America as Opportunity Machine

“My parents never considered themselves poor or oppressed or downtrodden. Why should they have? They had ambition. They had hard work. They had each other. And they also had me, their first and only child, a brand-new generation to carry their dreams forward. America was the land of opportunity. Lucky for us, we were here.”

“I had a dream the other night. I was a character in the movie *Planet of the Apes,* the original and still the best of the series. I was walking along a river. I wasn’t sure where I was. Crazy stuff was happening all around me. Then I looked up and saw the Statue of Liberty. I knew I was in New York, the center of everything, that place of endless possibilities, where the future really does live in your head and your hands. That image focused me. It motivated me. I knew it was time to take care of business, time to get busy writing this book.”