The worst thing to happen to Lincoln - aside from the unfortunate incident at Ford's theatre - was to fall into the hands of Carl Sandburg. - Gore Vidal

The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country — and we haven't seen them since.

If satire is to be effective, the audience must be aware of the things satirized; if they are not, the joke falls flat. Unfortunately for our native satirists, the American mass audience possess very little general information on any subject. Each individual knows his own immediate world, but as various research polls continually inform us, he holds little knowledge in common with others.

Americans tend to play different roles, hoping that somehow they’ll stumble on the right one.