Quotes About Being American

#1. Guess what? By virtue of being American, you are not innocent.

Ward Churchill

#2. 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.

Drake

#3. The great thing about not being American is that you don't assume you know what a Southern accent sounds like, so you have to be specific.

Cate Blanchett

#4. That's why I'm very proud of being American. I'm proud to pay taxes. I pay a lot of taxes, but it sure beats the alternative.

Payne Stewart

#5. Being American is, I think, a very difficult thing in art, because all the elements are European ...

Kingsley Amis

#6. Being Nigerian is a strong part of my identity. Being American is a strong part of my identity. And there are important parts of who I am that really have nothing to do with my national connection.

Teju Cole

#7. In America, we believe that our happiness depends on getting breaks, even though being American is already the biggest break we will ever get.

Veronique Vienne

#8. I think it's interesting being American, the expectations for an American guy, and the image that has to be projected. 'Oh, I can't wear pink,' that kind of stuff. There's none of that in Europe.

Beck

#9. Being American is not a matter of birth. We must practice it every day, lest we become something else.

Malcolm Wallop

#10. I wish we would all remember that being American is not just about the freedom we have; it is about those who gave it to us.

Mike Huckabee

#11. Having different people come together and be on a team and win a world championship is literally, I think, the definition of being American.

Abby Wambach

#12. Benny Goodman's band was integrated before baseball. Even before it was physically integrated, music was integrated. Everyone listened to Armstrong and Ellington. The 20s was called the Jazz Age. It's part of being American.

Wynton Marsalis

#13. I'm not talking about Russia in my music. I've never been to Russia. I'm not talking about Africa, Switzerland, China. I'm talking about me being American and growing up in a crazy world and helping to reflect all different sides of life.

Nas

#14. But the whole history of America is quite different from Europe. People went there to get away from the intolerance and constraints of life in Europe. They sought liberty and opportunity; and their strong sense of purpose has over two centuries, helped create a new unity and pride in being American.

Margaret Thatcher

#15. It's almost like that's the definition of being American: You love becoming Irish for a day, or becoming Italian ... Or becoming a Negro for four years.

Josh Alan Friedman

#16. When I first arrived in Houston, I was fascinated with the elaborate styles of cowboy boots and thought they were incredibly exotic. They also seemed to be a central part of a specifically 'Texan' identity, one distinct from being 'American.'

Shahzia Sikander

#17. Being a melting pot is what I think is great about being American, and also that we get to do something that other people don't get to do, we get to be a hyphenate. That's a good thing.

Keegan-Michael Key

#18. I'm mad about being old and I'm mad about being American. Apart from that, OK.

Kurt Vonnegut

#19. But the reality of being American requires that a commitment to our founding principles must be renewed by personal discovery with each generation - actively, not passively - if the country is to remain true to its stated goals.

Adrian Brooks

#20. Why lower oneself to taking pride from being American or British, when you can boast of being man!

Jules Verne

#21. Being American and being an outsider at the same time, it's a perspective I often bring to a character.

Aasif Mandvi

#22. Israel means war and destruction and we Americans are behind this war and I am ashamed of being American.

Anthony Hopkins

#23. We hear a lot in this country about family, and 'American Family' just shows us a portrait we haven't seen as much of yet. 'American Family' lets us know that being American isn't about the color of your hair or eyes or skin: it's really a state of mind.

Esai Morales

#24. I felt in my bones that Alfred Kazin was right to suggest that 'the deepest side of being American is the sense of being like nothing before us in history' - a historical conceit that privileged biography as the narrative of the exceptionalist experience.

David Levering Lewis

#25. Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give to an American.

Edward Snowden

#26. I think a lot of African-American kids don't have fathers to teach them how to dress, so you end up being taught by pictures in magazine and movies. You see cowboys, Indians, old Hollywood films, Cary Grant. It has an effect on you.

Andre Benjamin

#27. The biggest single problem of American parents today is the foolish idea that you just have to be a friend to your children. Kids need parents, not just another pal. This means being able and willing to say no, to challenge faulty thinking, and to expect accountability.

Steve Biddulph

#28. I'm honored to be at the side of Michele Bachmann. She is a great congresswoman. She is a great human being, and she is a true American patriot.

Jon Voight

#29. I continue to be surprised by judgmental native stereotypes and apathy, but if I wasn't that would mean I'd become accustomed and tolerant. I don't want to stop being surprised. I just want them to stop.

Red Haircrow

#30. American nuclear weapons would almost certainly start being removed from Britain within 12 months of a Labour government gaining power.

Neil Kinnock

#31. I never said I wasn't Black ... I want to make that very clear. I said, I am not African-American. I never expected my personal beliefs and comments to spark such emotion in people. I think it is only positive when we can openly discuss race and being labeled in America.

Raven-Symone

#32. She said "sweet boy" again, as if making a diagnosis like tooth decay or flat feet. I was embarrassed. I didn't know if I was being insulted or complimented.

Shawn Stewart Ruff

#33. The Englishman wants to be recognized as a gentleman, or as some other suitable species of human being, the American wants to be considered a good guy.

Louis Kronenberger

#34. The spirit that America has, the American industry creativity it has where anything is possible. Three idealistic Australians bringing in new ideas and being able to make the damn comic books that they've always dreamed about, it's kind of a cool thing.

Sam Worthington

#35. We are living in a time when American popular music is finally being recognized as one of our most successful exports. The demand is huge.

Billy Joel

#36. I feel sad when I realize how much truth is being changed or obscured in the American media.

Sharon Stone

#37. 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.

Paul McDonald

#38. 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

#39. We both (Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett) insist on a lot of time being available almost every day to just sit and think. That is very uncommon in American business. We read and think.

Charlie Munger

#40. It's like being on Death Row in an American jail. You are waiting for the door handle to turn, not knowing whether it's a reprieve or just your final breakfast before being executed.

Howard Wilkinson

#41. You don't get respect for being an Asian-American basketball player in the U.S.

Jeremy Lin

#42. 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?'

Naya Rivera

#43. It's complicated, being an American, Having the money and the bad conscience, both at the same time.

Louis Simpson

#44. My contribution I hope is to get people to eat full-flavored food. If I could come away with that alone, that would be a fantastic accomplishment. I'm also very proud of being a very American chef.

Bobby Flay

#45. And the American public was able to make up their own mind whether this verdict was a just verdict or not. So I think there's a lot of value in the public being able to see how the system works or doesn't work, so I think there's a definite value there.

Lance Ito

#46. I believe we are being dishonest with language minority groups if we tell them they can take full part in American life without learning the English language.

S.I. Hayakawa

#47. And everything stopped quite rapidly because I knew that nobody in Europe was able to go to space. It was the privilege of being either American or Russian.

Philippe Perrin

#48. The great thing about 'The Office' and it being single-camera and the documentary style is that it's mostly a comedy, but 10 percent of it is, we get to show the existential angst that exists in the American workplace.

Rainn Wilson

#49. 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

#50. Be careful of living your life based only on faith and signs, or you might find yourself standing in a South American jungle holding a glass of Kool-aid. Commonsense is the foundation of any good testimony.

Shannon L. Alder

#51. I believe the American people have the capacity to create a new movement, which would change the direction of our nation from being a military power to being a peaceful nation, using our enormous wealth for human needs, here and abroad.

Howard Zinn

#52. Indeed, so far from being humorous, the male American is the most abnormally serious creature who ever existed.. It is only fair to admit that he can exaggerate, but even his exaggeration has a rational basis. It is not founded on wit or fancy; it does not spring from any poetic imagination.

Oscar Wilde

#53. Where is it written that if you don't like religion you are somehow disqualified from being a legitimate American? What was Mark Twain, a Russian?

Hendrik Hertzberg

#54. Other than being crazy enough to press a button, there is nothing that Putin can do militarily to fundamentally alter American interests.

Joe Biden

#55. I love that there's this tradition of being able to discuss the heaviest topics and the gnarliest stuff that goes down in people's lives in traditional Southern American music.

Gillian Welch

#56. It's a complex fate, being an American, and one of the responsibilities it entails is fighting against a superstitious valuation of Europe.

Henry James

#57. I had never been to Texas. I'd been through Texas, but I'm so glad to be back in a place that's not L.A. or New York. To talk about Dallas, to talk about there being sweet tea on the catering table, it's rich and saturated in American-ness.

Kelli Giddish

#58. Being from Russia, I respect all of the comic books American people love. We do follow it a lot.

Svetlana Khodchenkova

#59. 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

#60. If now we were livingin the Revolutionary War and George Washington he being arrested through Britain. For sure he, they would consider him enemy combatant. But American, they consider him as hero.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

#61. The mere fact of an American being present could help save the lives of innocent people. That's why I believe in the importance of bearing witness, to become a voice for the voiceless.

Bianca Jagger

#62. 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.

Rebecca Solnit

#63. [Facism] that incredibly loaded word we do not associate with the real American politics is being used by other conservatives, by other Republicans to talk about Donald Trump.

Rachel Maddow

#64. It's one of the biggest fibs going that American newspapers are now being forced to give up their commitment to investigative reporting. Most of them gave up long ago as their greedy managements squeezed every cent out of the bottom line and turned their newsrooms into eunuchs.

Tina Brown

#65. Being kind modified the extraordinary, alarming otherness of him, which was threefold - large, male and American.

Kate Atkinson

#66. 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

#67. One ever feels his twoness,
an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose strenth alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

W.E.B. Du Bois

#68. The American war is over, but this is far from being the case with the American Revolution.

Benjamin Rush

#69. I think there's a lot of anesthesia being - that's been pumped into American culture, the mass media television, various forms of entertainment, and the illusion of wealth that we now understand to be an illusion as well as the illusion that America is a world power.

Parker Palmer

#70. 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.'

Craig Ferguson

#71. 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

#72. Instead of being a page-turner, 'Moby-Dick' is a repository of American history and culture and the essentials of Western literature. The book is so encyclopedic that space aliens could use it to re-create the whale fishery as it once existed on the planet Earth in the midst of the 19th century.

Nathaniel Philbrick

#73. I was just very interested in the American frontier and the growth of capitalism - those enormous fortunes that were being made, more often than not, on the blood of poor people, black people, Indian people. They were the ones who paid very dearly for those great fortunes.

Peter Matthiessen

#74. The difference between being a victim and a survivor is often a low level of situational awareness. You can't be a super-spy, watchful and paranoid every day. But I am more watchful than the average American.

Barry Eisler

#75. It makes me feel good. Being a foreigner, (the American fans) they make me feel like I'm a citizen of this country.

Sergio Martinez

#76. The American people need to know that money is being used effectively because frankly, the nation can't afford careless spending, no matter how well-intentioned.

Michael Enzi

#77. Because of the Republicans, I'm not ashamed of being an American. I'm embarrassed!

Bill Maher

#78. Native Americans were driven off their land. Lincoln even took part in the Black Hawk campaign against the Native Americans in Illinois. While they were being exterminated and driven off their land, Whites were collecting assets.

Ishmael Reed

#79. One of the most effective tools that the Cheney-Bush junta has used to marginalize dissenting or even mildly inquisitive American citizens has been the accusation of being unpatriotic.

Viggo Mortensen

#80. I hope that at this moment you are thinking of yourself as a human being rather than as an American, Asian, European, African, or member of any particular country. These loyalties are secondary.

Dalai Lama

#81. One of the downsides of being famous is that folks pay far more attention to you than they should. American celebrities are constantly under surveillance, and every word they say is subject to scrutiny. So, be careful what you wish for if you desire fame. No human being should be a goldfish.

Bill O'Reilly

#82. That is the heart and soul of the American dream, homeownership, the idea of being able to buy a house and start to build your family.

Wendell Pierce

#83. We are all allowed to support whoever we'd like to in this country. That's the greatest part about being an American - one of them, that is; you know what I mean?

Tyler Perry

#84. The [Wal-Mart] corporate culture lagged way behind many other American corporations in terms of making progress on women's issues, and that had a lot to do with being based in northwest Arkansas.

Liza Featherstone

#85. I dare say being a receptionist at the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square gets you a reasonable salary and all the nylon stockings you can eat,

Hugh Laurie

#86. The American audience has really opened up to women being A.) funny and B.) kinda crude. 'Bridesmaids' is R-rated, and I think it was a major coup for women to have an R-rated comedy that did really well. Same as 'Bad Teacher.'

Chris Pratt

#87. Being a Sikh meant having to do what Mom and Dad said, and going to temple, and Mom and Dad choosing who I would marry. But going to an American school taught me that I was the one who's supposed to make those choices.

Sheena Iyengar

#88. You can't be an American without being related to other Americans.

Amiri Baraka

#89. Unless we rise to the challenge, instead of American youth being able to live the American dream, the Chinese will fulfill their dream of overtaking America.

Mark Kennedy

#90. The one being abhorrent to the powers above the earth and under them is the hyphenated American

Theodore Roosevelt

#91. Republicans have called for a National African-American Museum. The plan is being held up by finding a location that isn't in their neighborhood.

Conan O'Brien

#92. There was no experience, I thought, quite as wonderful as being an American in Paris.

Ann Mah

#93. We shouldn't deny the right of the minority to filibuster, but we need to do a much better job of making them own it. That way, the American people could figure out who is being obstructionist and who is willing to compromise.

Claire McCaskill

#94. I've gotten more flack from the remake nature of our 'Being Human' from American audiences than I have from British fans. Every fan of the BBC original that I've bumped into seemed very excited and interested in seeing what we did with it - at least to my face!

Samuel Witwer

#95. How much longer are we going to think it necessary to be American before (or in contradistinction to) being cultivated, being enlightened, being humane, and having the same intellectual discipline as other civilized countries?

Edith Wharton

#96. At the end of our lives, when our bodies are about to be laid in Mother Earth, we will know for ourselves whether we are a Two-Legged being full of light or a Two-Legged being full of darkness.

Anasazi Foundation

#97. I see the American experience as being defined by the immigrant paradigm of rupture and renewal: rupture with the old world, the old ways, and renewal of the self in a bright but difficult New World.

Ayad Akhtar

#98. I'm tired of being labelled anti-American because I ask questions.

Susan Sarandon

#99. For me, I think being a conservative means you are focused on all four key principles: strong defense, lower taxes, less spending, and defending traditional American values.

Jim Jordan

#100. I could name many women who travel or who work with America as a theme. I think it was more not being able to name canonical women, whose work is part of the American canon.

Cynthia Daignault