American Family Quotes

#1. The American family is failing in its job of turning out stable human beings ... It is failing because Americans do not dare to cultivate in themselves those characteristics which would make family life creative and rewarding. To do so, would ruin them financially.

Margaret Halsey

#2. At a time when the American family is threatened as never before, redefining it away from the union of one man and one woman only promises to weaken it as a child-rearing, values-conveying institution.

Marco Rubio

#3. Why, on my mother's birthday, am I thinking about 'Father Knows Best?' At our house, mother knew best at least as often as father did, but then the title of the old sitcom, a homogenized portrait of American family life, was meant to be slightly sardonic.

Tom Shales

#4. It is that fundamental belief, it is that fundamental belief, I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family. E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.

Barack Obama

#5. I don't think there is such a definition of a perfect family, but I do think that our marriages are in crisis. Our families are in crisis. And I think the African-American family is at one of the worst stages it's been at in a very long time in this country. Fatherlessness is rampant.

Leah Ward Sears

#6. You hear a lot of dialogue on the death of the American family. Families aren't dying. They're merging into big conglomerates.

Erma Bombeck

#7. Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. ... We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it's no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits.

Bryan Fischer

#8. I am an eighth Chinese, and I come from a large Chinese-American family in Los Angeles.

Lisa See

#9. Now we have black and white elected officials working together. Today, we have gone beyond just passing laws. Now we have to create a sense that we are one community, one family. Really, we are the American family.

John Lewis

#10. I've always felt, as a writer, that radicals are fascinating because they're relations, they have a place in the American family. They're the relatives everyone wishes would go away. They're the embarrassments to decorum and good taste.

E.L. Doctorow

#11. We're going to keep trying to strengthen the American family. To make them more like The Waltons and less like The Simpsons.

George H. W. Bush

#12. The death tax punishes the American dream - making it virtually impossible for the average American family to build wealth across generations.

Kit Bond

#13. Nothing in our daily life offers more of the comfort of continuity, the generational connection of belonging to a vast and complicated American family, the powerful sense of home, the freedom from time's constraints, and the great gift of accumulated memory than does our National Pastime.

Ken Burns

#14. The traditional American family has always been the foundation for success in America.

Bill O'Reilly

#15. When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came.

Barry Levinson

#16. When I was a kid I got so much help from the Church. When I was a kid, our family was so poor they couldn't afford me to go to school, so there was an American family that send the money to the church to support my school fees.

John Woo

#17. Yes, it is long past time we get serious about tackling the nation's ever-growing deficits. But the average American family drawn into serious debt cannot just threaten to stiff its creditors. It must cut its spending in the future, but also take responsibility for the debt incurred in the past.

Peter Welch

#18. You know this old style of American family series? Well, I sit there and cry.

Graham Kennedy

#19. Capitalism has improved the standard of living of the wage earners to an unprecedented extent. The average American family enjoys today amenities of which, only a hundred years ago, not even the richest nabobs dreamed.

Ludwig Von Mises

#20. In its effect on family relationships, in its facilitation of parental withdrawal from an active role in the socialization of their children, and in its replacement of family rituals and special events, television has played an important role in the disintegration of the American family.

Marie Winn

#21. There's just so much love that goes into home cooking, and I think it will really help the American family overall. I'm hoping to maybe get a cookbook out one day because I've got some great family recipes.

Ming-Na Wen

#22. To my way of thinking, the American family started to decline when parents began to communicate with their children.

Erma Bombeck

#23. I now have two different audiences. There's the one that has been watching my action films for 20 years, and the American family audience. American jokes, less fighting.

Jackie Chan

#24. The breakdown of the American family's having a disastrous impact on our economy.

Marco Rubio

#25. As a society, we've evolved, and we've recognized that the American family structure has undergone enormous changes. Divorce is all around us, and who among us doesn't know someone who is divorced or has been impacted by divorce. It's not as scandalous as it was.

Laura Wasser

#26. We must develop a federal program of public works, retraining, and jobs for all - so that none, white or black, will have cause to feel threatened
... There is nothing except shortsightedness to prevent us from guaranteeing an annual minimum and livable income for every American family.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#27. I'm not a chef. I haven't created any new technique in the kitchen. I'm not a rocket scientist. I think I'm good at writing accessible, fun, and affordable meals for the average American family. That's what I think I'm good at.

Rachael Ray

#28. I don't think American family sitcoms are mean. I guess I really love 'Arrested Development.' I guess they are quite mean in that, but that is also a very silly, surreal, absurd show as well, and it has got a heart as well.

Simon Bird

#29. The problem with the American health-care system that it is not working for the American family.

John F. Kerry

#30. When an American family becomes separated from its toothbrushes and combs and pajamas for a few hours it considers that it has had quite an adventure.

E.B. White

#31. One result of An American Family was that I became a gay role model.

Lance Loud

#32. [American family court] is a system that is corrupt on his best day. It is like being tied to the back of a pickup truck and dragged down a gravel late at night. No one can hear your cries and complaints and it is not over until they say it's over.

Alec Baldwin

#33. When I finally gave up any hope of doing anything representative of the American family, I actually seemed to have tapped into other people's weirdness in that way.

Jonathan Franzen

#34. In the U.S. there are 45,000 shopping malls employing 10.7 million people. The average American family of four metabolizes four million pounds of material every year to support their lifestyle. That's 11,000 lbs. a day, 7.5 lbs. a minute.

Stephanie Kaza

#35. In this deeply nuanced portrait of an American family, Bret Anthony Johnston fearlessly explores the truth behind a mythic happy ending. In Remember Me Like This, Johnston presents an incisive dismantling of an all-too-comforting fallacy: that in being found we are no longer lost.

Alice Sebold

#36. It is that promise that has always set this country apart-that through hard work and sacrifice, each of us can pursue our individual dreams but still come together as one American family, to ensure that the next generation can pursue their dreams as well.

Barack Obama

#37. I look at 'Breaking Bad' as a show about the American family.

Giancarlo Esposito

#38. 'Pretty Deadly' is the story of these immortal and mortal characters, and the mortals' story follows Sarah's family, a black family, through the ages. I never made the choice of, 'Oh, this is gonna be the story of an African American family!'

Kelly Sue DeConnick

#39. Those who lament the dissolution of the American family-kids with no way to get to Girl Scouts, aging parents put into nursing homes-should remember what it was that kept the American family together: women's blood.

Joan Acocella

#40. The New York Times, with what was threatening to become a customary lack of prescience, forecast that it would never be a serious competitor for radio because "people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen; the average American family hasn't time for it."34

Bill Bryson

#41. I believe in the traditional American family, and I will do everything that I can to promote, you know, families.

Rick Scott

#42. Black-ish is really a show about an American family and these are some of the topics that come up - for all of us, in different ways - and we get to see how this family is walking through it.

Tracee Ellis Ross

#43. I started in movies in Mexico and started doing telenovelas in Mexico. 'American Family' was the first thing I did in English.

Kate Del Castillo

#44. What the American family does not want is to pay an increasing fraction of their budget, their precious dollars, for energy costs.

Steven Chu

#45. The first time I learned I could sell myself was when I convinced a wealthy American family to give me a job as a nanny. Childcare. Totally unqualified. But I learned to be ready for anything. And that I can adapt. That I can become the best diaper changer.

Scott Raab

#46. The car was full of unhappy people heading west. It was the Great American Family Road Trip, all right. Whaaa-hoo!

Kim Harrison

#47. A White House dinner is the American family assembled, from labor leaders to billionaires, actors, architects, academicians and athletes.

Hugh Sidey

#48. We hear a lot in this country about family, and 'American Family' just shows us a portrait we haven't seen as much of yet. 'American Family' lets us know that being American isn't about the color of your hair or eyes or skin: it's really a state of mind.

Esai Morales

#49. Let us remember we are all part of one American family. We are united in common values, and that includes belief in equality under the law, basic respect for public order, and the right of peaceful protest.

Barack Obama

#50. Being from a very traditional Chinese-American family, my parents believed the only options to have a successful life were to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer or a business person.

Phillip Lim

#51. Three cheers for Mr. and Mrs. Bower and their really satisfactory American family of twelve children!

Edmund Morris

#52. American family life has never been particularly idyllic. In the nineteenth century, nearly a quarter of all children experienced the death of one of their parents ... Not until the sixties did the chief cause of separation of parents shift from death to divorce.

Richard Louv

#53. Like many another romance, the romance of the family turns sour when the money runs out. If we really cared about families, we would not let 'born again' patriarchs send up moral abstractions as a smokescreen for the scandal of American family economics.

Letty Cottin Pogrebin

#54. I was possessed with a wonderful example of my Italian American family. They would come over and join us every Sunday, all my aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces, and I would sing for them.

Tony Bennett

#55. We're going to have a tax cut. Today's American family is overtaxed at all levels.

Dick Armey

#56. The American family is not simply changing; it is getting weaker ... Family decline drives some of our most urgent social problems ... The heart of the family problem lies in the steady breakup of the two-parent home.

David Popenoe

#57. When we talk about the decline of the American family, I think we have to go back to the Industrial Revolution.

Donald Miller

#58. To one American family out of four, the idea of capitalism as a benign system of comfort , dignity , and personal advance is only a myth , or worse, a bitter mockery.

Robert Heilbroner

#59. We are an American family and we rise and fall together as one nation.

Barack Obama

#60. Protecting the institution of marriage safeguards, I believe, the American family.

John Boehner

#61. I don't like the subtle infiltration of 'something for nothing' philosophies into the very hearthstone of the American family. I believe that 'Thou shalt earn the bread by the sweat of thy face' was a benediction and not a penalty. Work is the zest of life; there is joy in its pursuit.

Branch Rickey

#62. People had this image of the Jacksons as the perfect American family and I destroyed that image. But what people have to understand is writing that book was very healing for me.

LaToya Jackson

#63. The American family shattered for the simple reason that it was American, not global.

John F. MacArthur Jr.

#64. The very success of the modern American family - where kids get punctually to SAT-tutoring classes, the mortgage gets paid, the second-story remodel stays on budget - surely depends on spouses' not being in love.

Sandra Tsing Loh

#65. When people see Barack Obama, they don't necessarily see an African-American president. They see someone who is a child of immigrants. They see someone whose family has worked hard and struggled. And they see many similarities between themselves and Barack Obama.

Grace Meng

#66. The American people know what's necessary to get this economy moving again. It's fiscal discipline in Washington, D.C. and across-the-board tax relief for working families, small businesses and family farms.

Mike Pence

#67. But let me perfectly clear, because I know you'll hear the same old claims that rolling back these tax breaks means a massive tax increase on the American people: if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.

Barack Obama

#68. I can't think of a more mediocre human talent than George Bush. He obviously is a product of family advantage, and he's the worst American President of all time.

Randall Robinson

#69. Here we go again. Pandering to the .3 percent of the American population that consider themselves transgender. Now I get to explain this to my 8-year-old, if I just wanted to watch a nice family show with some nice music.

Gretchen Carlson

#70. I wanted to show that an African-American artist could make it in this country on a national level in the graphic arts. I want to be a strong role model for my family and for other African Americans.

Jerry Pinkney

#71. An average American loves his family. If he has any love left over for some other person, he generally selects Mark Twain.

Thomas A. Edison

#72. Rainbow Cloud strode forward like a hunting cat with the same strength of height and broad shoulders, the same rolling gait as First Light's father. They were indeed the same man, split in two at birth, so the family might be rewarded by twice the skill in hunting each brother possessed.

P.J. Parker

#73. The American Dream has always focused on building a better life for yourself and your family, striving for success, and even fleeing from religious prosecution.

Marc Veasey

#74. U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt has been described as founder of the Bull Moose Party, the man who led his troops up San Juan Hill in the Spanish-American War, a big game hunter, family man, civic servant and a host of other things.

Zig Ziglar

#75. If we allow our American mindset of consumption to spill into our understanding of what a Christian is, we are in danger of living irrespective of world family.

Holly Sprink

#76. Except for naval and air exercises, our military should be stationed on American soil, where service men and women can lead normal lives in close proximity to family and friends.

Camille Paglia

#77. It is an honor to open in New York City and to have the opportunity to serve and share our family's version of American Chinese food and hospitality. New York City deeply influenced my passion for food and service, and it feels good to be back.

Andrew Cherng

#78. I think that the American people are curious about who a candidate is, what their background is, who their family is, what their faith experience has been, their education, their work experience. All of those are factors that voters look at because they want to take a measure of the individual.

Michele Bachmann

#79. Never Let anyone tell you that you can't; show them that you can.

Gloria Mallette

#80. The other Clans will soon arrive. The greatest times of our family are before us. And so are the darkest.

P.J. Parker

#81. [The Bytyqi Brothers were] American citizens and we have been seeking answers to why no one's been held accountable for these atrocities. [Family members] expect our government to do everything we can.

Ben Cardin

#82. If you're the oldest in a large family, you tend to do everything yourself, particularly if you are the first American. You begin a habit or pattern that makes it easy to reject other help.

Pete Hamill

#83. No matter how American I become, I'm considered part of the Chinese community by my own family.

Anchee Min

#84. Our family's fortune is growing faster than ever. We're a part of a small number of American families that own most of the country's wealth. But having so much in the hands of so few can't be good for America.

Jamie Johnson

#85. With 'Arrested Development,' we tried showing the deep disdain that connects a family. We wanted to hold up a mirror to American society. And, just as predicted, America looked away.

Mitchell Hurwitz

#86. That is the heart and soul of the American dream, homeownership, the idea of being able to buy a house and start to build your family.

Wendell Pierce

#87. I didn't watch a lot of American television growing up. I just liked to read a lot and watch movies - movies, movies, and more movies. My family used to make fun of me because I'd like every movie I saw.

Joss Whedon

#88. Nobody wants to have in their CV in the upper echelons of the American economic family that they nationalised major banks.

Paul Keating

#89. I am proudly a liberal. I am also patriotic, reasonable, pro-American, and stand for family values.

Roger Ebert

#90. It is important to me that everybody who has been hurt know that the sorrow I feel is genuine: First and most important, my family; also my friends, my staff, my Cabinet, Monica Lewinsky and her family, and the American people. I have asked all for their forgiveness.

William J. Clinton

#91. My family moved - first to Washington, D.C., and then, in the spring of 1975, to Lebanon, where my father worked as a diplomat at the American embassy. My parents were enthusiastic about the move, so my older brother and I felt like we were off to some place kind of cool.

Greg Kinnear

#92. We need to end permanently the tax that punishes American values of savings and investment and of building small businesses and family farms and ranches.

Kit Bond

#93. like many families, everyone wandered around like children in a funhouse - they could hardly see one another around the corners, and what they could see was completely distorted.

James Hannaham

#94. My family was all born in Sicily and I'm Italian-American. They're the real thing. They're authentic Italians, and honestly they're the most open-minded, nicest people in the world and nothing can really offend them. That's the way I think true Sicilians are.

Vinny Guadagnino

#95. We're African-American and we work together as a family, so people assume we're like the Jacksons. But I didn't have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.

Beyonce Knowles

#96. It is no longer an unwritten law of American capitalism that industry will attempt to maintain wages at a level that allows a single wage to support a family.

Christopher Lasch

#97. American consumers benefit from disparity & exploitation. I benefit from disparity & exploitation & so does my family. there is no way to be a consumer in this country without causing pain" --casey gray - author of Discount - & my New HERO

Casey Gray

#98. By definition, though, we are family. And in difficult times-- times like these-- despite our differences, we stand together as family.

Stephen King

#99. No doubt, the White House thinks the American people know Obama's story. But since the Inauguration, we've seen only the president's present: his perfect family, his Ivy League elegance, his effortless mastery of complex issues. We never see him sweat. And we forget that he ever had to struggle.

Dee Dee Myers

#100. I grew up with the Blind Boys' music. My family owns a music store in Claremont, California, called The Claremont Folk Music Center. I grew up with a heavy diet of gospel, folk, and blues because those are kind of the cornerstones of traditional American music.

Ben Harper