Take a random selection of photographs of America in 2012 and 2002 and 1992 and, except for the skinny jeans and the porkpie hats, you'll be hard-pressed to tell the years in which the pictures were taken.
In the Fifties, my parents were known as 'America's sweethearts'. Their pictures graced the covers of all the newspapers. They were the Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston of their day.
In this case it appealed to me partly because it felt close to me in some ways. This is about a confused, bewildered middle class Englishman adrift in smalltown America and that has definitely been me.
No man in America ever strove more, and more successfully first to bring about a Congress in 1765, and then to support it ever afterwards than myself.
We beg you to save young America from the blight of race prejudice. Do not bind the children within the narrow circles of your own lives.
In America, dogs are viewed by their names first, breed second. And dogs live behind walls. It's an unnatural point of view.
We have so many kids in America to be adopted, but it's expensive. All these families that want children aren't able to because of the financial aspect, and that, to me, is just the most disgusting thing ever.
America is a nation with no truly national city, no Paris, no Rome, no London, no city which is at once the social center, the political capital, and the financial hub.
I can't be calm when I drive through sections of Atlanta that look more like Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, than America.
If a catastrophic event wipes out a large portion of House members, America needs to know this body, elected by the people, will be quickly and legally reconstituted and will continue to function.
There is a movement to get an international criminal court in the world, voted for by hundreds of states-but with the noticeable absence of the United States of America.
Scientists have always thought that because mammoths roamed such a huge territory - from Western Europe to Central North America - that North American woolly mammoths were a sideshow of no particular significance to the evolution of the species.
Voting is completely important. People in America think democracy is a given. I think of it as an ecosystem, and what gets in the way of it is politicians and apathy.
If an American company has a drop of patriotic blood coursing through its system, then surely it would set up in America and employ Americans, right?
A man builds a house in England with the expectation of living in it and leaving it to his children; we shed our houses in America as easily as a snail does his shell.
From the early days of European migration to America, in the 17th Century, the prototype of buildings was based on English precedent, even if mostly translated into the locally available material in abundance: timber.
We have a big opportunity in China. We think the number of stores here can rival the number in North America.
A Spaniard and a Pole worked in the barbershop where we got our hair cut. An Italian shined our shoes. A Croat washed our car. This was America.
America is a nation of immigrants, but it is also a nation of people who never emigrate. Notably, Americans living outside the United States are not called emigrants, but 'expats.'
What I find interesting as a 40-year-old is the idea of trying to be a part of a pronounced, continuing independent culture. The basic tenet of America is that you rebel and then you get real.
I don't think the deficit of the country is a Republican issue or a Democratic issue. I think it's a country issue. I don't think worrying about the reindustrialization of America is a Republican or Democratic issue.
