Quotes About Americans

#1. Modern Americans - shaped by raucous politics and a rapacious media - like to think of themselves as experts in confronting mistakes.

Nina Easton

#2. When you do a film, you know you're shooting for 6 or 9 weeks, you've got your cast and crew. Overall, no one can just pull the plug and say, 'This isn't working.' There's just no security on television, especially for African Americans. It's a tough market.

Vivica A. Fox

#3. Brave Americans in past wars didn't die for the actual flag
they died for the freedom it represents, including the freedom to burn it.

Bill Maher

#4. Mrs. Nixon and I share the sorrow of millions of Americans at the death of Louis Armstrong. One of the architects of an American art form, a free and individual spirit, and an artist of worldwide fame, his great talents and magnificent spirit added richness and pleasure to all our lives.

Richard M. Nixon

#5. 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

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

Linda Wells

#7. In my view, the greatest threat to America's future isn't hiding in a cave in Pakistan or Afghanistan; it's right here at home. Baby boomers like myself are on course to become the first generation of Americans who leave things in worse shape than they found them.

David Walker

#8. A friend of mine who works for naval intelligence said an aerial satellite revealed that 1.9 million attended the event in 1995. But if they would have had a rumble at the march the newspapers would have said that 75 million Afro-Americans were there.

Dick Gregory

#9. Americans love to hear good things about their bad habits.

T. Colin Campbell

#10. Bush sees the evil as out there in the wider world, residing in people who 'hate freedom'. Look at his immediate response to the pictures of prisoner abuse; this is not what Americans do, these are not our values.

Peter Singer

#11. Someday I hope Americans will not believe that anyone had to spend his or her days fighting for limited government because everyone they know wants maximum freedom and minimum statism.

Grover Norquist

#12. I'm not leaving New York. And neither is anyone else. We're here. We are quintessential Americans - we're not only American, but New York-American.

Lou Reed

#13. It's very strange to be completely naked in public," said Jacob. "It isn't something Americans ordinarily do."
"I can't say it's very English, either," replied Henry.
"It's a Scottish thing, though, isn't it? With all the kilts and all that.

Caleb Crain

#14. I feel like I have to do the best job I can to basically say, "OK, I understand - you have every right to be angry, but anger is not a plan. Here's what I want to do, and that's why I hope you will support me, because I think it will actually improve the lives of Americans."

Hillary Clinton

#15. Then you get to the last half of the 20th century, Americans are getting very skeptical about their leaders and their institutions, and another place that is affected is parties and conventions.

Michael Beschloss

#16. It's shortsighted not to view the education of a future generation of Americans as a priority for all Americans.

Mel Martinez

#17. I hate Nassau and the Bahamas. It's one of those places I'd always wanted to visit since reading Ian Fleming but it was full of casinos with Americans in shorts.

Tony Parsons

#18. 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

#19. We Americans really seem to be the only truly non-socialist economy on earth.

William Pfaff

#20. Middle class families are struggling to send their sons and daughters to school. For many Americans, a college education is essential to future success.

Albio Sires

#21. Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.

George S. Patton

#22. If you compare charitable donations, you name it, religious tithing, giving, Americans trump citizens of the world hands down.

Rush Limbaugh

#23. Conquest by force is not sanctioned by God. The Americans have no right to be here. We will defeat them because we believe that this land they usurp is ours; God created it for us. The whole history of mankind has shown how faith endures while steel rusts.
-Istak

F. Sionil Jose

#24. I live in Italy part time, and they're obsessed with what's happening in LA too. They make fun of Americans, but the world wants to know what's going on in Hollywood.

Debi Mazar

#25. Americans thinking that America will continue to lead the world in innovation and quality of life without some quick and serious educational improvements are dangerously delusional.

Dean Kamen

#26. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo clearly and engagingly tells us Americans a truth that we might not want to hear but should.

Dal LaMagna

#27. We as Americans have ripped off the world. We get to throw food away. It's insane.

John McAfee

#28. Americans understand that our security is enhanced when the United States is trusted and respected in the world.

Susan Rice

#29. Do not be disingenuous with me, Colonel Graff. Americans are quite apt at playing stupid when they choose to, but I am not to be deceived.

Orson Scott Card

#30. As Americans, we go forward, in the service of our country, by the will of God.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

#31. 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

#32. In 1955, there was one psychiatric bed for every three hundred Americans; fifty years later, it was one bed for every three thousand.

Bryan Stevenson

#33. In spirituality the Americans are very inferior to us. But their society is very superior to ours

Swami Vivekananda

#34. Look through the prayer books. You'll see lots of dates. You'll see names of Native Americans remembered. This was an open-sourcing project among so many people.

Shane Claiborne

#35. Americans prefer to isolate villains who despoil a preexisting innocence, rather than admit that there might not have been any innocence there in the first place.

Rick Perlstein

#36. One survey found that ten percent of Americans thought Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

Rita Mae Brown

#37. There is no question that I would be the better president. But as for the campaign, are Americans ready for a general election in which both major party candidates are ADD? Quite frankly, it could provide an opening for a third party candidate, maybe someone backed by the evil Koch brothers.

Joe Biden

#38. 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

#39. 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

#40. Like other Americans, I've reconciled myself to the idea that an animal's life has been sacrificed to bring me a meal of pork or chicken. However, industrial meat production - which subjects animals to a life of torture - has escalated the karmic costs beyond reconciliation.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

#41. What's it mean; are you determined
To make modern all mankind?
If so, you should be be-sermoned
And brought back to healthy mind.

Charles C. Abbott

#42. Crisis' seems to be too mild a word to describe conditions in countless African-American communities. It is beyond crisis when in the richest nation in the world, African Americans in Harlem live shorter lives than the people of Bangladesh, one of the poorest nations of the world.

Johnnetta B. Cole

#43. I do think students in public school (and private) should be required to study the Bible. As a matter of pure education, it's shocking that we [the americans] are not compelled to learn the book, which is the source of our language, our common stories, our political structure, our conflicts.

David Plotz

#44. Here at home, when Americans were standing in long lines to give blood after the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we squandered an obvious opportunity to make service a noble cause again, and rekindle an American spirit of community.

Joe Biden

#45. We Americans, we're a simple people ... but piss us off, and we'll bomb your cities.

Robin Williams

#46. America is a magical place, and I think my job, or the job of a lot of us European filmmakers is to just hold up America to Americans and present it to you in a new way. All I wanted to do is in a funny way say, "Look at your country. It's magnificent."

Hans Zimmer

#47. You all know from past experiences that the white man only sees the bad that our people do to them. They are blind to their own indiscretions.

Violetta Botzet Luetgers

#48. No matter how rough things can be at times, many Americans are optimistic and on the move.

Henry Rollins

#49. Government aid programs have been endlessly expanded, and the government has sought to maximize the number of people willing to accept handouts ... Roughly half of all Americans are dependent on the government, either for handouts, pensions, or paychecks.

James Bovard

#50. You've got the top 400 Americans owning more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans. Most folks do not think that is right.

Bernie Sanders

#51. As an English actress constantly playing Americans, you already had to step way out of your box in that way.

Minnie Driver

#52. In a time of polarized politics there's one thing that more than ninety percent of Americans agree on, that our government is broken, and broken because of the money in politics.

Lawrence Lessig

#53. One could reasonably argue that the Turkish pogrom against the Armenians during World War I qualifies as a crime against humanity, as does the United States' ethnic cleansing of Native Americans.

Sebastian Junger

#54. When I was a kid, I really loved Indians. Native Americans. Pardon. Me.

Dave Attell

#55. I am heartbroken by the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in my home state. Like so many Americans I am watching the news reports with great sadness. But it's at times like these that each of us must work together to provide lifesaving aid to those in terrible need.

Tim McGraw

#56. More than any audience in the world, Americans will cross their arms, stare at you and say, 'OK, whaddya got?' - no matter how many times you've proven it to them.

Billy Corgan

#57. The existence of the Taliban, in my view, is a tragedy for Afghanistan. We as Americans need to understand our role in helping bring that tragedy about. So I think it's important to look at the stories about why these people are fighting.

Anand Gopal

#58. If you think back to the fight over drones, when I was proud to be standing shoulder to shoulder with Rand Paul filibustering for 13 hours, that was viewed as a fringe issue, as a quixotic issue, and yet millions of Americans engaged, spoke up, got online.

Ted Cruz

#59. The defeat of the Americans in Canada and the advantages gained by the British arms in the Jerseys, and indeed for some months in every other quarter, gave to the royal cause an air of triumph.

Mercy Otis Warren

#60. As Americans, we want peace - we work and sacrifice for peace. But there can be no peace if our security depends on the will and whims of a ruthless and aggressive dictator. I'm not willing to stake one American life on trusting Saddam Hussein.

George W. Bush

#61. Americans should know that Iranians are just as decent, human and rational as other human beings. Sadly, the mainstream media in the U.S. regularly fails to recognize and reflect this.

Mohammad Marandi

#62. If nearly two-thirds of Americans will accept a scientific fact only if it's not in clear conflict with their faith, then their worldview

Jerry A. Coyne

#63. Every time I work with a European director, I find they hire the person that captures the spirit of the role. Americans tend to hire the best face. The person that looks more like the role, whether they can perform the role or not is a bonus.

Elizabeth Pena

#64. As a result of our reliance on nutrient-poor processed foods, the majority of Americans are overfed, undernourished, and running on empty.

Shalane Flanagan

#65. You know, in the WikiLeaks cables, the Chinese discovered that Kevin Rudd was urging the Americans to keep the military option open against them. This is hardly a friendly gesture.

Paul Keating

#66. Ohio Governor John Kasich became the 16th Republican to announce that he is running for president. During his speech he referred to Jesus Christ, which is ironic because so did Americans when they heard another Republican was running for president.

Jimmy Fallon

#67. You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourself to make other people comfortable.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

#68. Native Americans are not and must not be props in a sort of theme park of the past, where we go to have a good time and see exotic cultures. "What we have done to the peoples who were living in North America" is, according to anthropologist Sol Tax, "our Original Sin.

James W. Loewen

#69. It is not patriotic to commit young Americans to war unless our national security clearly requires it.

George McGovern

#70. To see poor people, their benefits being cut, to see pensions of Americans who have worked like my father, all their lives, and taken away, to see the rich just accumulating more and more wealth. I mean, it seems to me that there has to be a point where you have to say, 'No, this has to stop.'

Henry Giroux

#71. According to a Pew poll, 49% of young Americans have a favorable view of socialism. What is socialism? it is a system that leads to mass misery, mass impoverishment, and human slaughter. That's what it means. Yet almost half of the young think it's benign.

David Horowitz

#72. One the next corner stood a cinder block restaurant with a hand-painted sign that read CHICKEN & WAFFLES. There was a queue of twenty people outside.
You Americans have the strangest taste. What planet is this?

Rick Riordan

#73. Europeans, like some Americans, drive on the right side of the road, except in England, where they drive on both sides of the road; Italy, where they drive on the sidewalk; and France, where if necessary they will follow you right into the hotel lobby.

Dave Barry

#74. It is impossible for African-Americans not to feel like their government is particularly targeting them.

Rand Paul

#75. It was a mission of celebration: never had two Mexican-Americans flown up in space on the same mission, and never did burritos shine so brightly.

Gustavo Arellano

#76. I hate it that Americans are taught to fear some books and some ideas as though they were diseases.

Kurt Vonnegut

#77. Roosevelt's declaration that Americans had 'nothing to fear but fear itself' was a glorious piece of inspirational rhetoric and just as gloriously wrong.

Russell Baker

#78. No place does home-turf nutjobs like America.

Erin Moore

#79. There is a story I always tell my students ... when I came for the 1st time to the US. I didn't speak English (Only Spanish) & I saw on every door the word "exit" which in Spanish means Success = Exito. And then I said :"No wonder Americans are winners ,every door they open leads to success

Pablo

#80. There's been an increase in the number of Iraqis in training, but more Americans are dying and violence is increasing.

Lawrence Korb

#81. European toilet paper is made from the same material that Americans use for roofing, which is why Europeans tend to remain standing throughout soccer matches.

Dave Barry

#82. President Obama keeps telling us that he is "creating jobs." But more and more Americans have no jobs. The unemployment rate has declined slightly, but only because many people have stopped looking for jobs. You are only counted as unemployed if you are still looking for a job.

Thomas Sowell

#83. On January 21st of 2017, the day after I take the oath of office, Americans will finally wake up in a country where the laws of the United States are enforced. We are going to be considerate and compassionate to everyone. But my greatest compassion will be for our own struggling citizens.

Donald Trump

#84. The majority of Americans receive health insurance coverage through their employers, but with rising health care costs, many small businesses can no longer afford to provide coverage for their employees.

Jim Ryun

#85. I think there is a big difference between expressing the pain and anger that many African Americans and other people of color may feel versus language that I think now crosses the line and goes into hate.

Michael Nutter

#86. When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry,

Dick Cheney

#87. The United States can no longer rely upon foreign nations such as China to bail us out of our economic irresponsibility. We must live within our means and implement creative, free-market solutions to put Americans back in jobs and to create economic opportunities.

Pete Sessions

#88. Diabetes occurs at twice the rate in the African American community as it does in white Americans.

Xavier Becerra

#89. Every day more Americans watch their jobs being shipped overseas.

Jerry Costello

#90. The problem is that you can't impose the church's teachings on all Americans as a matter of law.

Mario Cuomo

#91. Americans refused to see accidents as accidental. They did not comprehend they while tragedy always exacts a formidable price, it rarely incurs a debt.

Julia Glass

#92. We're at war with Japan. We were attacked by Japan. Do you want to kill Japanese, or would you rather have Americans killed?

Curtis LeMay

#93. I've been marching in every single ethnic nationality parade all throughout the City of New York. We're all Americans first and foremost, but people understand their heritage and it's good to see.

Joe Lhota

#94. I'm saying the federal government is taking away the freedom of Americans to make choices.

Paul LePage

#95. Without putting the brakes on out-of-control campaign contributions from individuals and corporations - it will be business as usual, with 1 percent of Americans pulling the strings.

Madeleine M. Kunin

#96. The crusades of Vietnam and Watergate seemed like a good idea at the time, even a noble one, not only to the press but perhaps to a majority of Americans.

Howard Fineman

#97. I love Caribbean food. It's a great melting pot of so many cultures including the Native Americans.

Bob Greene

#98. The terrorism danger to the United States is even worse than September 11th, when 19 hijackers murdered almost 3,000 Americans.

Newt Gingrich

#99. Really, the potential for, first of all, any college graduate today is enormously good. These are good times for anyone with a college degree today, particularly African Americans. With a college degree today, you really breach the unemployment rate.

Alexis Herman

#100. We do not intend to part from the Americans and we do not intend to be satellites. I am sure they do not want us to be so. The stronger we are, the better partners we shall be; and I feel certain that as the months pass we shall draw continually closer together with mutual confidence and respect.

Harold Macmillan