The Last American Road Trip Quotes

“I do not believe in the American Dream, but I believe in American daydreams. The American Dream keeps you working for a future that never comes built on a past that never happened. It is not so much a dream as a value judgement. A pretense of patriotism at a price few can pay and at a cost few can bear. But daydreams don't carry that burden, daydreams are a protected realm free from expectation. They soften things that are hard and bad letting you imagine a past that went better than it did and a future that could go better than it will. Day dreams are private and pointless. No one expects day dreams to come true yet sometimes to one's joyous surprise, they do.”
― Sarah Kendzior, The Last American Road Trip: A Memoir

“I don’t want my children to chase American illusions marketed as American dreams, but I want them to understand why things went wrong, to appreciate everyday miracles and not think them small, to have reverence for the good that endures and work to protect it, a republic if you can keep it, a family that would remain American whether or not America remains. We would love America out of defiance, and defy America out of love.”
― Sarah Kendzior, The Last American Road Trip: A Memoir

“It just crept up on me: the realization that if someone with a Time Machine asked me whether I wanted to live in the past or the future, I would instantly answer, “the past.” Not because the past was wonderful, but because the past was there. I am not afraid of the unknown; I am haunted by the known: climate catastrophes and political bloodshed and the unbearable ambivalence with which the powerful greet both.”
― Sarah Kendzior, The Last American Road Trip: A Memoir