American Me Funny Quotes & Sayings

The first thing that strikes you about Timothy Murphys verse is the palpable texture of his line - that sound of sense practised by that other American poet-farmer, Robert Frost. And just as Murphys ear is trained on the rhythms of local speech and classical epigram, his eye holds fast on the image. This is an undeluded vision, sometimes bleak, often funny, and never less than painstakingly crafted. — Michael Donaghy

It is more worthy in the eyes of God ... if a writer makes three pages sharp and funny about the lives of geese than to make three hundred fat and flabby about God or the American people. — Garrison Keillor

The bartender put a notepad and a pencil before me. Breathing hard, the pencil trembling, I wrote:
Dear Sinclair Lewis:
You were once a god, but now you are a swine. I once reverenced you, admired you, and now you are nothing. I came to shake your hand in adoration, you, Lewis, a giant among American writers, and you rejected it. I swear I shall never read another line of yours again. You are an ill-mannered boor. You have betrayed me. I shall tell H. L. Muller about you, and how you have shamed me. I shall tell the world.
Arturo Bandini
P.S. I hope you choke on your steak. — John Fante

I couldn't figure out if it was fate or faith that had brought me there. How funny those two words sounded when paired together. One was the inevitable, something I could not change in my life, while the other was the hope and belief that I could. These two words were enemies of each other, and one of them was down right dangerous for a slave to have anywhere near his mind. — Jay Grewal

I'm not a comedian. I'm not a show host. I'm a musician. That's why I've turned down offers to host the Grammy Awards and the American Music Awards. Is it really entertaining for me to get up there and crack a few weak jokes and force people to laugh because I'm Michael Jackson, when I know in my heart that I'm not funny? — Michael Jackson

Have you seen the Olympic uniforms? It's for the American Olympic team and it's berets. To me, nothing says America like a guy in a beret. Look at our founding fathers, they all wore berets. — David Letterman

What I fell in love with as a child was 'My Fair Lady,' 'Funny Face,' 'American in Paris,' and 'Singin' in the Rain.' Just perfect movies to me and I was dancing. I started ballet when I was three. And I fell in love with those movies and fell in love with Audrey Hepburn and Leslie Caron. — Dianna Agron

These same ABCs couldn't speak Chinese and didn't care---but you don't have shit without your native tongue. African slaves were forced by threat of physical punishment to abandon their native languages, but a lot of us just gave ours up with a shrug---these Uncle Chans convinced us to assimilate, shut the fuck up, and play the part. What they didn't understand is that after your have the money and degrees, you can't buy your identity back. I wasn't worried about degrees, but I cared about my roots. Even if I hated what it meant to be an Asian in t he American wilderness, i respected the Chinese home I was raised in. Usually I wasn't so vocal about Asian identity, but without my parents around, I felt a sudden duty to say something myself. It's funny how annoying I thought my mom was, but as soon as she wasn't around, i carried the torch for her. — Eddie Huang

Why is American beer served cold? So you can tell it from urine. — Dave Moulton

My grandmothers are Irish-American and German-American; my grandfather is from the Caribbean. My father is African-American. My family looked funny. I just started naturally imitating whoever I was talking to. I didn't want to be a phony, but I felt very authentic in the moment. — Sarah Jones

I said. "I'm fine. I have a little bit of a head ache, but I'm not dizzy or nauseous. I can walk and talk just fine, and I can remember everything." "Everything, huh? Don't self-diagnose, Doctor Fisher. Do you remember when the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought?" "The what?" "The Battle of Bunker Hill. We covered it in World Civ." "No, we did not." "We did, too. The unit on the American Revolution." "Davin, that was like, two years ago! I don't remember stuff like that!" "So, not everything." "Everything important." "That happens to have been a very significant battle," Davin reminded me, in a smug tone. — J.M. Richards

I'm Russian," Misha said with the faintest hint of a smile. "We angst, Max."
"I see that. Well, I'm American. We force shit on other people if we think they need it. — Avon Gale

Lash had been explaining to her that it's impolite to refer to an African American as a nigga, unless one was another African American, when Troy Lee came in and said, "She only speaks Cantonese."
"She does not. She keeps coming in and saying 'What's up my nigga?'"
"Oh yeah. She does that to me, too. Did you give her a pound?"
"No. I didn't give her a pound, motherfucker. She called me a nigga."
"Well, she's not going to quit unless you give her a pound. It's just the way she rolls."
"That's some bullshit, Troy."
"It's her couch. — Christopher Moore

I'm a misplaced American, but don't know where I was misplaced. — Ruby Wax

Bob Saget was known, in the comedy clubs in those days, as extremely funny but with dark humor. It was always an inside joke among comics, when he got Full House, it was, like, wow, hes playing this all-American dad kind of thing. That was not Bob Saget. His comedic style is definitely more twisted, and he has an edgier side than he showed in Full House. — Bob Saget

By all means, stay," Anne said. "Have a seat. We'll take care of you next."
"Yeah, see, I think someone else is going to be on trial next." Baring my teeth at her in a grin I pulled out my file folder. "I've got some interesting reading here. And I even brought copies for everyone so you don't have to share."
A distinguished-looking South American man on the end shook his head. "What is this? Another farce?"
"No, but bonus points for using a funny word. You really want to read what I have here. Anne, you'll be especially interested, since you have a starring role."
"Enough. Rhia - "
Reth quickly flicked his wrist at her; her mouth kept moving, but no sound came out. It was one of the most satisfying things I'd ever seen. Sure, that trick had sucked when he used it on me, but I wholly approved of it now. — Kiersten White

Whenever I'm in the U.K., people say I have an American accent. Which is, obviously, funny. — Zedd

Politically Incorrect was the name of the show Bill Maher hosted in the 1990s. It's also an apt description of the man himself. Now host of
HBO's hit show Real Time, I find Maher to be one of the sharpest observers of American politics and life in general out there. It doesn't mean I always agree with him. I always find him funny, though. — Fareed Zakaria

There are people who know Hillary Clinton who tell wonderful stories about her, how likable she is, how funny she is; 99 percent of American people don't - have never seen that side of her. — Mark Shields

Here's what I like about God: Trees are crooked, mountains are lumpy, a lot of his creatures are funny-looking, and he made it all anyway. He didn't let the aardvark convince him he had no business designing creatures. He didn't make a puffer fish and get discouraged. No, the maker made things - and still does. European film directors often enjoy creative careers, during which their films mature from the manifestos of angry young men to the rueful wisdom of great works by creative masters. Is an afternoon siesta the secret? Is their vita just a little more dolce? We've taken espresso to our American hearts, but we haven't quite taken to the "break" in our coffee breaks. Worried about playing the fool, we forget how to simply play. We try to make our creativity linear and goal oriented. We want our "work" to lead somewhere. We forget that diversions do more than merely divert us. — Julia Cameron

Humor is so culturally based that when I try to tell a joke as me being a white American, if I tell other white Americans, they'll laugh. If I tell an African American, they might not laugh. In fact, they either might not find it funny, or they might find it offensive, and I didn't mean it to be offensive. So these are the sort of little things that build up over time, just like in a marriage. You know, the little things can build up over time. — Michael Emerson

Jake Johnson wanted to make clear that he was the great American actor, not just the funny guy on 'New Girl.' — Colin Trevorrow

The American's head are on their chins a little bit at the moment — Ron Pickering

In the emergency of growing up, we all need heroes. But the father I grew up with was no hero to me, not then. He was too wounded in the head, too endlessly and terribly sad. Too funny, too explosive, too confusing. Heroes are uncomplicated. *This* makes them do *that* ... But the war does not make sense. War senselessly wounds everyone right down the line. A body bag fits more than just its intended corpse. Take the 58,000 American soldiers lost in Vietnam and multiply by four, five, six - and only then does one begin to realize the damage this war has done ... War when necessary, is unspeakable. When unnecessary, it is unforgivable. It is not an occasion for heroism. It is an occasion only for survival and death. To regard war in any other way only guarantees its inevitable reappearance. — Tom Bissell

It's very funny, American society: White culture can do all sorts of things and get away with it, but the minute a black person does it, it's interpreted in some way. — Jamaica Kincaid

American rock has a sort of self-pitying whine to it. — Bill Bailey

Seinfeld was typically American in that show. He was a pretty funny guy, but he had no sense of style. Tacky like a Texan tux. Tasteless dressing and tasteful jokes. That's Seinfeld for me. I would have preferred it the other way around. — Hallgrimur Helgason

They only trusted the wisdom of people brighter and more worldly than themselves when it was expressed in the vocabulary and style of rural idiots. In his guise as Brazenydol, he had once had a contract with DARPA to teach a team of physicists the basic terminology of tractor pulls so that they could give an acceptable explanation of omniwavelength stealth to a Congressional committee that didn't understand tractor pulls, either. — John Barnes

American voices, country voices, high-pitched and without mercy. He lies freezing, wondering if the bedsprings will give him away. For possibly the first time he is hearing America as it must sound to a non-American. Later he will recall that what surprised him most was the fanaticism, the reliance not just on flat force but on the rightness of what they planned to do ... he'd been told long ago to expect this sort of thing from Nazis, and especially from Japs - we were the ones who always played fair - but this pair outside the door now are as demoralizing as a close-up of John Wayne (the angle emphasizing how slanted his eyes are, funny you never noticed before) screaming BANZAI! — Thomas Pynchon

There's nothing American tourists like more than the things they can get at home. — Stephen Colbert

Mr. Idris Elba is amazing! He happens to be British, but what's funny about him is that when he's speaking in his American dialect, he looks like he's a brother from the 'hood. But as soon as he brings out that English thing, I'm like, 'Woo! You look like you're from London. Oh my God!' It's like everything on him changes. He's so cool! — Tasha Smith

The next world is 'segregated'? You can go to the World of Yin only if you're Chinese?"
"No-no! Miss Banner, she not Chinese, she go to Yin World. All depend what you love, what you believe. You love Jesus, go Jesus House. You love Allah, go Allah Land. You love sleep, go sleep."
"What if you don't believe in anything for sure before you die?"
"Then you go big place, like Disneyland, many places can go try
you like, you decide. No charge, of course. — Amy Tan

When I got a call to do the voice of Johnny in an episode of 'American Dad' titled 'I Can't Stan You,' it was a great opportunity to be a part of a really funny cutting-edge show on television. I really got into the character, and I was able to do some improvisation, which allowed me to mix in part of my personality into the script. — Paul Butcher

Because I'm attracted to you. Because you're the poster child for contradictions and I enjoy each one of them. You're funny when you're being so damn serious. You have a kind heart and protective nature that reminds me so much of my father. — N.D. Jones

It's funny because ever since 'American Idol,' people look at me without makeup and think I'm 15 years old - they think I'm really young and quiet and shy, and that I've never been in a relationship and have never been in love or anything. — Candice Glover

I'm an American so its kind of hard for me to talk about 9/11. So whenever someone brings it up in a conversation, I say "I didn't like 9/11." — Zach Galifianakis

American comedies about Asians have never been funny to me. That always kind of pissed me off. — Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa

I love the script and I just thought it was a great role. Like I say, it's like this - the script is like this sad, funny, desperate love song to the lost American man. — Oliver Platt

Will looked at Evie funny. "Advertising?"
"Yes. You've heard of it, haven't you? Swell modern invention. It lets people know about something they need. Soap, lipstick, radios - or your museum, for instance. We could start with a catchy slogan, like, 'The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult - we've got the spirit! — Libba Bray

Make a sex tape, upload it, get on a reality show, release a perfume, retire. That's the new American dream. — Natasha Leggero

Funny, how the American team appealed to so many people because it was unsullied by money, and selfishness and corporate fingerprints, and yet when Chastain removed her shirt the old cynicism returned immediately. Surely, many thought and wrote, she had a deal with Nike to flash her bra and to make her body a living, breathing mannequin. — Jere Longman

What y'all ladies got to share? Hmmm, what you bitches got?"

Aunt Georgia sighed and squinted at the boy. She said, "The Lord loves a cheerful giver, but I'm just not in the mood."

The thug moved his hand from his crotch to his scalp, still scratching. "What in the hell's that supposed to mean?" Mrs. Cleveland raised and pumped her walking stick, which, it turned out, was a double-barreled shotgun.

"It means take one more step," she said, "and I'll blast you to hell, you ignorant-ass bastard. — Jabari Asim

My "Christianity" was once again just the American religion of work hard, do good, feel good, and maybe God will say, "We good. — Jefferson Bethke

I was a little bit ashamed of American TV because I thought, 'None of the shows my father works on are as funny as my father.' — Joss Whedon

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

It's funny because when I'm outside Australia, I never get to do my Australian accent in anything. It's always a Danish accent or an English accent or an American accent. — Mallory Jansen

Some call-in moderators are neutral and courteous. Then there's Rush Limbaugh, who is funny and pompous and a scapegoater and hatemonger. His popularity could cause you to draw some terrible conclusions about the state of mind of the American people. It helps to remember that Bill Cosby is popular, too. — Donella Meadows

Linda Brewer's example is inspiring, colorful and potentially very funny. Her journey also exists firmly in the Heartland tradition of American success stories and comedies. — David Duchovny

In this funny debut, flashy Filipino fashion designer Boy Hernandez sees his American dream become a nightmare when he's ensnared in a terrorist plot and shipped to Guantanamo. Gilvarry nails the couture scene, but Boy's rough journey from Manolo to Gitmo is no joke. — Andrew Abrahams

Again, this week as I walked on Broadway, in front of giant photographs of voluptuous supermodels at a Victoria Secret mega-store, who was rebuilding the sidewalks? With sweaty headbands, ripped-up jeans, and dust on their brown faces? Their muscled hands quivered as they worked the jack-hammers and lugged the concrete chunks into dump trucks. Two men from Guanajuato. Undocumented workers. They both shook my hand vigorously, as if they were relieved I wasn't an INS officer.
I imagined how much money Victoria Secret was making off these poor bastards. I wondered why passersby didn't see what was in front of their faces. We use these workers. We profit from them. In the shadows, they work to the bone, for pennies. And it's so easy to blame them for everything and nothing simply because they are powerless, and dark-skinned,and speak with funny accents. Illegal is illegal. It is a phrase, shallow and cruel, that should prompt any decent American to burn with anger. — Sergio Troncoso

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

Wasn't it thrilling when the U.S. Women's team took home the gold in gymnastics? A group of American teenagers getting a higher score than Chinese kids? That never happens. — Jay Leno

Makeup's just crazy, anyways. Native Americans used to wear it, and it did all right for them until, uh ... well, until you killed them all, I suppose. — Eddie Izzard

That's why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it. — George Carlin

I have to return some videotapes — Bret Easton Ellis

Everyone tells me I have a funny accent. It's because I copy people. I learned English at school but have best friends who are French, Australian, English and American; a very weird mix. — Caroline Winberg

Roy Blount is so funny, and he sounds like he's just talking, and the next thing you know he has tossed off
an essay as elegant and intricately structured as a birdsong. His ear for American speech is better than anybody's. — Ian Frazier

Remove yourself, sir! — David McCullough

There are also a number of humans living up there (Canada), and in many ways they have a lifestyle quite similar to ours, including such traditional American activities as driving Japanese cars. — Dave Barry

It's been a while. I haven't seen the actual gag reel they put on the DVD. I just saw the DVD myself, so I know that it's going to be some version of what we saw at our wrap party. Some of the funniest things probably wouldn't make it to the DVD and that involved Ryan O'Neal singing and they intercut that with the American Idol judges judging him, which was pretty funny. — Emily Deschanel

All you crazy white people "I'm American!", all you did was come out of your mother's pussy on American soil. That's it. That's it! What, you think you're better than somebody from France 'cause you came out of a pussy in Detroit? — Chris Rock

Coca-Cola remains emblematic of the best and worst of America and Western civilization. The history of Coca-Cola is the often funny story of a group of men obsessed with putting a trivial soft drink "within an arm's reach of desire." But at the same time, it is a microcosm of American history. Coca-Cola grew up with the country, shaping and shaped by the times. The drink not only helped to alter consumption patterns, but attitudes toward leisure, work, advertising, sex, family life, and patriotism. — Mark Pendergrast

I did not see myself as a leading lady. I thought I was really funny-looking and I would never be the lead, and I certainly would never do film or television. I wanted to do theater. I wanted to be the grand dame of the American stage. — Kathy Baker

The work of Jana Harris is unique in American writing. She has always had a voice of true grit - sometimes harsh, sometimes funny, always close to the bone, tart, and indomitable. — Alicia Ostriker