#american

American cities are like badger holes, ringed with trash--all of them--surrounded by piles of wrecked and rusting automobiles, and almost smothered in rubbish. Everything we use comes in boxes, cartons, bins, the so-called packaging we love so much. The mountain of things we throw away are much greater than the things we use. ↗

— John Steinbeck

#cities #rubbish #trash #waste #love

But they're already singing our praises!" "They are Americans. They toot their horns for anything. ↗

— Scott Westerfeld

#enthusiasm #humor #humor

American long for a closed society in which everything can be bought, where laborers are either hidden away or dressed up as nonhumans, so as not to be disconcerting. This place is called Disney World ↗

— Adam Gopnik

#disney-world #humor #humor

What are American dry-goods? asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb. American novels, answered Lord Henry. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#bad-reviews #books #humor #literary-criticism #novels

Most people were heartless about turtles because a turtle’s heart will beat for hours after it has been cut up and butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too. ↗

— Ernest Hemingway

#hemingway #literature

You know Americans...Self-improvement. No matter who or what we are, we're always working on ways to become somebody else. ↗

— Alan Brown

#americans #audrey-hepburn #improvement #japan #japanese

They smile that smile, they bat those eyes. They steal with hello, they kill you with goodbye. They're the perfect drug. As you're walking away, you hear that sweet voice, 'Stay. ↗

— Scotty McCreery

#girls #love #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

Does it matter how long they were together that night? To lovers, an hour can last a century. But even for lovers, every hour ends. ↗

— Scott Snyder

#century #hour #love #vampire #love

Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death. ↗

— Neil Postman

#social-commentary #sociology #business