Jake Halpern Quotations

We take it for granted that we can see at all times of day and night. But there was a time, not all that long ago, in the age before electricity, when night brought total darkness - and with it, a not-so-small amount of terror. We get a sense of this when we go camping or when there's a power outage, and our fear of the darkness is primal.

Every time that I'm in the dark, I imagine what might be lurking in the shadows. It's kind of like a drug in that way - darkness seems to change the way I think - making me way more prone to fear.

Deities can actually own property in India, though the law treats them as minors, and they must be represented by an official guardian.

It's difficult to write about poverty in a way that doesn't feel cliched.

Imagine having "no chain of titles for cars, no VIN numbers, and no DMV. There'd be total chaos! But that's basically the system for debt.

I was interested in this relationship between the armed robber and the banker who were from different worlds but had similar goals. It was kind of a metaphor for this larger marriage of the banks selling off their debt and these street guys scrapping over it.

That was my concept from the beginning - a crazy caper that's a parable for what happens in the absence of regulation.

My mother was being hounded by a debt collector over a debt that she didn't owe, and she eventually just paid it because she wanted the calls to stop. I was very surprised. It sounded so strange. I started poking around on the internet and found this was extremely common. There was this world where these debts were sold off by the banks for pennies on the dollar and bought and sold.

Most of us, myself included, have forgotten what real darkness is like. We live in a world where light is inescapable. It comes from street lamps, headlights, security floodlights, and even the faint glow of our alarm clocks. We take it for granted that we can see at all times of day and night.