Bill Clinton: “What Dublin was to Joyce or Yoknapatawpha County was to Faulkner, Newark is to Philip Roth. [Laughter] Who would have…”

“What Dublin was to Joyce or Yoknapatawpha County was to Faulkner, Newark is to Philip Roth. [Laughter] Who would have though this melting pot of immigrant aspirations, of Jews, Italians, Irish, African-Americans, would have yielded a voice as distinct and powerfully American as Philip Roth? He and his many literary alter egos, from Nathan Zuckerman to, quote, Philip Roth, unquote, have been among us now for four decades. He brought to the world's attention a generation of writers from what he calls ``the other Europe,'' whose instinct for freedom matches his own. His last four books, ``Patrimony,'' ``Operation Shylock,'' ``Sabbath's Theater,'' ``American Pastoral,'' have each won a major literary award. Improbable as it may seem, this brash kid of Newark has become a grand old man of American letters. Ladies and gentlemen, Philip Roth. [The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated Mr. Roth.]”