#erica

It's not Americans I find annoying; it's Americanism: a social disease of the postindustrial world that must inevitably infect each of the mercantile nations in turn, and is called 'American' only because your nation is the most advanced case of the malady, much as one speaks of Spanish flu, or Japanese Type-B encephalitis. It's symptoms are a loss of work ethic, a shrinking of inner resources, and a constant need for external stimulation, followed by spiritual decay and moral narcosis. You can recognize the victim by his constant efforts to get in touch with himself, to believe his spiritual feebleness is an interesting psychological warp, to construe his fleeing from responsibility as evidence that he and his life are uniquely open to new experiences. In the later stages, the sufferer is reduced to seeking that most trivial of human activities: fun. ↗

— Trevanian

#satire #social-commentary #experience

Never Let anyone tell you that you can't; show them that you can. ↗

— Gloria Mallette

#books #family #marriage #psychological-suspense #family

In America, the photographer is not simply the person who records the past, but the one who invents it. ↗

— Susan Sontag

#invents #past #person #photographer #records

Is there some lesson on how to be friends? I think what it means is that central to living a life that is good is a life that's forgiving. We're creatures of contact regardless of whether we kiss or we wound. Still, we must come together. Though it may spell destruction, we still ask for more-- since it beats staying dry but so lonely on shore. So we make ourselves open while knowing full well it's essentially saying "please, come pierce my shell. ↗

— David Rakoff

#friendship #inspirational #npr #the-scorpion-and-the-tortoise #this-american-life

We Americans... like change. It is at once our weakness and our strength. ↗

— W. Somerset Maugham

#change #change

When we drug ourselves to blot out our soul's call, we are being good Americans and exemplary consumers. ↗

— Steven Pressfield

#art #consumerism #creativity #destiny #soul

A wise nation should cultivate a political spirit that allows opponents to cooperate without fearing an automatic execution from their core supporters. Who knew that the real rogues in American politics would be the ones who dare to get along? ↗

— Jon Meacham

#along #american #american politics #automatic #cooperate

Oh! Thanks for the public service announcement about what not to do in college, Mr. Eighteen-year-old-frat-boy-with-eleventy-billion-'serious'-girlfriends-under-his-belt! Get in the fucking car. You're a mean drunk. You haven't seen me mean, mama's boy! I told you we're close! Yeah, so are me and my asshole! Doesn't mean I'm going to call it twice a day! You're a bitch! Take. Me. Home. I'd love to, if you'd get in the fucking car! ↗

— Jamie McGuire

#funny-fight-scene #jamie-mcguire #shepley #walking-disaster #beauty

Now, I normally do not like it when people sing near me, much less at me. I don't care if they're good, bad, or mediocre. It's all the same. Unless you're signed to a major label with music I can find on iTunes, I don't want to hear your live performance. It's why I can't watch American Idol. I keep worrying the contestants will mess up and be embarrassed, and then I'll be embarrassed for them. ↗

— Lauren Morrill

#itunes #singing #music

Being a copper I like to see the law win. I'd like to see the flashy well-dressed mugs like Eddie Mars spoiling their manicures in the rock quarry at Folsom, alongside of the poor little slum-bred guys that got knocked over on their first caper amd never had a break since. That's what I'd like. You and me both lived too long to think I'm likely to see it happen. Not in this town, not in any town half this size, in any part of this wide, green and beautiful U.S.A. We just don't run our country that way. ↗

— Raymond Chandler

#corruption #crime #injustice #justice #money