AMERICA QUOTES VI
quotations about America
A coast-to-coast drive across America has its tedious stretches, and the teeming interstate corridors, from I-95 in the east to I-5 in the west, can lead to the despairing conclusion that the country is made of gas stations, burger stands, and big-box malls. From only 2,500 feet higher up, the interstates look like ribbons that trace narrow paths across landscape that is mostly far beyond the reach of any road. From ground level, America is mainly road--after all, that's where cars can take you. From the sky, America is mainly forest in the eastern third, farmland in the middle, then mountain and desert in the west, before the strip of intense development along the California coast. It's also full of features obvious from the sky that are much harder to notice from the ground (and difficult to pick out from six miles up in an airliner): quarries at the edge of most towns, to provide gravel for roads and construction sites; prisons, instantly identifiable by their fencing (though some mega high schools can look similar), usually miles from the nearest town or tucked in locations where normal traffic won't pass by. I never tire of the view from this height, as different from the normal, grim airliner perspective as scuba diving is from traveling on a container ship.
JAMES FALLOWS
"How America Is Putting Itself Back Together", The Atlantic, March 2016
What Americans should by now be able to see is that neither the laissez-faire marketplace nor strong government has given them a satisfying or permanent resolution. The problem is not the marketplace and it is not government. The problem originates in the contest of clashing values between society and capitalism and, since this human society cannot surrender its deepest values, it must try to alter capitalism's. As we look deeper for the soul of capitalism, we find that, in the terms of ordinary human existence, American capitalism doesn't appear to have one.
WILLIAM GREIDER
The Soul of Capitalism
Our nation is the enduring dream of every immigrant who ever set foot on these shores, and the millions still struggling to be free. This nation, this idea called America, was and always will be a new world -- our new world.
GEORGE H. W. BUSH
State of the Union Address, Jan. 31, 1990
America has been the New World in all tongues, to all peoples, not because this continent was a new-found land, but because all those who came here believed they could create upon this continent a new life -- a life that should be new in freedom.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
Third Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1941
I sometimes think that the American story is the one about the reading of the will.
LEWIS H. LAPHAM
Money and Class in America
America is a lady rocking on a porch in an unpainted house on an unused road.
ANNE SEXTON
"Sixth Psalm", The Complete Poems
The American Government calls itself a Government of the supreme people; but at a quick crisis, the time when a sovereign power is most needed, you cannot FIND the supreme people. You have got a Congress elected for one fixed period, going out perhaps by fixed instalments, which cannot be accelerated or retarded--you have a President chosen for a fixed period, and immovable during that period: all the arrangements are for STATED times. There is no ELASTIC element, everything is rigid, specified, dated. Come what may, you can quicken nothing, and can retard nothing. You have bespoken your Government in advance, and whether it suits you or not, whether it works well or works ill, whether it is what you want or not, by law you must keep it.
WALTER BAGEHOT
The English Constitution
This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do.
JACK KEROUAC
On the Road
It is sometimes said that you Americans are devoid of sentiment; that in affairs of the heart you are like birds who come in early spring and sing while the trees are in blossom, but who leave with no sign of regret at the first touch of Autumn. I do not believe that. Your sentiment is of another kind. You are younger than we as a race, you are perhaps barbaric, but what of it? You are still in the moulding. Your spirit is superb.
SARAH BERNHARDT
"Bernhardt Triumphs in New Role", Theatre Magazine, 1920
We should keep steadily before our minds the fact that Americanism is a question of principle, of purpose, of idealism, of character; that it is not a matter of birthplace, or creed, or line of descent.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
speech at the unveiling of the monument to General Sheridan, Nov. 25, 1908
That is the true genius of America, a faith in the simple dreams of its people, the insistence on small miracles. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe or hiring somebody's son. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted -- or at least, most of the time.
BARACK OBAMA
speech at 2004 Democratic Convention
Everything in America is big: the streets, skyscrapers, glasses of Coca-Cola, bags of popcorn, and glasses of beer. The one thing here that comes in small amounts is respect. The American does not have to respect anyone. He does what he wants, says what he wants, and moves around in the way he wants. I wonder whether it is an excessive respect for his individual freedom or a rejection of all the traditions of the Old World in the New World.
KARIMA KAMAL
"An Egyptian Girl in America", America in an Arab Mirror: Images of America in Arabic Travel Literature
American life is a powerful solvent. It seems to neutralize every intellectual element, however tough and alien it may be, and to fuse it in the native good will, complacency, thoughtlessness, and optimism.
GEORGE SANTAYANA
Character and Opinion in the United States
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
OSCAR WILDE
attributed, Hating America: A History
The people of America are red, white, black, yellow, and all the shades in between. Their eyes are blue, black, and brown, and all the shades in between. Their hair is straight, curly, kinky, and most of it in between. They are tall and short, slim and fat, athletic and anaemic, and most of them in between. They are the different peoples of the world becoming more and more the "in between." They are a people creating a new bridge of mankind in between the past of narrow nationalistic chauvinism and the horizon of a new mankind--a people of the world. Their face is the face of the future.
SAUL ALINSKY
Reveille for Radicals
The American Dream means giving it your all, trying your hardest, accomplishing something. And then I'd add to that, giving something back. No definition of a successful life can do anything but include serving others.
GEORGE H. W. BUSH
interview, Academy of Achievement, Jun. 2, 1995
Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it, "all men are created equal except negroes." When the Know-nothings get control, it will read, "all men are created equal except negroes and foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty--to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
letter to Joshua F. Speed, Aug. 24, 1855
Traveling across the United States, it's easy to see why Americans are often thought of as stupid. At the San Diego Zoo, right near the primate habitats, there's a display featuring half a dozen life-size gorillas made out of bronze. Posted nearby is a sign reading CAUTION: GORILLA STATUES MAY BE HOT. Everywhere you turn, the obvious is being stated. CANNON MAY BE LOUD. MOVING SIDEWALK IS ABOUT TO END. To people who don't run around suing one another, such signs suggest a crippling lack of intelligence.
DAVID SEDARIS
Me Talk Pretty One Day
Each time Donald Trump says he will make America great again, he's declaring without actually declaring out loud two very unAmerican things. One: America now stinks. Two: America was great when WASP white men were in charge before that black guy took over and women in sports jackets got involved. How not-great is it to bring that plate of hate to our table of thought?
LINDA STASI
"America is much greater than the GOP makes it seem", New York Daily News, March 8, 2016
I've always felt that my relationship to the United States is analogous to a marriage. I love this country. I hate it. I get angry at it. I feel close to it. I'm charmed by it. I'm repelled by it. And it's a marriage that's gone on for let's say at least 50 years of my writing life, and in the course of that, what's happened? It's gotten worse. It's not what it used to be.
NORMAN MAILER
The New York Times, Oct. 4, 2000