A Quote by David McCullough
If you get down about the state of American culture, just remember there are still more public libraries in this country than there are McDonalds.
Related Quotes
I think the public library system is one of the most amazing American institutions. Free for everybody. If you ever get the blues about the status of American culture there are still more public libraries than there are McDonald's. During the worst of the Depression not one public library closed their doors.
Why is McDonalds still counting? How insecure is this company? 40 million, 80 billion million jillion killion tillion... who cares? Is anyone really impressed by that any more? Ooh, 89 billion sold? All right, I'll have one! I'm satisfied! I'd like to tell the CEO of McDonalds, "Look. We all get it, okay? You've sold a lot of hamburgers. Whatever the number is, just put up a sign, 'McDonalds: We're Doing Very Well.' We are tired of hearing about every goddamn one of them."
We like to say the Internet is the ultimate library. But libraries are libraries because people come together and fund them through taxes. Libraries actually exist, all over the country, so why is it such a reach to imagine and to someday build a public institution that has a digital aspect to it? Of course the problem is that libraries and other public services are being defunded and are under attack, so there's a bigger progressive struggle this plays into.
Health information is just about the number one thing that people go into public libraries and connect to public libraries for. They're also looking for information about things that can make their lives better. It's a great equalizer.
The pedagogy of authoritarianism is alive and well in the United States, and its repression of public memory takes place not only through the screen culture and institutional apparatuses of conformity, but is also reproduced through a culture of fear and a carceral state that imprisons more people than any other country in the world.
Our libraries are valuable centers of education, learning and enrichment for people of all ages. In recent years, libraries have taken on an increasingly important role. today's libraries are about much more than books.
A lot of my customers wouldnt go to a McDonalds but we are all after the same thing in this business: pleasing the customer. I dont know why people get so aerated about it. I like McDonalds.
We do not have an American culture. We have a white American culture and a black American culture. So when those two groups try to get together, [it's] very difficult because they each feel like they have the right to their culture.
I'm trying..." How could I put it? "I'm trying to get far enough down the line so that I can remember." I stopped, then continued: "so that I can remember without the pain killing me" And the days were stacking up. And weeks. And months. It was now almost the middle of June and he'd died in February, but I still felt like I'd just woken from a horrible dream, that I was suspended in that stunned, paralyzed state between sleep and reality where I was grasping for, but couldn't get a handle on normality.
The Christian church in the U.S. is still strong numerically, but it has lost its decisive influence both in American public life and in American culture as a whole, especially in the major elite institutions of society.
We don’t just live in a celebrity take-down culture; we live in a take-down culture. People will find anything about you and twist it to where it’s weird or wrong or annoying or strange or bad. You have to live your life not only in spite of people who don’t understand you - you have to have more fun than they do.
We hear a lot in this country about family, and 'American Family' just shows us a portrait we haven't seen as much of yet. 'American Family' lets us know that being American isn't about the color of your hair or eyes or skin: it's really a state of mind.
The librarian of today, and it will be true still more of the librarians of tomorrow, are not fiery dragons interposed between the people and the books. They are useful public servants, who manage libraries in the interest of the public . . . Many still think that a great reader, or a writer of books, will make an excellent librarian. This is pure fallacy.
[The American public demands] a sense of legitimacy from and in the presidency. There is more to this than dignity, more than propriety. The president is expected to personify our betterness in an inspiring way, to express in what he does and is, not just what he says, a moral idealism which, in much of the public mind, is the very opposite of politics.
The Western public should learn and remember one essential thing about China: no matter what European and North American propaganda barks about the People's Republic, China is much more "democratic" than the West. It is democratic in its own way.
The man of large and conspicuous public service in civil life must be content without the Presidency. Still more, the availability of a popular man in a doubtful State will secure him the prize in a close contest against the first statesman of the country whose State is safe.
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