Quotation wanted

There’s a saying to the effect that a hundred miles is a long way in Great Britain, but a hundred years is a long time in the United States. Do any of you know, first, the exact wording, and second, the original source? I’m not having any luck tracking it down.

I have no information outside of what a Google search informs me:

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Thanks! I wonder if Goodreads is accurate? It would read more naturally as “an American thinks . . .”

The quotation is probably accurate, but I’m reasonably sure I recall it from before 2001 when that book came out.

Actually I just turned it up (with the aid of the title and the first few words) on a Web page: https://allnovel.net/drums-of-autumn-outlander-4/page-13.html. They have “an American.” So thanks to @pillbox for his Google fu. I know exactly where it’s going to go in my next book if there’s room for a pullquote.

Good Reads cannot even agree with itself:

It looks as if what Hitchner wrote was an introduction to a new version of Jack London’s novel. Both quotations seem to date to 1997. But I can find a page with the original Gabaldon quotation, and I can’t find a page with the Hitchner one, so I think I’ll stick with Gabaldon.

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