The Americans Quotes

“The best that could be left behind by any man: children who had been brought up to behave responsibly and to believe in something beyond their own self gratification. (The Americans”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“What’s wrong with the people in this country, Julia? Are we nothing but a nation of self-indulgent snobs whose only concerns are the size of a house and the cost of the furnishings? Have we gotten so greedy and indolent, we’re satisfied to stand for nothing except a bank balance while we’re alive—amount to nothing but an estate when we’re dead?”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“The wretched refuse of your teeming shore—’ I understand that now that I’ve seen Castle Garden. America takes them all.” “We do, and we should be proud of it,” Drew”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“the best that could be left behind by any man: children who had been brought up to behave responsibly, and to believe in something beyond their own self-gratification.”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“As long as I have work that matters, and a woman I love, I don’t need anything else.”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“as Will continued to monitor the young woman’s pulse and respiration, he knew he was witnessing a miracle. The kind of miracle of love and concern that made one human being minister to another not because there was money to be made, but because there was pain, and danger, and desperate need.”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“personal gratification isn’t life’s highest goal. A man has obligations—”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“there is a long-standing tradition among the Kents. A tradition of serving others in some way.”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“Speaking the truth, he’d learned long ago, was a difficult and dangerous business. People did not welcome it.”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“The one thing you fail to comprehend about America is that it’s malleable. It is nothing more or less than what we make of it by our action or inaction.”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“I never cease to be astonished by the human appetite for the tasteless and the macabre.”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“He was an incurable romantic, though he usually tried to hide it because the world scoffed at romantics, and often punished them.”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“The decent people of this world ought to be encouraged. God knows there are enough of the other kind, and they don’t seem to need one damn bit of encouragement for what they do.”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“Older American families, conveniently forgetting that they too were the children of immigrants, no longer wanted to associate with newcomers.”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“Some human beings can’t explain their own failures except by finding scapegoats.”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“a ruined reputation was often the price of choosing to tell the truth.”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“Congress seldom acted swiftly or decisively until jolted by some disaster.”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“What but faith in the goodness and uniqueness of its essential principles could unite and sustain a country as diverse as America? What but faith could have enabled the country to survive the trials of the Revolution, the chaos and grief of a civil war—”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“then”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“his”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“among the servants. “Greetings, little brother,” Carter said as he entered Will’s room. “Look what I brought.” He displayed the pail. Grinning, Will jumped up from his desk. “Beer?” “Right you are. Lock the door. Some of the servants are too blasted nosy to suit me.” Carter had given Will his first taste of beer only a couple of months earlier. The younger boy didn’t care for the stuff, but he was anxious to make Carter think he was grown up and worldly. And he was more than happy to put his geometry text aside. He liked his courses at the Boston Latin School about as much as he liked beer. Still, good marks were necessary”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“But I also think the doctrine of laissez faire, carried to its extreme, is equally repugnant. Too many capitalists use laissez faire as an excuse to gouge the public and exploit the poor.”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“He continued to be deeply concerned about the growing self-indulgence of the American people. Wealth was worshiped above all else. To many, admission”
― John Jakes, The Americans

“Jefferson said men are naturally divided by temperament into two classes. Those who fear and distrust ordinary people, and want to concentrate power in the hands of a small, select elite—and those who trust and cherish ordinary people, and think of them as the safest, if not always the wisest repositories of power.”
― John Jakes, The Americans