Quotes About American

About once a decade, it becomes necessary to remind Americans again that Ulysses S. Grant was a great man, indeed a giant figure. The usual way to try to do this is by publishing a thumping big biography, and let me say that there is nothing wrong with this, although it still hasn't worked.

In Utah, the American melting pot is unstirred. Three out of four people are Mormons, and they are all here in this bleakly beautiful sanctuary 'behind the Zion curtain' because of religious persecution.

I want to say with the utmost of sincerity, not as a Republican, but as an American, that I have great respect for Senator Obama's historic achievement to become his party's nominee, not because of his color, but with indifference to it.

Particularly during the late 1960s, a large number of American skyjackers earnestly believed that Fidel Castro's Cuba was an egalitarian, post-racial utopia.

In their matching candy-stripe shirts, the Beach Boys were America's biggest band of the early '60s, transmitting utopian bulletins of summer without end to a cold and overcast nation.

I don't doubt for a second that Neil Armstrong's spirit is still with us: that unique blend of optimism, humility and the utter confidence that when the world needs someone to do the really big stuff, you need an American.

It is utterly wrong for a president - any president - to shutter the government of the United States when he can't persuade the Congress and the American people to give him what he wants.

When Congress puts party labels aside, like we did on VA reform, we can accomplish some great things for the American people. But those occasions were far too rare.

We need to address the systemic structural issues within the VA - the misallocation of resources, the interminably long waiting lists, the bureaucratic inefficiencies - to ensure that our American heroes are properly protected the second they return home from war.

The VA secretary runs the second largest federal agency in the country, providing services to American patriots who risked everything in service to this nation.

A budget should be judged by whether it creates a foundation for the success of American working families striving to buy a house, or to send their kids to college, or to save a little for retirement and, if they're lucky, a vacation.

National Parks are a part of the American experience. They evoke memories of childhood vacations and pride in the beauty of our national landscapes. They are also reminders that if these parks are to remain beautiful and accessible, we have a responsibility as a nation to maintain and protect them.

In 'Pox: An American History,' Michael Willrich meticulously traces the story of how the smallpox vaccine was pressed into service during a major outbreak.

'We Were the Mulvaneys' is perhaps the novel closest to my heart. I think of it as a valentine to a passing way of American life, and to my own particular child - and girlhood in upstate New York. Everyone in the novel is enormously close to me, including Marianne's cat, Muffin, who was in fact my own cat.

Great song lyrics are as valid a part of American literature as any novel.

I feel like one of the things that is central to American life is the religious experience, and I think that the experience of being Muslim in America is as valid and as important a perspective on the religious experience of America as evangelical Christianity or Judaism - whatever it may be.

If the Ivy League was the breeding ground for the elites of the American Century, Stanford is the farm system for Silicon Valley.

I was chased through a chateau in the Loire Valley by a bunch of American school girls.

I was making films about American society, and it is true that I never felt at home there, except perhaps when my wife and I lived on a farm in the San Fernando Valley.

I've been reading a lot about Silicon Valley history recently and was struck by just how core the lack of unions has been to the American tech industry's evolution. It's enabled the constant creative destruction that keeps Silicon Valley relevant and thriving in a rapidly changing world.

People tend to pay too little attention to history - the history of Silicon Valley and American business - and think they're the first people to come across a problem.

More than stock prices or product launches, Silicon Valley's legacy will be defined by whether tech leaders step up to contribute to the larger American experiment.

It was by a Maryland colonel in the year 1777 that the British received, in the gallant defense of an important fort, one of the first lessons of what they were to expect from American valor and patriotism.

President Reagan always gave the credit to the American people and American ideals. He treated his job as a valuable temporary loan from the American people, a loan that should be respected and returned with dutiful appreciation.