A biography for Anand Giridharadashasn’t been written yet.
“Foundations are the new Birkin bags. Everyone who is anyone has one. Giving is now chic.”
“In my reporting, I've found that real change escapes many change-makers because powerful illusions guide their projects.”
“When rooted, you observe how systems actually affect people.”
“Birthright citizenship in America is part of something larger: The American longing to sever from history, to be a place of new beginnings.”
“We know that enlightened capital didn't get rid of the slave trade.”
“I'm a son of immigrants. I'm not going to reduce my commitment to immigration. But can I empathize with the fact that if your town was 95 percent all white and now it's down to 60, that that can scare you? Can I empathize with that? Yeah.”
“One of my clearest impressions about India as a child was that my parents' stories would have been impossible had they stayed. Of course, such a vision was self-serving, for it made a virtue of our displacement.”
“More and more, the superrich don't live in one place but many, flitting between multiple homes on different continents, flying to them on private jets, perhaps, concealing many of their real estate purchases through webs of shell companies and trusts.”
“I have a weakness for treating people's economic interests as their only interest, ignoring things like belonging and pride and the desire to send a message to those who ignore you.”
“If you think America is great, remember that every person telling you otherwise may carry a clue to making it greater.”
“Right after college, after growing up in the United States, I moved to India, broadly telling the story of how an old and stagnant country was suddenly waking up. And I came home, back to America, in 2009 after telling that story and writing a book about that.”
“I have always found it jarring to encounter people born and raised in, say, Switzerland, who are denied its citizenship and still considered Algerians or Turks.”
“To spend time in Silicon Valley in a year of political upheaval is, on one level, soothing. It is pleasant to hear talk of wearables, walled gardens, and disruptive beverages in between updates about mass deportation.”
“America, thankfully, is not an easy nation to commandeer.”