What Are American Sayings

#1. Dry-goods! What are American dry-goods?" asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb. "American novels," answered Lord Henry, helping himself to some quail.

Oscar Wilde

#2. What are American dry-goods? asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb.
American novels, answered Lord Henry.

Oscar Wilde

#3. Let's all understand that these guiding principles cannot be discarded for short-term political gains. They represent what this country is all about. They are indigenous to the American idea. And these are principles which are not negotiable.

Barbara Jordan

#4. There was a widespread indignation in the American media. They were saying, 'How can you make a movie during an election that's about politics? What are you doing? Are you trying to influence people's lives?' To which my response was, 'Well, I hope so.'

John Sayles

#5. Being an American, what I've noticed is that we're in such a race. You wake up and you realize you're in the middle of a race, and some people are running right by you.

Steven Conrad

#6. Everyone gives much more and the receipts are considerable. Typical of American generosity. Their hospitality, their cordiality are like that too, spontaneous and without affectation. It's what's best in them.

Albert Camus

#7. In time, foods such as hamburgers and ice cream became more than just meals. They became part of American history and culture, touchstones that are almost immediately nostalgic and sentimental no matter how old you are or what part of the country you are from.

Homaro Cantu

#8. We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.

Lyndon B. Johnson

#9. I remind my American readers that biscuits in England and Australia are crispy flat things such as you call cookies, and the soft doughy things you call biscuits are what we call scones. And they say we speak the same language ...

Kerry Greenwood

#10. Well that's true, and what is actually happening now is that there are accusations that those records contain conspiratorial information that has been concealed from the American people and that is a dangerous situation that just cannot be tolerated.

Louis Stokes

#11. I think that extreme right wing views are not what the American people are looking for right now. They want to see us create jobs.

Bernie Sanders

#12. I think anyone that comes to Nigeria has to offer value. What value are you bringing? There are Black Americans here. I think we've moved beyond that Africans vs. African Americans. They may have more issues with us than we do with them.

Mo Abudu

#13. Sometimes the European and North American public like some things to be exotic and kept at arm's length. They don't want sometimes to know that foreign artists are doing something that's at least as relevant as what's being done here.

David Byrne

#14. Lately even the harshest critics of President Bush have been forced to admit maybe he's right about freedom's march around the globe. What if we are watching an example of presidential leadership that will be taught in American schools for generations to come? It's an idea gaining more currency.

Brian Williams

#15. My grandfather always told me, 'You know you're American first, but you're a Greek-American, which makes you a better American.' It sounds sort of old-world and very sweet, but what he meant was that you should embrace those things that are most special and different about you.

Melina Kanakaredes

#16. There were four million people in the American Colonies and we had Jefferson and Franklin. Now we have over 200 million and the two top guys are Clinton and Dole. What can you draw from this? Darwin was wrong!

Mort Sahl

#17. I mean, the reality is unemployment today - over 14 million Americans are unemployed. That's exactly what it was a year ago. I mean, this - the American people know we can't borrow and spend and bail our way back to a growing economy.

Mike Pence

#18. Basically, what Economic Hit Men are trained to do is to build up the American empire. To create situations where as many resources as possible flow into this country, to our corporations, and our government, and in fact we've been very successful.

John Perkins

#19. Most of the Jewish writer friends I have are American, and I feel closer to them because they're always obsessed with one issue - identity: what does it mean to be an American Jew?

Etgar Keret

#20. Most American actors are taught the Stanislavsky method ... Method acting, but I really think that as an actor you have to develop what works for you. There is really not one way of doing anything. There are many ways of achieving the same goal.

Ving Rhames

#21. You've got Washington picking winners and losers. And so, all of a sudden, decisions are being made on what helps politicians, not what helps the economy. Some will call it socialism. Some will call it a command and control economy. Whatever it is, it's antithetical to the American experience.

Jeb Hensarling

#22. The oil companies are regulated by the federal government. They can't drill on land nor in American waters without permission from the feds. Many Republicans want to drill baby drill but what's the point if all the oil goes to China? Increased production obviously doesn't mean lower prices for us.

Bill O'Reilly

#23. Landscape is to American painting what sex and psychoanalysis are to the American novel.

Robert Hughes

#24. Of course when you are a kid you listen to what your parents had around. A lot of gospel, jazz. Now when I started to listen to music on my own it was around the time of the birth of rock and roll. Shortly thereafter I started to get into more blues and more traditional rootsy American music.

Jorma Kaukonen

#25. In the homes of America are born the children of America; and from them go out into American life, American men and women. They go out with the stamp of these homes upon them; and only as these homes are what they should be, will they be what they should be.

J.G. Holland

#26. Enormous numbers of people are taken in, or at least beguiled and fascinated, by what seems to me to be unbelievable hocum, and relatively few are concerned with or thrilled by the astounding-yet true-facts of science, as put forth in the pages of, say, Scientific American.

Douglas Hofstadter

#27. One might enumerate the items of high civilization, as it exists in other countries, which are absent from the texture of American life, until it should become a wonder to know what was left.

Henry James

#28. The cognitive skills prized by the American educational establishment and measured by achievement tests are only part of what is required for success in life. Character skills are equally important determinants of wages, education, health and many other significant aspects of flourishing lives.

James Heckman

#29. I learned to be far more skeptical of what I'm told by presidents, no matter who the presidents are, and also to be much more cautious, always, in any action or vote that could lead to the use of American military power and most particularly what we call 'boots on the ground.'

Hillary Clinton

#30. Do you think I'm some sort of sex-starved loser?" "Well, you are American." "What!" Great festering tapir tits, that was a stupid thing to say.

Kevin Hearne

#31. Of course you are American,' he said, and waived his hand, like waving away the sentiment. 'What other country can throw away money sending its people to live with savages?

Tony D'Souza

#32. What are the American ideals? They are the development of the individual for his own and the common good; the development of the individual through liberty; and the attainment of the common good through democracy and social justice.

Louis D. Brandeis

#33. Benchmarks, yes, we want the Iraqi government to do the things that will show progress. But to say, American troops are going to leave, no matter what's happening on the ground, is surrender. There is no other word for it.

Kay Bailey Hutchison

#34. Our only hope for America is that every conservative takes upon him or herself the project of learning what American and conservative values are, coming to understand what leftism stands for, and learning how to make the case for those values to women, young people, blacks and Hispanics.

Dennis Prager

#35. We must see the great distinction between a reform movement and a revolutionary movement. We are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society ... What America must be told today is that she must be born again. The whole structure of American life must be changed.

Martin Luther King Jr.

#36. My friends who are not from Sweden tell me that I'm more reserved or maybe more ... I guess the opposite of what a Latin American would be. Maybe because Scandinavians are more careful with their words and I guess it takes a lot to become a friend of a Swede.

Robyn

#37. You know, I think what the American people want more than anything else right now is someone who's just going to look them in the eye and tell them the truth, even some truths that they don't like. And - but they have to believe the person's speaking from their heart and are authentic.

Chris Christie

#38. American women often fall into the trap of, 'Oh, these are my weekend clothes. These are my work clothes. This is what I wear at night.' It's so old-fashioned.

Michael Kors

#39. The links between the American government and the Iraqi government are so close that you cannot judge one without asking at least the other what he has done by this time.

Jacques Verges

#40. Lincoln once said that America was founded on a proposition that was written by Jefferson in 1776. We are really founded on an argument about what that proposition means.

Joseph J. Ellis

#41. I opposed No Child Left Behind, I opposed the Medicare prescription drug bill, I opposed the Wall Street bailout. What the American people are starting to see is that Republican, Republicans on Capitol Hill get it and the Democrats, from the White House to Capitol Hill, just don't get it.

Mike Pence

#42. I got to learn from the American audience. Hearing what it is they're not getting. These are audiences, 35 to 40, an older demographic that controls seven to 10 trillion dollars. And the producers and distributors have convinced themselves this group doesn't go to the movies.

Peter Riegert

#43. What are you going to do to preserve a tradition that is the peculiar and unique culture that Judaism inculcates? The American Jewish community is not going to survive by lining up against its common enemy.

Arthur Hertzberg

#44. Well, what I will tell you is the support from the world - it's not just an African-American citizen. There are people of all different walks of life who are rallying behind the concerns with the that Sandy was treated because what that says to me is that this is an American issue.

Sharon Cooper

#45. Most American women are very uncomfortable about having servants. They don't know what to do while you are there.

Lucia Berlin

#46. And the American people are the greatest people in the world. What makes America the greatest nation in the world is the heart of the American people: hardworking, innovative, risk-taking, God- loving, family-oriented American people.

Mitt Romney

#47. I'm not sure that some of the food purists are in touch with what really goes on in American households.

Sandra Lee

#48. But recently I began to feel that maybe I wouldn't be able to do what I want to do and need to do with American musicians, who are imprisoned behind these bars; music's got these bars and measures you know.

Sun Ra

#49. What are the objects of an useful American education? classical knowlege, modern languages & chiefly French, Spanish, & Italian; Mathematics; Natural philosophy; Natural History; Civil History; Ethics.

Thomas Jefferson

#50. If you ask every American out there what kind of a people we are, we would all say, "Oh, we're really good people. We do good things in the world." Then you go around the world and ask what America is like, there's a completely different conceptualization of what we are.

Wayne Dyer

#51. On occasion we stumble upon what seems to be a truth. Compared to the surrounding blackness, it sparkles and dazzles our eyes. But are these actually truths? Are our eyes really feasting upon light? Or just patches of grey?

Roy L. Pickering Jr.

#52. Again, the American people expect us to do what they are doing. It's tightening the belt, it's learning how to do more with less. That's a reality today, and we've got to do that in order to get the private sector growing.

Eric Cantor

#53. My position on the POW issue has been widely misquoted and taken out of context. What I originally said and have continued to say is that the POW's are lying if they assert it was North Vietnamese policy to torture American Prisoners.

Jane Fonda

#54. But on the other hand, there are many corporations who have turned their backs on the American worker, who have said, if I can make another nickel in profit by going to China and shutting down in the United States of America, that's what I will do.

Bernie Sanders

#55. The reason American cars don't sell anymore is that they have forgotten how to design the American Dream. What does it matter if you buy a car today or six months from now, because cars are not beautiful. That's why the American auto industry is in trouble: no design, no desire.

Karl Lagerfeld

#56. The American people should be informed about what kind of capability terrorists have inside the United States. They should be informed of why we are not using information to do a more effective job of dealing with terrorists.

Bob Graham

#57. I think that the American people are curious about who a candidate is, what their background is, who their family is, what their faith experience has been, their education, their work experience. All of those are factors that voters look at because they want to take a measure of the individual.

Michele Bachmann

#58. This book is written for those who want more Jesus. It is for those who are bored with what American Christianity offers. It is for those who don't want to plateau, those who would rather die before their convictions do.

Francis Chan

#59. If we allow our American mindset of consumption to spill into our understanding of what a Christian is, we are in danger of living irrespective of world family.

Holly Sprink

#60. Accept that diabetes care is up to you. You are the one who decides what to eat, how much to exercise, and when to check your blood glucose. Accept this for what it is - control. You are in control.

American Diabetes Association

#61. By transporting Asian species to North America, and North American species to Australia, and Australian species to Africa, and European species to Antarctica, we are, in effect, reassembling the world into one enormous supercontinent - what biologists sometimes refer to as the New Pangaea.

Elizabeth Kolbert

#62. Roy: The immutable heart of what we are that bleeds through whatever we might become. All else is vanity.

Tony Kushner

#63. What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when they grow up, and in the exercise of their duties as citizens, they insist that our courts and policemen and prisons be guided by divine or natural law.

Kurt Vonnegut

#64. 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

#65. Everybody has dreams. You are living the American dream, what's wrong with pushing to secure it for everyone?

Bob Ross

#66. It's certainly no secret that American students are taught less and less about the canonical literary masterpieces of the past, and there is no shortage of people who believe that what little they're required to learn in school is still too much.

Terry Teachout

#67. For much of America, the all-American values depicted in Norman Rockwell's classic illustrations are idealistic. For those of us from Vermont, they're realistic. That's what we do.

Bernie Sanders

#68. I don't care what your politics are, I would wager that if you asked any American woman which administration would she have most liked to work for as social secretary, she would pick Jacqueline Kennedy's White House as the place to be.

Letitia Baldrige

#69. I believe that a contract, or at least an understanding, exists between the American public and the American advertiser concerning what advertising is, what its limitations are and what price people will pay for it.

John O'Toole

#70. American audiences are affected by what the English people think.

Chita Rivera

#71. Violent video games played in public places are a tiny fraction of the media violence to which modern American children are exposed. Tiny - and judging from the record of this case not very violent compared to what is available to children on television and in movie theaters today.

Richard Posner

#72. The corporate system dictates what gets made, and the movies are so bad because of the economic structure of Hollywood. The big business takeover of Hollywood is at fault rather than American storytellers - it's what keeps textured movies from getting made.

James Gray

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

Ward Churchill

#74. The Trail of Tears has a great deal of meaning for every person of American Indian ancestry, whether they are Cherokee or not. For me, it has always stood for what is best and worst about the history of the United States.

Joseph Bruchac

#75. 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

#76. I get most my information about what's happening in the United States from reports and studies, which are often in conflict with what you read on the editorial pages, or handouts from right wing institutions like the American Enterprise Institute.

Ishmael Reed

#77. Let's see what's going on over in Iraq. A Burger King has opened up and prostitutes are back on the street of Baghdad after 20 years. Fast food and hookers - they are truly living the American Dream.

David Letterman

#78. When you start just focusing exclusively on trying to tear the other person down instead of what you are going to do on behalf of the American people to deal with this economy, then that's not serving Democrats, that's not serving Republicans, that's not serving anybody.

Barack Obama

#79. I don't think that the administration is being particularly honest with the American people about what this is going to cost in life and in dollars, what the dangers are, retaliatory strikes, once it happens. This is not a war that needs to happen immediately, if ever.

Janeane Garofalo

#80. The fear that you come to a show called 'American Horror Story' with is yours. That being said, I'm glad people are afraid, and I hope that I'm contributing to their fear. I'm really not afraid of my own darkness anymore. I'm not afraid of what I'm capable of.

John Carroll Lynch

#81. Members of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate are not there by accident. Each managed to get there for some reason. Learn what it was and you will know something important about them, about our country and about the American people.

Donald Rumsfeld

#82. The American Indians, the ancient Indians would say, the metaphysical ones would say: "Power binds us together." Power, for a while, makes us what we are, perceivers, luminous perceivers of reality.

Frederick Lenz

#83. It just doesn't occur to an American that someone else will solve their problems. Americans take pride in solving problems for themselves. And if we fail, we get back up and try again. It's what we do. It's who we are.

Mitch McConnell

#84. The whole 'American Idol' way of looking at things is the antithesis of what I grew up with. There are a whole lot of kids wanting to be famous now, whereas if I'd even mentioned that word to one of my teachers, I would have got into a whole load of trouble.

Harry Connick Jr.

#85. Psychologically, Japanese women depend largely on each other. In their sex-segregated society, they could be criticized for living in a female ghetto, and yet they have what some American feminists are trying to build, a "women's culture" with its own customs, values and even language.

Kittredge Cherry

#86. What I dislike about movie culture is that it often presents a parable of our problems - but the issues are all straightforward and the people are either nice or they're not. In real life, everyone falls between those perimeters, but not many American films operate in that grey area.

Julian Fellowes

#87. Hopefully it will be possible to get all our other albums in American shops one day so if people are interested they can hear it but I'm hoping that people are going to be interested in what we are going to do, not just what we've done.

Ville Valo

#88. The discussion of ideas as opposed to the American narcissistic obsession with what's going on with the self, that's the general thing people are talking about.

Stanley Crouch

#89. Beer commercials are so patriotic: Made the American Way. What does that have to do with America? Is that what America stands for? Feeling sluggish and urinating frequently?

Evelyn Waugh

#90. 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

#91. 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

#92. Most of my younger Native American friends are not in any way looking for sympathy, and they're not looking to lay guilt on anybody. They have their dignity, and they do what they do.

Robbie Robertson

#93. An American judo fighter was expelled from the Olympics after testing positive for marijuana. Officials became suspicious when he kept stopping the match and saying, 'What are we fighting for, man?'

Conan O'Brien

#94. What, then, is this new man, the American? They are a mixture of English, Scotch, Irish, French, Dutch, Germans, and Swedes. From this promiscuous breed, that race, now called Americans, have arisen.

J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur

#95. We're not so free that we don't have to listen to rules, and laws, and regulations. Those are important. But the spirit, the freedom of the spirit, that's what I think of American Dream, that we are free here to do what we want to do, what we set out to do.

Martha Stewart

#96. The American work environment has to change, not the women. We should be recognizing that what women are not fitting into is a very narrow, male-dominated workplace of the 1950s.

Anne-Marie Slaughter

#97. Part of what is wrong with the view of American imperialism is that it is antithetical to our interests. We are better off when people are governing themselves. I'm sure there is some guy that will tell you that philosophy is no different from the Roman Empire's. Well, it is fundamentally different.

Paul Wolfowitz

#98. The problem is that the Iraqi people are facing atrocities from both sides - Zarqawi and also the American troops at times. The Zarqawi groups uses car bombs, the Americans use other bombs. You also know what they do in the prisons.

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

#99. 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

#100. We are still a country where hard work and perseverance can earn you a better life ... Yet we are rightfully troubled that many of our people are still caught in what seems to be a pervasive, unending financial struggle ... every American deserves an equal opportunity to achieve success.

Marco Rubio