no. 566

"The gloom had lasted until Gus Moynihan, a retired college professor who was renovating one of the grand old Victorians on Upper Main Street, wrote a guest newspaper editorial decrying the town’s mordant defeatism and criticizing the current Republican administration’s unspoken policies, which could be summed up, he claimed, in nine words: No Spending. None. Ever. On Anything. Under Any Circumstances. Why not string one last banner across the street, he suggested: LET’S EAT DIRT."

From Richard Russo's novel, Everybody's Fool.