"Money is sensual"
About this Quote
“Money is sensual” lands like a punchline that knows it’s also true. Coming from Jerry Stiller, a comedian who built a career on loud, needy characters and domestic power struggles, the line isn’t a philosopher’s thesis; it’s a dirty little cultural confession. He’s not saying money is good. He’s saying money is felt.
“Sensual” is the key provocation. It yanks money out of spreadsheets and into the body: the slick satisfaction of paying for comfort, the tactile thrill of newness, the dopamine hit of buying something you don’t need. Stiller’s comic world (think the aggrieved fathers, the status-obsessed brawlers, the men who turn minor slights into operas) runs on appetites that pretend to be principles. Money becomes one more appetite, dressed up as responsibility.
The subtext is about seduction and shame. If money is sensual, then our “rational” financial behavior is partly foreplay: showing, withholding, rewarding, punishing. It explains why people act bizarre around it, why a raise can feel like validation, why debt carries a physical dread. Stiller’s genius was always to make private impulses embarrassingly public; this line does the same for capitalism’s emotional underside.
Context matters: Stiller came up in postwar America, when consumer goods became identity and aspiration became a household religion. Calling money “sensual” punctures the polite myth that it’s merely a tool. It’s a craving with a wallet.
“Sensual” is the key provocation. It yanks money out of spreadsheets and into the body: the slick satisfaction of paying for comfort, the tactile thrill of newness, the dopamine hit of buying something you don’t need. Stiller’s comic world (think the aggrieved fathers, the status-obsessed brawlers, the men who turn minor slights into operas) runs on appetites that pretend to be principles. Money becomes one more appetite, dressed up as responsibility.
The subtext is about seduction and shame. If money is sensual, then our “rational” financial behavior is partly foreplay: showing, withholding, rewarding, punishing. It explains why people act bizarre around it, why a raise can feel like validation, why debt carries a physical dread. Stiller’s genius was always to make private impulses embarrassingly public; this line does the same for capitalism’s emotional underside.
Context matters: Stiller came up in postwar America, when consumer goods became identity and aspiration became a household religion. Calling money “sensual” punctures the polite myth that it’s merely a tool. It’s a craving with a wallet.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
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