5,300 Quotes About America

America has no now. We're reluctant to acknowledge the present. It's too embarrassing.Instead, we reach into the past. Our culture is composed of sequels, reruns, remakes, revivals, reissues, re-releases, recreations, reenactments, adaptations, anniversaries, memorabilia, oldies radio, and nostalgia record collections. World War II has been refought so many times, the Germans and Japanese are now drawing residuals.

No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world.

Dear America, is this what you really want? Do you even know what is happening in your name?

History repeats itself. The first time as tragedy. The second time as farce. The third time as tourist trap.

Gatsby's fall from grace may be grim, but the language of the novel is buoyant; Fitzgerald's plot may suggest that the American Dream is a mirage, but his words make that dream irresistible.

No wonder Americans seemed crazy to everybody else--they were utterly alone in the vastness of this ridiculously immense land. They all skittered about, alighting and flying off again like frantic butterflies. Looking for--what? What were they looking for?

America is not the only good thing in the world, but it is the best thing in the world.

Welcome to our America. A land vastly different from what they want us to believe about her.

Most Black lesbians were closeted, correctly recognizing the Black community's lack of interest in our position, as well as the many more immediate threats to our survival as Black people in a racist society. It was hard enough to be Black, to be Black and female, to be Black and female, and gay. To be Black, female, gay, and out of the closet in a white environment, even to the extent of dancing in the Bagatelle, was considered by many Black lesbians to be simply suicidal.