|
|
|
|
|
|
Norman Mailer
Two Pulitzer Prizes
My American Dream is that this country has more opportunities to be extraordinary than any other country around, but it doesn't make us extraordinary. That can make us worse. Here you could be the son of the richest man on earth, and it doesn't mean you're going to be a fabulous fellow. You could end up a monster. And so, to me, my American Dream is that we just become less sentimental, less God-ridden. I mean, I happen to believe in God, but I think we are religion-ridden. So, my American Dream is that we become what we could be, which is we search deeper and deeper into the mystery of life and develop a more fabulous sense of what the real American possibilities, are rather than the notion that the corporations know how to do it all -- believing in God and the corporation is going to solve the problems of the universe. They won't. End of speech.
View Interview with Norman Mailer
View Biography of Norman Mailer
View Profile of Norman Mailer
View Photo Gallery of Norman Mailer
|
|
Wynton Marsalis
Pulitzer Prize for Music
I think that fame is like a fake nobility. Like royalty used to be, where you were just born, you didn't have to achieve anything. You were just born into a position above other people. It's like this one passage in the Bible where God is talking to the people, and he says, "What would you rather have? Would you rather deal directly with me, or would you rather deal with a king? Now if you get a king, he is going to tax you, he is going to want to take your women." And the people say, "Give us the king." So it's like that whole syndrome. Somebody has got to be famous. It doesn't have to be merited, and in a democracy actually it's better for those who are famous to not be famous for achievement because then if they're just famous for no reason it gives everybody this illusion that they too can be touched by the hand of fate, and they will become famous, too.
View Interview with Wynton Marsalis
View Biography of Wynton Marsalis
View Profile of Wynton Marsalis
View Photo Gallery of Wynton Marsalis
|
|
Craig McCaw
Pioneer of Telecommunications
The extraordinary achievements in the future on the Internet, in my opinion, will be driven, just as Netscape was, by people in their 20s. Perhaps the next great entrepreneurs will be teenagers. It's amazing to think that people will be wildly rich perhaps, or at least wildly creative beyond anyone's dreams, at very young ages. It's almost like returning to the Old West, when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were very young and that age is not a barrier. Now we have to decide how rich you ought to be perhaps at 18, but I don't know that that's something that society needs to decide for us.
View Interview with Craig McCaw
View Biography of Craig McCaw
View Profile of Craig McCaw
View Photo Gallery of Craig McCaw
|
|
Craig McCaw
Pioneer of Telecommunications
The American Dream is all about what people will do if you allow them the open opportunity. And that's why an extraordinary number of people come from other countries and achieve greatness here. It's because they have the desire, the toughness, the willingness to work, and the education, and then they do something with it, and it is extraordinary to see. Other countries are beginning to determine the fact that they can't succeed against us if they don't provide more freedom. And that's why we see a growing global revolution in decontrolling telecommunications. Because without that, their societies can't compete with ours. Because ideas, and the nurturing of those ideas is what is making America great.
View Interview with Craig McCaw
View Biography of Craig McCaw
View Profile of Craig McCaw
View Photo Gallery of Craig McCaw
|
| |
