Distinctly American Quotes

#1. Distinctly American poetry is usually written in the context of one's geographic landscape, sometimes out of one's cultural myths, and often with reference to gender and race or ethnic origins.

Diane Wakoski

#2. Blue jeans have gone around the world. But that's a product. We market blue jeans better, just as we market film better. But you can't tell me that if America didn't exist, the culture of movies wouldn't exist. It's not a distinctly American art form.

David Simon

#3. Of course, it is well to go abroad and see the works of the old masters, but Americans ... must strike out for themselves, and only by doing this will we create a great and distinctly American art.

Thomas Eakins

#4. We didn't create the culture of film. We certainly market it better than anyone in the world, but film could have happened anywhere. It's not distinctly American, as witnessed by the fact that there are film communities throughout the world that tell stories to their own cultural liking.

David Simon

#5. The vast majority of Americans, at all coordinates of the economic spectrum, consider themselves middle class; this is a deeply ingrained, distinctly American cognitive dissonance.

Ellen Cushing

#6. The musical theater is a glorious and distinctly American innovation in the history of theater.

Diane Paulus

#7. The free electoral process is one of the things that outsiders envy most about this country.The distinctly American two-party system is perpetuated through that process.

Robert A. Agresta

#8. There are nearly 30% of young people who are too fat. So let's take care of the zillions of the too fat before we talk about the percentage that's left.

Karl Lagerfeld

#9. Early America does not deserve to be considered uniquely, distinctly or even predominantly Christian ... There is no lost Golden Age to which American Christians may return.

Mark Noll

#10. When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.

Shunryu Suzuki

#11. I didn't finish college, which is really weird because they awarded me the Alumni of Distinction recently.

Joely Fisher

#12. There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress.

Mark Twain

#13. I love books. I hope when I grow up to be able to have lots of them.

L.M. Montgomery

#14. We're absolutely American and distinctly so, I think. That's part of what people respond to outside of this country, part of the reason that we're such a huge band outside of the U.S., where we're not so popular now as we were 10 or 12 years ago.

Michael Stipe

#15. The greatness of America has grown out of a political and social system and a method of control of economic forces distinctly its own - our American system.

Herbert Hoover

#16. God has smiled on me, He has set me free. For us to acknowledge that we have been set free from toxic dependency, from crippling obsession or guilt, that we have been graced with the ability finally to forgive someone, is just plain astonishing.

Anne Lamott

#17. Hope is what makes the human condition liveable

Arthur Kleinman

#18. While you are playing Cinderella with your life, they will keep toying with your life.

Sunday Adelaja

#19. Forests in the tropics are cut to make pasture to raise beef for the American market. Our distance from the source of our food enables us to be superficially more comfortable, and distinctly more ignorant.

Gary Snyder

#20. It is difficult to wrap your mind around this intellectually and until you've had the experience, it can be difficult to understand. I tell people to give it a shot; you have nothing to lose.

Robert Moss

#21. It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

Mark Twain