America and Americans Quotes

“Not long ago, after my last trip to Russia, I had a conversation with an American very eminent in the field of politics. I asked what he read, and he replied that he studied history, sociology, politics and law.

"How about fiction - novels, plays poetry?" I asked.

"No," he said, "I have never had time for them. There's so much else I have to read."

I said, "Sir, I have recently visited Russia for the third time and don't know how well I understand Russians; but I do know that if I only read Russian history I could not have had the access to Russian thinking I have had from reading Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Pushkin, Turgenev, Sholokhov, and Ehrenburg. History only recounts, with some inaccuracy, what they did. The fiction tells, or tries to tell, why they did it and what they felt and were like when they did it."

My friend nodded gravely. "I hadn't though of that," he said. "Yes, that might be so; I had always thought of fiction as opposed to fact."

But in considering the American past, how poor we would be in information without Huckleberry Fin, An American Tragedy, Winesburg, Ohio, Main Street, The Great Gatsby, and As I Lay Dying.”
― John Steinbeck, America and Americans

“I thought that if we had a national character and a national genius, these people, who were beginning to be called Okies, were it.”
― John Steinbeck, America and Americans

“Веднъж Ед ми каза:
- Дълги години не можех да се търпя. - И го каза не със самосъжаление, а като прост, достоен за съжаление факт. - Това бе един много труден и много болезнен период. Не се обичах поради ред причини, някои истински, други - чист плод на въображението. Ужасно неприятно ще ми е да се върна назад към това време. Но постепенно - рече - открих с изненада и радост, че има хора, които ме харесват. И се запитах: след като те могат да ме харесват, защо и аз да не харесвам себе си? Само с мислене обаче не става. Успях полека-лека да се науча да харесвам себе си и нещата си дойдоха на мястото.”
― John Steinbeck, America and Americans

“The President must be greater than anyone else, but not better than anyone else. We subject him and his family to close and constant scrutiny and denounce them for things that we ourselves do every day. A Presidential slip of the tongue, a slight error in judgment — social, political, or ethical — can raise a storm of protest. We give the President more work than a man can do, more responsibility than a man should take, more pressure than a man can bear. We abuse him often and rarely praise him. We wear him out, use him up, eat him up. And with all this, Americans have a love for the President that goes beyond loyalty or party nationality; he is ours, and we exercise the right to destroy him.”
― John Steinbeck, America and Americans