The U.S. might enjoy overwhelming military advantage, but its relative economic power, which in the long run is almost invariably decisive, is in decline. The interregnum after the Cold War, far from being the prelude to a new American age, was beari...
By the 1950s The Novel had become a nationwide tournament. There was a magical assumption that the end of World War II in 1945 was the dawn of a new golden age of the American Novel, like the Hemingway-Dos Passos-Fitzgerald era after World War I.
In an instant, the law was transformed: from the last passenger on the safe-haven bandwagon to a pioneer into uncharted territory. For the first time in American history, it was not only legal to relinquish a baby; in Nebraska, it was okay to abandon...
Americans different in some maybe thoughts or emphasis still have the same ideas. They want a government that lets them be free, that leaves them alone, that doesn't interrupt and interfere with every aspect of their life, that lets them go to work a...
It was really cool to work with Dakota Fanning. I've watched her grow up and I've always loved her films, loved her. It was amazing working with someone who was American as well, because obviously it's going to be a different energy straightaway. We ...
Florence Nightingale was an amazing figure. She created the American Red Cross. She saw the suffering from bad health conditions on the battlefield and in the military hospitals, and she fought like crazy to change the conditions; to make sure that t...
One culture I find fascinating to juxtapose against American culture is the culture of Germany. They've gone through a long process through their art, poetry, public discourse, their politics, of owning the fact of their complicity in what happened i...
The truth is, what Americans enjoy about football is much of what makes the sport dangerous. However, I believe there must be a way to find the art of success and vitality in football, without the driving the level of impact that causes serious risk ...
Historically and culturally, New York City and our entire nation simply would not be the same without the infusion of Asian traditions. Whether it is food, art, language or any other facet of cultural life, Asian Americans have made our city and our ...
The most important thing about Jazz at Lincoln Center is the fact that it's the first time that perhaps the most important art form in American culture has a place to really exhibit itself and dedicated to its own particular conditions of performance...
There was something very American about this ability to dwell constantly in the realm of the improvable superlative.
Official Washington cannot tell the American people that the real purpose of its gargantuan military expenditures and belligerent interventions is to make the world safe for General Motors, General Electric, General Dynamics, and all the other genera...
He left the drapes open, watched the lights of the cars and of the fast food joints through the window glass, comforted to know there was another world out there, one he could walk to anytime he wanted.
Shadow crawled across the floor to the yellow foam-rubber pad and climbed onto it, pulling the thin blanket over himself, and closed his eyes, and he held onto nothing, and he held onto dreams.
Gee-word?" "Gods. What you doin' the day they handed out brains, boy, anyway?" "Someone was telling a story about stealing a tiger's balls, and I had to stop and find out how it ended.
And I know an eighteenth charm, and that charm is the greatest of all, and that charm I can tell no man, for a secret that no one knows but you is the most powerful secret there can ever be.
Hey," said Shadow. "Huginn or Muninn, or whoever you are." The bird turned, head tipped, suspiciously, on one side, and it stared at him with bright eyes. "Say 'Nevermore,'" said Shadow. "Fuck you," said the raven.
He'd been a shy, quiet, bookish kid, and that had been painful; now he was a big dumb guy, and nobody expected him to be able to do anything more than move a sofa into the next room on his own.
It's patterns," he said. "If they think you're a hero, they're wrong. After you die, you don't get to be Beowulf or Perseus or Rama anymore. Whole different set of rules. Chess, not checkers. Go, not chess. You understand?
Through the machine I want access to Agatha’s mind. What machine? The Orafoura Gigometer Dream Accesser 4000 (The Utopian version, not the Bensalem edition).
Today is your special day, even if today might be tomorrow to an Australian. And even though you’re not Australian, it doesn’t negate the fact that today may or may not be tomorrow.
