Politics & Power Quote by Robert Towne

Respectability, Towne implies, is less a moral achievement than a kind of weathering process: stick around long enough and people start confusing survival with virtue. The line is engineered like a cocktail of charm and acid. It opens with the breezy, self-protective “Of course,” the phrase you use when you want to end an argument by pretending it’s already been settled. Then he undercuts it with the blunt punchline: “I’m old.” Age becomes a bureaucratic stamp, not a badge of honor.

The real bite is in the list. “Politicians, ugly buildings, and whores” is a deliberately mismatched trio: one institutionally powerful, one inert and public, one socially stigmatized. Towne’s point is that the respectability machine doesn’t discriminate; it normalizes. We stop being shocked by the corrupt official, the eyesore skyline, the taboo profession, because familiarity drains outrage. Time laundered through routine turns the unacceptable into “part of the neighborhood.”

It’s also a canny showbiz self-portrait. In an industry obsessed with youth and reinvention, “respectable” can mean safely categorized, no longer threatening. The subtext is defensive and a little mournful: if I’m respected now, is it because I’ve earned it, or because I’ve become background? Towne’s cynicism lands because it’s funny in the exact way it’s unsettling: it suggests society’s values aren’t firm principles, just habits with good PR.