#erica

This isn't about what is . . . it's about what people think is. It's all imaginary anyway. That's why it's important. People only fight over imaginary things. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#americans

Certainly the most destructive vice if you like, that a person can have. More than pride, which is supposedly the number one of the cardinal sins - is self pity. Self pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatred's a subset of self pity and not the other way around - ' It destroys everything around it, except itself '. Self pity will destroy relationships, it'll destroy anything that's good, it will fulfill all the prophecies it makes and leave only itself. And it's so simple to imagine that one is hard done by, and that things are unfair, and that one is underappreciated, and that if only one had had a chance at this, only one had had a chance at that, things would have gone better, you would be happier if only this, that one is unlucky. All those things. And some of them may well even be true. But, to pity oneself as a result of them is to do oneself an enormous disservice. I think it's one of things we find unattractive about the american culture, a culture which I find mostly, extremely attractive, and I like americans and I love being in america. But, just occasionally there will be some example of the absolutely ravening self pity that they are capable of, and you see it in their talk shows. It's an appalling spectacle, and it's so self destructive. I almost once wanted to publish a self help book saying 'How To Be Happy by Stephen Fry : Guaranteed success'. And people buy this huge book and it's all blank pages, and the first page would just say - ' Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself - And you will be happy '. Use the rest of the book to write down your interesting thoughts and drawings, and that's what the book would be, and it would be true. And it sounds like 'Oh that's so simple', because it's not simple to stop feeling sorry for yourself, it's bloody hard. Because we do feel sorry for ourselves, it's what Genesis is all about. ↗

— Stephen Fry

#depression #depression-humor #happiness #marriage-advice #morality

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. ↗

— John Quincy Adams

#american revolution #bond #christianity #civil #civil government

I'm sure I can make a movie that doesn't feel like a seventies movie! But the truth is, that's my favorite era in American filmmaking. To me, those were the great years. ↗

— Ben Affleck

#era #favorite #feel #filmmaking #great

Now between '45 and '48, things would change enormously, 'cos we'd had credit in United States, credit from the Bank of America, credit from the Import-Export Bank and people had started working again. ↗

— Gianni Agnelli

#america #bank #between #change #cos

You'd never know it from reading the rest of the Native writers, but Indians actually grew up with American pop culture. ↗

— Sherman Alexie

#american #culture #grew #indians #know

Sixty percent of all Indians live in urban areas, but nobody's writing about them. They're really an underrepresented population, and the ironic thing is very, very few of those we call Native American writers actually grew up on reservations, and yet most of their work is about reservations. ↗

— Sherman Alexie

#actually #american #american writers #areas #call

My wife was the first romantic partner who understood both American and native parts of me - not so much the positive stuff, but the damage. ↗

— Sherman Alexie

#both #damage #first #me #much

American journalists tend to treat inequality as a fact of life. But it needn't be. ↗

— Eric Alterman

#fact #inequality #journalists #life #needn

I'm not an American but I have always had the outsiders' respect for the American people and the American way. ↗

— Christiane Amanpour

#american #american people #american way #had #i