American Pie Quotes & Sayings

Influenced by Pete Seeger and the Weavers, McLean proudly wore the mantle of troubadour in the early 1970s, when 'American Pie' topped the Billboard charts, and has never shed the cape. — Douglas Brinkley

Despite the obvious damage now visible in the entropic desolation of every American home town, Wal-Mart managed to install itself in the pantheon of American Dream icons, along with apple pie, motherhood, and Coca Cola. — James Howard Kunstler

Mess is fairly good. It is like what is found in American hotels except for cake and pie. — Knute Nelson

Jihad is becoming as American as apple pie and as British as afternoon tea. — Anwar Al-Awlaki

I've always loved movies about con men. I think con men are as American as apple pie. — Bill Paxton

Pessimism is as American as apple pie - frozen apple pie with a slice of processed cheese. — George Will

When I was doing the first 'American Pie' movie, I was just happy to have a job. We had a good time, and it was a great group of people, but like any project that I've worked on in my career, you just put your best foot forward, and you're all working together to make the best movie possible. — Thomas Ian Nicholas

Outsourcing was the bogeyman of the '90s. Protectionists portrayed it as an evil that would take American jobs away. Yes, some jobs did go offshore as people feared, but it made the global economic pie grow bigger. — Vivek Wadhwa

Bye, Bye Miss American Pie, drove my chevy to the levy but the levy was dry. Good old boys drinking whiskey and rye, singing, this'll be the day that I die. — Don McLean

Don King is as American as apple pie. He is America. — Ving Rhames

The rest of the world loves soccer. Surely we must be missing something. Uh, isn't that what the Russians told us about communism? There's a good reason why you don't care about soccer - it's because you are an American and hating soccer is more American than mom's apple pie, driving a pick-up and spending Saturday afternoon channel-surfing with the remote control. — Tom Weir

When we think of classic American desserts, we tend to imagine apple pie and ice cream. However, the most classic American dessert of all might be the chocolate chip cookie. — Homaro Cantu

That song didn't just happen. It grew out of my experiences. 'American Pie' was part of my process of self-awakening: a mystical trip into my past. — Don McLean

As you can imagine, over the years I have been asked many times to discuss and explain my song "American Pie" I have never discussed the lyrics, but have admitted to the Holly reference in the opening stanzas. You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me ... Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence. — Don McLean

I get a lot of dark scripts now. I don't wanna be stuck doing movies like American Pie. For someone my age, once you get started doing them, it's hard to get out. — Agnes Bruckner

Violence against women is as American as apple pie. I know, not only as a legislator, but from personal experience. — Gwen Moore

In a sense, 'American Pie' was a very despairing song but it can also be seen as very hopeful. — Don McLean

I am as proud to be called a feminist as I am to be called a Jew, or an American. Feminism is an indivisible part of who I am, and I remain mystified by the stigma that has been attached to the idea that women are human beings.
It sounds so obvious and simple to me, so motherhood and apple pie. And yet the idea that women are human beings remains news, a message that requires constant, clear, and artful reinforcement in a world that continues to undermine the confidence and abilities of girls and women. On the day that the intelligence and talents of women are fully honored and employed, the human community and the planet itself will benefit in ways we can only being to imagine. — Anita Diamant

It may sound reactionary, I know. But we can all feel it. We've changed the way we think of ourselves as citizens. We don't think of ourselves as citizens in the old sense of being small parts of something larger and infinitely more important to which we have serious responsibilities. We do still think of ourselves as citizens in the sense of being beneficiaries
we're actually conscious of our rights as American citizens and the nation's responsibilities to us and ensuring we get our share of the American pie. We think of ourselves now as eaters of the pie instead of makers of the pie. So who makes the pie?
...
Something has happened where we've decided on a personal level that it's all right to abdicate our individual responsibility to the common good and let government worry about the common good while we all go about our individual self-interested business and struggle to gratify our various appetites. — David Foster Wallace

I've never done anything but what I wanted to do with my life. I don't think too many people can say that. I wrote the songs I wanted to write, for me. I had no idea that 'American Pie' would relate to anybody. — Don McLean

Side note to parents: Anyone who thinks 'Dude, Where's My Car' is more appropriate for children than 'American Pie' because it obtained a PG-13 rating needs to stop trusting the MPAA. — James Berardinelli

The poor folks hate the rich folks, and the rich folks hate the poor folks. All of my folks hate all of your folks, it's American as apple pie. — Tom Lehrer

Please stop putting quotes from Nietzsche at the end of your emails. Five years ago you were laughing your guts out over American Pie 2. What - suddenly you've magically turned into Noam Chomsky? — Douglas Coupland

I've never had apple pie," I blurted out.
...
"You've never had apple pie?"
"No."
His brows rose. "Why?"
"I don't know. Just never tried it."
"That's so ... so un-American," he said, and I rolled my eyes. "Are you a terrorist? — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Come on, it's an American tradition. Apple soup? Mom's homemade chicken pie?'
She chuckled in spite of herself, then winced. 'It's apple pie and Mom's homemade chicken soup. But you didn't do badly, for a start. — L.J.Smith

Tolerance is the value that was selected to put on here, and tolerance is as American as apple pie. — Jay Inslee

I don't think theater is dying, and musicals are a great American art form. We've got apple pie, jazz and musical theater. — Laura Benanti

I didn't think American Pie was going to be what it was! I had a very small role and the reception I received was just crazy. — Jennifer Coolidge

Basically, in 'American Pie,' things are heading in the wrong direction. It is becoming less ideal, less idyllic. I don't know whether you consider that wrong or right, but it is a morality song in a sense. — Don McLean

I'm as American as apple pie. — Paul Mooney

I've always had this American-pie face that would get work in commercials ... I'd say things like, 'Hi, Marge, how's your laundry?' and 'Hi, I'm a real nice Georgia peach.' Sometimes this work is one step above being a cocktail waitress. — Teri Garr

Have you guys been playing in toxic waste again?" Fang asked severely, putting his hands on his hips.
Nudge giggled. "No."
"Been bitten by a radioactive spider?" Fang went on. "Struck by lightning? Drink a super-soldier serum?"
"No, no, no," said Iggy. He started reaching for things around the table, and his hand landed on Total. "You're black."
"I prefer canine-American." said Total. "When's that pie coming? I'm starving. — James Patterson

When people ask what 'American Pie' is about, they're missing the point. The song isn't about the lines themselves - it's about what is between the lines. The song is about what isn't there. — Don McLean

...oppression is as American as apple pie... — Audre Lorde

American feminism's nose dive began when Kate Millet, that imploding beanbag of poisonous self-pity, declared Freud a sexist. Trying to build a sex theory without studying Freud, women have made nothing but mud pies. — Camille Paglia

This country is a nation of thieves. It stole everything it has, beginning with black people. The U.S. cannot justify its existence as the policeman of the world any longer. I do not want to be a part of the American pie. The American pie means raping South Africa, beating Vietnam, beating South America, raping the Philippines, raping every country you've been in. I don't want any of your blood money. I don't want to be part of that system. We must question whether or not we want this country to continue being the wealthiest country in the world at the price of raping everybody else. — Stokely Carmichael

My subject matter was a genuine sort of experience that came out of my life, particularly the American world in which I was privileged to be ... I would really think of the bakery counters, of the way the counter was lit, where the pies were placed, but I wanted just a piece of the experience. From when I worked in restaurants ... [it was] always poetic to me. — Wayne Thiebaud

What's more American than violence?" Hayduke wanted to know. "Violence, it's as American as pizza pie. — Edward Abbey

Ever since the first 'American Pie,' I've always been happy to just have an opportunity, I just didn't think it was going to be with comedies. Now I really like it. — Sean William Scott

The media's weird obsession with billing immigrant terrorists as apple-pie Americans leads to comical results, such as the panelists on MSNBC's The Cycle puzzling over how Aafia Siddiqui, a "U.S.-trained scientist" could have become radicalized.56 Here's a tip for MSNBC: When you can't pronounce the terrorist's name, the rest of America isn't sitting in slack-jawed amazement. Siddiqui wasn't an American by any definition. She wasn't even an anchor baby. Rather, Siddiqui was born and raised in Pakistan and came to the United States as an adult via our seditious universities. After an arranged marriage over the phone with another Pakistani, who - luckily for America! - joined her here, she divorced and married the nephew of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Who could have seen Siddiqui's radicalism coming? — Ann Coulter

I think 'American Pie' is great. — Paul Dano

American soldiers in battle don't fight for what some president says on T.V., they don't fight for mom, apple pie, the American flag ... they fight for one another. — Hal Moore

By the mid-1950s, more than a third of all America workers in the private sector were unionized. And the unions demanded and received a fair slice of the American pie. — Robert Reich

I'm more American than apple pie. I'm like apple pie, with a hot dog in it — Stephen Colbert

In the '20s and '30s, there were these musicals either set on college campuses or based on classical stories, so any of the Rodgers and Hart musicals certainly influenced me. I was definitely influenced by any of the 'Porgy' songs; I was influenced by 'American Pie.' — Douglas Carter Beane

Women, music, beer, and pie. Rurik, you're just an all-American guy. — Linda Howard

When you watch the first 'American Pie' movie, you're like ... 'I know that jock who's kind of sweet and has a girlfriend, and I know that weird off-beat kid.' — Hayden Schlossberg

Well, I'm proud to say American Pie was the kind of crazy, gross-out film that guys thought was the greatest. — Jason Biggs

When people ask me what 'American Pie' means, I tell them it means I don't ever have to work again if I don't want to. — Don McLean

I would rather do really good French films than 'American Pie.' — Guillaume Canet

I was around in 1970, and now I am around in 2015 ... there is no poetry and very little romance in anything anymore, so it is really like the last phase of 'American Pie.' — Don McLean

Hating the Yankees is as American as pizza pie, unwed mothers, and cheating on your income tax. — Mike Royko

Violence is as American as cherry pie. - RAP (HUBERT GEROLD) BROWN — J.D. Robb

As a general rule, when something gets elevated to apple-pie status in the hierarchy of American values, you have to suspect that its actual monetary value is skidding toward zero. Take motherhood: nobody ever thought of putting it on a moral pedestal until some brash feminists pointed out, about a century ago, that the pay is lousy and the career ladder nonexistent. Same thing with work: would we be so reverent about the 'work ethic' if it wasn't for the fact that the average working stiff's hourly pay is shrinking, year by year ... — Barbara Ehrenreich

I've always been a big fan of Bill Paxton, and I met him at the American Pie premiere. — Shane West

In order for American Pie to have worked, you have to have a character who, even while he is humping a pie, the audience still likes. — Jason Biggs

Drove my chevy to the levee but the levee was dry. — Don McLean

All roads lead to 'American Pie.' 'As American as apple pie' was the saying. It was some kind of a big American song that I wanted to write, which would be a conclusion for my show and bring all the songs home, which it still does. I can go anywhere I want with American music and come home to that. And it all makes sense. — Don McLean

When 'American Pie' happened, I was so lucky to get that opportunity and I just tried to do a good job in that genre. But the films that inspired me as a kid were, like, Malcolm McDowall in 'A Clockwork Orange.' He was my hero. — Seann William Scott

If we generic gay and lesbian whitefolks set as our movement's goal being assimilated into American culture, getting 'our piece of the pie,' we ignore or deny the reality that gay and lesbian people of color will never be assimilated in the same way within this system because it was constituted to exclude them. — Mab Segrest

American Pie speaks to the loss that we feel. That's why that song has found the niche that it has. — Don McLean

As time goes on we get closer to that American Dream of there being a pie cut up and shared. Usually greed and selfishness prevent that and there is always one bad apple in every barrel. — Rick Danko

No one ever comes up to me and says, 'Hey man, I loved your work in 'Road Trip.' They say, 'Are you that guy?' Like, they have no idea. 'Were you in 'American Pie 2?' — Paulo Costanzo

What makes 'American Pie' so unusual is that it isn't a relic from the counterculture but a talisman, which, like a sacred river, keeps bringing joy to listeners everywhere. When 'American Pie' suddenly is played on a jukebox or radio, it's almost impossible not to sing along. — Douglas Brinkley

Chris Christie has officially endorsed Mitt Romney for president. Christie said President Obama is 'shrinking the American pie.' And believe me, if there's one thing Christie hates, it's a small pie. — Jay Leno

There is no real way to categorize McLean's 'American Pie' for its hybrid of modern poetry and folk ballad, beer-hall chant and high-art rock. — Douglas Brinkley

Bad news on the doorstep;I couldn't take one more step — Don McLean

We were with Hayden Schlossberg enormous fans of that first American Pie. We were in college when it came out, and we watched it over and over and over again. — Jon Hurwitz

I say violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America's culture. It is as American as cherry pie. Americans taught the black people to be violent. We will use that violence to rid ourselves of oppression if necessary. We will be free, by any means necessary. — H. Rap Brown

One of the things that made 'American Pie' great was also the sexiness of it. — Hayden Schlossberg

I sang 'American Pie' a lot in my stage set. It had a knack of uniting an audience in a sing-along. It's a clever song about American history but wrapped in a fantastic tune. — Johnny Vegas

She's the perfect, all-American girl, like an apple pie, and I just want to eat her up.
I mean, I don't want that. That came out wrong. I totally don't want to eat my assistant.
Or bang my assistant.
Or bend my assistant over the desk. — Lauren Blakely

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie. — H. Rap Brown

My wife and I tend to overgift to our kids at Christmas. We laugh and feel foolish when a kid is so distracted with one toy that we must force them into opening the next, or when something grand goes completely unnoticed in a corner. How consumerist, right? How crassly American. How like God. We are all that overwhelmed kid, not even noticing our heartbeats, not even noticing our breathing, not even noticing that our fingertips can feel and pick things up, that pie smells like pie and that our hangnails heal and that honey-crisp apples are real and that dogs wag their tails and that awe perpetually awaits us in the sky. The real yearning, the solomonic state of mind, is caused by too much gift, by too many things to love in too short a time. Because the more we are given, the more we feel the loss as we are all made poor and sent back to our dust. — N.D. Wilson

We've changed the way we think of ourselves as citizens. We don't think of ourselves as citizens in the old sense of being small parts of something larger and infinitely more important to which we have serious responsibilities. We do still think of ourselves as citizens in the sense of being beneficiaries - we're actually conscious of our rights as American citizens and the nation's responsibilities to us and ensuring we get our share of the American pie. We think of ourselves now as eaters of the pie instead of makers of the pie. So who makes the pie? — David Foster Wallace

American Pie' was a big movie for me. No one knew it at the time, but it allowed me to be offered such movies as 'Like Mike' and 'New York Minute' with the Olsen twins — Eugene Levy