{"quotes":[{"text":"Pennsylvania  the state that has produced two great men: Benjamin Franklin of Massachusetts  and Albert Gallatin of Switzerland.","author":"J. J. Ingalls","tags":["america","americans"],"id":5804,"author_id":"J.+J.+Ingalls"},{"text":"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.","author":"Stephen Fry","tags":["americans","depression","depression-humor","happiness","marriage-advice","morality","narcissism","oscar-wilde","pride","relationships","self-help","self-improvement","self-pity","sin","sins","the-key-to-happiness","vice"],"id":5960,"author_id":"Stephen+Fry"},{"text":"I had the feeling that all over America such stupid arguments were taking place on street corners and in bars and restaurants. All over America, people were pulling credentials out of their pockets and sticking them under someone else's nose to prove they had been somewhere or done something. And I thought someday everyone in America will suddenly jump up and say 'I don't take any shit!' and start pushing and cursing and clawing at the man next to him.","author":"William S. Burroughs","tags":["america","americans"],"id":7864,"author_id":"William+S.+Burroughs"},{"text":"In any event, the sloppy and fatuous nature of American good will can never be relied upon to deal with hard problems. These have been dealt with, when they have been dealt with at all, out of necessity—and in political terms, anyway, necessity means concessions made in order to stay on top.","author":"James Baldwin","tags":["americans","avoidance","difficulties","good-will","problems"],"id":14819,"author_id":"James+Baldwin"},{"text":"I don't like the life here in New York. There is no greenery. It would make a stone sick.","author":"Nikita Khrushchev","tags":["america","americans"],"id":15338,"author_id":"Nikita+Khrushchev"},{"text":"A soldier: 'I know where heaven is and it's Lithuania ... The women are beautiful, pagan, with a practical view towards sex. Who says communism was bad? You're working three levels of advantages: you're a foreign male, you're a rich, exotic American, and their men are a bunch of drunken, criminal slobs.","author":"Robert D. Kaplan","tags":["americans","humor","lithuania","soldiers","women"],"id":15447,"author_id":"Robert+D.+Kaplan"},{"text":"Ours is the country where  in order to sell your product  you don't so much point out its merits as you first work like hell to sell yourself.","author":"Louis Kronenberger","tags":["america","americans"],"id":16691,"author_id":"Louis+Kronenberger"},{"text":"America didn’t bypass or escape civilization. It did something far more profound, far cleverer: it simply changed what civilization could be.","author":"A.A. Gill","tags":["america","americans","civilization","civilizations"],"id":19338,"author_id":"A.A.+Gill"},{"text":"They were our enemies. Yet in those young men of Italy I'd seen something centuries old. An American is only as old as his years. A long line of something was hidden behind the bright eyes of those Italians. And then and there I decided to learn something of the modern world. There was something abroad which we Americans couldn't or wouldn't understand. But unless we made some attempt to realize that everyone in the world isn't American, and that not everything American is good, we'll all perish together, and in this twentieth century....","author":"John Horne Burns","tags":["america","americans","italians","old-world","war","world-war-ii"],"id":20176,"author_id":"John+Horne+Burns"},{"text":"A single word indicative of doubt, that any thing, or every thing, in that country is not the very best in the world, produces an effect which must be seen and felt to be understood. If the citizens of the United States were indeed the devoted patriots they call themselves, they would surely not thus encrust themselves in the hard, dry, stubborn persuasion, that they are the first and best of the human race, that nothing is to be learnt, but what they are able to teach, and that nothing is worth having, which they do not possess.","author":"Frances Trollope","tags":["america","americans","united-states"],"id":20661,"author_id":"Frances+Trollope"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":217,"pages":22,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}