It
is, I think, an indisputable fact that Americans
are, as Americans, the most self-conscious
people in the world, and the most addicted to
the belief that the other nations of the earth
are in a conspiracy to under value them.
-- Henry James
1843-1916,
American Author
No
sovereign, no court, no personal loyalty, no
aristocracy, no church, no clergy, no army, no
diplomatic service, no country gentlemen, no
palaces, no castles, nor manors, nor old
country-houses, nor parsonages, nor thatched
cottages nor ivied ruins; no cathedrals, nor
abbeys, nor little Norman churches; no great
Universities nor public schools -- no Oxford,
nor Eton, nor Harrow; no literature, no novels,
no museums, no pictures, no political society,
no sporting class -- no Epsom nor Ascot! Some
such list as that might be drawn up of the
absent things in American life.
-- Henry James
1843-1916,
American Author
The face of nature and civilization in this our
country is to a certain point a very sufficient
literary field. But it will yield its secrets
only to a really grasping imagination. To write
well and worthily of American things one need
even more than elsewhere to be a master.
-- Henry James
1843-1916,
American Author
For this is what America is all about. It is the
uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is
the star that is not reached and the harvest
that is sleeping in the unplowed ground.
-- Lyndon B.
Johnson
1908-1973,
Thirty-sixth President of the USA
