I got my degree. More importantly, I got a key to American opportunity. That's who we are - a nation that rewards ambition with opportunity. Where hard work can lead to success, no matter where you start.
When I got my success, I became decadent for a while. This was 2003 to 2008. I fell for tiramisu really hard. I've become more moderate since, because African-Americans are prone to diabetes.
Like so many American families, our families weren't asking for much. They didn't begrudge anyone else's success or care that others had much more than they did... in fact, they admired it.
I left for New York expecting to repeat my success, only to be turned down by almost every publisher in that city, till the Viking Press, my American publishers of a lifetime, thought of taking me on.
When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.
When I see the cultural diversity that exists today, I feel that we must defend it, and we need Europe, because otherwise we are going to live in a society with a single model, the Anglo-American model.
Celebrity is a big part of the American social system. I'm certainly grateful for what it's done for me, but I do think that celebrity is overdone in our society. I think it's got a dangerous side to it.
We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg - isn't this an indictment of our entire...
The hometown economic elite - rich local families or individuals whom people used to praise or revile, read about in the society pages, and gossip about incessantly - disappeared from most American cities decades ago.
I first decided to become an actor at school. A teacher gave us a play to do and that had a major impact. At first, I wanted to work in the theatre, but there was something about the ambience of film, especially American films, that always attracted ...
I love English, though I now call it 'Anglo- American' because we no longer speak British English due to globalization and America's economic power.
If you don't have any ties to the music industry, you just love 'American Idol,' you can sit there and do exactly what you do in your living room, which is stare at them and judge them.
I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent the implication that some of the places that I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, make me less of an American.
I would really like to play someone contemporary, as I've done lots of period pieces. I would love to play an American bimbo or a grimy Londoner. But I'm probably more suited in people's minds to playing a corseted victim.
When President George W. Bush attempted to reform Social Security, that proposal was more unpopular with Americans than the Iraq war. People love their entitlements.
I knew Bobby Dylan back in the days when he lived in the village. He used to come and see me and sing songs for me, saying they ought to go into my next collected book on American folk music.
I had no intention of becoming a performer, and yet under miraculous circumstances I was brought into the music industry fold. If divine powers hadn't intervened, I'd still be living in China working in some area of Sino-American comparative law.
The first concert that my parents took me to was in this canyon in Saudi Arabia called Buttermilk Canyon. You sleep under the stars in the desert, and ex-pats - German, Swiss, Canadian, American - would play classical music that filled the whole cany...
Since I was a kid, I've had an absolute obsession with particular kinds of American music. Mississippi Delta blues of the Thirties, Chicago blues of the Fifties, West Coast music of the mid-Sixties - but I'd never really touched on dark Americana.
Many medical students, like most American patients, confuse science and technology. They think that what it means to be a scientific doctor is to bring to bear the maximum amount of technology on any given patient. And this makes them dangerous.
