The desire to consume is a kind of lust. But consumer goods merely bait this lust, they do not satisfy it.
-- Lewis Hyde (1: "Isn't It Good?")

Importance: Biss includes this quote from scholar Lewis Hyde. In this first chapter, Biss addresses certain fundamental problems with modern consumer culture. Specifically, consumerism creates extraneous senses of desire in people, and the purchasing of goods does not satisfy these desires, only perpetuates them. Biss implicitly encourages the reader to reflect upon their own consumerist habits.

Their end is…collecting cards for a game they don’t know how to play.
-- Eula Biss (Narration) (19: "Pokémon")

Importance: In this chapter, Biss discusses her son's interest in Pokémon cards, which he collects and trades with his friends. The children assign the cards value based on arbitrary factors, and they do not even know how to play the game that s meant to be played with the cards. Biss uses these dynamics as an analogy for the...