Voice Or American Quotes & Sayings

Well, you know, I do think in the larger span of things, I owe it all to Star Trek, because Star Trek has given me this pop icon status if you will, and one of the gifts have been this megaphone I have which amplifies my voice and I can reach people. And I do think the movement for equality for LGBT Americans is in the same context of all of the great American movements, you know, the basic fundamental ideals of this country of justice and equality. — George Takei

All forests have their own personality. I don't just mean the obvious differences, like how an English woodland is different from a Central American rain forest, or comparing tracts of West Coast redwoods to the saguaro forests of the American Southwest ... they each have their own gossip, their own sound, their own rustling whispers and smells. A voice speaks up when you enter their acres that can't be mistaken for one you'd hear anyplace else, a voice true to those particular tress, individual rather than of their species. — Charles De Lint

We weep,
tears of blood,
we weep,
In despair, crying,
we weep;
the sun forever has stolen
the light from his eyes.
No more his face do we see,
no more his voice do we hear,
nor will his affectionate gaze
watch over his people. — Jane Bierhorst

When I take my hand out of this blanket," he thought, "my nail will be grown back, my hands will be clean. My body will be clean. I'll have on clean shorts, clean undershirt, a white shirt. A blue polka-dot tie. A gray suit with a stripe, and I'll be home, and I'll bolt the door. I'll put some coffee on the stove, some records on the phonograph, and I'll bolt the door. I'll read my books and I'll drink coffee and I'll listen to music, and I'll bolt the door. I'll open the window, I'll let in a nice, quiet girl
not Frances, not anyone I've ever known
and I'll bolt the door. I'll ask her to read some Emily Dickinson to me
that one about being chartless
and I'll ask her to read some William Blake to me
that one about the little lamb that made thee
and I'll bolt the door. She'll have an American voice, and she won't ask me if I have any chewing gum or bonbons, and I'll bolt the door. — J.D. Salinger

The most celebrated American author of the twentieth century, Bellow objected during the first part of his career to being designated a "Jewish writer, " but it was he who demonstrated how a Jewish voice could speak for an integrated America. With Bellow, Jewishness moved in from the immigrant margins to become a new form of American regionalism. Yet he did not have to write about Jews in order to write as a Jew. Bellow's curious mingling of laughter and trembling is particularly manifest in his novel Henderson the Rain King, that follows an archetypal Protestant American into mythic Africa. Bellow not only influenced and paved the way for other American Jewish writers like Philip Roth and Cynthia Ozick, but naturalized the immigrant voice: the American novel came to seem freshly authentic when it spoke in the voice of one of its discernible minorities. — Hana Wirth-Nesher

But undying memories stood like sentinels in her breast. When the notes of doves, calling to each other, fell on her ear, her eyes sought the sky, and she heard a voice saying, Majella! — Helen Hunt Jackson

The Beijing Olympics were an exercise in Chinese soft power. Americans have the 'Voice of America' and the Fulbright scholarships. But, the fact is, in fact, that probably Hollywood and MTV and McDonalds have done more for American soft power around the world than any specifically government activity. — Shashi Tharoor

Faced with the numbering logic of neoliberal regimes, literature offers an intervention in order to consider identity and voice, to consider representation in both the political and artistic sense of the term... [Literature and art] cultivate tension between an unresolved past and present, between invisibility and exposure, showing the dualities of face and mask that leave their trace on identitarian struggles today. — Francine Masiello

I was gearing up for it. I took some singing lessons. And I opened my mouth, and Atom promptly said, 'That's not going to happen. We love your voice, but maybe we could use some of your English wit.' He had doubts about it from way back. For starters, we weren't going to be doing the Italian-American crooning thing. — Colin Firth

I'm very literate on policy. I'm very literate on the issues, and I'm an American first. I've been involved in politics long before I was an actress. I just happen to have a platform now. I just happen to have a voice. — Eva Longoria

The "new" Anglo-American feminist theory argues that too little mothering, and, in particular, the absence of mother-son connection, is what engenders both sexism and traditional masculinity in men. (...) This perspective positions mothering as central to feminist politics in its insistence that true and lasting gender equality will occur only when boys are raised as the sons of mothers. As the early feminist script of mother-son connection required the denial of the mother's power and the displacement of her identity as mother, the new perspective affirms the maternal and celebrates mother-son connection. In this, it rewrites the patriarchal and early feminist narrative to give (...) voice and presence to the mother and make mother-son connection central to the redesign of both traditional masculinity and the larger patriarchal culture. — Andrea O'Reilly

Attenborough's perfectly pitched voice, honey from an English country garden, described with incongruous gentleness how Ophiocordyceps spores lie dormant on the forest floor in humid environments such as the South American rainforest. Foraging ants pick them up, without noticing, because the spores are sticky. They adhere to the underside of the ant's thorax or abdomen. Once attached, they sprout mycelial threads which penetrate the ant's body and attack its nervous system. The — M.R. Carey

I have been definitely influenced more by Latin American writers than by any other type of writer. They are very close in terms of voice - their humor, their fatalism, their ... well, that over-used term 'magical realism.' It's a wonderful term that's just been used so much, we don't know what it means anymore. — Jessica Hagedorn

John Lane has long been recognized as one of the South's finest poets and memoirists. This debut establishes him as one of our finest novelists as well. His poet's eye for detail seamlessly merges with a born storyteller's gift for narrative. Fate Moreland's Widow gives voice to those who endured one of the most painful and neglected chapters in American history. — Ron Rash

She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. — Zora Neale Hurston

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
[Remarks on the 20th Anniversary of the Voice of America; Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, February 26, 1962] — John F. Kennedy

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

I see myself as, first and above all, a teacher of history; next, a writer of European history; next, a commentator on European affairs; next, a public intellectual voice within the American left; and only then an occasional, opportunistic participant in the pained American discussion of the Jewish matter. — Tony Judt

Above all her voice moved him. He had not known that an accent seduced his emotions. But he'd always been drawn to those with an accent. Be it woman or man. It sounded nicer. A lavender husk. More proper, elegant. American English was clumsy, clipped, flat. No lilt, nothing guttural, boring, unpleasant. He had no exotic fetishes. His attuned ear seemed to be remembering voices from another life, another time. He could never escape the sense that he'd lost a life dear to him and that life was lived in another language. — Wheston Chancellor Grove

What had brought me to New York in the autumn of 1972 was a letter of recommendation written by Norman Mailer, the author of 'The Naked and the Dead' and American literature's leading heavyweight contender, to Dan Wolf, the delphic editor of 'The Village Voice.' — James Wolcott

Adlai Stevenson, himself a notable speaker, often reminisced about his last meeting with Churchill. I asked him on whom or what he had based his oratorical style. Churchill replied, "It was an American statesman who inspired me and taught me how to use every note of the human voice like an organ." Winston then to my amazement started to quote long excerpts from Bourke Cockran's speeches of 60 years before. "He was my model," Churchill said. "I learned from him how to hold thousands in thrall." — William Bourke Cockran

What I discerned in the U.S. was a convergence of poetic voices coming from many different rents in the social fabric, many cultures, many tributaries, which, together, make up the American poetry of the late twentieth century. — Adrienne Rich

Every once in a while a voice appears that cuts through it all. As Hemmingway said, 'the truth has a certain ring to it.' When you hear the voice of Billy Vaughn you will hear the voice of an American manthe type of American who produces a Navy SEAL. — Michael Savage

The mere fact of an American being present could help save the lives of innocent people. That's why I believe in the importance of bearing witness, to become a voice for the voiceless. — Bianca Jagger

The phone rang, picked up, and the same male voice announced, "Chris Powers."
"Hey there, Chris. Are you aware it's a felony to make threats over the phone?"
To give Powers his fair due, he got over his shock within a split second. "Try it, asshole. I dare you. My lawyers will have you for lunch." He clicked off again.
I did what any red-blooded American male would do. I called my big, ex-cop ex-boyfriend. — Josh Lanyon

American diplomats had been slow to understand the scope of the change being driven by Chinese migration to Africa. The phenomenon had been flagged in State Department cables as early as 2005, with diplomats identifying the budding, large-scale movement of people from China to Africa as part of a campaign to expand Beijing's political influence and simultaneously advance China's business interests and overall clout. These early, classified warnings also spoke of the spread, via emigration, of Chinese organized crime, particularly in smuggling and human trafficking. For the most part, however, it seemed that American diplomats were still in search of the right voice, the right message. All too often, Washington struck a paternalistic tone that came across as: Listen up children, you must be careful about these tricky Chinese. — Howard W. French

President Obama gave voice to exactly this sentiment in the speech he delivered as the first American president to visit Hiroshima, on May 27, 2016: "Science allows us to communicate across the seas and fly above the clouds, to cure disease and understand the cosmos, but those same discoveries can be turned into ever more efficient killing machines," said Obama. "The wars of the modern age teach us this truth. Hiroshima teaches this truth. Technological progress without an equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us. The scientific revolution that led to the splitting of an atom requires a moral revolution as well." Our — Thomas L. Friedman

Writing in the voice of an American slave felt like I was biting off something very large. — Sue Monk Kidd

A youthful American voice isn't particularly challenging - I've been a young American, and they're all around me. I can walk from my house to Barrington High School. — Gene Wolfe

Every single American has a voice and ... it ought to be heard in the halls of power every day. — Howard Dean

But I must own that I also felt stirred by an unselfish desire to voice all the joys and sorrows, the hopes and ambitions, of the American Negro, in classic musical form. — James Weldon Johnson

Breakfast was ready. He could hear his father asking for coffee. Why did his father have to yell all the time? Couldn't he talk in a low voice? Everybody in the neighborhood knew everything that went on in their house on account of his father constantly shouting. The Moreys next door - you never heard a peep out of them, never; quiet American people. But his father wasn't satisfied with being an Italian, he had to be a noisy Italian.
'Arturo,' his mother called. 'Breakfast.'
As if he didn't know breakfast was ready! As if everybody in Colorado didn't know by this time that the Bandini family was having breakfast! — John Fante

If we lived in a democratic state our language would have to hurtle, fly, curse, and sing, in all the common American names, all the undeniable and representative and participating voices of everybody here. — June Jordan

Little in American culture, politics, or business encourages the institutionalization of a collective employee voice. — Nelson Lichtenstein

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

In this land of unlimited opportunity, a place where, to paraphrase Woody Allen, any man or woman can realize greatness as a patient or as a doctor, we have only one commercial American filmmaker who consistently speaks with his own voice. That is Woody Allen, gag writer, musician, humorist, philosopher, playwright, stand-up comic, film star, film writer and film director. — Vincent Canby

The purpose of such propaganda phrases as "war on terrorism" and attacking "those who hate freedom" is to paralyze individual thought as well as to condition people to act as one mass, as when President Bush attempted to end debate on Iraq by claiming that the American people were of one voice. The modern war president removes the individual nature of those who live in it by forcing us into a uniform state where the complexities of those we fight are erased. The enemy-terrorism, Iraq, Bin Laden, Hussein-becomes one threatening category, something to be defeated and destroyed, so that the public response will be one of reaction to fear and threat rather than creatively and independently thinking for oneself. Our best hope for overcoming perpetual thinking about war and perpetual fear about both real and imagined threats is to question our leaders and their use of empty slogans that offer little rationale, explanation or historical context. — Nancy Snow

In her own special, provocative language, Tonya Bolden gives a voice to the voiceless, a name to the nameless. Revelations abound in Strong Men Keep Coming, her singular take on the endless parade of black men who have fought, sung, cajoled, tricked, worked, wrote, or roped their way into the American experience . She has assembled a most rewarding cast, a phenomenal coterie of role models and phantoms, and she has done a splendid job of telling their stories. — Herb Boyd

He [Alan Lomax] started right off trying to find people who could introduce folk songs to city people. He found a young actor named Burl Ives and said, "Burl, you know a lot of great country songs learned from your grandmother, don't you know people would love to hear them?" He put on radio programs. He persuaded CBS to dedicate "The School of the Air" for one year to American folk music. He'd get some old sailor to sing an old sea shanty with a cracked voice. Then he'd get me to sing it with my banjo. — Pete Seeger

But nobody wanted to speak on the true disposition of the world. And no one wanted to hear it...
The whites came to this land for a fresh start and to escape the tyranny of their masters, just as the Freeman had fled theirs. But the ideals they held up for themselves, they denied others. Cora had heard Michael recite the Declaration of Independence back on the Randall plantation many times, his voice drifting through the village like an angry phantom. She didn't understand the words, most of them at any rate, but created equal was not lost on her. The white men who wrote it didn't understand it either, if all men did not truly mean all men. Not if they snatched away what belonged to other people, whether it was something you could hold in your hand, like dirt, or something you could not, like freedom. — Colson Whitehead

But you'll notice, you will notice that Russia and China, invariably at the United Nations, move to block American action, to repress or hem in or punish other kinds of outlaw. Who stands behind Mugabi at the United Nations? Russia and China do. Who tried successfully to prevent the United Nations from speaking with one voice on its most signal violation of its resolutions, Iraq? Russia and China, again. North Korea the same. Burma the same. — Christopher Hitchens

Among contemporaries, I hugely admire Alice Munro, our Chekhov, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, and John Updike, American masters all. I also believe that the voice of Gordon Lish is astoundingly original and sorrowful. — Cynthia Ozick

The path to the ethnic democratization of American society is through its culture, that is to say through its cultural apparatus, which comprises the eyes, the ears, and the "mind" of capitalism and is twentieth-century voice to the world. Thus to democratize the cultural apparatus is tantamount to revolutionizing American society itself into the living realization of its professed ideas. Seeing the problem in another way, to revolutionize the cultural apparatus is to deal fundamentally with the unsolved American question of nationality--Which group speaks for America and for the glorification of which ethnic image? Either all group images speak for themselves and for the nation, or American nationality will never be determined. — Harold Cruse

Silence,they say,is the voice of complicity. But silence is impossible. Silence screams. Silence is the message,just as doing nothing is an act. Let who you are ring out and resonate in every word and deed. Yes,become who you are. There's no sidestepping your own being or your own responsibility. What you do is who you are. You are your own comeuppance. You become your own message. You are the message. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse. — Leonard Peltier

I was always in bands before, but on 'American Idol,' it was about getting my voice out there. It was always my goal, though, to get a band together again. — Chris Daughtry

The main lesson to be learned from the Love Canal crisis is that in order to protect public health from chemical contamination, there needs to be a massive outcry
a choir of voices
by the American people demanding change. — Lois Gibbs

In that case, maybe we shouldn't be disturbing you," said a soft American voice. "Oh, I forgot," said Claire, half-turning to the girl who had stood out of sight in the corner of the porch. "Roger Wakefield - my daughter, Brianna. — Diana Gabaldon

Her name ... was Mrs. marina Orlova, and she had grown up in Siberia. Later, she would tell him that she loathed the American custom of constantly smiling: "They are like chimpanzees," she said, in her bitter exclamatory voice. She grimaced, baring her teeth grotesquely. "Eee!" she said. "I smile at you! Eee! It is repulsive. — Dan Chaon

I've actually, very rarely have I worked in my own voice. I've played, I think, Russian, American, Northern from the North of England. All sorts of different accents I've worked in. — Ben Barnes

When we sing, I am one of many, and the individual me evaporates. I am one of 23 university choir members. Not a professor. Not an American. Not a 46-year-old in the midst of twentysomethings. Not a woman trying to outpace the aspects of self she has yet to make oeace with. I am simply what we all are
another voice, a set of lungs, some vocal chords and someone who finds joy and comfort in singing. But when the music stops, so does the we. The union dissolves. The silence transforms first person plural into first person singular. — Laura Kelly

Patty Griffin is iconic, and there's no other word to really describe her. She is iconic for a lot of people - not only for me but for a lot of fans. Her voice is one of a kind, and she's such an important figure in the American music scene. — Dierks Bentley

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

Mrs. Clinton, speaking to a black church audience on Martin Luther King Day last year, did describe President George W. Bush as treating the Congress of the United States like 'a plantation,' adding in a significant tone of voice that 'you know what I mean ... '
She did not repeat this trope, for some reason, when addressing the electors of Iowa or New Hampshire. She's willing to ring the other bell, though, if it suits her. But when an actual African-American challenger comes along, she rather tends to pout and wince at his presumption (or did until recently). — Christopher Hitchens

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

They smile that smile, they bat those eyes. They steal with hello, they kill you with goodbye. They're the perfect drug. As you're walking away, you hear that sweet voice, 'Stay. — Scotty McCreery

This writing thing, it ain't like that hip hop shit, City. For li'l niggas like you," he told me, "this writing thing is like a gotdamn porta potty. It's one li'l nigga at a time, shitting in the toilet, funking up the little space he get. And you shit a regular shit or a classic shit. Either way," he said. "City, you gotta shit classic, then get your black ass on off the pot." He actually grabbed my hand. "You probably think I'm hyping you just for the money. It ain't just about the money. It's really not. It's about doing whatever it takes for you to have your voice heard. So I don't know what you're writing in that book you always carrying around, but it better be classic because you ain't gonna get no two times to get it right, you hear me? — Kiese Laymon

In American Romances, her new book of essays, Rebecca Brown has a voice that is full of pop references, family stories, and the fruits of a lifetime of
in her perfect phrase - extreme reading. The voice is a hoot, and it is dead serious. This is writing with exquisite control, fully up to the task Brown takes on of playing a fierce game of beach ball with deep problems of American (and personal) history and identity. — Susan Stinson

He relished learning from the voice of a teacher and from books. Each day of merely learning something was a deep adventure to him. Sometimes he laughed and told himself that he was unnatural, for American boys are supposed to hate school. They followed a pattern of Redblooded Masculinity, set up by the traditions of hookey and Mark Twain. But he had no resistance whatever to his studies. He took them supine and with gusto, with the receptively of a girl whose desires have been aroused by loving blandishment. — John Horne Burns

A narrative voice with conviction is often hard to find. But not in baseball. The minors teach two lost American arts: how to chew tobacco and how to tell a story. — Thomas Boswell

We must face the bitter fact that we have forsaken our great dream of a life of, for, and by the people; that the burning passions and ideals of the American dream lie congealed by cold cynicism. Great parts of the masses of our people no longer believe that they have a voice or a hand in shaping the destiny of this nation. They have not forsaken democracy because of any desire or positive action of their own; they have been driven down into the depths of a great despair born of frustration, hopelessness, and apathy. A democracy lacking in popular participation dies of paralysis. — Saul Alinsky

Wait a minute, baby...stay with me awhile...said you'd show me light, but you never told me 'bout the fire

Steve didn't really find her voice until after she and Lindsay joined Fleetwood Mac. And that's the thing: you can't be your best self until you find your tribe. I'm still lookin' for mine. — Ryan Murphy

The true Indian sets no price upon either his property or his labor. His generosity is limited only by his strength and ability. He regards it as an honor to be selected for difficult or dangerous service and would think it shameful to ask for any reward, saying rather: Let the person I serve express his thanks according to his own bringing up and his sense of honor. Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth, and the Great Silence alone!. What is Silence? It is the Great Mystery! The Holy Silence is His voice! — Charles Alexander Eastman

On 'American Top 40' the Kasem voice soared and swooped, like an expert aural acrobat, through promos, jingles and dedications, usually rising to a dramatic peak for the top-selling song of the week. — Richard Corliss

Timbre is the emblematic tone, or voice, generated by each type of instrument or biological sound source. Not only do musical instruments have singular voice characteristics but so does every living organism and most man-made machines. The difference between the sound of a violin and that of a trumpet is as distinctive as that between a cicada and an American robin, or a cat and a dog - or between a Rolls-Royce and a Formula 1 automobile. When Paul Beaver and I first began — Bernie Krause

Her voice was trained, supple as leather, precise as a knife thrower's blade. Singing or talking, it had the same graceful quality, and an accent I thought at first was English, but then realized was the old-fashioned American of a thirties movie, a person who could get away with saying 'grand.' Too classic, they told her when she went out on auditions. It didn't mean old. It meant too beautiful for the times, when anything that lasted longer than six months was considered passe. I loved to listen to her sing, or tell me stories about her childhood in suburban Connecticut, it sounded like heaven. — Janet Fitch

His voice took on a thick silkiness to it that made her want to press her body closer. "Octavia, you are welcome to touch any part of my body you wish. Just be careful of what you start. Once I lay claim to something, or someone, I will not part with it or them willingly." - Kade Egon — Sunshine Taylor Reddick

I have met charming people, lots who would be charming if they hadn't got a complex about the British and everyone has pleasant and cheerful manners and I like most of the American voices. On the other hand I don't believe they have any God and their hats are frightful. On balance I prefer the Arabs. — Freya Stark

There are more of you and he than you can probably imagine, but most are ashamed and seek to disappear in the foliage of American life. But your numbers are growing, and democracy gives you the best chance of finding your voice. Here you can learn how not to be torn apart by your opposing sides, but rather to balance them and benefit from both. Reconcile your divided allegiances and you will be the ideal translator between two sides, a goodwill ambassador to bring opposing nations to peace! — Viet Thanh Nguyen

Happy World Poetry Day: 'The American identity has never been a singular one and the voices of poets invariably sing, in addition to their own, the voices of those around them. — Aberjhani

History has shown that a country most effectively speaks with one voice. When nationally elected officials work together, build consensus, and provide leadership, the American people will follow. — Chuck Hagel

And if that child should ever get the chance to travel the world and someone should ask her where is she from, we believe that she should always be able to hold her head high with pride in her voice when she answers, 'I am an American.' That is the course we seek. That is the change we are calling for. — Barack Obama

I really don't want to produce artwork that does not have meaning beyond simple decorative values. I want to use public space to create a public voice, and a public consciousness about the presence of people who are, in fact, the majority of the population but who are not represented in any visual way. By telling their stories we are giving voice to the voiceless and visualizing the whole of the American story. — Judy Baca

When you are honest in your comedy, you have to acknowledge the world that you're in. Through a comedic voice, you're talking about what needs to be talked about, whether it's race relations or politics or anything that's happening on a global or an American scale. — Trevor Noah

What the roses are saying cannot be heard through voice
but through beauty as you watch the rain slip
from their petals and hang from their edges.

(Dena Colhoff, student) — Timothy P. McLaughlin