#mer

It seems to be a law in American life that whatever enriches us anywhere except in the wallet inevitably becomes uneconomic. ↗

— Russell Baker

#american life #anywhere #becomes #enriches #except

You can always tell folks from nonfolks. Folks like to feel good, like to smile for the camera when there's a big photo opportunity for a really good cause. ↗

— Russell Baker

#big #camera #cause #feel #feel good

The early commentators who put down the pre-presidential Roosevelt as an empty-headed young lightweight, all ambition and no talent, now seem comically wrong to a modern book-reading, movie-going, television-watching, legend-loving American public conditioned to think of him as one of the presidential giants on the order of Washington and Lincoln. ↗

— Russell Baker

#american #american public #commentators #conditioned #down

The rise of anime had to happen. If the Japanese could tell better American stories, it would go through the roof. They still tell stories which are very much oriental. I take my hat off to them. ↗

— Ralph Bakshi

#anime #better #could #go #had

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. ↗

— James A. Baldwin

#america #any #country #criticize #exactly

American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it. ↗

— James A. Baldwin

#american #american history #anyone #anything #beautiful

It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story. ↗

— James Baldwin

#admire #america #because #been #his

The making of an American begins at the point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land. ↗

— James Baldwin

#american #any #begins #himself #his

I'm sometimes scared of everything that has happened to us. We didn't think Desilu Productions would grow so big. We merely wanted to be together and have two children. ↗

— Lucille Ball

#children #everything #grow #happened #i

I think three or four years ago, people would have said my biggest weakness was that sometimes I was awkward on television, with my stammer, but I think they'd say that much less now. ↗

— Ed Balls

#awkward #biggest #four #i #i think