First American Quotes

#1. My first novel, 'Leaving Atlanta,' took at look at my hometown in the late 1970s, when the city was terrorized by a serial murderer that left at least 29 African-American children dead.

Tayari Jones

#2. Up until the First World War, when people turned anti-German, Germany had been described by American political scientists as the model of democracy.

Noam Chomsky

#3. There were no stars, only the darkness and an arctic chill that had intensified since the first thin, blood-red stripes of sunrise shimmered on the ocean's horizon.

P.J. Parker

#4. It happens to be a matter of record that I was first in print with the discovery that the tastelessness of the food offered in American clubs varies in direct proportion to the exclusiveness of the club.

Calvin Trillin

#5. Today we take New England clam chowder as something traditional that makes our roots as American cooking very solid, with a lot of foundation. But the first person who decided to mix potatoes and clams and bacon and cream, in his own way 100 to 200 years ago, was a modernist.

Jose Andres

#6. I had wanted to write English crime novels based on the American hard-boiled style, and for the first two novels about Brixton, the critics didn't actually know I was Irish.

Ken Bruen

#7. I'm not going to be the first American president to lose a war.

Richard M. Nixon

#8. With all her heart, Mom believed in opportunity for everyone and privilege for no one. She put her children first, and her faith and trust in the American dream.

Ralph Webster

#9. Let me remind you all that the first task of American foreign policy is to reduce threats to the United States.

Michael Mandelbaum

#10. During the settling of the American colonies, it was said that the Spaniards would first build a church, the Dutch would first build a fort and the English a tavern. Welcome to Charleston, an English colony founded in 1670.

Mark R. Jones

#11. The first phase of American political history was characterized by the conflict between the Federalists and the Republicans, and it resulted in the complete triumph of the latter.

Herbert Croly

#12. We must display a heart for every American, and a special passion for those still on the first rung of life's ladder.

Mitch Daniels

#13. For the first time in American history, men in authority are talking about an 'emergency' without a foreseeable end ... such men as these are crackpot realists: in the name of realism they have constructed a paranoid reality all their own.

C. Wright Mills

#14. It was great to do August Rush and have all the challenges of playing that character, especially the American accent for the first time and also playing the guitar and the conducting I had to do.

Freddie Highmore

#15. This is the difference between the Spanish advent and the American; that the technical revolution provoked by the first produced the Filipino, while the cultural upheaval provoked by the second merely helped us to become more aware of this Filipinoness.

Nick Joaquin

#16. The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum.
(Adlai E. Stevenson, 1900-1965, American Lawyer, Politician)

Adlai E. Stevenson II

#17. Abstract Expressionism - the first American movement to have a worldwide influence - was remarkably short-lived: It heated up after World War II and was all but done for by 1960 (although visit any art school today and you'll find a would-be Willem de Kooning).

Jerry Saltz

#18. The best thing about being President is that it gets you out of American life. I don't know what the theory is behind this, but it is a fact. The first thing we do with a President is shunt him off to a siding where nothing American can ever happen to him.

Russell Baker

#19. We are first among the nations in per capita giving: it would take three Frenchmen, seven Germans, or fourteen Italians to equal the charitable donations of one American.

Parker J. Palmer

#20. 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.

Susan Straight

#21. Once the fire from the retaliatory strike dies down, the American people are going to find out that it is the Clinton Administration's wrongheaded policies that resulted in the creation of this terrorist haven in Afghanistan in the first place.

Dana Rohrabacher

#22. Fall into the cavern of my mind, and together there, we will dine.

Brad Jensen

#23. When I first tried the American accent, for a moment I thought I could never be an actor because I just could not do it. But then I thought, 'Okay, it'll just be something that I work at until I get it.'

Margot Robbie

#24. 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.

Clint Eastwood

#25. Wilmington, Del. (AP) June 14, 1966 - A fire that destroyed the city's oldest Negro church has led to the discovery of a wild slave narrative that highlights a little-known era of American history. The First United

James McBride

#26. It would be suicide in the American academy to show too early an interest beyond your doctoral specialization: charges of everything from charlatanry to ambition would be levied and tenure denied. I've seen this first-hand.

Tony Judt

#27. 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

#28. Today, President Barack Obama promised to 'detect and pursue' American tax evaders, as opposed to his first 100 days, in which he detected and nominated American tax evaders.

Jay Leno

#29. In 1850, one in four American babies died before his or her first birthday.

Martin J. Blaser

#30. The greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison Edison's first major invention, in 1877, was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented.

Dave Barry

#31. My mother is Greek and my father is Bulgarian. I am a first-generation American and native Los Angeleno. I was born and raised in Hollywood.

Rita Wilson

#32. Without God there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first, the most basic, expression of Americanism. Thus, the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus with God's help, it will continue to be.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

#33. There are individuals who are working very hard to promote fear and antagonism towards Islam and Muslims in this country. It's fueled, in part, by the first African-American president that we have. Obama's father was a Muslim and people have used this to arouse hostility against him.

Feisal Abdul Rauf

#34. We cannot get serious about helping the private sector create quality jobs without focusing first on the main drivers of our economy - the American middle class and those struggling to enter it.

Paul Tonko

#35. In examining the CIA's past and present use of the U.S. media, the Committee finds two reasons for concern. The first is the potential, inherent in covert media operations, for manipulating or incidentally misleading the American public.

Frank Church

#36. Abstract expressionism was the first American art that was filled with anger as well as beauty.

Robert Motherwell

#37. No American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found guilty of a crime by a court.

Rand Paul

#38. We've had periods of meanness in American politics. Actually, the dawn of partisan division in America was basically in George Washington's second term, when it was obvious that he would be the first and only consensus president.

William J. Clinton

#39. The fact that I was going to be the first American woman to go into space carried huge expectations along with it.

Sally Ride

#40. When I founded the first Hard Rock, no one was serving American food in London; McDonald's wasn't there, Burger King, etc.

Peter Morton

#41. The very first words that we, the American nation, spoke were right here in Philadelphia. You know those words: "We the people." It wasn't, "We the conglomerates." It wasn't, "We the corporations." It was, "We the people.

Al Gore

#42. Don't you know sugar is brown first? White folks couldn't stand the fact that something so sweet shared the same color as the people who cut the cane, slopped the hogs and picked the cotton. So they bleached it to resemble them, and now they done gone and fooled everybody. You included.

Bernice L. McFadden

#43. 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.

Jean Reno

#44. Few dramas in American political history remain more riveting than that of Nixon's exit and Mr. Ford's reaction, at first halting and then decisive, to the looming possibility of a former president on criminal trial for months on end.

Scott Shane

#45. In his 2016 campaign, the American president used the slogan "America First," which is the name of a committee that sought to prevent the United States from opposing Nazi Germany.

Timothy Snyder

#46. I went to my first dinosaur hall with my father and twin brother. We went to the American Museum of Natural History, and I was blown away by the dinosaurs.

David H. Koch

#47. Jefferson, incidentally, was also a great adventurer with foods. Among his many other accomplishments, he was the first person in America to slice potatoes lengthwise and fry them. So as well as being the author of the Declaration of Independence, he was also the father of the American French fry.

Bill Bryson

#48. The first time I saw America was from my perch on the mast of a Spanish naval ship, where I could spot the Statue of Liberty reaching proudly into the open, endless American sky.

Jose Andres

#49. American business, while it does not frown on helping the human race, frowns on people who start right in helping the human race without first proving that they can sell things to it.

Margaret Halsey

#50. It all looks American because America, the country that invented mass capitalism and consumerism, got there first. the impact of mass capitalism is now universal.

Fareed Zakaria

#51. I speak Swedish, it's my first language. Of course, growing up with Latin American parents from Argentina, I also have some other influences from other cultures. But Sweden is where I feel the most at home.

Jose Gonzalez

#52. I return with feelings of misgiving from my third war-I was the first American commander to put his signature to a paper ending a war when we did not win it.

Bill Vaughan

#53. 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

#54. In Obama's case, we've enabled affirmative action to find a home in the nation's highest office. There you have it. I said it and I stand by it. America fell for the gimmick candidate, disregarding every fact and warning sign in the rush to have 'the first African-American president.'

Allen West

#55. I probably spent the first 20 years of my life wanting to be as American as possible. Through my 20s, and into my 30s, I began to become aware of how so much of my art and architecture has a decidedly Eastern character.

Maya Lin

#56. 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.

Jackie Chan

#57. 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.

Sherman Alexie

#58. We must give the American worker the first option of ownership.

Jesse Jackson

#59. I think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, first of all, has got to be put into the context of being an American cultural showcase. It's there to be a museum showcase of all that's great about American music.

Ian Anderson

#60. 'The Road' was my first American film, my first film in the snow. The first of everything. So, I was jumping into it, and that was pretty grueling.

Kodi Smit-McPhee

#61. For the first time in history, the typical American now spends more years single than married. What

Aziz Ansari

#62. I'm a big fan of small business ownership. I think it's the backbone of American innovation. But to be successful, you first have to have the courage to go for it.

Bill Rancic

#63. I have minor characters who are Asian-American, and I've been using them throughout my career, but they've never taken center stage, they've never been really powerful, they've never expressed some of the experiences I had growing up in the U.S. Johnny Tam is the first one.

Tess Gerritsen

#64. Although the Jeffersonian Law ("All men are created equal") is the first article of the American faith, the facts of American life have demonstrated for some time now that it is an irksome faith to live by.

Alistair Cooke

#65. I love rapping. I do. My styling's similar to Missy Elliott - I think she's so dope. In a weird way, that's how I first learned the American accent: doing American rap songs.

Rebel Wilson

#66. 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.

Nathan Fillion

#67. The American people likewise want to see enforcement first, no tricks, no triggers, no amnesty, enforcing existing laws and closing loopholes to reaffirm that our great Republic is, in fact, a nation of laws.

J. D. Hayworth

#68. My husband is actually Italian-American, and he thought I was Italian when he first met me.

Andrea Navedo

#69. 1 month ago the American people stopped to remember the third anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war. We thought first and foremost of the selflessness, patriotism and heroism by our troops, our National Guard and Reserves.

Rosa DeLauro

#70. If Obama fails to win reelection, let the blame be first laid at the door of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who at a pivotal point threw gasoline on the flames by comparing angry American citizens to Nazis.

Camille Paglia

#71. Well, we were originally called Huey Lewis and the American Express. But on the eve of the release of our first record, our record label, Chrysalis Records was afraid that we'd be sued by American Express.

Huey Lewis

#72. Because this is another thing your average American man in crisis does: he tries to go home, forgetting, momentarily, that he is the reason he left home in the first place, that the home is not his anymore, and that the crisis is him.

Brock Clarke

#73. When I first got back from the war, I said, 'I'm gonna write the Great American Novel about the Vietnam War.' So I sat down and wrote 1,700 pages of sheer psychotherapy drivel. It was first person, and there would be pages about wet socks and cold feet.

Karl Marlantes

#74. Too many American authors have a servile streak where their backbone should be. Where's our latest Nobel laureate? More than likely you'll find him in the Rose Garden kissing the First Lady's foot.

Edward Abbey

#75. The first question [American college kids] asked me was, 'What state is Kuwait in?' They thought Kuwait was in America.

Ayshay

#76. We wonder if we will be the first generation in American history to leave our children with fewer opportunities and a less prosperous nation than the one we inherited.

Paul Ryan

#77. President Bush threw out the first pitch Monday at Cincinnati's great American ball park. 18 Iraqis were killed.

Amy Poehler

#78. It really was a hell of a motorcycle, ..It was arguably the first American motorcycle company, beating Harley by a year or so. Indian was the standard by which everything was gauged.

Jerry Springer

#79. The two words, in the American lexicon, are never good. Pink slip. The first time I ever heard it when I was young was when Kaiser Steel handed out pink slips to many of my neighbors and relatives. Layoffs were about efficiency, sales figures for raw materials or refrigerators.

Susan Straight

#80. I am the first African-American chairman of any major conservation organization in history. That's a big step.

Jerome Ringo

#81. 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

#82. 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

#83. Give me liberty or give me death.
[From a speech given at Saint John's Church in Richmond, Virginia on March 23, 1775 to the Virginia House of Burgesses; as first published in print in 1817 in William Wirt's Life and Character of Patrick Henry.]

Patrick Henry

#84. There is nothing wrong where we reach a point where maybe everybody could claim a victory. I think it would be good for the American people, which should be our first priority.

John Breaux

#85. Why would I be willing to challenge my Republican leadership? Because my allegiance will always be to the Constitution and the American people first and foremost, not to my political party.

Matt Salmon

#86. But when it did, when the first American fell to his knees, the government was ill prepared for the fallout and the sickness spread like wildfire.

Madeline Sheehan

#87. I'm a first-generation American, so I had friends from several cultures while growing up, including Indian and Iranian friends.

Michael Steger

#88. I read an anecdote once about a woman from another culture who came to the United States and began to introduce herself as "Busy." It was, after all, the first thing she heard when meeting any American. Hello, I'm Busy - she figured it was part of our traditional greeting,

Kevin DeYoung

#89. It is a kind of ego booster, the way Egypt's winning the 1973 war, in the first stages, was an uplift. But I did not find when I spoke to people that the war in Iraq was seen as the major issue in American-Arab relations.

Walter Russell Mead

#90. I was part of punk's second generation, so, not the first wave of '70s punk, but the American hardcore scene. I had a really strong love for music prior to that, but punk created a new template.

Bucky Pope

#91. Night raids are only the first step in the American detention process in Afghanistan. Suspects are usually sent to one of a series of prisons on U.S. military bases around the country. There are officially nine such jails, called Field Detention Sites in military parlance.

Anand Gopal

#92. On our American tour bus, the bunks are a bit taller so that we don't bash our heads. On the English bus, we bash our heads every morning. It's not the best thing to do first thing when you wake up.

Liam Payne

#93. That was not the biggest battle that ever was, but for me it always typified one thing; the dash, the ingenuity, the readiness at the first opportunity that characterizes the American soldier.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

#94. The Chinese, on the other hand, were in the position of having an American military spy plane on a Chinese military base and they had their own internal problems to deal with. At first, the Chinese weren't all that belligerent. They were just stalling to get their own bureaucracy in line.

Henry A. Kissinger

#95. I'm also working on another independent film called Roxanne, Roxanne, about Roxanne Shante, who was one of the first African American battle rappers from Brooklyn. It is produced by Forest Whitaker and Pharrell [williams], so I'm really in great hands.

Nia Long

#96. I can never be anything else but an American, and I must think of the United States first, and when I think of the United States first in an arrangement like this I am thinking of what is best for the world, for if the United States fails the best hopes of mankind fail with it.

Henry Cabot Lodge

#97. Those of us in the first American generations have had to figure out how the invisible world the emigrants built around our childhoods fits in solid America.

Maxine Hong Kingston

#98. Religious freedom, often referred to as the first freedom, is of central import to the American experiment. As such it should feature prominently in U.S. foreign policy.

Frank Wolf

#99. I'm Korean-American. Not Colombian. My parents are first-generation, and I'm like ... in-between, because I moved over here when I was four or five.

Steven Yeun

#100. I've been interested in American politics since I was eight. That was in 1968. It was an interesting year. I was a huge Eugene McCarthy supporter, so I guess he was the first senator I really knew about and cared about.

George Packer