Memoirists From The United States

"....The talent is here. The opportunities aren't. And it is the opportunities that foster growth."

"Poetry has been an instrument of change and revolution since it existed. It is protest and defiance and celebration and a love anthem. It is how we communicate so of course it is also how we enact change."

"It shouldn’t take courage to be yourself. It shouldn’t take courage to go to school and walk down the halls as the person you know you are. It shouldn’t take courage to hold the hand of the person you love on a bus, to kiss them goodbye on the sidewalk, to share one of the most fundamental and beautiful connections that any one of us can have in this life. It shouldn’t but, too often and in too many places, it still does. And in some way, all of you here today have called on that courage. And you’ve used your voice to say: We will not go back. We will not let the progress that we’ve fought for slip away."

"We recognize it as an act of bravery and beauty, of daring and defiance. And we look forward to a time when that courage is no longer needed, when all people in all places can feel the freedom and the joy that we feel here today."

"So, it was late on a warm October night in Las Vegas. [W]e were all candidates’ spouses at the time, but there was an energy in the air that brought us all together, and we had the chance to get to know one another. And we made a promise then that our next Pride celebration would be on the South Lawn of the White House. And now, here we are once again, but it was just a little too hot and humid out there to be on the lawn."

"You cannot go into a war zone and come away unchanged. You don’t have to see the sorrow with your eyes because you can feel it with your heart."

"Raul helped build this organization with the understanding that the diversity of this community, as distinct as the bodegas of the Bronx, as beautiful as the blossoms of Miami, and as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio, is your strength."

"There’s no scent of new notebooks or freshly waxed floors. The rooms are dark as the bright young faces that should fill them are now confined to boxes on a computer screen."

"The state of Delaware has loved the Bidens and cheered for us in most of our triumphant moments. It has carried us through the darkest times in our lives with a kindness that asks for nothing in return. Delaware is family."

"I live in daily gratitude for everything I have now that would have been unfathomable for Chinese immigrants not so long ago. Our lives are built on the shoulders of giants. Honoring their legacy means living up to our privilege and continuing to push the movement forward. My vision for the beautiful country is this: to every new generation, more rights, more equality, more justice."

"I feel that the act of writing the book in itself without even submitting it for publication was transformative. It allowed me to heal because I was revisiting the past with my childhood self but also seeing it through an adult lens. And that’s essentially what you do in therapy – you re-parent yourself. What would you do if you were there with your childhood self? What would you tell that child? And in living through that process, I feel that I have healed a lot of those wounds that had stayed opened for decades. Those scars are always going to be there for sure and I will still have moments of irrational fear."

"I don't think we would have gotten that across the finish line without all of her hard work. I think without her it wouldn't have happened, so she deserves a ton of credit for that."

"The growth of Asian American pride is heartening. The young generations of immigrants, Asian Americans, undocumented Americans, and Americans of color never cease to give me faith for the future. That said, new changes in the right direction do not necessarily erase previous wrongs and old hurts. Once someone has felt the acute pain of being dehumanized, that experience stays with them. It does not disappear overnight, nor do the barriers that are built into the foundation of our society. To achieve real, lasting progress, we must remember that."

"So, what I endeavored to do with my book was to speak heart-to-heart, and the childhood lens allowed me the perfect avenue to do so. My vision for my book was that it might allow readers to feel as if they were getting aboard a train, which would carry them through the terrain of my childhood—through that journey, they would be able to see new sights, yes, but also revisit some of their own experiences and familiar landscape. Through this, I hope, people might start to see that underneath the labels and political divides, none of us are all that different from each other, and that at bottom, we all want much of the same things: safety, community, and meaning."

"I always wanted to share my story, even when I wasn’t talking about the past and didn’t tell anyone that I was undocumented. I always felt that I had this story burning inside me and it was frustrating to have it pent up in there. It was growing inside me and gnawing at my consciousness, so I think it needed to take this long for this book to come out and if I waited longer, it probably would have come out in a different form."

"Traitor? Elon, if you don’t understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it to those of us who do...He’s slashed and burned the federal government to make room for a giant tax cut for billionaires like himself. I’ve sworn an oath to this country, I’ve flown in combat, I served in the Navy for 25 years. It appears to me the oath that Elon Musk stands by is the oath to billionaires to make their lives easier, not the American people, not veterans. He’s not a serious guy. He should go back to building rockets."

"In our undocumented existence, it was unsafe for me to be fully honest about myself and my reality with any other real person. Fictional characters thus formed my safe circle — the place in which I was safe to be my full self. Overnight, I also saw all my loved ones and family disappear, and I didn’t know whether I would ever see them again. The characters of these books filled that void of loneliness, and in their presence I learned that it was natural to be scared sometimes, or lonely. They also taught me the power of storytelling, and of words."

"When I taught myself English on library books in the 90s, it was very difficult to find books that reflected me and my reality. That lack of representation left me feeling even more lonely and shameful. When I expressed that to my mother, she never failed to tell me that I would one day have the power to change that. So, thanks to my mother’s wisdom that vision and dream was always with me. I’m just grateful that it is now a reality."

"The act of processing the memories I had suppressed for decades had freed me to see not just younger me, but the younger versions of my mother and father in their full dimensions. That in turn allowed me to honour everything we had been and had experienced—both the good and the bad."

"For me, Qian represents the self and the precocious, mischievous child who went from knowing only love and acceptance to living in daily shame and hunger. And Julie represents the pre-teen, teen, and woman who was determined to survive no matter the cost, even if it meant hiding or obliterating her origin story and her authentic self. Both of these names are integral parts of me, and I can no more choose between them than I can between my left and right legs."

"For a child who found herself transported overnight to other side of the world, where she knew no one other than her parents, books were my salvation."

"In books, both fiction and nonfiction, what matters is not what happens in the book but how is it is told. By virtue of living, we experience facets of the human experience. How we experience those facets and what we take away from them are both fascinating because they are uniquely ours (because there is no other person exactly like each of us on the planet, and no one who will respond exactly the same way) and because it is universally human. Thus, it does not so much matter what you write about, but how you choose to write and what messages you share. To aspiring writers: I hope you will remember that there is magic and beauty in your experiences and perspectives simply because they are yours."

"We salute Commander Mark Kelly and his contributions to NASA as an extremely accomplished member of the astronaut corps and the final commander of the space shuttle Endeavour. . . . We deeply respect his achievements and his decision to focus on his family. We continue to send out our thoughts and prayers to Mark and his wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, as she makes a remarkable recovery. We know that Mark will continue to do great things for his country no matter what he chooses to do next."

"Grace was sitting up, babbling and smiling, and I leaned down between her legs and carefully spread open her vagina. She didn't resist"

"Whatever she wanted to watch on TV if she would just "relax on me.""

"Basically, anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl I was trying."

"Three pieces of candy if I could kiss her on the lips for five seconds."

"Her stickly, muscly little body thrashes beside me every night .. even as I slipped my hand into my underwear .. I always pretended to hate it."

"I tried to have a child. Along the way, my body broke. My relationship did, too. In the process—because of it?"

"I was flying with 1,000-pound bombs attached to my P-51. We were escorting B-29s sent to bomb steel mills in Korea. On the return I flew over Peking and over the Great Wall. I was fascinated with it and followed it all the way to the Yangtze River. My plane made a shadow over the wall and I said out loud, ‘O God, let me one day walk were my shadow walks.’"

"As these words are being written, I am in the process of moving back to Georgia. Whatever the merits of Horace Greeley's advice, I have to paraphrase Walt Whitman and say that the farther west I have gone, the worse I have felt. It took me years to catch on. Then one day I flew east to the Museum of Flight and heard a fine lady by the name of Peggy Young tell me what it was, and I was hooked; I had found my ultimate purpose in life. I am now back in the Cherokee rose state to stay, near my hometown of Macon where- so many years ago- I jumped off the roof of the tallest house in town in a homemade glider. The Museum of Aviation only came into my life recently; it was not many years ago that I lacked the sense of purpose and satisfaction that it brings me. After coming home from China, victorious over my dual obsessions, I went through the worst period of my life, and found out how very much I needed goals. Big ones, too, because I never did learn how to do anything at less than full throttle."

"Why are such machines necessary, a schoolchild might well ask? I would answer that having such weapons ready is the best way to make sure they will not be needed or used. I would say that if we did not have the proper state-of-the-art weapons, chances are the next generation would indeed have to fight yet another war. I would explain about the early days of World War II when we were losing all over the world; how it took two dangerous and costly years to get into service critically-needed aircraft of the right kind like the P-51 and B-29."

"Anyway, my adventures had run out by 1982 when I made the worst mistake of my life by shutting myself away to work night and day on this book. I gradually became worse than bored until, as the year came to a close, I knew something was very wrong with me. I could not sleep and the thought of food- even breakfast, my favorite meal of the day- made me ill. As a teen-age Merchant Marine sailor I had never been seasick even in North Atlantic storms. As a flight instructor, I had never known airsuckness in all my years of teaching acrobatics. Now my force-feedings left me nauseated. I no longer bounced out of bed, awakening to sunrises full of plans, expectations, and promises. A fog had rolled in and with it came fear, cold and stark. I have always worked to remain in good physical condition and all medical tests failed to find any problem. Then they sent me to the last department, Psychiatry. I had reactive depression. As a psychiatrist explained it, I had lived a full and productive life only to become a recluse in my self-made prison. I learned then that depression is a disease; for me, accustomed as I was to boundless good health, it was the worst sickness I have ever known. In these more enlightened times, help is finally available in some measure for the millions who suffer from depression. Just recognizing it as a disease that can be treated has been a major step."

"One Sunday, I was carrying out my training in a reveries, my imagination running wild as I gunned my machine into a tight turn, dipping low to compensate for centrifugal force. Suddenly over the din of the exhaust there came the frantic scream of a frightened horse. I hurriedly braked and watched the terrified animal plunge down the side of the mountain, then across the stream and into the trees on the other side. It was obviously a U.S. Cavalry mount. Between calling soothing words to his animal, the uniformed rider shouted for me to cut my engine. I almost fell off the motorcycle when I realized it was Colonel Robert C. Richardson, the commandant of cadets. Fumbling to still my raving engine, I leaped from the machine, praying out loud that the "Com" could regain control before both he and his horse were killed. All my plans for a commission as a second lieutenant seemed to hang in the balance, but I dismissed these selfish thoughts and raced down the mountain, determined to reach the Com in time to be of some aid."

"Weekends became training manoeuvres conducted in total secrecy- a uniformed cadet could hardly ride a motorcycle openly along the Plain of West Point- to prepare myself for thousands of miles along Marco Polo's route. I soon realized that New York State roads bore little resemblance to the rough terrain I would probably encounter in Europe and Asia Minor, but in the beautiful wooded hills sloping down past Callum Hall to the Hudson River, I found mountain trails running well past Cranberry Pond that seemed ideal for my purposes. These were bridle paths used occasionally by tactical officers on duty at the Academy- many from the cavalry- or by cadets with special riding privileges."

"Colonel Richardson had everything safely under control long before I caught up with him, drenched to the waist after splashing through the creek. He sat in the saddle, speaking soothingly to the panting animal and rubbing its quivering neck. I stood there at attention, feeling more in a state of shock than the horse. At least, the thought came to me, that the Com had not hit me with his riding crop. Finally, having attended to what every cavalryman considers his first duty, he turned his attention to me. "Don't you know, Mr. Scott," he said calmly, "that the bridle paths are off limits to you, much less motorcycles?" Only then did he dismount and slowly lead the quieted horse back across the stream and uphill to the path where my motorcycle lay. I tried to explain my fascination with the journeys of Marco Polo, my training for an attempt to retrace his route on a motorcycle. I even discussed with him that puzzled me. In all his journeys Marco Polo had never mentioned the Great Wall of China. The Com listened intently as we walked our mounts down the bridle path. He asked about logistics. Could I make such a journey? Had I considered every angle? I kept waiting for him to revert to being the commandant, to quote some regulation prohibiting my summer plans, but such an announcement never came. When we reached the crossroads near the Cadet Chapel, he remounted to return to the stables. Before he turned away told me to come see him at some convenient time the following week, saying that he had served as military attache in Rome before his present duty assignment. Perhaps he might be able to tell me something to help me on my monumental journey. "Good luck, Mr. Scott," he concluded. "You represent something of an enigma yourself.""

"The greatest thrill was the first time I ever flew with the Flying Tigers before I joined them. You see, they didn’t think much of us regular fliers. I had come in and gone to sleep under the mosquito netting, when a bunch of the Flying Tigers burst into my room. Not knowing what was happening, I grabbed the revolver I kept under my pillow and pointed it at them. They had come to ask if I would go on a mission with them, never thinking that I would. I readily agreed. They were really testing me out."

"I cleared the first magnolia, but then the main wing strut broke, and I came down in Mrs. Napier's rose bushes. It's the only plane I ever crashed"

"The only time I've ever been moderately successful in combat was in the bottom of my class at West Point because of a goat mind. And a goat is the bottom of the bottom."

"For now, the seriousness of war had gradually come to me. Unless men like myself-thousands and millions of them-left these wonderful luxuries in this great land of America we could lose it all forever. I loved these two with all my heart, but the only way in all the world to keep them living in the clean world they were accustomed to was to steel myself to the pain of parting with them for months or years-or even forever. The actuality of war, grim war, had come. I knew then that the theoretical word “Democracy” was not what we were to fight for. I knew it was for no party, no race, creed, or color. We were going to fight, and many of us were to die, for just what I had here- my wife and family. To me, they were all that was real, they were all that I could understand. To me, they were America."

"Every time I flew a mission, I had the nose of my plane painted a different color so that the Japanese would think these were different planes. I got credit for that idea back in America, but really the idea was not mine. It was Chennault’s. When flying over a city, we would split up, two or three going to the right, several over the center, some to the left. The noise created the impression that there were more planes than we really had."

"There is an archaic regulation at West Point that says a cadet shall not own a horse, a dog, or a moustache. Had the Powers That Be even suspected that I had a motorcycle that spring of 1932, it, too, would undoubtedly have been outlawed by the book of regulations. I had rented it from a shop in Highland Farms, a red Indian Scout that I had practically lived on it during the weekends from the time ice left the Hudson River. Four years of schooling in tactics and logistics had impressed upon me that no individual, much less an army, can do anything near perfect the first try. Success demands practice, doing things over and over again- what the military calls "dry runs." Thus, as the day drew closer for me to follow in the footsteps of the Venetian, I prepared by becoming completely at home on the vehicle I had chosen for my journey. The Indian was for training; I would buy another motorcycle for the trip when I got to France."

"I tried to kill the plane, not people. We heard that the Japanese shot our parachuting pilots, but I never saw that. We never shot a pilot who had bailed out. Sometimes you would fly near them and they would salute you. As for the planes, it varied. For a fighter, you fired where the wing joined the fuselage. For the bombers, you went for the engines. You didn’t want to get too close because the wounded plane would spew engine oil all over your plane."

"Most educators and students are familiar with Columbia's American School of the Air, which was established in 1930 and today has a weekly audience of millions throughout the school year. These broadcasts, prepared under the supervision of distinguished educators, typify in many ways Columbia's whole roster of educational and cultural programs. In themselves, however, they are a well-planned and cumultative course of education by radio, presented five days a week each autumn, winter, and spring."

"Paley, Mister Paley. "He is to American broadcasting as Carnegie was to steel, Ford to automobiles, Luce to publishing and Ruth to baseball," the New York Times had once written. The New York Daily News had called him an electronic Citizen Kane." His reign at CBS, wrote Washington Post television critic Tom Shales, could be summed up as more than five decades of "brilliant brinksmanship, salesmanship, statesmanship, and showmanship.""

"CBS reaped a publicity bonanza from La Cadena de las Americas (Network of the Americas). Fortune magazine devoted six pages to Paley's triumphant blow-by-blow account of his negotiations, filled with lofty pronouncements ("We are far too prone to think of Latin Americans as a mass of black-haired, backward people who owe what security they have, in the midst of their well-costumed revolutions, to the Monroe Doctrine and North American cash")."

"I had an early passion for reading, especially for Horatio Alger stories. I went to the public library almost every day, and when I found a Horatio Alger book I had not read before, it was like finding a gold mine."

"Ed Sullivan proved his talent as a showman who could attract the best and most timely performers from all four corners of the world of entertainment."

"Television was dominated by one network — CBS in its early days. And Paley was a god. But he didn't like to hear what he didn't like to hear. And people soon learned that. So they told Paley only what he liked to hear. Therefore, he was soon living in a little cocoon of unreality and everything else was corrupt — although it was a great business. So the idiocy that crept into the system was carried along by this huge tide. It was a Mad Hatter's tea party the last ten years under Bill Paley."

"We the People (6/1/48) began on CBS Television as the first regularly scheduled network program series simulcast."