Jon Ronson Quotes

In Ecuador, if I go after an Ecuadoran, I'm in trouble; if I go after a Costa Rican, I'm a hero.

To the brave man every land is a native country.

I'm just tired of us as Americans living in fear.

It took a while to get the support of British people as they wouldn't naturally want to support someone from another country.

I am an American citizen and it is my home now. I like the U.S.A., which is not a place too many people have liked since Bush. The U.S. has a young population, and everything can change within a year.

Americans, particularly after World War II, tended to romanticize war because in World War II our cause was the cause of humanity, and our soldiers brought home glory and victory, and thank God that they did. But it led us to romanticize it to some extent.

I've got nothing against America, but I went over there a couple of times and didn't really like it. I mean, not that I like England that much, but it's somewhere to live.

Our nation was built by pioneers - pioneers who accepted untold risks in pursuit of freedom, not by pioneers seeking offshore profits at the expense of American workers here at home.

Kids love to be scared; we all do. But there's a difference between leaving them hanging out there, with their fears, and then bringing them safely home. Kids love it when someone like them stands up against real evil, something really horrendous and frightening, and win.

I was trying to talk about where we are right now as a society, and talk about the fear we all live in, and certainly since 9-11, how it's affected us and the world.

We immerse ourselves in escapist mass entertainment, such as 'reality T.V.' programs. We support fanatical politicians and preachers. Our politicians, in turn, support dictators and tyrants in other countries, all in the name of 'security' and 'stability'. And we arm ourselves to the teeth, and pray to God to be saved.

I am the living death, a Memorial Day on wheels. I am your Yankee Doodle Dandy, your John Wayne come home, your Fourth of July firecracker exploding in the grave.

They're sheep. They like Bush enough to credit him with saving the nation after 9/11. Three thousand people get killed, and everybody thinks they're next on the list. The president comes along, and he's got his six-guns strapped on, and people think he's going to save them.

For me, personally, I grew up watching American heroes and American movies and TV.

After 9/11, I knew I wanted to write about power and identity and the way Americans on all sides of the political spectrum often mythologize our leaders, which are themes that the superhero genre has always handled really well.

No man is a hero in his own country.

I think in the wake of 9/11, like a lot of Americans, you know, we were all very traumatized by the attacks, traumatized in a totally different way by some of what happened afterward in response. And I think there have been these questions hovering in the past decade of, what kind of country are we? Who are we?

Anzac Day, it seems, must now be done with bluster, hoopla and media hypnotism.

I love England but everything that has happened makes me realise that I would be better off in the States.

There comes a time in the history of nations when fear and forgetfulness cause a nation to hesitate, to waver, and perhaps even to succumb. When that time comes, those who love liberty must rise to the occasion. Will you lovers of liberty rise to the occasion?

I'm not a reality-TV kind of guy. But it's almost like we're living in a reality show. Every day in this country, everybody keeps worrying about the deterioration of America, and it's like a big reality show.

I feel that I'll be buried in Ireland and don't think I'll ever live in the U.S. I'm not comfortable with many aspects of U.S. society - especially the justice system.

I really wouldn't want to live in America. I found New York claustrophobic and dirty. I missed England when I was there, simple things like smells and the British sense of humor.

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' “Chuck him out, the brute!” But it's “Saviour of 'is country” when the guns begin to shoot.

Public opinion said that every man who did not embrace the very surest and earliest opportunity of getting himself mustered into actual service was a coward.