America Quote by Tim O'Brien

“In a way he was lucky. He was a member of a generation that thought it was a good, even joyous, political idea to…

— Grace Paley

“He talked about democracy and good citizenship and about a good world where everyone did the best he could for the common good of…

— Betty Smith

“His soul swayed in a vertigo of moral indecision. He had only to snap the thread of a rash vow made to a villainous…

— G.K. Chesterton

“He embodied an enduring archetype: the obscure immigrant who comes to America, re-creates himself, and succeeds despite a lack of proper birth and breeding.”

— Ron Chernow

“He wanted most of all the people of his own mind, people with whom he could really talk, people he could harangue and scold…

— Sherwood Anderson

“Word of his great strength, intelligence, and perseverance had spread even this far, and yet his youth was such that my father knew he…

— Daniel Wallace

“In some ways, he was just like the rest of us: lonely, ambitious, a son, a father, a lover, never truly content. Where he…

— David A. Goodman

“...(he) reminded me by his presence, by his natural and plain manner of being good, that there still existed a just world outside our…

— Primo Levi

“He too was experimental and creatively disobedient, but he was still able to operate effectively in a fairly rigid hierarchy—something Americans do particularly well.”

— Robert L. O'Connell

“Utterly sure of himself, convinced of his power, certain that the laws that governed other men couldn't touch him, he made straight for any…

— Alexandre Dumas

“He had come to America, haven of peace and liberty, and it, too, was joining the slaughter, fighting for the big capitalists. There was…

— James T. Farrell

“He was not what he made up his mind to be. A man was the sum of his limits: freedom only made him see…

— Gish Jen