What do Americans want?

"The American people," Dacheekan [campaign strategist] said, "are interested only in little things, not big things. They want to be fat., They want to be happy. That's all they care about, all they know. That's the reality."

"I have been with the people of this country from the Hudson to the Pacific," Freddy said, "and I know that you're wrong. It's people like you, who are no better than your contemptuous description of them, who crank the machinery that dulls their lives, who cater to the worst among them. They are a spiritual people. They want love and greatness. I know it. I've seen it. I've lived among them as you have not. I was taught to listen to the deeper heart, and from one end of this country to the other, I have."

Mark Helprin, Freddy and Fredericka (New York: Penguin, 2005), p. 463

What soccer moms want

"What about issues?" Dot asked. "What about soccer moms?"

"What about them?" Freddy wanted to know.

"What should he [the presidential candidate] say? What would you have him say?"

"Soccer moms," Freddy said, "spend all day driving around in shapeless vehicles that look like Flash Gordon's bread truck, and their children watch television in the back and ape the superficial characters therein. This is the cause of deep unhappiness, because what they want is so different from what they have, even if they don't realise that this is so. They don't want their children to dress like circus clowns, speak like zombie chipmunks, and behave like programmed machines. They want sons and daughters they can talk to; they want a struggle that they can win but that they are not assured of winning; they want to know physical exhaustion; they want to be sunburned; they want to smell eucalyptus; they want to weep; they want to dance naked for their husbands; they want to feel the wind, see the stars, swim in a river, slam the back door, and laugh uncontrollably with their children. That's what they want. They don't want the crap they have, the crap [President] Self promises, or the crap you would promise if you could figure out what to promise. They want to be free, to have dignity, to know honour and sacrifice. What else does anyone want?"

Dot was stunned into silence, because this was what she wanted too, and had always wanted.

Mark Helprin, Freddy and Fredericka (New York: Penguin, 2005), p. 463

Politics are madness -- Helprin

[P]olitics are madness, and even if one does not know it, a country in electoral season experiences flares of lunacy like the great storms that sometimes march across the golden surface of the sun.

Mark Helprin, Freddy and Fredericka (New York: Penguin, 2005), p. 376

The many things that royalty can't do

"Before we married, I told you, and you agreed, that though there are many things we can do that most people cannot even dream of doing, there are many more things we cannot do that most people could not dream of doing without." 

"Like going to a disco?" 

"And walking through Chelsea in daylight, having tea in a hotel, sitting in a park while reading the paper, holding regular employment ent, being unnoticed, not bearing the weight of a thousand years of tradition, et center a. It is indeed awful in they modern sense of they word, and it is wh6y, if I had a choice, I would not be king."

Mark Helprin, Freddy and Fredericka (New York: Penguin, 2005), p. 33 (Freddy, the Prince of Wales, speaking with his wife, Fredericka)

"People don't know, and they'll never know, that no collection of things and no human deference can ever make up for not being able to ride home, tired and alone, on the train to Camden Town, and disappear into a block of flats unmatched, in glorious and absolute privacy."

Id., p. 54 (Queen Philippa speaking)