Top 100 Americans'don't Quotes
#1. In all honesty, if somebody asked me the secret of auditioning for Americans, I don't know. Often, I do what's called self-taping for America. I go over there quite a lot to sit in a room and do stuff in front of people. You feel like a performing monkey. It's bizarre.
David Wenham
#2. If we dispense with some of our self-made boundaries, India can really take its place in the world as an economic power. It hasn't happened because we, sadly, don't look at ourselves as Indians but as Punjabis or Parsis, unlike the Americans. Don't make such boundaries.
Ratan Tata
#3. I really want Americans, and all of us, to be less afraid of death, and know that it's a passage, but that - don't go to the funeral before the day of the funeral.
Valerie Harper
#4. I don't really have that much contact with Americans. I mean, I see the oddest things on the Internet, I suppose. And I've got a couple of American friends, but they are Anglophiles anyway because they've decided to come live here.
Robert Webb
#5. You done decided you want to go to the dance yet Brenda?" "Didn't I tell you that dances was lame?" "What's lame about them?" "I like mature niggas." "I'm not a nigga." "What are you?" "An African American." "Well I don't like African Americans. I like niggas.
Vincent Morris
#6. We're in a kind of vicious cycle where the media tell the politicians, and the politicians tell the people, that perception is reality, and the perception of saving dooms a politician. I don't believe perception is reality, or that all Americans think that.
Amity Shlaes
#7. Although most Americans don't know it, the U.S. gets more oil from Canada than it does from the entire Middle East.
Jeff Goodell
#8. Americans are always mortified when I tell them this, but in England, it's a tradition to put your plaques and photographs and awards and gold records and stuff in your bathroom. I don't know why.
Adele
#9. Most people don't realize that it's not just minorities who don't do well in science and engineering - quite frankly, you're talking about Americans.
Freeman A. Hrabowski III
#10. The most surprising thing, honestly, is that so few Americans know about the orphan trains. I was also surprised at the resilience and fortitude of the riders I met, their pragmatism and grace. I don't know whether this is a Midwestern trait or simply a human one.
Christina Baker Kline
#11. My deal is have a flat, simple tax. And - Americans want - Americans I hope - aspire to be - be wealthy. I hope they aspire to have a better quality of life. And we have this class warfare that's going on now. And I don't agree with that. I'm interested in people getting to work.
Rick Perry
#12. Though I don't have any serious argument with Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods', I believe that Americans cease to be Europeans - the land makes them become Americans. You see it happening all the time when you travel around America.
Michael Moorcock
#13. Most Americans don't think about antitrust law when they look at their cable bill, flip channels on TV, or worry about what their favorite website knows about them. But they should.
Al Franken
#14. Americans can't stand any stranger looking them in the face. They take it as an insult. It's something they don't forgive. And every American carries a gun. If they catch you, a stranger, looking them in the face, they will shoot.
Okey Ndibe
#15. There's some pretty good academic research that suggest that what Americans don't like is losing.
Peter Bergen
#16. I don't really think that, as a society, we [americans] want to confer blessings on generation after generation who contribute nothing to society, simply because somebody in the far distant past happened to amass a great sum of wealth.
Warren Buffett
#17. There are people who wish to do us harm in the most heinous way. They want to kill Americans simply because they are Americans. They wish to destroy our culture and Nation because they don't like our freedoms, they don't like the fact that we are prosperous.
Judd Gregg
#18. I wish people would call poisons poison. I don't mind people smoking marijuana, but they should admit it's a poison, and coffee's a poison, but the Americans lie so.
James Purdy
#19. I endeavor to shine a light on what's happening behind closed doors in the back-door deal making that so many Americans understand is going on but they don't quite understand how or why, but they know that our elected leaders are lying to us.
Ted Cruz
#20. I have a saying 'train, don't strain.' The Americans have the saying 'no pain, no gain' and that's why they have no distance running champions. They get down to the track with a stopwatch and flog their guts out thinking that it'll make them a champion, but they'll never make a champion that way.
Arthur Lydiard
#21. It's an Australian thing to be dismissive. We find that endearing. Americans don't. They believe what you say.
Nick Cave
#22. Terrorists that kill Americans don't get released.
Elliott Abrams
#23. If you're famous, you suck, just for being famous. People in England totally get that; Americans don't.
Trey Parker
#24. The romantic myth of the artist says that you are the Source. I have no illusion about that. Native Americans don't believe they are the Source. They have access to the Source. Endless access. But don't get confused.
Tori Amos
#25. I don't fit into the bad side of American psychology. The British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans,
Gwyneth Paltrow
#26. We don't believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans.
George W. Bush
#27. We Americans are living a lifestyle of exhaustion. We don't have time for ourselves, much less for each other and our children.
James Dobson
#28. Today in the early Twenty-First Century, we Americans are once again faced with the same basic choice: liberty or tyranny, freedom or servitude. However, the attitude of far too many Americans towards our problems is one of both ignorance and apathy: "I don't know and I don't care.
Chris Hambleton
#29. I don't think he should make foreign policy on the basis of peak,but I don't think it can be overstated that Israel has been an embattled democracy that has enjoyed the bipartisan and overwhelming support of Americans. It has been a moral force.
Mark Shields
#30. I grew up in the '50s, a tough time for African Americans. I had friends whose fathers would openly say, 'Just bite your tongu;, don't cause any problems.' My father was not like that. Even in the toughest times racially, if somebody disrespected his family, they were in trouble.
Gregory Hines
#31. Most people in America don't believe that "God" is a dirty word, but the sad fact is that some Americans are left to wonder whether the Supreme Court might have greater regard for it if it was.
John Cornyn
#32. So many Americans, for one reason or another, they watch the news and it doesn't really give them the idea of the world. Or they don't read or travel. They have no idea that America is part of the world and not the world itself.
Henry Rollins
#33. Sometimes Americans don't quite get my sense of humor. My good ol' British sarcasm seems to go over their heads.
Lee Westwood
#34. There have been periods where the folks who were already here suddenly say, 'Well, I don't want those folks,' even though the only people who have the right to say that are some Native Americans.
Barack Obama
#35. I don't understand why Europeans and South Americans can take more sophistication. Why is it that Americans need to hear their happiness major and their tragedy minor, and as jazzy as they can handle is a seventh chord? Are they not experiencing complex emotions?
Joni Mitchell
#36. People of color, particularly African Americans, feel the stigma more keenly. In a race-conscious society, some don't want to be perceived as having yet another deficit.
Bebe Moore Campbell
#37. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.
Gordon Sinclair
#38. With or without a Social Security fix, Americans don't have enough assets to retire on. There has to be a much larger debate.
Frank Keating
#39. Unfortunately, that still leaves plenty of Americans who don't read much or think much
who will still be extremely useful in unjust wars. We are sick about that. We did the best we could.
Kurt Vonnegut
#40. If you don't have a way to speak to ordinary Americans, you're not in the game.
Gar Alperovitz
#41. I think the NRA, they got it half-right when they say, 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people.' I change it to, 'Guns don't kill people, Americans kill people.'
Michael Moore
#42. Americans are rather like bad Bulgarian wine; the don't travel well.
Bernard Falk
#43. The assertion that Americans love violence and bathe in it daily is a self-serving lie promulgated by fundamentalist religious types and America's propaganda-savvy gun-pimps. It's believed by people who don't read novels, play video games, or go to many movies
Stephen King
#44. If my fellow Americans could adopt even a fraction of the French attitude about food and life (don't worry, you don't have to sign on to the politics, too), managing weight would cease to be a terror, an obsession, and reveal its true nature as part of the art of living.
Mireille Guiliano
#45. ...she was followed a few weeks ago by some, I don't know, albino guy? Some white guy. Really white." "The fuck? How white can these Americans get?
Karina Halle
#46. The problem with most Americans is that they don't like any question that takes more than ten seconds to answer.
Gore Vidal
#47. Historically, when Americans don't know what to do next, they go to Paris. Benjamin Franklin is like: 'What am I going to do now? I'll go to Paris!'
Craig Ferguson
#48. I was walking an average of about two and a half miles a day, which is still more than most Americans. Most Americans don't even walk that.
Morgan Spurlock
#49. Americans in general have a lot of compassion, we just don't always have the same view of how that compassion is implemented.
Adam Kinzinger
#50. And what's interesting, and I don't think a lot of Americans understand this fact, is that, one, most new jobs are created by small businesses; two, most small businesses pay tax at the individual income tax, or many small businesses pay tax there.
George W. Bush
#51. Men don't wear fashion any more except in Italy and London. Americans have lost that.
Tom Ford
#52. House passes #dadt (don't ask don't tell) repeal. A step fwd on equality 4 gay Americans in military. History will judge those who tried 2 block passage on this.
Frank Pallone
#53. Black children need to see their lives reflected in the books they read. If they don't, they won't feel welcome in the world of literature. The lives of African-Americans are rich and diverse, and the books our children read should reflect that.
Valerie Wilson Wesley
#55. Many of us believe that we need health care reform. That being said - Americans felt like they weren't being listened to. There were a lot of people across the political spectrum who said we don't want a one-size-fits-all healthcare plan.
Timothy Griffin
#56. KSM insisted that the brothers eventually will defeat the United States because Americans don't have the will or stomach to do what must be done to stop them.
James E. Mitchell
#57. The movie industry would never purposely offend homosexuals, native Americans, environmentalists, animal rights activists, or women's groups, but they don't think twice about something that might offend Christians.
Tim LaHaye
#58. Most Americans want a sense of privacy. A lot of us don't realize how much of our privacy we're exposing by the internet.
Patrick Leahy
#59. I think most Native American literature is unreadable by the vast majority of Native Americans. Generally speaking Indians don't read books. It's not a book culture. That's why I'm trying to make movies. Indians go to movies; Indians own video recorders.
Sherman Alexie
#60. You know, American citizens, I don't think, ever thought that the right to the pursuit of happiness did not include the right to marry the person you love. But for a whole number of Americans, gay Americans, that happens to be true.
Andrew Sullivan
#61. There's a tendency on the part of Americans, all of us, to say, 'Hey, the Cold War is over, the Soviet Union is gone, we don't have to worry about these guys again.' We always have to be worried about them, we always have to be concerned about them, and we have to be well-informed.
Russ Feingold
#62. If you ask people, 'What do you think, should we kick kids off their family insurance policy in that 21- to 26-year-old age range?' You go through those ... provisions that are already affecting the everyday lives of Americans, and people don't want to get rid of them.
Tim Kaine
#63. Republicans have been very successful. There are three things Americans don't like: big unions, big government and big corporations. So Republicans go after big government and big unions, and only talk about small businesses.
Andy Stern
#64. Most Americans don't care about gay marriage.
Dan Savage
#65. We Americans look funny when we're in France because we don't travel, we are fairly un-cultured whereas Europeans go to Africa all the time because it's right there.
Henry Rollins
#66. I've learned a long time ago if you don't have anything to hide, you shouldn't be pleading the Fifth, and most Americans get it.
Tim Huelskamp
#67. I don't know anything offhand that mystifies Americans more than the cotton they put in pill bottles. Why do they do it? Are you supposed to put the cotton back in once you've taken a pill out?
Andy Rooney
#68. I feel like there is an emphasis against teaching geography in American schools. Americans don't say, "I'm going to Germany." They say, "I'm going to Europe."
Ayshay
#69. As you know, today was Don't Take Your Illegal Immigrant To Work Day here in Los Angeles. No, all across the nation they had a Day Without Immigrants, is what they call it. Or, as Native Americans call it, the good ol' days.
Jay Leno
#70. African-Americans know about racism, but I don't think we really know the causes. I decided it's first of all a family problem.
Bebe Moore Campbell
#71. Is a direct connection between suburban sprawl and the spiraling cost of government, and most Americans don't see it yet, including many in government. Likewise,
James Howard Kunstler
#72. I don't think Americans look bad in spandex.
Henry Cavill
#73. Black Americans, no more than white Americans, they do not want more government programs which perpetuate dependency. They don't want to be a colony in a nation.
Richard M. Nixon
#74. But Americans find me bizarre and always ask me why I eat so many carbs. I tell them I don't get full otherwise.
Anna Friel
#75. You ask people what their ethnicity is, and a lot of Scots-Irish people either don't know or if they know it they just don't acknowledge it. It's not something they really identify with. They're just plain old Americans, plain vanilla. I don't think they are a self-conscious voting bloc.
John Shelton Reed
#76. Men in India hold hands walking down the street," Ben said, his voice right up against my ear.
"Really?"
"Yeah. It's just part of their culture. They don't, you know, do things sexually. They just hold hands. Here, that would be, like, weird."
"Yeah. We Americans are so uptight," I said.
Bill Konigsberg
#77. He will know from and early age that failure is not disgrace. It's just a pitch that you missed, and you'd better get ready for the next one. The next one might be the shot heard round the world. My son and I are Americans, we prepare for glory by failing until we don't.
Craig Ferguson
#78. I once heard a Chicago-area pastor put it this way: we don't need more Americans bowing down to the Democrat donkey or the Republican elephant. We need more Americans bowing down to the Lion of Judah.
Todd Starnes
#79. It is not a case of our people ... wanting either separation or integration. The use of these words actually clouds the real picture. The 22 million Afro-Americans don't seek either separation or integration. They seek recognition and respect as human beings.
Malcolm X
#80. The president [Barack Obama] is not willing to send in apaches and spotters if the Iraqis say they don't want them and if it means that these Shia mobilization forces are going to be going after and trying to kill Americans.
Adam Schiff
#81. When you're a mayor and you have a problem you blame the provincial government. If you are provincial government and you have a problem you blame the federal government. We don't blame the Queen any more, so once in a while we might blame the Americans.
Jean Chretien
#82. In general, American social life constitutes an evasion of talking to people. Most Americans don't, in any vital sense, get together; they only do things together.
Louis Kronenberger
#83. Most Americans will let liberals and conservatives play their games because most Americans don't pay attention.
Dennis Miller
#84. As Americans, we don't see the role of government as guaranteeing outcomes, but allowing free men and women to flourish based on their own vision, their hard work and their personal responsibility.
Rick Perry
#85. If you're lucky enough to work with great actors and creative people, they're always just going to be who they are, so I don't think there's a difference between the Brits and the Americans.
Josh Dallas
#86. I generally don't follow domestic news that much aside from how it relates to the stories I'm covering abroad, like what Americans think of the War in Afghanistan.
Lynsey Addario
#87. Contrary to popular belief, Americans don't hate advertising.
Roy H. Williams
#88. The president and Republicans in Congress have repeatedly promised to revisit Social Security privatization after November. But Americans have already said, loud and clear, that they don't want Social Security to be privatized or dismantled.
Jim Clyburn
#89. If you asked a sample of Americans "What is the temperature of Mars?" about 8% would say they don't know.
Herbert Stein
#91. Americans are incredibly religious as a nation, and we have gotten that way by having the government stay out of religion and say religion is a private matter. The government doesn't take sides. Public schools don't promote or denigrate any religion.
Rachel Maddow
#92. No wonder Americans hate politics when, year in and year out, they hear politicians make promises that won't come true because they don't even mean them - campaign fantasies that win elections but don't get nations moving again
William J. Clinton
#93. We Californians can watch the Weather Channel for images of winter's brutality unleashed upon our fellow Americans and thank our lucky stars we don't have to contend with it.
Henry Rollins
#94. Is it a coincidence that in 1998, Barack Obama talks about a majority coalition of welfare recipients and in 2012 we got a record number of Americans on food stamps while he's president? I don't think it's a coincidence.
Rush Limbaugh
#95. Gandhi once said, "I like your Christ. I don't like your Christians." Well, I love America. But there are too many hateful Americans.
Peter K. Fallon
#96. Well, I will be a president for Democrats, Republicans and independents, for the struggling, the striving, the successful, for all those who vote for me and for those who don't. For all Americans together.
Hillary Clinton
#97. They never said "I don't know." They said, instead, "I'm not sure," which did not give any information but still suggested the possibility of knowledge.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
#98. Most Americans take their freedom very seriously, but they don't realize that not everyone is free. The repressed are not free to do what they want. That's what 'Star-Crossed' was all about for me.
Johnathon Schaech
#99. You Americans have the loveliest wine in the world, you know, but you don't realize it. You call them domestic and that's enough to start trouble anywhere.
H.G.Wells
#100. I understand now that the only time black people don't feel guilty is when we've actually done something wrong, because that relieves us of the cognitive dissonance of being black and innocent, and in a way the prospect of going to jail becomes a relief.
Paul Beatty
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
