Favourite American Quotes & Sayings

Humans are intelligent and resourceful. If we've been around a million or more years, why are we so disinclined to believe that we could have built cities 10,000, 20,000, 50,000 or even more years ago? — Christina Engela

Whatever you do, good or bad, sorry or not, you get punished, darling. Life kicks you in the balls. — Cathleen Schine

A lot of my favourite American writers are from the 1930s to the 60s. James Agee, Joseph Mitchell, AJ Liebling, Meyer Berger: they relied on their intuitions, didn't follow any who-what-where rules of reporting, frequently portrayed a contrary viewpoint. They all over-identified with their subjects. There's never the slightest pretence of objectivity. — Luc Sante

While we took the children off to Disneyland. A visit to this magical kingdom should be a compulsory part of being an American---who else on earth would put so much ingenuity into simply having fun? The rides were fabulous: a real life pirate ship with real life pirates; a roller coaster that tppk you inside the Matterhorn (that was my favourite); and the Haunted House, with its flickering lights and a moving floor. By the end of the day, our feet were aching and our voices were hoarse, but it was well worth it. We all had a tremendous time ! — Sallyann Murphey

My favourite film-maker west of the English Channel is not English - but to me doesn't seem American either - David Lynch - a curious American-European film-maker. He has - against odds - achieved what we want to achieve here. He takes great risks with a strong personal voice and adequate funds and space to exercise it. I thought Blue Velvet was a masterpiece. — Peter Greenaway

I read a lot of fantasy. I adored 'Anne of Green Gables'. But my favourite books as a child were probably Laura Ingalls Wilder's 'Little House' series, about a pioneer family in the mid-19th-century American west. I often thought of them as I was writing 'The Last Runaway'. — Tracy Chevalier

I'm probably going to get in trouble for this but 'American Dad' is one of my favourite shows. It gets very dark in places but the jokes are there. — Donald Glover

Girls come up to me and start crying. Or they're so nervous, they are shaking. Some have tried to sneak grabs of my abs and my butt! — Ryan Guzman

Sadly, it is within the religious domain that the phenomenon of rhetorical hysteria takes its most devastating form. I am aware that, in some minds, this tends to be regarded as a delicate subject. Let me declare very simply that I do not share such a sentiment. There is nothing in the least delicate about the slaughter of innocents. We all subscribe to the lofty notions contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but, for some reason, become suddenly coy and selective when it comes to defending what is obviously the most elementary of these rights, which is the right to life. One of my all-time favourite lines comes from the black American poet Langston Hughes. It reads, simply, 'There is no lavender word for lynch'. — Wole Soyinka

I'm not really that girl who dreams about her wedding day. — Taylor Swift

All of my favourite actors are American and I grew up watching American movies. It's weird I used to do a New Jersey accent in every audition in America, because I liked it. It's completely bizarre and everybody would ask: 'Where are you from?' And I would say: 'Oh, I'm from London!' — Robert Pattinson

I envy those old Greek bathers, into whose hands were delivered Pericles, and Alcibiades, and the perfect models of Phidias. They had daily before their eyes the highest types of Beauty which the world has ever produced; for of all things that are beautiful, the human body is the crown. — Bayard Taylor

Succes doesn't not come from having one's work recognised by others. It is the fruit of a seed that you lovingly planted. — Paulo Coelho

The test of how people will steward revival when it comes is revealed in how faithfully they cry out for it before it gets there. — Michael Brown

There's always peripheral things that you like that you don't know, but starting with whatever his British influences are, are some of my favourite artists, and the American things are what I grew up on as well. In the end, for me, it's those foundations of the music business - those things that are a lot of the foundations of what music today is. You can hear a bit of all of those things that we talk about in almost all music today. — Paul Weller

A formative influence on my undergraduate self was the response of a respected elder statesmen of the Oxford Zoology Department when an American visitor had just publicly disproved his favourite theory. The old man strode to the front of the lecture hall, shook the American warmly by the hand and declared in ringing, emotional tones: 'My dear fellow, I wish to thank you. I have been wrong these fifteen years.' And we clapped our hands red. Can you imagine a Government Minister being cheered in the House of Commons for a similar admission? "Resign, Resign" is a much more likely response! — Richard Dawkins

I love books; my suitcases are always full of them. Books and shoes. I read when I am sad, when I am happy, when I am nervous. My favourite British author is Jane Austen, and my favourite American one is John O'Hara. — Carolina Herrera

Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends. — William Shakespeare

One of my favourite kinds of movie is the American picaresque, in which the characters make their way across the country, learning about life against the gorgeous backdrops of that vast land. — Steven Pinker