Part of the reason people abroad resent the United States is something Americans can do very little about: envy. The richest, most powerful country in the world attracts the jealousy of others in much the same way that the richest, most powerful man ...
The Chinese public is deeply nationalist, which matters to China's unelected political leadership as much as U.S. nationalism does to American politicians. As China becomes the world's largest economy, there is meaningful public pressure for its powe...
In Chinese culture, it wouldn't occur to kids to question or talk back to their parents. In American culture, kids in books, TV shows and movies constantly score points with their snappy back talk. Typically, it's the parents who need to be taught a ...
I've been wanting to sing for a long time. I've been singing all my life, and I've tried different record companies, but it seemed like - it was such a struggle and so hard to get out there. So, I said, 'I'm gonna go on American Idol and see how far ...
I have lived a life that has been beautiful and painful at some moments. But I am convinced others can learn how to control a certain kind of rage that bubbles up in many Americans, particularly, but not limited to, women, blacks, and other minoritie...
If you look at the practice of 'crisis management,' and maybe squint at it a little, you can make out in the corners of your vision the ghosts or the vestiges of a much older, but still thoroughly American, form of public life, one centered not on pu...
What I dislike about movie culture is that it often presents a parable of our problems - but the issues are all straightforward and the people are either nice or they're not. In real life, everyone falls between those perimeters, but not many America...
Inauthenticity is endemic in American politics today. The political backrooms where I spent much of my career were just as benighted as my personal life, equally crowded with shadowy strangers and compromises, truths I hoped to deny. I lived not in o...
I like motivational books, because I like the go-getting American spirit - your destiny is in your own hands, life is what you make it, don't accept your limitations, jump before you're pushed, leap before you look.
When I was growing up, so many of the important changes for African-Americans were being made in the United States Supreme Court and were being made by lawyers. I followed the court very intensely and wanted to do that for my life.
Hubbard set up the Church of Scientology in Hollywood in 1954 for a reason. He understood that celebrity was increasingly a feature of American public life, and celebrities themselves were going to be worshiped as minor deities were in the ancient wo...
I think the heartbreak of September 11 - America's grief not only over the loss of life but also the loss of our own innocence - has expanded us as people because it has tenderized our hearts. On a psychological level, the American people have mature...
My early colleagues and myself helped create the life styles of Americans and, by osmosis, of the rest of the world. I found it difficult to reconcile success with humility. I tried it first, but it meant avoiding the very essence of my career - tota...
The one thing I've learned, getting out to all those foreign and domestic locales, is that people in every country of the 'civilized' world wish - either secretly or openly - that they had the expressiveness, the flair, the I'm-so-glad-to-be-me spiri...
The legal principle placing the burden of proof on accusers rather than the accused can be traced back to Second and Third Century Roman jurist, Julius Paulus Prudentissimus. Yet, this ancient concept, which forms the legal and moral cornerstone of t...
When I was a prosecutor in Kansas City, my job was to fight for justice and safety for all citizens in my community. Equal access to justice under the law is an American value embedded in the fabric of our legal and political system - the idea that a...
We have used the presence of UNMIK, as well as other European and American agencies to establish a legal framework compatible with the European Union and that is already an advantage. We have seen the positive effects of this and our parliament will ...
According to the people who dearly would love to throw him out of office, Barack Obama was elected to be 'above politics.' He wasn't elected to be president, after all. He was elected as an avatar of American tolerance. His attempts to get himself re...
I thought I was clever by greeting casting agents in my Australian accent and then switching to an American one during the performance. But the Australian accent seemed to put them off. Now it's the opposite; they love Australians. And with my thick ...
My first book, 'Fast Forward', was about growing up in the shadow of Hollywood and how kids are affected by the culture of materialism and the cult of celebrity, and I've often felt the reason my work has an audience in the U.K. is because it's every...
I can remember standing in the middle of the field after the race and seeing the American flag raised and hearing 'The Star Spangled Banner' and all the people singing it. Then I walked off the field and just kind of enjoyed the feeling.
