Part of the American ethos is that you want to leave something better for your kids than you had and I know that my parents felt that way and I know that my grandparents felt that way and everybody worked hard so that their kids had a better chance. I just don't want to be the first generation that doesn't do that.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the desire to improve opportunities for future generations.
In this quote, Matt Damon reflects on the American ideal of striving to provide a better life for one's children than what one has experienced. He expresses a deep-rooted belief, shared by his ancestors, that hard work and dedication should lead to improved chances for the next generation, and he feels a strong responsibility not to let that legacy diminish.
In practice
In a graduation speech highlighting the importance of family values and personal responsibility.
Some people get into this business and they're so afraid to lose anything. They try to protect their position like clinging to a beachhead. These actors end up making really safe choices. I never wanted to go that route. If I go down, I'm going down swinging.
Being known as a writer did change the relationships I had with directors. The rap on actors is that they always want to inflate their parts. But when directors know you write screenplays and have a different view of things, you really get invited into the huddle in a much fuller way. And those collaborations end in friendships.
You will never solve poverty without solving water and sanitation.
Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage
It's just better to be yourself than to try to be some version of what you think the other person wants.
If I had a bucket list, I'd say raising my four girls to be strong, good women would be No. 1.
Anytime a child is born, the old people look in his face and ask him if he's the One.
I was an only child and I had a mother and father who were just - there wasn't a straight man in the house, and I mean that in a very nice way. They were fun, and we would laugh a lot.
More and more, when I single out the person out who inspired me most, I go back to my grandfather.
True parents do not see to it that their children grow in a particular way, according to a preferred pattern or scripted stages, but they see to it that they grow with their children.
I'm a 21st-century kid trapped in a 19th-century family.
My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.
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