American Me Sayings

#1. Growing up north of San Francisco, I immersed myself in the local landscape and in books about Native Americans, cowboys, and pioneers that seemed to ground me in it, but to pursue culture in those days meant being spun around until dizzy and then pushed east. - Author: Rebecca Solnit

#2. My skin may have wrinkles but it's because I'm smiling so much. That might sound like some terrible American greetings card, but I feel it's immoral for me to castigate my body for getting older, when it does everything I ask of it. - Author: Olivia Williams

#3. When I'm making an American film, it's more safe because there are so many people on the set to watch me. Whatever I do, they say, 'What are you doing!? Tell me first!' There are so many restrictions. - Author: Jackie Chan

#4. Teenagers, especially girl ones, seem like the perfect canary-in-the-coal-mine characters to me. They capture American culture and its perversion, its hypocrisy - how absorbed we are with youth and beauty and sexualized imagery, for instance, while preaching abstinence and modesty. - Author: Antonya Nelson

#5. O my poor words, bear with me. - Author: Theodore Roethke

#6. For me, Fitzgerald was one of the great American writers of the last century; a wordsmith, a storyteller, a perfectionist. - Author: Robert Littell

#7. I felt like all of the American people did not believe me because of the things that were said about me, and said that people would say that it was just for the money, and it wasn't about the money. It was about what he did to me. And I knew I was telling the truth. - Author: Paula Jones

#8. It's very important to me to be an American poet, a Jewish poet, a poet who came of age in the 1960s. - Author: Edward Hirsch

#9. Noir is dead for me because historically, I think it's a simple view. I've taken it as far as it can go. I think I've expanded on it a great deal, taken it further than any other American novelist. - Author: James Ellroy

#10. I am British. I love Britain for all its faults and all its virtues. My husband is American and I am largely based in Los Angeles, but whenever someone asks me where home is, I automatically say 'London.' - Author: Helen Mirren

#11. I guess my biggest failure was not getting reelected. [The loss taught me] not to ever let American hostages be held for 444 days in a foreign country without extracting them. I did the best I could, but I failed. - Author: Jimmy Carter

#12. I first decided to become an actor at school. A teacher gave us a play to do and that had a major impact. At first, I wanted to work in the theatre, but there was something about the ambience of film, especially American films, that always attracted me. - Author: Jean Reno

#13. I never really worked in Hollywood. Some American producers came to Europe to shoot films with me, so it's a different situation ... It was not my aim. - Author: Juliette Binoche

#14. And the Russians certainly don't have it. If a woman shows up in a fur coat, I just assume she's a crook. And that's me, the nice American. The assumption that you can't make money honestly is a killer. - Author: Esther Dyson

#15. 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. - Author: Jay Leno

#16. In order to do 'Amores Perros,' I had to skip some time at drama school, so the director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu came up with a great Latin American solution, which was to say I had a tropical disease and had to stay in Mexico for a while. Everyone believed me. - Author: Gael Garcia Bernal

#17. I had a list of things that science fiction, particularly American science fiction, to me seemed to do with tedious regularity. One was to not have strong female protagonists. One was to envision the future, whatever it was, as America. - Author: William Gibson

#18. On one occasion, someone asked a famous American musician, Ben Harper, this question: "We've heard you now have a new drummer in your band. Tell me something: is he black?" And Harper replied: "I don't know, I've never asked him. - Author: Mia Couto

#19. I read an awful lot in college - a lot of Dickens, a lot of 19th century American stuff, a lot of old mysteries. Maybe it's helped me attain a certain fluidity with my style. - Author: Josh Lieb

#20. It's not surprising to me that in a country born of racial genocide, the issue of race is still an open wound on the American soul. We haven't dealt with it. - Author: Michael Moore

#21. It took me a year to really learn the American lingo. I really feel for people who are coming here and don't speak English at all. It must be hell. - Author: Helen Reddy

#22. When I go home to England, my friends all make fun of me for sounding American. - Author: Juno Temple

#23. I'm completely Americanized - I have an American accent, an American wife - but a residue of me is foreign. - Author: Dinesh D'Souza

#24. I knew I was different. I thought that I might be gay or something because I couldn't identify with any of the guys at all. None of them liked art or music. They just wanted to fight and get laid. It was many years ago but it gave me this real hatred for the average American macho male. - Author: Kurt Cobain

#25. I will barnstorm American living rooms. Mainstream media will be unable to ignore me, but more importantly they will be unable to overlook the needs of average Americans in the run-up to the 2012 election. - Author: Roseanne Barr

#26. The actors in Britain are incredible, and I didn't appreciate that until I got there. They interpret your words and you realize how deliberate and thoughtful they are. There are great American actors, too, don't get me wrong, but the technique that British actors have is something really special. - Author: Frank Spotnitz

#27. An interviewer asked me what book I thought best represented the modern American woman. All I could think of to answer was: Madame Bovary. - Author: Joseph McCarthy

#28. My husband is actually Italian-American, and he thought I was Italian when he first met me. - Author: Andrea Navedo

#29. Totally could oust a government in a small South American country. That made me laugh. - Author: Kristen Ashley

#30. What makes it frustrating is when a director or a studio head doesn't see me for the same part that they'll see, let's say, Drew Barrymore for. Drew's a great friend of mine. But it's like, "No, we want more of an American type of girl." - Author: Eva Mendes

#31. Is there room in that Mah Jongg game for me too?! - Author: Mary Anne Puleio

#32. MEN WALK ON THE MOON. To me, this speaks of a time when America wasn't just about the almighty buck. The Russians had put up Sputnik, and the U.S. would not be outdone. I admire that about the American spirit. There's only one spot in history for the first ever of anything. - Author: Nathan Fillion

#33. He lay beside me all those years while I turned and twisted myself to fit beside him... - Author: Elaine Kraf

#34. I have only a bare working knowledge of the human brain but it's enough to make me proud to be an American. - Author: Don DeLillo

#35. The number is not important to me. I only wish I had killed more. Not for bragging rights, but because I believe the world is a better place without savages out there taking American lives. - Author: Chris Kyle

#36. The greatest promotion I ever had on a newspaper was when 'The Washington Post' suddenly promoted me from city-side general assignment reporter to Latin American correspondent and sent me off to Cuba. Fidel Castro had just come to power. It was a very exciting assignment, but also very serious. - Author: Tom Wolfe

#37. Take that bone out of your nose and call me back (to an African American female caller). - Author: Rush Limbaugh

#38. My reason teaches me that land cannot be sold. The Great Spirit gave it to his children to live upon. So long as they occupy and cultivate it, they have a right to the soil. Nothing can be sold but such things as can be carried away - Author: Black Hawk

#39. Mine is really - Ziggy Stardust, characters, "Let's Dance." That's me in the American. - Author: David Bowie

#40. It makes me feel good. Being a foreigner, (the American fans) they make me feel like I'm a citizen of this country. - Author: Sergio Martinez

#41. Because I'm an American, I know there's all sorts of international folks who would gladly kidnap and behead me. - Author: Sherman Alexie

#42. The drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not let me rest while there is a single Negro boy or girl without a chance to prove his worth. - Author: Mary McLeod Bethune

#43. Let me tell you, the heart of my tax proposal: I will not raise taxes on the American people. I will not raise taxes on middle-income Americans. - Author: Mitt Romney

#44. When one person does something that works, everyone else wants to do it. So it didn't surprise me at all to see people come with different versions of 'American Idol' and a lot of them are exactly the same but with different twists. - Author: Ruben Studdard

#45. I think that American music, for me, it's a synthesis of a lot of different things. But for me growing up in North Carolina, the stuff that I was listening to, the things that I was hearing, it was all about black music, about soul music. - Author: James Taylor

#46. A well known director wouldn't take the chance on casting me for an American role after he discovered that I was English. Some time later, he expressed his regret that he hadn't taken the chance with me. - Author: Marsha Thomason

#47. The American dream, to me, means having the opportunity to achieve, because I don't think you should be guaranteed anything other than opportunity. - Author: Lenny Wilkens

#48. My agent pointed out one day that I had been quoted by a columnist in some American newspaper, and he noted with some glee that they simply identified me by name without reminding people who I was, apparently in the clear expectation that their readers would know who I am. - Author: Terry Pratchett

#49. Today Prince William went to Washington, D.C., and he met with President Obama. He said, 'It feels weird being in the White House because I'm not an American.' And then Prince William said, 'Yeah, me too.' - Author: Craig Ferguson

#50. My wife was the first romantic partner who understood both American and native parts of me - not so much the positive stuff, but the damage. - Author: Sherman Alexie

#51. Let me remind you all that the first task of American foreign policy is to reduce threats to the United States. - Author: Michael Mandelbaum

#52. I don't want to be the cliche American Idol dude. I want to be different, you know - that's the whole goal, me and music. It's about being yourself and being unique. - Author: Paul McDonald

#53. I'm always looking for ways to connect myself with American people and that American feeling. I'm trying to pick up on the feeling of places, like the Los Angeles feeling or the New York feeling ... Los Angeles is much better for me that way. - Author: Takashi Murakami

#54. Let me announce this to the American people tonight one of the best things about this debate, as a Democrat from Massachusetts, I have proposed eliminating, getting rid of the alternative minimum tax. - Author: Richard Neal

#55. Being bi-racial and being young along with being American and Canadian [allows me to] try and cover all the bases and expand my fan base to a level that has yet to be seen. - Author: Drake

#56. When a woman grabs my braids and says "How cute!" I crab her breast and say "How cute!" She never touches me again! - Author: Russell Means

#57. One Oxford poet confessed to me that I had been scary because I talked American and wore tennis shoes. - Author: Donald Hall

#58. I really feel that my life story is a continuation of the Great American Dream - the immigrant who comes to this country and is allowed to excel. How many other countries would let me do that? - Author: Friedrich St. Florian

#59. The Trail of Tears has a great deal of meaning for every person of American Indian ancestry, whether they are Cherokee or not. For me, it has always stood for what is best and worst about the history of the United States. - Author: Joseph Bruchac

#60. Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so. - Author: Ida B. Wells

#61. Forcing school children to recite a national pledge doesn't sound very American to me," said James. "No," agreed Holmes. "It sounds German. Very German. - Author: Dan Simmons

#62. Some guy refuses to fight and we call that the sin, but he's standing up for what he believes in and that seems pretty damned American to me. - Author: Iris Dement

#63. 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. - Author: Barack Obama

#64. I was born in Mumbai, but I grew up in England, and then my adulthood has been in the States. I'm an American stuffed with an English person with an Indian person inside. I feel like those things kind of inform me in some way, which I think helps me as an actor. - Author: Aasif Mandvi

#65. My CIA godfather told me he'd never heard any American speak Japanese so well. - Author: Steven Seagal

#66. I've played some gangster roles, but that's obviously not me. When you're an Italian-American New York actor, it's just an easy way to get cast. - Author: Michael Imperioli

#67. Not that managing in the American League is easy, but this is certainly different. I'll have to have somebody poke me in the rear end when I have a pitcher that's going to hit. - Author: Joe Torre

#68. I've had some Democrat African-American leaders tell me they're really not all that comfortable with Obama as the lead at the MLK festivities 'cause he's not down for the struggle. He does not have that in his roots. - Author: Rush Limbaugh

#69. Why don't they just take him out?" I asked. I'm not politically minded, as I guess you can tell. Mr. Cataliades was smiling at me. "So direct, so classic," he said. "So American. - Author: Charlaine Harris

#70. We are now in the Me Decade - seeing the upward roll of the third great religious wave in American history. - Author: Tom Wolfe

#71. David Burnett was the son of Martha Foley, who edited the Best American Short Stories series. She hired me to work with David and her to read stories for the anthology. - Author: Terry Southern

#72. Any thief or criminal or robber who enters another country in order to steal should expect to be exposed to murder at any time. For the American forces to expect anything from me personally reflects a very narrow perception. - Author: Osama Bin Laden

#73. I had been an activist on the issue of HIV, primarily in the African American and Latino communities here in the U.S. for many years. It was horrifying to me how the pandemic was raging right here in this country but no one was talking about it. - Author: Gloria Reuben

#74. There's an enormous amount of corruption, and as one American adviser put it to me, "The police in Afghanistan are thugs. We equip them, we train them, and now they are equipped and trained thugs." - Author: Jeff Merkley

#75. Thou shalt not steal unless thou hast a majority vote in Congress ... I'm healthy; subsidized prescription drugs won't do me much good. I'd be willing to forego my prescription drugs if Congress would force some young American to mow my lawn. - Author: Walter E. Williams

#76. I wanted my art to deal with very formal concerns and to deal with very material concerns, and to deal with antecedents and art history, which for me go very far beyond just the influence of African-American artists. - Author: Rashid Johnson

#77. The office of President is a great one; to every true American it seems the greatest on earth. And to me, as I was engaged in weaving a background of music for the pageantry of it, there came a deeper realization of the effect of that office on the man. - Author: John Philip Sousa

#78. You know what's amazing to me? America. There have been so many people who have stepped up, and I'm just proud to be an American. Yeah, there were some mistakes made, but I don't play the blame game. Let's move forward and rebuild New Orleans. - Author: Charles Barkley

#79. To me, 'Blue Like Jazz' is a quintessential American story. So many people are just like Don - raised Christian and go off to college only to abandon their beliefs in order to fit in or be accepted. - Author: Marshall Allman

#80. What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when they grow up, and in the exercise of their duties as citizens, they insist that our courts and policemen and prisons be guided by divine or natural law. - Author: Kurt Vonnegut

#81. This medal (the National Book Award) together with my American Express card, will identify me worldwide ... except at Bloomingdale's. - Author: S.J Perelman

#82. I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan. For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head. - Author: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

#83. In a subway car, my skin would typically fall in the middle of the color spectrum. On street corners, tourists would ask me for directions. I was, in four and a half years, never an American; I was immediately a New Yorker. - Author: Mohsin Hamid

#84. People, when asked if they are Christians, give some of the strangest answers you ever heard. Some will say if you ask them: "Well - well - well, I, - I hope I am." Suppose a man should ask me if I am an American. Would I say: "Well, I - well, I - I hope I am? - Author: Dwight L. Moody

#85. The words I speak to these chairs
must be silencing.
It has stunned them
into a profound emptiness.
No creaking from the gallery
no James Joyce here, nor Malory
An unknown author
in a very large chain
can't you hear me rattling? - Author: B.J. Ward

#86. I hated the lost colony; in second grade, we were doing American History, and they said, We don't know what happened to them. That drove me nuts. That lost colony drove me crazy. - Author: Sarah Vowell

#87. I'm dying twice as fast
as any other American
between eighteen and thirty-five
This disturbs me,
but I try not to show it in public. - Author: Essex Hemphill

#88. I've told many people that I'm not looking to go out there and find the most beautiful girl in the world who likes me because I'm 'Mr. American Idol Scott McCreery.' If I could just find a nice hometown girl who just likes me for who I am, that's all I want. - Author: Scotty McCreery

#89. Tom Ford once told me that he found French women sexier than American ones. He said, 'Americans are too clean ... ' I took no offense. - Author: Linda Wells

#90. I was taught from a young age that many people would treat me as a second-class citizen because I was African-American and because I was female. - Author: Queen Latifah

#91. I was a supporting character in other people's lives, which seemed right and familiar to me. I was also an outsider: English in the U.S., American in England, dogged yet comforted by that familiar feeling of alien-ness, which occupied that space where my sense of self should have been. - Author: Allegra Huston

#92. When the sun died, I went up to heaven and saw God and all the people who had died a long time ago. God told me to come back and tell my people they must be good and love one another, and not fight, or steal, or lie. He gave me this dance to give to my people. - Author: Wovoka

#93. They said I looked like a foreign devil; they said I spoke like a foreign devil. I made mistakes in manners, and I didn't know delicacies that had grown up since my father left. They wouldn't have me. You can believe it or not - I'm less foreign here than I was in China. - Author: John Steinbeck

#94. I love Britain, I lived there for nine years doing shows and things, but I don't know what a British sensibility is. I'd like to have someone tell me what an American sensibility is. - Author: Frank Oz

#95. When I did 'Bird,' it was a surprise to some people, first because I wasn't in it and second because most of the films I'd been doing were cop movies or westerns or adventure films, so to be doing one about Charlie Parker, who was a great influence on American music, was a great thrill for me. - Author: Clint Eastwood

#96. I am half Puerto Rican, a quarter German and a quarter black. That was always a big issue for me - being mixed race - because casting directors tended to be very like, 'OK, are you Hispanic for this role?' 'Or is she going to be African American?' - Author: Naya Rivera

#97. The British audience was very important to me. I have always looked away from American to non-American audiences and so this was important. - Author: Robert Sheckley

#98. I do not know the American gentleman, God forgive me for putting two such words together. - Author: Charles Dickens

#99. The American fantasy of love is the 'meet-cute,' 'Love at first sight,' and 'You had me at hello!' The completely spontaneous version of accidental love, which doesn't care about demographics and social compatibility. - Author: Susan Straight

#100. The risk for me has to do with the nudity aspects. I'm an American actress in mainstream movies, and I would like to always be able to do them. For some reason, nudity is perceived differently here than it is elsewhere, and I didn't want to lose any American audience that I was building. - Author: Amanda Seyfried