Saul Bellow on America

There is an immense, painful longing for a broader, more flexible, fuller, more coherent, more comprehensive account of what we human beings are, who we are, and what this life is for.

I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, ‘To hell with you.’

Everybody needs his memories. They keep the wolf of insignificance from the door.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.

Theodore Roosevelt1858–1919Kansas City Star (7 May 1918)

• Politics

Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities.

Winston Churchill1874–1965

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

H. L. Mencken1880–1956‘Notes On Journalism’ in the Chicago Tribune (19 September 1926)