American Made Quotes & Sayings

Though I work in New York City, in an office about a mile from the World Trade Center, I was not in New York City when the planes struck. I was on a plane above the Atlantic Ocean, heading back to New York from a family reunion and celebration in Europe. I had said good-bye to my husband in London; he was staying for a wedding of a business friend. I couldn't wait to see my kids and my parents, who would be waiting for me at a Little League game in our town, about thirty-five miles from New York City. An hour and a half into the flight, I suddenly had the feeling that the plane was making a slow turn. Nobody else seemed to notice. I sat nervously, hoping I was imagining it. But then a stewardess made an announcement. "There has been a catastrophic event affecting all of North American airspace," she said. "We are returning — Lauren Tarshis

The archetypal dwelling of the American frontier, the log cabin, was in fact a Scots development, if not invention. The word itself, cabine, meant any sort of rude enclosure or hut, made of stone and dirt in Scotland, or sod and mud in Ireland. — Arthur Herman

The Americans of the United States do not let their dogs hunt the Indians as do the Spaniards in Mexico, but at bottom it is the same pitiless feeling which here, as everywhere else, animates the European race. This world here belongs to us, they tell themselves every day: the Indian race is destined for final destruction which one cannot prevent and which it is not desirable to delay. Heaven has not made them to become civilized; it is necessary that they die. Besides I do not want to get mixed up in it. I will not do anything against them: I will limit myself to providing everything that will hasten their ruin. In time I will have their lands and will be innocent of their death.
Satisfied with his reasoning, the American goes to church where he hears the minister of the gospel repeat every day that all men are brothers, and that the Eternal Being who has made them all in like image, has given them all the duty to help one another. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Leadership cannot be created synthetically. Men must be what they were made by the Almighty or the American people will find them out in time. — Herbert Hoover

My book is focused on the power of the American state, not least because the government of the United States governs so much that the case could be made that everybody around the world ought to have a vote in determining some of its policies. — Todd Gitlin

A self-evident and prefabricated symbolism attaches itself to this slow climb to the zenith, and we are not so foolishly ironic, or confident, as to miss the opportunity to glimpse significantly into the eyes of the other and share the thought that occurs to all at this summit, which is, of course, that they have made it thus far, to a point where they can see horizons previously unseen, and the old earth reveals itself newly. Everything is further heightened, as we must obscurely have planned, by signs of sundown. — Joseph O'Neill

The fact is every single day in the ordinary American people, America's families have to make decisions about their families and that should be made by them, not by the Texas or United States. — Barack Obama

The earth was created by the assistance of the sun, and it should be left as it was. The country was made without lines of demarcation, and it is no man's business to divide it. — Chief Joseph

Surrogate experience and surrogate environments have become the American way of life. Distinctions are no longer made, or deemed necessary, between the real and the false; the edge usually goes to the latter, as an improved version with defects corrected - accessible and user-friendly ... — Ada Louise Huxtable

There is a lovely feature of the American psyche which rejects the notion that there are victims. In America, attitude is a magical elixir that cures everything. People are supposed to believe that they create their realities, and are solely responsible for every aspect of their lives. Everything is because of a choice you made somewhere. Somehow, you were supposed to not only be equipped to make the right choice at all times, despite your circumstances, but to know exactly what the outcome of every choice you made would be. This is all very convenient for the people at the top of our economic system with all the money and the power. Keeps the rest of us trying. — Carl-John X. Veraja

Last night, President Bush gave a prime-time press conference. It was such a big deal that Fox decided to preempt American Idol. Which made sense to me, you don't want too many amateurs on in one night. — David Letterman

When I was young and knew Virginia Woolf slightly, I learned something that startled me - that a person may be ultrasensitive and not warm. She was intensely curious and plied one with questions, teasing, charming questions that made the young person glow at being even for a moment the object of her attention. But I did feel at times as though I were "a specimen American young poet" to be absorbed and filed away in the novelist's store of vicarious experience. Then one had also the daring sense that anything could be said, the sense of freedom that was surely one of the keys to the Bloomsbury ethos, a shared secret amusement at human folly or pretensions. She was immensely kind to have seen me for at least one tea, as she did for some years whenever I was in England, but in all that time I never felt warmth, and this was startling. — May Sarton

The girl with the greyhound was an assistant lighting director for a musical comedy about American history, and she kept her poor greyhound, who was named Lancer, in a one-room apartment fourteen feet wide and twenty-six feet long, and six flights of stairs above the street level. His entire life was devoted to unloading his excrement at the proper time and place. There were two proper places to put it: in the gutter outside the door seventy-two steps below, with the traffic whizzing by, or in a roasting pan, his mistress kept in front of the Westinghouse refrigerator.
Lancer had a very small brain, but he must have suspected from time to time, just as Wayne Hoobler did, that some kind of terrible mistake had been made. — Kurt Vonnegut

Codfish aristocracy' is what they call us. Men who've made a fortune in business, but are common-born."
"Why codfish?"
"It used to refer to the rich merchants who settled the American colonies and made their money in the cod trade. Now it means any successful businessman."
"Nouveau riche is another term," Helen added. "It's never used as a compliment, of course. But it should be. Being self-made is something to be admired." As she felt his soundless chuckle, she insisted, "It is."
Rhys turned his head to kiss her. "You've no need to flatter my vanity."
"I'm not flattering you. I think you're remarkable. — Lisa Kleypas

In case after case, President Bush's actions have made American women less safe and less secure
on the job and on the streets. As president, I will put American government and our legal system back on the side of women. I will stand up for their security, ensure their safety, support their rights, and guarantee their dignity. This nation can do no less. — John F. Kerry

The psychological pain
and the ethical shame
of American poverty are made greater by the fact that this country possesses the wealth and the energy to raise all children to a minimally decent standard of living. — Kenneth Keniston

I'm a hybrid-genre person, which a lot of people find confusing. I grew up listening to American country music and rock n' roll made between 1955 and 1959. The Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry were my first musical loves and are still what I am most moved by. Roy Orbison came a little bit later. — Teddy Thompson

I invested in the album. Look, if I never did anything again in music, it wouldn't affect my life materially. I live a very satisfying life. Not because I've made a few dollars, but because I have a wife who loves me and children who wait for me to come home. And that is beautiful. I think that's the American dream: to be at peace at home. — RZA

It was the kind of barbarously sticky American afternoon that made me yearn for the shadows cast by scooting summer clouds in northern Europe ... — Joseph O'Neill

Some made the long drop from the apartment or the office window; some took it quietly in two-car garages with the motor running; some used the native tradition of the Colt or Smith and Wesson; those well-constructed implements that end insomnia, terminate remorse, cure cancer, avoid bankruptcy, and blast an exit from intolerable positions by the pressure of a finger; those admirable American instruments so easily carried, so sure of effect, so well designed to end the American dream when it becomes a nightmare, their only drawback the mess they leave for relatives to clean up. — Ernest Hemingway,

I always used to wonder why American actors were getting fat, then I made a U.S. movie. I'm seeing all the food every day, and there's lots of waiting around because making an American movie is very slow. — Donnie Yen

I think the name of the show, 'This American Life' - we named it that just because it seemed like it made the thing feel big. But we don't think about whether it's an American story or not. We happen to be Americans. I think for the stories to work, they have to be universal. — Ira Glass

It is a rare American who does not have some story about how music has made our lives richer and more interesting, how it has changed our moods, brought out the best in our character and even sometimes helped us earn a living. — Lamar Alexander

I think the most critical needs of the African-American communities aren't being addressed primarily because of decisions being made by Republican Congressional leaders. — Melissa Harris-Perry

Americans are suffering so much from being in unrewarding environments that it has made us very cynical. I think that American suburbia has become a powerful generator of anxiety and depression. — James Howard Kunstler

American mythology would have it that divorced or widowed women in their middle years were desperate to remarry. That had not been Polly's experience. Most had made lives they enjoyed and would only compromise for a very shiny white knight with a particularly breathtaking steed. — Nevada Barr

They were our enemies. Yet in those young men of Italy I'd seen something centuries old. An American is only as old as his years. A long line of something was hidden behind the bright eyes of those Italians. And then and there I decided to learn something of the modern world. There was something abroad which we Americans couldn't or wouldn't understand. But unless we made some attempt to realize that everyone in the world isn't American, and that not everything American is good, we'll all perish together, and in this twentieth century.... — John Horne Burns

Do you mind if I kiss you?" Morag asks, her Calvinist pallor giving way to high color, getting higher.
"Why?" I ask.
"I thought it might be fun," she says. "There's nobody about; our boys are away."
Has she made a presumption of unbridled sensuality as some do when they contemplate my tropical aspect? One
American boy, holding me too close, his body a monument to sweat, actually said, "Gee, I guess that means you can get into all those neat positions." Spoken with the logic of Cuvier contemplating the Venus Hottentot. — Michelle Cliff

The constant desire to win is a very American kind of trouble. Less glamorous gains made along the way--learning, wisdom, growth, and confidence, dealing with failure--aren't given the same respect because they can't be given a grade. — William Zinsser

To Mahmoud, Harshaw looked like a museum exhibit of what he thought of as a "Yank" - vulgar, dressed too informally for the occasion, loud, probably ignorant and almost certainly provincial. A professional man, too, which made it worse, as in Dr. Mahmoud's experience most American professional men were under-educated and narrow, mere technicians. — Robert A. Heinlein

Labour day is a great American holiday that people
celebrate by going out and buying products
made in China — David Letterman

Hispanic gives us all one ultimate paternal cultural progenitor: Spain. The diverse cultures already on the American shores when the Europeans arrived, as well as those introduced because of the African slave trade, are completely obliterated by the term. Hispanic is nothing more than a concession made by the U. S. legislature when they saw they couldn't get rid of us. If we won't go away, why not at least Europeanize us, make us presentable guests at the dinner table, take away our feathers and rattles and civilize us once and for all. — Ana Castillo

The American indie underground made music for like-minded people who thought for themselves. Thinking for yourself is intrinsically subversive. — Michael Azerrad

When I first envisioned 'Funny Games' in the mid-1990s, it was my intention to have an American audience watch the movie. It is a reaction to a certain American cinema, its violence, its naivety, the way American cinema toys with human beings. In many American films, violence is made consumable. — Michael Haneke

The difference between the American version of 'Live Aid' and the British one - in England, if you wanted a cup of tea, you made it yourself. If you wanted a sandwich, you bought it. In typical American style, at the American concert, there were laminated tour passes and champagne and caviar. — Phil Collins

I don't believe in that kind of American John Wayne individualism where people pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Someone changed your diapers. And if that's the case, you ain't self-made. — Michael Eric Dyson

This was the Mecca of the American Dream, the world that everyone wanted. A world of sleek young women (allied with Slenderella to be so) in shorts and halters, driving 400-horsepower station wagons to air-conditioned, music-serenaded supermarkets of baby-sitter corporations and culture condensed into Great Books discussion groups. A life of barbecues by the swimming pool and drive in movies open all year. It did't appeal to me. Fuck health insurance plans and life insurance. They wanted to live without leaving the womb. It made me more alive to play a game without rules against society, and I was prepared to play it to the end. A tremor almost sexual passed through me as I anticipated the comming robbery. — Edward Bunker

I feel the president is ignoring the opinion of many in the U.S. and alienating the rest of the world. My comments were made in frustration, and one of the privileges of being an American is you are free to voice your own point of view. — Natalie Maines

I have a slightly bad back, which has made an enormous contribution to American literature. — David Eddings

American journalists and politicians made a perfect spectacle of themselves in discussing the Abu Ghraib prison controversy. — Tony Snow

I can't help smiling at that. He is such an American, this son of mine. He thinks one's life can be distilled to a narrative that has a beginning and an end. He knows nothing about the kind of sacrifice that, once made, can never be either fully forgotten or fully borne. And how could he? I have protected him from all of that. — Kristin Hannah

It's a Belgian beer, sweetie. Please tell me you've at least heard of it. (Blaine)
Boy, I was born in Brussels and the last time I checked, this was my new homeland, America, not my birthplace. So you can either order an American-made beer or I'll bring you water and you can sit there and act all superior until you puke, okay? (Aimee) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

My eyes have really only been opened since you came into my world. You gave me everything. You made me really want to see what was around me, for the first time in my adult life. You made me want you. You made me want ... a life. You were my greatest give of all, Ethan James Blackstone." She reached up to touch my face and held her palm there, her eyes showing me so much of what she felt.
I covered her palm on my cheek with my hand. "As you were for me, my beautiful American girl. — Raine Miller

I've made it my mission to make movies starring African American actors and about the African American experience and put them in the mainstream. They're very universal stories I've told - every movie I've done. — Malcolm D. Lee

Some of the men were dressed like Peter and wore red plaid hunting jackets or bulky tan Carhartt jackets or lined flannel shirts, and all of those men were wearing jeans and work boots. Some of the men wore ski jackets and hiking boots and the sort of many-pocketed army green pants that made you want to get out of your seat and rappel. Some of the men wore wide-wale corduroy pants and duck boots and cable0knit sweaters and scarves. It was a regular United Nations of white American manhood. But all the men, no matter what they were wearing, were slouching in their chairs, with their legs so wide open that it seemed as though there must be something severely wrong with their testicles. — Brock Clarke

Peter Breggin, an American psychiatrist, had been criticising SSRIs since the early 1990s. He wrote 'Talking Back to Prozac' (1995) to repudiate psychiatrist Peter Kramer's 'Listening to Prozac' (1993) - a bestseller which claimed that Prozac made patients 'better than well.' — John Cornwell

It was incredibly cheesy set with torches [TV's Survivor] - it looked like the lobby of the Enchanted Tiki Room at Disneyland. And here as some guy pulling names out of a coconut, and I said, 'This is the thing that has made American mass media stop in their tracks? — Tom Hanks

War is now a form of TV entertainment, and what made the First World War so particularly entertaining were two American inventions, barbed wire and the machine gun. — Kurt Vonnegut

It is the American air protection, which safeguards the freedom enjoyed by the Kurdish region. It guarantees the cultural, health and civilizational progress made in Iraqi Kurdistan. — Jalal Talabani

He was fascinated by the mid-western/middle American phenomenon of recombinant cuisine. Rice Krispie Treats being a prototypical example in that they were made by repurposing other foods that had already been prepared (to wit, breakfast cereal and marshmallows). And of course, any recipe that called for a can of cream of mushroom soup fell into the same category. The unifying principle behind all recombinant cuisine seemed to be indifference, if not outright hostility, to the use of anything that a coastal foodie would define as an ingredient. — Neal Stephenson

American society to me and my brother was thrilling because, first of all, the food made noise. We were so excited about Rice Krispies and Coca-Cola. We had only silent food in our country, and we loved listening to our lunch and breakfast. — Mike Nichols

Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky, and water was a real and active principle. In the animal and bird world there existed a brotherly feeling that kept us safe among them ... The animals had rights - the right of man's protection, the right to live, the right to multiply, the right to freedom, and the right to man's indebtedness. This concept of life and its relations filled us with the joy and mystery of living; it gave us reverence for all life; it made a place for all things in the scheme of existence with equal importance to all. — Chief Luther Standing Bear

In the last few decades entire new categories of waste have come to plague and menace the American scene. Pollution is growing at a rapid rate. Pollution destroys beauty and menaces health. It cuts down on efficiency, reduces property values and raises taxes. Almost all these wastes and pollutions are the result of activities carried on for the benefit of man. A prime national goal must be an environment that is pleasing to the senses and healthy to live in. Our Government is already doing much in this field. We have made significant progress. But more must be done. — Lyndon B. Johnson

Almost as remarkable as the hoax itself, and indicative of the enormous cultural power of its perpetrators, is the fact that the revelation of Rigoberta's mendacity has changed almost nothing. The Nobel committee has already refused to take back her prize, many of the thousands of college courses that make her book a required text for American college students will continue to do so, and the editorial writers of the major press institutions have already defended her falsehoods on the same grounds that supporters of Tawana Brawley's parallel hoax made famous: even if she's lying, she's telling the truth. — David Horowitz

I have made sense of my life by developing an ability to analyze Mainstream American Cultural Artifacts. — George W. S. Trow

The best advice I could give is be yourself. Before I was on the American Idol show I made goals for myself. I said, "Who do I want to be, and what will I compromise, or won't I compromise?" And then, I stuck with that. — Carmen Rasmusen

The American citizen must be made aware that today a relatively small group of people is proclaiming its purposes to be the will of the People. That elitist approach to government must be repudiated. — William E. Simon

She'd heard of black American Express cards before, because famous people had them, and now she was holding one with her name on it. The card was cool against her skin, like it was made out of metal instead of plastic, and it was thick and heavy, so it didn't bend like a normal credit card. Would it even slide through a swipe machine? She hit it against her palm, surprised by the echo of the metal. Rock-solid, it felt indestructible. — Michelle Madow

Jenny Marzen made millions of dollars, as opposed to nickels, by writing novels that got seriously reviewed while selling big. Amy had skimmed her first one, a mildly clever thing about a philosophy professor who discovers her husband is cheating on her with one of her grad students, and who, while feigning ignorance of the affair, drives the girl mad with increasingly brutal critiques and research tasks, at one point banishing her to Beirut, first to learn fluent Arabic and then to read Avicenna's Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb, housed in the American University. This was, Amy thought, a showoffy detail that hinted at Marzen's impressive erudition but was probably arrived at within five Googling minutes. — Jincy Willett

Paradoxically, in its quest to make Americans more secure, the NSA has made American communications less secure; it has undermined the safety of the entire internet. — Luke Harding

There were protocols to meet for the historic occasion. On the lunar dust they placed mementoes for the five-deceased American and Soviet spacemen, Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee, Vladimir Komarov, and Yuri Gagarin (who died in a plane crash in 1968). They unsheathed a metal disc on the descent stage with engraved messages to future moon visitors. As Neil Armstrong read the plaque's words, his voice carried throughout the world. "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon, July 1969, AD. We came in peace for all mankind." There was yet another small cargo - private and precious - carried by Neil Armstrong to the moon. It was not divulged at the time, but he carried the diamond-studded astronaut pin made especially for Deke Slayton by the three Apollo 1 astronauts and presented to him by their widows after that dreadful fire. — Alan Shepard

When I was twenty-one, a friend gave me a book called Diet for a New America by John Robbins, which exposed the brutal practices of American factory farms. That, coupled with a lecture from Leonardo DiCaprio (when he was nineteen and I was twenty-one) about how such animals are kept and processed, made me lose my desire for factory farm pork and beef right there. — Gwyneth Paltrow

But American statesmen have studied the constitutions of other states more than that of their own, and have succeeded in obscuring the American system in the minds of the people, and giving them in its place pure and simple democracy, which is its false development or corruption. Under the influence of this false development, the people were fast losing sight of the political truth that, though the people are sovereign, it is the organic, not the inorganic people, the territorial people, not the people as simple population, and were beginning to assert the absolute God-given right of the majority to govern. All the changes made in the bosom of the States themselves have consisted in removing all obstacles to the irresponsible will of the majority, leaving minorities and individuals at their mercy. This tendency to a centralized democracy had more to do with provoking secession and rebellion than the anti-slavery sentiments of the Northern, Central, and Western States. — Orestes Augustus Brownson

Jesse Owen was bigger than a black hero, he was an American hero. For me, I looked at it from that perspective. Through my research, I obviously learned a lot, much of which made me sad, upset, disappointed and even angry, regarding what Jesse had to go through. Not only was he a black man in America during an age of high racial tension and segregation, but he was also living in the middle of the Great Depression - it was very difficult times for him and his family. — Stephan James

I am the Great White Buffalo and I play an American-made Gibson guitar that can blow your head clean off at 100 paces. — Ted Nugent

Today's secular libertarians, who want to remove biblical religion from public life, have trouble making sense of the civil rights movement because it was so clearly a religiously inspired movement that entered the public arena and made a major difference in American life. — Bruce L. Shelley

Every American wants MORE MORE of the world and why not, you only live once. But the mistake made in America is persons accumulate more more dead matter, machinery, possessions & rugs & fact information at the expense of what really counts as more: feeling, good feeling, sex feeling, tenderness feeling, mutual feeling. You own twice as much rug if you're twice as aware of the rug. — Allen Ginsberg

The emphasis on technology over an understanding of the realities of war and conflict reflect[s] the ahistoricism not only of too much of the U.S. military officer corps, but of the American educational system as well. Our mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan were the result of a pervasive failure to understand the historical framework within which insurgencies take place, to appreciate the cultural and political factors of other nations and people, and to encourage the learning of foreign languages. In other words, in Afghanistan and Iraq we managed to repeat many of the mistakes we made in Vietnam, because America's political and military leaders managed to forget nearly every lesson of that conflict. — Peter R. Mansoor

The Court's decision reflects the philosophy that judges should endure whatever interpretive distortions it takes in order to correct a supposed flaw in the statutory machinery. That philosophy ignores the American people's decision to give Congress '[a]ll legislative Powers' enumerated in the Constitution. They made Congress, not this Court, responsible for both making laws and mending them. — Antonin Scalia

In any case, decisions on troop levels in the American system of government are not made by any general or set of generals but by the civilian leadership of the war effort. — Bill Kristol

Hillary Clinton made history becoming the first woman to win a major party nomination for president. She's done so even as many Americans say they don't trust her. Her close friends and family say there's a disconnect between the Hillary Clinton that they know and the one the rest of American knows. — Audie Cornish

While I don't like violent programs per se, I do like good storytelling, which made me a fan of shows like Breaking Bad and American Horror Story. — Hank Stuever

Most of the best music in American history was made by people with no options. — Isaac Brock

American men had made do for so long with smiling chorines and sweet titillation in their sleazy magazine that no one realised how hungry they were to have their sex mixed with terror and blood. — Gerard Jones

Decolonisation seems to have dented little the sense of superiority that since 1945 has made American leaders in particular consistently underestimate the intensity of nationalist feeling in Asia and Africa. — Pankaj Mishra

We come from a country that has made a fetish if not a virtue out of proving it can live without art: high, low, old, new, fat, lean, and particularly the rarely visible nocturnal art of poetry.
We must do something with our time on this small aleatory sphere for motives other than money. Power is not an acceptable surrogate. — C.D. Wright

Our government leaders ... have made many mistakes in the past when they have lost sight of the sacred American values rooted in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We are at the brink of even graver mistakes and assaults on these values. — Samuel Dash

It argued a special genius; he was clearly a case of that. The spark of fire, the point of light, sat somewhere in his inward vagueness as a lamp before a shrine twinkles in the dark perspective of a church; and while youth and early middle-age, while the stiff American breeze of example and opportunity were blowing upon it hard, had made the chamber of his brain a strange workshop of fortune. This establishment, mysterious and almost anonymous, the windows of which, at hours of highest pressure, never seemed, for starers and wonderers, perceptibly to glow, must in fact have been during certain years the scene of an unprecedented, a miraculous white-heat, the receipt for producing which it was practically felt that the master of the forge could not have communicated even with the best intentions. — Henry James

It is statistically irrefutable that those American cities with stringent "gun control" (e.g. N.Y.C., D.C., Chicago, L.A.) have higher crime rates. It is also irrefutable that those 31 states which have made conceal carry of handguns easy for law-abiding citizens have correspondingly enjoyed significant drops in their crime rates. — Kenneth W. Royce

My earliest memories of horror are 'Friday the 13th Part 2,' John Carpenter's 'The Thing,' 'Halloween,' 'An American Werewolf in London,' and 'A Nightmare On Elm Street' ... and 'Hatchet' is so obviously inspired by those films that I may as well have made it in 1984. — Adam Green

Sketches Einstein: His Life and Universe A Benjamin Franklin Reader Benjamin Franklin: An American Life Kissinger: A Biography The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (with Evan Thomas) — Walter Isaacson

I knew that good people who wanted to be a part of the American dream have become trapped in dependency because the federal government and the state government had made it in their economic interest not to take a job because the benefits that they didn't work were better. I changed that. — George Pataki

Few places in American culture have made as effective a case for entrepreneurship than hip-hop. Hip-hop tells young people that our society is offering very limited options for youth. And that while society points to a radical decline in living wage jobs for youth and meaningful and affordable education, hip-hop is offering an alternative legitimate economy that is giving youth hope. — Bakari Kitwana

I certainly used to wish that I was skinny, lighter-skinned, with long, pretty hair. But only because I used to get made fun of for being the absolute opposite. I didn't see all of that stuff as the American Dream. I just wanted to look normal. Now that I'm older, I really do feel like I am a beautiful girl. — Gabourey Sidibe

American pop group N'SYNC's. I listened to it endlessly in my dad's car. This also made me wanna be a singer. — Seungri

More material progress has been made during the past one hundred and fifty years under the American system of business enterprise than during all the preceding centuries in world history. This record of achievement is a challenge to those who would radically change that system. — Karl Taylor Compton

But when they brought Sabira out, the crowd parted almost magically. A sea of hands rose faster than a swell and a bidding war commenced, amongst these civilized gentlemen who made their living off the backs of slaves. — Jay Grewal

Wasn't that what Jesus said: do what I do? He was here as an example for us to follow. Same with all prophets. Didn't the prophets tell us to be like them? That's what's wrong with Christianity. They make Jesus and the prophets into icons, take them off of earth, and put them in heaven to worship them, so they're no longer accessible. You've taken a reality and made it into a worthless idol. Christians talk about the idolatry of other religions, but when they no longer live principles and just worship the people who taught them, that's exactly what they're doing. — Daniel Suelo

It was just a word. It took nothing from him. It made him feel only as low as he allowed himself to feel. His own brother used it in conversation habitually. But not in the same way - filled with malice, overflowing with insult. He couldn't tear his eyes away, shook with lust for retribution. Six little letters making one huge statement. NIGGER. — Roy L. Pickering Jr.

For years, I wanted to know if there was one person, one voice, one individual inside me. All my life people would call me a chink or a chigger. I couldn't listen to hip-hop and be myself without people questioning my authenticity. Chinese people questioned my yellowness because I was born in America. The white people questioned my identity as an American because I was yellow.
No black or Spanish person ever called me chigger, but hustling all of a sudden got white people off my back. I was the same dude with a different job, but now I was finally "authentic" to white people, and it made me realized it's all a trap. We can't fucking win. If I follow the rules and play the model minority, I'm a lapdog under a bamboo ceiling. If I like hip-hop because I see solidarity, I'm aping. But, if I throw it all away, shit on my parents, sell weed, pills, and strike fear into unsuspecting white boys with stunt Glocks, now I's authentic? Fuck you, America. (171) — Eddie Huang

I was born on the other side of the tracks, in public housing in Brooklyn, New York. My dad never made more than $20,000 a year, and I grew up in a family that lost health insurance. So I was scarred at a young age with understanding what it was like to watch my parents lose access to the American dream. — Howard Schultz

I rapped on the door. By which I mean I knocked on it, not that I did a little MC-ing. But if I had've done a little MC-ing, it would've been quite angry stuff, like NWA when they're on about the Rodney King incident. Only I'd have made it less about police brutality and more about old Devon men ripping young folk off with their made-up stories of broken down cars. And there I think you'll find the main difference between British and American crime. — Danny Wallace

My first American ancestor, gentlemen, was an Indian-an early Indian. Your ancestors skinned him alive, and I am an orphan. All those Salem witches were ancestors of mine. Your people made it tropical for them ... The first slave brought into New England out of Africa was an ancestor of mine-for I am a mixed breed, an infinitely shaded and exquisite Mongrel. — Mark Twain

YOUR WORDS ARE MADE OF THE AIR I BREATHE. — Amy King

Thanks to Barack Obama, America is for the first time aligning its values with those of 'the majority of the world's population.' If you think the world's population has had better values than America, that is has made societies that are more open, free, and tolerant than American society, and that is has fought for others' liberty more than America has, you should be delighted. — Dennis Prager

In the Culture of Character, the ideal self was serious, disciplined, and honorable. What counted was not so much the impression one made in public as how one behaved in private. The word personality didn't exist in English until the eighteenth century, and the idea of "having a good personality" was not widespread until the twentieth. But when they embraced the Culture of Personality, Americans started to focus on how others perceived them. They became captivated by people who were bold and entertaining. "The social role demanded of all in the new Culture of Personality was that of a performer," Susman famously wrote. "Every American was to become a performing self. — Susan Cain

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. — Amanda Craig

Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan had tremendous influence on generations of American because, even if people disagreed with them, they admired them because they made very strong commitments to things they believed in. — Phil Crane

American naturalist William Morton Wheeler made the English term popular as the study of "habits and instincts."11 — Frans De Waal

Small business is the gateway to opportunity for those who want a piece of the American dream. [ ... ] Well, wouldn't it be nice to hear a little more about the forgotten heroes of America-those who create most of our new jobs, like the owners of stores down the street; the faithfuls who support our churches, synagogues, schools, and communities; the brave men and women everywhere who produce our goods, feed a hungry world, and keep our families warm while they invest in the future to build a better America? That's where miracles are made, not in Washington, D.C. — Ronald Reagan