Jay Parini Quotes
American failures in Vietnam and Iraq suggest that it's not really possible to create and sustain a proxy government in a country far from our own borders.

Quotes to Explore
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I had no intention of becoming a performer, and yet under miraculous circumstances I was brought into the music industry fold. If divine powers hadn't intervened, I'd still be living in China working in some area of Sino-American comparative law.
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What's great about stand-up is that you can say whatever you want and go around the country, and sometimes the world, and work on it and see how people react. You don't need Standards & Practices or notes from lawyers or producers to tell you what's funny.
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Export anything to a friendly country except American management.
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And the American public was able to make up their own mind whether this verdict was a just verdict or not. So I think there's a lot of value in the public being able to see how the system works or doesn't work, so I think there's a definite value there.
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The adolescent protagonist is one of the hallmarks of American literature.
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In the United States we have the great Harvard Business School, but America is the country with the greatest debt in the world.
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The first 'D' is to dream: dream big - not for yourself, but for the country and for the world. The second 'D' is to discover: discover your full potential and the opportunities that surround you; and the third 'D' is to do. 'Do' means to act on your dreams and make best use of the opportunities you have discovered.
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The American Dream is that any man or woman, despite of his or her background, can change their circumstances and rise as high as they are willing to work.
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The United States was the first country in the history of the world to be consciously created out of an idea - and the idea was liberty.
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As a grandson of farmers in downstate Illinois, I have long admired the dedication of farmers to their work and have written about the role of agriculture in American innovation.
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Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.
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Despite a certain amount of rhetoric, such as 'the second American Revolution,' there is a fair consensus about which events in the affairs of a people can rightly be called revolutions. It is also clear that such revolutions are proper objects of study for the historian.
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After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world.
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My skin may have wrinkles but it's because I'm smiling so much. That might sound like some terrible American greetings card, but I feel it's immoral for me to castigate my body for getting older, when it does everything I ask of it.
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I was elected to the Senate in 2010 by people worried about our country, worried about our kids and their future.
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The more democratic and open a society is, the more it's exposed to terrorism. The more a country is free, not governed by a police regime, the more it risks hijackings or massacres like the ones that took place for many years in Italy and Germany and other parts of Europe.
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In graduate school, Aubrey Berg at the Cincinnati Conservatory gave me the chance to perform with the best in the country in Broadway caliber productions.
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Most people know Muslims in their community but don't realize it.
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I know I got to do something that's one in a million, to escape a refugee camp, to come to this country and have so many doors open for me. So I want to go back and make a difference and give motivation or hope to all the kids that never got to leave or have the privilege that I did.
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When I started to work with UNICEF, it was a new way of giving some love and care to the world.
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A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people.
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People aren't making as many movies as they used to, so youve got a lot of really big-name actors who are coming in, and they want to do pilots, so things kind of disappear for those of us who kind of have to still get in the room and audition and read for it.
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Once, when a British Prime Minister sneezed, men half a world away would blow their noses. Now when a British Prime Minister sneezes nobody else will even say 'Bless You'.
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American failures in Vietnam and Iraq suggest that it's not really possible to create and sustain a proxy government in a country far from our own borders.