing twist recasts renunciation as experience: the speaker isn't naive about money; they're bored by it, maybe even disgusted. It's a posture that quietly claims status - the luxury of indifference is rarely available to people still counting rent.
Caldwell's context matters here. She wrote big, idea-driven bestsellers where power, legacy, and moral cost collide - novels obsessed with the machinery of wealth and influence, not just their glitter. In that world, money is never neutral; it's a plot engine and a test of character. The line reads like a character's late-stage revelation: after watching what money does to families, lovers, and self-respect, the craving finally flips. It's not anti-capitalist rhetoric so much as a psychological turn: when you stop calling wealth "freedom" and start recognizing it as another form of dependence, the appetite breaks.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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