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Robert Strauss
Presidential Medal of Freedom
I think that what we have to strive for is the kind of America that we almost have, and we are getting closer every year, and that is an America that has the kind of opportunity and climate that everybody can dream. It's hard to believe you can expect some of these poor people who are born into poverty and into homes with no parent, no father, no mother, alcohol, drugs -- you can't expect those people to have dreams. But I have found that everyone in this country who has an opportunity does have their own individual dream. Maybe it's just for a job that pays a good wage, and that's a very good dream for some people. For other people, it's the presidency, or great wealth, a great invention. But as long as we have the kind of climate where people can dream, then they will dream, and a lot of those dreams will come true. But an awful lot of people in this country today cannot have that kind of dream, because it would be too foolish. We're moving in the right direction, and I am always an optimist, and I am very high on that climate becoming the climate that permeates this country all the way across, not just for those of us who have been more blessed.
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Amy Tan
Best-Selling Novelist
I realize now that the most important thing that is an American Dream -- in looking at people living in other countries, in looking at the life my sisters had not growing up in this country -- is the American freedom to create your own identity. I think that's uniquely American. In no other country do you have that opportunity. It's not to say that everything will happen fairly and the way that you want. But I think that this is a country where that opportunity -- to be as wild as you want, as generous as you want, as crazy as you want, as artistic as you want, that all of that, the whole range -- exists. And we have a Constitution, a tradition, a culture that supports that. I hope it continues to support that. I hope it especially continues to support the arts in that direction. It is that self-determination of your identity, to define what it means to be an American, and that nobody defines that for you.
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Wayne Thiebaud
Painter and Teacher
Wayne Thiebaud: Well, I'm essentially a kind of self-educated person, I guess. But I think everybody is; that's the way we really learn. In other words, you see examples and so on. But I didn't ever go really to a formal art school, for instance, particularly a fine arts school. But I would love to have gone, I wanted to go. So in that case, it's possible, I think, not only in America but every place, to take it on yourself. But that is a part, I think, of the American character, in terms of the frontier theory idea, where you make your own hot rod or you build your own log cabin. You know, all these instances of hands-on, willing to work, "I can make it better. I can do it differently." So that is a part, at least for me, of what I do. I think the work for me is very American, although I love all art, from whatever country or tradition. I just think that where you live, how you live, and what you take on, mostly is this little area of America for me.
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