Born on the Fourth of July (ISBN 1-888451-78-5) is the best selling autobiography of Ron Kovic, a paralyzed Vietnam War veteran who became an anti-war activist. Kovic was born on July 4, 1946, and his book's ironic title echoed a famous line from George M. Cohan's patriotic 1904 song, "The Yankee Doodle Boy" (also known as "Yankee Doodle Dandy"). The book was adapted into a 1989 Academy Award winning film of the same name co-written by Oliver Stone and Ron Kovic, starring Tom Cruise as Kovic.
Read more about Born On The Fourth Of July: Origin, Differences From The Film Adaptation, Cultural References
Famous quotes containing the words fourth of july, born, fourth and/or july:
“I asked my mother for fifty cents
To see the elephant jump the fence.
He jumped so high he reached the sky,
And didn’t get back till the Fourth of July.”
—Unknown. I Asked My Mother (l. 1–4)
“Real socialism is inside man. It wasn’t born with Marx. It was in the communes of Italy in the Middle Ages. You can’t say it is finished.”
—Dario Fo (b. 1926)
“All night I’ve held your hand,
as if you had
a fourth time faced the kingdom of the mad—
its hackneyed speech, its homicidal eye—
and dragged me home alive. . . .”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“People in Stamps used to say that the whites in our town were so prejudiced that a Negro couldn’t buy vanilla ice cream. Except on July Fourth. Other days he had to be satisfied with chocolate.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)