“Americans are a very modern people, of course. They are a very open people too. They wear their hearts on their sleeves. They don’t stand on ceremony. They take people as they are. They make no distinction about a man’s background, his parentage, his education. They say what they mean and there is a vivid muscularity about the way they say it. They admire everything about them without reserve or pretence or scholarship. They are always the first to put their hands in their pockets. They press you to visit them in their own home the moment they meet you, and are irrepressible, good-humored, ambitious, and brimming with self-confidence in any company. Apart from all that I’ve got nothing against them.”
Tom Stoppard, Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land (courtesy of The Rat)
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
