"There are very little things in this life I cannot afford and patience is one of them"
About this Quote
Money talk is supposed to make you sound powerful; Larry Hagman uses it to confess a weakness. "There are very little things in this life I cannot afford and patience is one of them" flips the brag at the last second. The setup signals wealth and autonomy, then the punchline admits he’s bankrupt in the one currency that can’t be bought. That turn is the engine: it makes the line funny, but it also makes it sting, because impatience is exactly what privilege trains you into. If you can pay to skip lines, outsource chores, and smooth friction, waiting starts to feel like an insult.
Coming from an actor - and specifically Hagman, whose public image is forever shadowed by the oily, swaggering J.R. Ewing - the quote reads like a self-aware character note. It’s the kind of thing a charismatic villain would say at a bar: charming, cutting, slightly ashamed, and weirdly proud. The grammar ("very little things") even adds a loose, conversational slant, as if the thought arrived mid-sentence, half-justification, half-joke.
The subtext is less "I’m rich" than "I’m accustomed to control". Patience isn’t framed as a virtue; it’s framed as an expense, a cost he refuses to pay. That’s the cultural wink: in an era that increasingly treats time as a commodity and inconvenience as a design flaw, impatience becomes a lifestyle marker. Hagman turns that into a one-liner, but it doubles as a tiny indictment of the world that makes waiting feel unbearable.
Coming from an actor - and specifically Hagman, whose public image is forever shadowed by the oily, swaggering J.R. Ewing - the quote reads like a self-aware character note. It’s the kind of thing a charismatic villain would say at a bar: charming, cutting, slightly ashamed, and weirdly proud. The grammar ("very little things") even adds a loose, conversational slant, as if the thought arrived mid-sentence, half-justification, half-joke.
The subtext is less "I’m rich" than "I’m accustomed to control". Patience isn’t framed as a virtue; it’s framed as an expense, a cost he refuses to pay. That’s the cultural wink: in an era that increasingly treats time as a commodity and inconvenience as a design flaw, impatience becomes a lifestyle marker. Hagman turns that into a one-liner, but it doubles as a tiny indictment of the world that makes waiting feel unbearable.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
|---|
More Quotes by Larry
Add to List
