American Quotes
494 quotes
"Too bad Americans can’t export Awesome, because I have boxes and boxes of the stuff just lying around in my attic."
"I have to return some videotapes"
"In the present case it is a little inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible to any public office of trust or profit in the Republic. But I do not repine, for I am a subject of it only by force of arms."
"He will know from and early age that failure is not disgrace. It's just a pitch that you missed, and you'd better get ready for the next one. The next one might be the shot heard round the world. My son and I are Americans, we prepare for glory by failing until we don't."
"The truth is, immigrants tend to be more American than people born here."
"Your life can be different, Young Ju. Study and be strong. In America, women have choices."
"While I've never read Scientific American, I'll bet it is pretty scientific. And American. Just like those prehistoric cave drawings in the south of France."
"I attained a triumph so complete that it is now rare to meet an American with marks of small pox on his face... Benefits are valuable according to their duration and extent... but the benign remedy Vaccination saves millions of lives every century, like the [gift] of the sun, universal and everla"
"The joke was that President Bush only declared war when Starbucks was hit. You can mess with the U.N. all you want, but when you start interfering with the right to get caffeinated, someone has to pay."
Chris Kyle, American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History
"While you’re alive there’s no time for minor amazements."
"...[G]reat progress was evident in the last Congress of the American 'Labour Union' in that among other things, it treated working women with complete equality. While in this respect the English, and still more the gallant French, are burdened with a spirit of narrow-mindedness. Anybody who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without the feminine ferment. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex (the ugly ones included)."
Karl Marx, Selected Letters: The Personal Correspondence 1844-1877
"What is the first anesthetic?Wealth.And if I take your wealth?Necessities.And if I demolish your home, burn your fields?Acknowledgement.And if I make it taboo to sympathize with your plight?Family.And if I kill your family?God.And God......Hasn't said a word in two thousand years. (136)"
"The death of American soldiers is as painful as the death of civilians in Afghanistan, and what makes our world a better place is not pouring more guns and weapons in this country, but educating the uneducated population. Since, those guns can ended up in the hands of dangerous group that can take the lives of many poor people in Afghanistan and everywhere else."
"The human heart is first a human heart, then everything else - American, Christian, Asian, Jew, or whatever."
"What are American dry-goods? asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb.American novels, answered Lord Henry."
"The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form."
"They might watch American movies, wear American clothes, even read American books but Bush and the Iraq War have made actual American people social lepers; she only has to open her mouth in some places to feel a wave of loathing directed at her. Katie is weary of pointing out that at least half her countrymen detest their President even more than Europe does, but it’s no good."
"It's certainly not too late to change to the winning side. But you know, you also have the freedom to stay just where you are. That's what it means to be an American. That's the miracle of America. Freedom to believe means the freedom to believe the wrong thing, after all. Just as freedom of speech gives you the right to stay silent."
"Censorship is alive and well in America."
Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
"In my time first cousins did not meet like strangers. But we are learning modesty from the Americans, and old English ways are too gross for us."
"Denying the popular vote is un-American and anti-democratic."
"The sacrifice ‘of’ self for the greater good is the greatest calling imaginable, and it is the bedrock of the greatest nations. The sacrifice ‘for’ self is the most pathetic calling imaginable, and it is the quicksand within which nations perish."
"All children should be taught to unconditionally accept, approve, admire, appreciate, forgive, trust, and ultimately, love their own person."
"America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public taste is occupied with their trash--and should be ashamed of myself if I did succeed. What is the mystery of these innumberable editions of The Lamplighter (by Maria Susanna Cummins), and other books neither better nor worse? Worse they could not be, and better they need not be, when they sell by the hundred thousand."
"Religion serves all of us; men, women, gays, straights, blacks, whites, Americans and Indians. If it does not comply with our needs, wishes and happiness, then religion without a doubt is a plague that must be stopped."
"Finally, the president added, 'The American people are idealists, but they also want their leaders to be realistic..."
"For most Americans, our most precious possession is citizenship in this amazing country."
"Having a date with someone other than your ex-wife after being a married man for more than twenty five years was an important occasion alright, but wearing a tie she bought with such strong emotional value attached to it was a form of cowardice, a subconscious reluctance to let go."
"...that in spite of living in a mansion an American is not above wearing a pair of secondhand pants, bought for fifty cents."
"it ain't as hard as picking cotton"
"Even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of man. Science has liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example has kindled feelings of right in the people."
"It strikes me profoundly that the world is more often than not a bad and cruel place."
"All my life I wanted to go to bed with an American, and now I had, and I'm beginning to see why people don't do it more often."
"You are a stupid fucking woman, Emily Colt. Just like all your kind. I know you hate Americans, but—I never said I hated Americans, Sergei spat. I said your kind. Women. It doesn’t matter to me what country you’re from. You women are fucking stupid, and I’m tired of saving you. All of you."
"Respect your needs and limitations as you work through your grief and begin to heal"
"The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon [the 'Super', i.e. the hydrogen bomb] makes its very existence and the knowledge of its construction a danger to humanity as a whole. It is necessarily an evil thing considered in any light. For these reasons, we believe it important for the President of the United States to tell the American public and the world what we think is wrong on fundamental ethical principles to initiate the development of such a weapon."
"Look at the truth from how it stands, not where it comes from. The truth is still the truth no matter whether it is spoken by an Indian, an American, a Chinese, an European, an African or an Australian!"
"inspiration. five minutes in the back of a greyhound bus; the world passing by.a gateway to freedom.the american dream.from "the american dream"
"The pumpkin is a uniquely American plant, widely regarded as one of the most magical plants in all the world."
"Country music is the poetry of the American spirit."
Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
"American corporate capitalism is a murder-suicide mission."
Bryant McGill, Simple Reminders: Inspiration for Living Your Best Life
"Although I write in English, and despite the fact that I’m from America, I consider myself an Armenian writer. The words I use are in English, the surroundings I write about are American, but the soul, which makes me write, is Armenian. This means I am an Armenian writer and deeply love the honor of being a part of the family of Armenian wrtiters."
"Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it -- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain."
"The 'Righteous' are mightier than 'God."
"Thank you,’ I answered, unsure of the proper American response to her gracious enthusiasm. In the Arab world, gratitude is a language unto itself. “May Allah bless the hands that give me this gift”; “Beauty is in the eyes that find me pretty”; “May Allah never deny your prayer”; and so on, an infinite string of prayerful appreciation. Coming from such a culture, I have always found a mere “thank you” an insufficient expression that makes my voice sound miserly and ungrateful.” (169)."
"Americans are interesting creatures. They criticize those who speak their language with a slight accent but have no issues with butchering most other languages, my name included."
"Traditional American intellectuals are, in a sense, increasingly reactionary, and quite often proudly (and perversely) ignorant of many of the truly significant intellectual accomplishments of our time."
"When the average American says, “I’m starving,” it is a prelude to a midnight raid on a well-stocked refrigerator or a sudden trip to the nearest fast food restaurant."
Carolyn Custis James, The Gospel of Ruth: Loving God Enough to Break the Rules
"Despite a few exceptions, I have found that Americans are now far more willing to learn new names, just as they're far more willing to try new ethnic foods... It's like adding a few new spices to the kitchen pantry."
Firoozeh Dumas, Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America
"I still believe that many Americans have a deep longing for that glorious moment when a sermon is more Biblical than American."
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