American history contains much matter for pride and congratulation, and much matter for regret and humiliation.

Had it not been for the Atlantic Ocean and the virgin wilderness, the United States would never have been the Land of Promise.

I am not a prophet in any sense of the word, and I entertain an active and intense dislike of the foregoing mixture of optimism, fatalism, and conservatism.

The national school is not a lecture hall or a library. Its schooling consists chiefly in experimental collective action aimed at the realization of a collective purpose.

The average American is nothing if not patriotic.

The higher American patriotism, on the other hand, combines loyalty to historical tradition and precedent with the imaginative projection of an ideal national Promise.

Unless the great majority of Americans not only have, but believe they have, a fair chance, the better American future will be dangerously compromised.

The adoption by Jefferson and the Republicans of the political structure of their opponents is of an importance hardly inferior to that of the adoption of the Constitution by the states.

The only fruitful promise of which the life of any individual or any nation can be possessed, is a promise determined by an ideal.

Of course, Americans have no monopoly of patriotic enthusiasm and good faith.

So far I, at least, have no fault to find with implications of Hamilton's Federalism, but unfortunately his policy was in certain other respects tainted with a more doubtful tendency.

You never know how much you are blessed until you have nothing.

You know I love you, ' said the other mother flatly.'You have a very funny way of showing it, ' said Coraline.

Taking time to create memories will stamp moments that will forever be etched on your heart and on the hearts of your children.

When all that you've tried, leaves nothing but holes inside.

The discomfiture we feel may be our most accurate human sensation; reminding us we are not quite "at home" here.

Memory as an inversion of historical time is the essence of interiority.

I thought talk was cheap until I saw our telephone bill.

I'm a compulsive sneaker collector, mostly limited edition.

The restaurant industry is brutal.

Music straightjackets a poem and prevents it from breathing on its own, whereas it liberates a lyric. Poetry doesn't need music; lyrics do.