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Francis Ford Coppola
Filmmaker, Producer and Screenwriter
Most Italians who came to this country are, you know, very patriotic. And what that meant was just that there was this exciting possibility that if you worked real hard, and you loved something, that you could become successful, and wouldn't be held down, due to who your family was and what have you. And certainly, in my case, I found that to be true. I became quite successful very young, and it was mainly because I was -- I would have to say -- because I was so enthusiastic and I just worked so hard at it.
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Sheryl Crow
Award-Winning Singer and Songwriter
I'm from a small town. I have small town ethics. I feel like a little kid still from Middle America, and nobody ever told me that I couldn't do something. I felt like I had the biggest safety net from people in my hometown who were constantly saying, "If you work hard, you can have what you want," and I think that's what America is founded on. It's founded on the right to observe whatever religious beliefs you have. It's based on the possibility of being great, of finding yourself, of making money, of making an impact. It's a pretty amazing idea that you can grow up in a place where you're being handed a ticket that you can write yourself, to take yourself anywhere in this country and to speak your mind and to educate people and to really just create your own dream and live it.
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David Herbert Donald
Two Pulitzer Prizes for Biography
David Herbert Donald: The American Dream is one of those loose phrases that we use in too many contexts, I think. But by and large, Americans have had similar aspirations: aspirations to be free, aspirations not to be meddled with, not to be told what to do, aspirations that mean the whole future is ahead of you. You can do all sorts of different things and you don't necessarily have to do what you were slated to do in the ninth grade or the 12th grade or the first year of college. The world is really open to you, and there are so many choices that you can make, and in many cases you will do as well in one choice as another. You're not sort of fixed from the beginning: I'm going to be a scientist, I'm going to be a historian, I'm going to be a farmer. You probably could be good in all three of those roles, but you have to chose between them.
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