237 Quotes About Us

And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes--believes with all its heart--that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn't exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are.

No man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it. The honeymoon would be as short in that case as in any other, and its moments of ecstasy would be ransomed by years of torment and hatred.

For, you see, he had found his center, his own center, inside him: and it showed. He wasn’t anybody’s nigger. And that’s a crime, in this fucking free country. You’re suppose to be somebody’s nigger. And if you’re nobody’s nigger, you’re a bad nigger: and that’s what the cops decided when Fonny moved downtown.

Our democracy is threatened whenever we take it for granted.

Of course, I must say that I don't think America is God's gift to anybody--if it is, God's days have got to be numbered. That God these people say they serve--and do serve, in ways that they don't know--has got a very nasty sense of humor. Like you'd beat the shit out of Him, if He was a man. Or: if you were.

America is this juggernaut of expectation.

Empower yourselves with a good education, then get out there and use that education to build a country worthy of your boundless promise.

Despite my better sense and ample experience in post-American heartbreak. Here I am. Again. The American allure built deep into my soul pulls me along for another ride.

And this country has lost what has made it magic, of course. The exuberance, you know. Things, I am afraid, are soon to fall apart. The center cannot hold, all that.