#american

What are you?' he [Nanapush] said to Damien, who was deep in a meditation over his [chess] bishop's trajectory. 'A priest' said Father Damien 'A man priest or a woman priest?'... ...'I am a priest', she whispered, hoarsely, fierce. 'Why' said Nanapush kindly, as though Father Damien hadn't answered, to put the question to rest, 'are you pretending to be a man priest? ↗

— Louise Erdrich

#gender-roles #native-american-reservation #patriarchy #priest #catholicism

Eating and sleeping are not like loving and breathing. Washing is not like eating and sleeping. Believing is like breathing and loving. Religion can be believing, it can be like breathing, it can be like loving, it can be like eating or sleeping, it can be like washing, it can be something to fill up a place when someone has lost out of them a piece that it was not natural for them to have in them. ↗

— Gertrude Stein

#love

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 are in a conspiracy to under-value them. ↗

— Henry James

#self-belief

Alice is fictional. This isn't. ↗

— Jess C. Scott

#dark-humor #group-think #groupthink #lady-gaga #mad-magazine

The joke was that President Bush only declared war when Starbucks was hit. You can mess with the U.N. all you want, but when you start interfering with the right to get caffeinated, someone has to pay. ↗

— Chris Kyle

#american #bush #caffeine #coffee #humor

On this important anniversary, we must remember that while we have come a long way in eliminating barriers, critical work remains to ensure all Americans can live up to their full potential. ↗

— Jim Ramstad

#anniversary #barriers #come #critical #eliminating

cross-national studies show that the U.S. poverty rate, which stands persistently above 12 percent, is not only the highest poverty rate of any advanced industrial nation, but is more than twice the average for that group. Pursuing the American Dream, 9, 276 ↗

— Cal Jillson

#poverty #dreams

The American people do not like privatization. They are afraid of the debt the president's willing to do. And they don't like benefit cuts. And everyone here should understand all 45 Senate Democrats are united. We are not going to let this happen. ↗

— Harry Reid

#american #american people #benefit #cuts #debt

The American Dream has become a death sentence of drudgery, consumerism, and fatalism: a garage sale where the best of the human spirit is bartered away for comfort, obedience and trinkets. It's unequivocally absurd. ↗

— Zoltan Istvan

#absurdism #american-dream #culture #modern-society #society

Despite a few exceptions, I have found that Americans are now far more willing to learn new names, just as they're far more willing to try new ethnic foods... It's like adding a few new spices to the kitchen pantry. ↗

— Firoozeh Dumas

#food #kitchen #names #spices #food