Vincent Canby, The New York Times, November 11, 1984

America, meaning mostly the United States, is not an easy concept to comprehend. It may be appropriate that it was discovered by a Genoese sailor, in the service of the Spanish crown, looking for some place else and that, for the next half-century, it was treated as a geological impediment to be gotten through or around in order to reach some far more profitable other side.