The colonial period has been the proving ground in America for the new social history, which concentrates on the ordinary doings of ordinary people rather than on high culture and high politics. Unfortunately ordinary people, almost by definition, leave behind only faint traces of their existence.
The way I've always seen it is, I don't want him to do bad. I want him to do good. But when I'm competing with somebody, I want my best to be better than his. That's just how I've been. I'm not wishing bad for anybody.
Americans are future-minded to the point of obsession. We are impatient at living in the present. Tomorrow is bound to be better... next year, next century, always what might be rather than what is. This trait in us makes for 'progress;' it also makes for a continuing dissatisfaction.
I'm just trying to up my films - how every film should be better than the previous one. That's what I struggle for.
I liked Shakespeare in high school, but in university I spent a semester studying in London, and it was sort of in the middle of me falling deeply in love with literature, and I took a Shakespeare course with a professor who couldn't imagine anything more important than Shakespeare.
I just want to be better every day, to get better every day, not to be better than anyone else.
I wanted Puma to regain strength with the existing logo rather than try to get rid of the past.
I think that Bob Dylan knows this more than all of us: you don't write the songs anyhow. So if you're lucky, you can keep the vehicle healthy and responsive over the years. If you're lucky, your own intentions have very little to do with this.
The idea of who my father is to me is very different than who he is to you, or to the rest of the world.
In general, being likeable is more about being interested - rather than interesting. Indeed, a good way to convince someone that you are an awesome conversationalist is to simply shut up and let the other person talk.
When the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996 after a searing, four-year civil war, they immediately instituted laws which fit their utopic vision of the time of Islam's founding more than 1,300 years earlier. Afghan women's lives offered the most visible sign of the imagined past to which Afghanistan's present was to be returned.
It was what I've always wanted, more than anything: to be an Olympic hero rather than a Tour de France star, something I had from childhood.
A good writer cannot avoid having social consciousness. I don't mean this about small pieces of writing, but about a big book. If it's a big book, there has to be more than one undertow.
As a songwriter, you tend to develop your own style, your own technique, based around what it is you're trying to write and perform, in terms of your own music. So a way of evolving a guitar style as a songwriter is much easier, I think, than developing a true style of your own just from listening to music or playing other people's music.
The United States has far more to offer the world than our bombs and missiles and our military technology.
As for pineapple, it's far more versatile than you might think, and certainly merits wider use than in Hawaiian pizzas and pina coladas and on cheesy cocktail sticks.
I've enjoyed appearing in Atlantic City. East Coast audiences are a bit brighter than Las Vegas audiences. I think most entertainers will tell you the same thing. The East Coast audiences are more perceptive - especially when it comes to a performer with a theatrical background.
Most artists don't understand what they do, and I don't think we have to. Other people do that better - they understand what I do better than I do!
I feel like Canadian movies should be as good or better than the competition because of the talent we have here.
I try to feed my hunger rather than my appetite.
There are people much less fortunate than us, and I don't mean people hungry sleeping in the streets either.
It there any nation that acknowledges its errors and its sins and its crimes and the things it has done that are not consistent with its principles more than the United States? No, there is not.
One of the biggest motivators is to be part of something larger than yourself.
It's a real man who can go out with a woman who's taller than he is. That's an alpha male right there.
Losing a fantasy is much harder than losing a reality.
As I say, I'm a discourse advocate. What form it comes is less important to me than the fact that there is discourse.
There is so much more demand for Formula One than it can supply. You have governments investing in circuits all over the world, and the private sector sometimes has a tough time competing with that.
When my daughter Dixie gets out of school, I take her to ballet, soccer, or karate. Or if it's a free afternoon, we might bake together. I love our time together. There is nothing more important in my life than making her happy.
I wanted to be famous; I wanted to perform. Those things I really, really wanted more than anything else.
We are more likely to cheat if we see others doing so. We tend to conform to accepted norms of reasonable behaviour, rather than adhere to strict rules.
I'm getting excited before every single game. The trophy at the end is less important than the process itself.
Low-income people, racial or ethnic minorities, pregnant women, seniors, people with special needs, people in rural areas - they all have a much harder time accessing a dentist than other groups of Americans.
A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.
I don't make deals for the money. I've got enough, much more than I'll ever need. I do it to do it.
Not many countries establish a prize for peace. The Seoul Peace Prize has its roots in the 1988 Summer Olympics when this country opened its doors to people and athletes from more than 160 countries. Korea did so in part because it believes in the power of sports for peace and development.
When it really comes down to it, the job you do is more important and is more representative of who you are than your sexuality or anything else that you have going on in your life.
