The American system demands ...

The American system demands success, and in order to succeed we must first believe that we can. Yet our society, with its intolerance of failure and poverty, traps millions of people in positions where any kind of success seems impossible to contemplate, and in which failure itself is a kind of passive rebellion against their own misery and the social system which created it in the first place. To succeed it is necessary to accept the world as it is and rise above it.
 Michael Korda

Quotes from the same author

One way to keep momentum going is to have constantly greater goals.
 Michael Korda
Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility in the final analysis. The one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility.
 Michael Korda
To succeed, we must first believe that we can.
 Michael Korda
To succeed, it is necessary to accept the world as it is and rise above it.
 Michael Korda
One of the first rules of playing the power game is that all bad news must be accepted calmly, as if one already knew and didn't care.
 Michael Korda