American Quotes - page 14

They call it the 'American Dream' because you have to be asleep to believe it. (George Carlin)
Let me get a sip of water here...you figure this stuff is safe to drink? [audience yells "No"] Actually, I don't care, I drink it anyway. You know why? 'Cause I'm an American and I expect a little cancer in my food and water. I'm a loyal American and I'm not happy unless I let government and industry poison me a little bit every day. View quote
George Carlin
I used to be Irish Catholic; Now I'm an American. You know, you grow. View quote
George Carlin
Every child in American should have access to a well-stocked school library. View quote
Laura Welch Bush
Another term for preventive war is aggressive war - starting wars because someday somebody might do something to us. That is not part of the American tradition. View quote
Ron Paul
I am convinced that there are more threats to American liberty within the 10 mile radius of my office on Capitol Hill than there are on the rest of the globe. View quote
Ron Paul
If Stalin could only see us now, with the American Ambassador here, he'd turn in his grave. View quote
Anastas Mikoyan
The unanimously applauded, self-congratulatory bromides of a Soviet Party Congress seemed contemptible. The unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy. View quote
Susan Sontag
Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy. View quote
George F. Kennan
There will be no room, here, for the smug myopia which views American civilization as the final solution to all world problems; which recommends our institutions for universal adoption and turns away with contempt from the serious study of the institutions of peoples whose civilizations may seem to us to be materially less advanced. View quote
George F. Kennan
Anyone who has ever studied the history of American diplomacy, especially military diplomacy, knows that you might start in a war with certain things on your mind as a purpose of what you are doing, but in the end, you found yourself fighting for entirely different things that you had never thought of before ... In other words, war has a momentum of its own and it carries you away from all thoughtful intentions when you get into it. Today, if we went into Iraq, like the president would like us to do, you know where you begin. You never know where you are going to end. (George F. Kennan)
At the risk of quoting Mephistopheles I repeat: Welcome to hell. A hell erected and maintained by human-governments, and blessed by black robed judges. A hell that allows you to see your loved ones, but not to touch them. A hell situated in America's boondocks, hundreds of miles away from most families. A white, rural hell, where most of the captives are black and urban. It is an American way of death. View quote
Mumia Abu-Jamal
I think the American West really attracts me because it's romantic. The desert, the empty space, the drama. View quote
Ang Lee
The moment the first American soldier sets foot on the Japanese mainland, all prisoners of war will be shot. View quote
Hideki Tōjō
The main American naval forces were shifted to the Pacific region and an American admiral made a strong declaration to the effect that if war were to break out between Japan and the United States, the Japanese navy could be sunk in a matter of weeks. View quote
Hideki Tōjō
The trouble with me is that I'm an outsider. And that's a very hard thing to be in American life. View quote
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
In European thought in general, as contrasted with American, vigor, life and originality have a kind of easy, professional utterance. American - on the other hand, is expressed in an eager amateurish way. A European gives a sense of scope, of survey, of consideration. An American is strained, sensational. One is artistic gold; the other is bullion. View quote
Wallace Stevens
Nothing could be more inappropriate to American literature than its English source since the Americans are not British in sensibility. View quote
Wallace Stevens
You cannot get through the density of the propaganda with which the American people, through the dreaded media, have been filled and the horrible public educational system we have for the average person. It's just grotesque. View quote
Gore Vidal
Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so. View quote
Gore Vidal
That peculiarly American religion, President-worship. (Gore Vidal)
Class is the most difficult subject for American writers to deal with as it is the most difficult for the English to avoid. View quote
Gore Vidal
We're the most captive nation of slaves that ever came along. The moral timidity of the average American is quite noticeable. Everybody's afraid to be thought in any way different from everyone else. View quote
Gore Vidal
[American exceptionalism] is a reaction to the inability of people to understand global complexity or important issues like American energy dependency. Therefore, they search for simplistic sources of comfort and clarity. And the people that they are now selecting to be, so to speak, the spokespersons of their anxieties are, in most cases, stunningly ignorant. View quote
Zbigniew Brzezinski
American power worldwide is at its historic zenith. View quote
Zbigniew Brzezinski