Quotes About American

I have Czech, I have Russian, I have English, I have Italian. Uh, what am I missing? A little bit of Irish. The Russian is Jewish. So I'm your classic American mutt.

In France, where Franklin had lived from 1776 to 1785, he had won an extraordinary place in the public mind. The French had lionized him to the point of absurdity - or so at least his colleagues in the American mission thought.

I enjoy working with the American Cancer Society because I fully support its mission of saving lives and creating a world with less cancer and more birthdays for everyone.

I grew up taking it for granted that missionaries were what American boys grew up to be.

In my town, I had only one adult American male role model: my father. I grew up taking it for granted that missionaries were what American boys grew up to be.

Most people in this country believe that the American Communist Party and its dupes are the chief internal enemy of our economic system and our form of government. This is a serious mistake.

The American people have decided that it was a mistake to choose to go to war in Iraq.

There's this accent that I think everybody has when they grow up going to an international school. It's a mix of not quite English, not quite American. When I moved to L.A., it just went completely American.

I know I'm not known as method. By nature I'm not a brooder. What I continue to use is a mixture of the English school, which is traditionally outside-in, and the more American way of working from the inside out.

What we do is as American as lynch mobs. America has always been a complex place.

A basic element of the American dream is equal access to education as the lubricant of social and economic mobility.

Modern American war is as easy to script as a B movie.

I'm interested in people. I'm curious about people, and of course we're curious about people whose work we respond to. So I'm not saying that I don't understand fascination with other people. But as it's dealt with in this American, modern-day culture, I find it not just boring but actually sort of destructive, really.

At certain historic moments, grandparents took on childrearing responsibilities. In many cultures, they still do. Chinese grandparents who are able to retire at 55 are seen all over Beijing bouncing grandbabies. In the United States, we can't afford to retire at 55.

American art ought to be monumental, in keeping with American life.

I do wish I could write like some of the American women, who can be clever and heartfelt and hopeful; people like Lorrie Moore and Jennifer Egan. But Ireland messed me up too much, I think, so I can't.

We can't understand what we've accomplished on civil rights without telling the story of Bayard Rustin. And now, we must write the next chapter in the American civil rights story by drawing strength and inspiration from his moral courage.

If the American people or Congress agrees with the illegal-alien lobby that deportation is morally abhorrent, the immigration laws should be changed.

American history has fallen more and more into the hands of academics.

I've immersed myself in reading more and more of American literature, but no editor has asked me to comment on Jonathan Franzen or Jennifer Egan. It is assumed I'm an expert on writers who need a little less suntan lotion at the beach.

I want to get into the educational DNA of American culture. I want 10 percent of the common culture, more or less, to be black.

We were the first small American jazz group since Sidney Bechet in 1927 to play for the public in Moscow and Leningrad.

Because Lincoln is so closely identified with what it is to be American, everyone wants to claim him, to rewrite his story to satisfy their own particular needs. For my own people, it was important to imagine him as the Great Emancipator, the Moses who led us out of slavery.

I really love Robert Duvall, who I think is maybe the best American actor. I love Robert Duvall because the ability that he has to change and do the most amazing work.