Jane Jacobs Quotes

The beginning of Canadian cultural nationalism was not 'Am I really that oppressed?' but 'Am I really that boring?'

I always thought of myself as more American than Americans when I was living in Germany, because I always had this attitude of can-do, and if you're successful, you can show it, which is a very un-German thing, you know.

World opinion is not the same thing as your own [country's] public opinion.

Most Americans are exceptionalists; we think we live outside of history.

You can't be Canadian without being aware of at least one other country, the United States, 'cause it's so important to us. I think we sometimes like to think that, you know, Americans will pay attention to us from time to time, too.

In general, American life is more easy-going. And civic pride, national pride in a cultural sense, is great in America. I think what they esteem in America is character and energy, and being different and superior to other peoples. Of course, every nation feels itself to be superior, but in America it's a jaunty feeling, and in some cases a rather ominous one among the super-patriots.

I've never felt more American than I did when I moved to England. It becomes a real kind of part of your identity: "Oh, Ben. He's the American guy." I think when you say you're from New York you get a different reception then if you just say, "I'm American." So I'd always kind of make sure I was a New Yorker first.

All nations have present, or past, or future reasons for thinking themselves incomparable.

We've gotta cut this country down to size and people here need to find out what it's like what we've done to people around the world, and that's not who we are. And [Donald] Trump is coming along saying those days are over; we are the solution, we are going, our system of government, we are gonna promote it, we are gonna promote our way of life around the world as the best in the world.

There's a distinct unease about Americans when they are outside the United States. I can't say quite what it is, but they are easily spooked or driven to cynicism - the country is diverse but, paradoxically, extremely insular.

I'm not ashamed of being American; I'm very proud.

The only diversity in the Brits is with the Americans. I've been saying this for a while: for our country to do good, we need to embrace our country.

I've always had a complex relationship towards my identity as an American.

I think America, unfortunately, collectively thinks of itself as the 'chosen people.' To my knowledge, there are no chosen people, we are all human beings.

But we think as people and countries, not as a species.

Don't you think that as a people, Americans have less poetry, real poetry, in their souls than any other nations?

America is not the world.

We're Americans. I don't consider us to be evil, I just don't think we know any better. We're a really young culture. We're hillbillies, and the rest of the world sees us that way. I travel all over the world, and probably the only worse rednecks than us are the Australians. And they're an even younger country.

I don't think of myself as an American; I see myself as a human being.

It is important for this country to make its people so obsessed with their own liberal individualism that they do not have time to think about a world larger than self.

Becoming involved in sports and traveling the world and seeing how people of color were treated around the world, and America being such a great nation, probably the greatest nation in the world, I think that the thing that would destroy this nation more than anything is the inequality that we have amongst people of color.

To me it's very obvious there are huge cultural differences between Americans and Canadians. But a lot of what we are is American.

Americans don't speak foreign languages, by and large. Their interest in anything beyond the borders of the country is limited. A European of any cultivation has to speak a couple of languages; he inevitably without being very thoughtful about it gets to understand what other people think about him.

In general, Americans like to be entertained. Canadians seem more suspicious of it.

This notion that Americans have. . . that they don't have to do anything other than be American in order to lead - that's very pervasive in the culture, it goes very deep into how they see themselves here.