Famous quotes containing the words american and/or professional:
“The mystical nature of American consumption accounts for its joylessness. We spend a great deal of time in stores, but if we don’t seem to take much pleasure in our buying, it’s because we’re engaged in the acts of sacrifice and self-definition. Abashed in the presence of expensive merchandise, we recognize ourselves ... as supplicants admitted to a shrine.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“The American character looks always as if it had just had a rather bad haircut, which gives it, in our eyes at any rate, a greater humanity than the European, which even among its beggars has an all too professional air.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)