He agrees with Lincoln’s assessment of America as the last, best hope of the world, and worth saving.
A few other pithy quotes:
He also quotes Muhammad Ali, who, returning from Africa after a prize fight, said, “Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat!”
“If Hitler had been ruling in India, Ghandi would be a lamp shade.”
An Indian friend on why he was trying so hard to immigrate to America: “Because I really want to live in a country where the poor people are fat!”
“America is the only country in the world where we call the waiter, ‘Sir,’ as if he were a knight.”
“America permits many strange careers: this is a place where you can become, say, a comedian. I would not like to go to my father and tell him I was thinking of becoming a comedian. I do not think he would have found it funny.”
“As an immigrant, I am constantly surprised by how much I hear racism talked about, and how little I actually see it.”
On the SAT: “No one can maintain with a straight face that simple equations are racially biased, or that algebra is rigged against Hispanics.”
“The outcome of America’s engagements abroad is usually determined by a single factor: America’s will to prevail. In order to win, Americans need to believe that they are on the side of the angels. The good news is that they usually are.”
“North Vietnam’s misfortune was to win the war against the U.S. If it had lost, it wouldn’t be the impoverished country it is now, because America would have rebuilt it and modernized it.”
“History will view America as a great gift to the world, a gift that Americans today must preserve and cherish.”