Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.

Americans expect to eat and stay thin, to be constantly on the move and ever more neighborly ... to revere God and be God.

I write to discover what I think. After all, the bars aren't open that early.

The problem for us is less to discover the way it really is than to see the meaning of the way.

Never have people been more the masters of their environment. Yet never has a people felt more deceived and disappointed. For never has a people expected so much more than the world could offer.

Modern tourist guides have helped raised tourist expectations. And they have provided the natives- from Kaiser Wilhelm down to the villagers of Chichacestenango - with a detailed and itemized list of what is expected of them and when. These are the up-to-date scripts for actors on the tourists' stage.

The American experience stirred mankind from discovery to exploration. From the cautious quest for what they knew (or thought they knew) was out there, into an enthusiastic reaching to the unknown. These are two substantially different kinds of human enterprise.