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.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the American tendency to focus on the future at the expense of appreciating the present.
Gore Vidal highlights a cultural characteristic of Americans who are preoccupied with the future and believe in constant improvement. While this forward-looking mindset can drive progress and innovation, it also leads to a perpetual sense of dissatisfaction, as individuals often overlook the value of the present moment in their pursuit of what is yet to come.
In practice
In a motivational speech about embracing the present for personal growth.
We must declare ourselves, become known; allow the world to discover this subterranean life of ours which connects kings and farm boys, artists and clerks. Let them see that the important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
American writers want to be not good but great; and so are neither.
Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
The important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself.
For the average American, freedom of speech is simply the freedom to repeat what everyone else is saying and no more.
Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.
She had studied the universe all her life, but had overlooked its clearest message: For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. Confusing. Frustrating ... but there are other ways to understanding.
As with many Southern Writers, I believe that the special quality of the land itself indelibly shapes the people who dwell upon it.
Anybody who tells a very big lie is paid attention to. If you say, 'Shakespeare could not write. He was illiterate,' everybody says, 'Well, what do you know that we don't?' That's what Trump does all the time.
The universe unfolds in the body, which is its mirror and its creature.
If a man is not rising upward to be an angel, depend on it, he is sinking downward to be a devil.
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