I lived the true American dream, because I was able to pursue what I set as my goals at a very young age.
You know that American dream and American spirit of innovation we always talk about? Turns out, the bulk of it was built by people who came to America from somewhere else, not people born American. We have no birthright or natural lock on these things.
My guiding principle and motivation was that I wanted to retire by the time I turned 35. There actually are two books that I bought and still have - Paul Terhost's 'Cashing In On the American Dream: How to Retire at 35' and Andrew Tobias's 'The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need' - that were my personal financial road map.
Despite the obvious damage now visible in the entropic desolation of every American home town, Wal-Mart managed to install itself in the pantheon of American Dream icons, along with apple pie, motherhood, and Coca Cola.
The American Dream has run out of gas. The car has stopped. It no longer supplies the world with its images, its dreams, its fantasies. No more. It's over. It supplies the world with its nightmares now: the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Vietnam.
The American Dream, the idea of the happy ending, is an avoidance of responsibility and commitment.
I live in the suburbs, the final battleground of the American dream, where people get married and have kids and try to scratch out a happy life for themselves.
The American dream is a crock. Stop wanting everything. Everyone should wear jeans and have three T-shirts, eat rice and beans.
I'm a square. I always wanted the standard-issue American dream: beautiful home, loving husband, couple of kids. I met another square, and we got married; a year later, we had a baby; three years later, had another.
With Americans worried about losing their jobs, their savings, their homes and their chance at the American Dream, the New Direction Congress will work in a bipartisan way to lift our economy and help America's middle class.
For too many of our young people, that once-promised American dream has given way to an American debt burden and a bleak job market.
If there is still an American dream, reading is one of the bootstraps by which we can all pull ourselves up.
When I was 5 years old, we had nothing in the village. One day, in front of my house, some soldiers in a big Cadillac started to do a picnic. I looked at them like they were coming from the moon. I remember they gave me a box of rice pudding - that, for me, was the American Dream.
Whether we are working to pay off student loans, credit card debt, paying for elder or childcare, or even trying to save for retirement, the idea of the American dream still remains just that - a dream.
I part of this great nation because my grandfather was born here, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He took a horse, back in 1895, and ride it all the way down to Guanajuato, looking for his American dream. No penny in his pocket, only dreams in his head. And he was an immigrant coming from the States into Mexico. And he found his American dream in Mexico.
Of course L.A. has its mad bits: you can get a collagen cappuccino if that's what you really want. But the American Dream is so ingrained in the American culture, and the place you go to find it is L.A.
The American Dream, coupled with government subsidies of utilities and cheap consumer goods courtesy of slave labour somewhere else, has kept the poor huddled masses from rising up.
The truth is, most undocumented immigrants come here for economic opportunity and the American Dream. They aren't seeking tax credits or handouts.
I see history as really cyclical in terms of the intense idealism and the desire to create a better life outside of societal norms. In America, possibly because of whatever the American dream is, this happens over and over again. These eras repeat.
Jobs are central to the American dream - and President Obama has focused on jobs from day one.
