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Norman Mailer
Two Pulitzer Prizes
My American Dream is that this country has more opportunities to be extraordinary than any other country around, but it doesn't make us extraordinary. That can make us worse. Here you could be the son of the richest man on earth, and it doesn't mean you're going to be a fabulous fellow. You could end up a monster. And so, to me, my American Dream is that we just become less sentimental, less God-ridden. I mean, I happen to believe in God, but I think we are religion-ridden. So, my American Dream is that we become what we could be, which is we search deeper and deeper into the mystery of life and develop a more fabulous sense of what the real American possibilities, are rather than the notion that the corporations know how to do it all -- believing in God and the corporation is going to solve the problems of the universe. They won't. End of speech.
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Wynton Marsalis
Pulitzer Prize for Music
I think that fame is like a fake nobility. Like royalty used to be, where you were just born, you didn't have to achieve anything. You were just born into a position above other people. It's like this one passage in the Bible where God is talking to the people, and he says, "What would you rather have? Would you rather deal directly with me, or would you rather deal with a king? Now if you get a king, he is going to tax you, he is going to want to take your women." And the people say, "Give us the king." So it's like that whole syndrome. Somebody has got to be famous. It doesn't have to be merited, and in a democracy actually it's better for those who are famous to not be famous for achievement because then if they're just famous for no reason it gives everybody this illusion that they too can be touched by the hand of fate, and they will become famous, too.
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