He knew them. Americans. They killed each other over dinner, shot one another for sport, mugged old ladies in the street. Help like that he didn't need.

We are not a nation, but a union, a confederacy of equal and sovereign states.

There is a rowdy strain in American life, living close to the surface but running very deep. Like an ape behind a mask, it can display itself suddenly with terrifying effect.

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong.

It has always been cited as an irrepressible symptom of America's vitality that her people, in fair times and foul, believe in themselves and their institutions.

If an American were condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence.

And I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States.

I think it impossible, utterly impossible, for any Englishman to live here [in America], and be happy.

We Americans are tempted to distinguish ourselves from other current and former inhabitants of this planet by assuming that we are ruled by "progress."

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.