Ira Glass Quotes

In America the biggest is the best.

With the supermarket as our temple and the singing commercial as our litany, are we likely to fire the world with an irresistible vision of America's exalted purpose and inspiring way of life?

I think we have a rawer version of capitalism and a more fragile community and family base than other nations. We are a more individualistic culture. From the Boston Tea Party on, we've had too little faith in government.

It's very American, making a lot of money.

Here in the United States, we're consumed by our love of money and status. We think bigger is better, and if we can just get that promotion, all will be well with our souls. There's one fatal flaw to this mindset: it's all smoke and mirrors.

I've long been interested in looking at the culture of consumerism and also was interested in this connection between the American dream and the house, and the house being kind of the ultimate expression of self and success.

Consumerism is at once the engine of America and simultaneously one of the most revealing indicators of our collective shallowness.

Americans have been conditioned to respect newness, whatever it costs them.

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 everything the British love to hate about the Americans.

There are a lot of things to get seduced by in America.

Homer Simpson is one of my favorite people, though he's not real. He represents the American who's filled with this 'affluenza.' He's constantly exposed to consumption and a sense of bigness, which is a part of being an American.

I haven't always hated McDonald's. When my kids were little and I lived in the U.S., they were as susceptible as anyone to Happy Meals and tatty toys that subsequently littered our sitting room.

You want to buy cars and houses and castles, all of that's on you and how America has systematized your mind to be into materialism. Hip-hop ain't got nothing to do with that. I'm glad that anybody making money has picked themselves up - I just want them to give some of it back to the community.

A Big Mac - the communion wafer of consumption.

Hey, it’s the American way.

All colors and blends of Americans have somewhat the same tendencies. It's a breed — selected out by accident. And so we're overbrave and overfearful — we're kind and cruel as children. We're overfriendly and at the same time frightened of strangers. We boast and are impressed. We're oversentimental and realistic. We are mundane and materialistic — and do you know of any other nation that acts for ideals?

The whole of this talk about America being more devoted to money than Great Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, or any other nation is nonsense.

People are fascinated with the fast life, the easy life. For some reason, that's an American dream, and it goes all the way back to the Edward G. Robinsons and the Cagneys.

Russian women are now interested in clothes. But they will never attach supreme importance to fashions as do Europeans and American women, because they are too vitally interested in all the various projects going on in their country.

Of course L.A. has its mad bits: you can get a collagen cappuccino if that's what you really want. But the American Dream is so ingrained in the American culture, and the place you go to find it is L.A.

At the end of the day, when I kick back with some barbecue and a CokeZero in front of a blockbuster film playing within the convenience of my fully air-conditioned house, I'll say a small prayer thanking God for the American culture.

I'm interested in the lives of Americans for whom the ways this culture has tried to define itself - that is, self-esteem defined by material wealth - they have nothing to do with that.

L.A., for me, is a perfect microcosm of America - because it's so profligate, and so glamorous, and so anti-intellectual, finally.

America is really happy to be sold something.

It's one of the central problems of American culture: telling you if you're younger, more beautiful, more famous, whatever, that then you'll be happy.