Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world.

I sometimes think that the saving grace of America lies in the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities- a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.

There is one expanding horror in American life. It is that our long odyssey toward liberty, democracy and freedom-for-all may be achieved in such a way that utopia remains forever closed, and we live in freedom and hell, debased of style, not individual from one another, void of courage, our fear rationalized away.

Americans see history as a straight line and themselves standing at the cutting edge of it as representatives for all mankind. They believe in the future as if it were a religion; they believe that there is nothing they cannot accomplish, that solutions wait somewhere for all problems, like brides.

There is nothing the matter with Americans except their ideals. The real American is all right; it is the ideal American who is all wrong.

The real democratic American idea is, not that every man shall be on a level with every other man, but that every man shall have liberty to be what God made him, without hindrance.

There are no second acts in American lives.

American is a very difficult language mixed with English.

America is a willingness of the heart.

In Boston they ask, ''How much does he know?'' In New York, ''How much is he worth?'' In Philadelphia, ''Who were his parents?''