AMERICA QUOTES V
quotations about America
America is a lady rocking on a porch in an unpainted house on an unused road.
ANNE SEXTON
"Sixth Psalm", The Complete Poems
The real democratic American idea is, not that every man shall be on a level with every other man, but that every man shall have liberty to be what God made him, without hindrance.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
What made America great was her ability to transform her own dream into hope for all mankind.
NICOLAS SARKOZY
address to joint session of Congress, Nov. 7, 2007
This is the story of America. Everybody's doing what they think they're supposed to do.
JACK KEROUAC
On the Road
Each time Donald Trump says he will make America great again, he's declaring without actually declaring out loud two very unAmerican things. One: America now stinks. Two: America was great when WASP white men were in charge before that black guy took over and women in sports jackets got involved. How not-great is it to bring that plate of hate to our table of thought?
LINDA STASI
"America is much greater than the GOP makes it seem", New York Daily News, March 8, 2016
Americans are always moving on.
It's an old Spanish custom gone astray,
A sort of English fever, I believe,
Or just a mere desire to take French leave,
I couldn't say. I couldn't really say.
But, when the whistle blows, they go away.
Sometimes there never was a whistle blown,
But they don't care, for they can blow their own
Whistles of willow-stick and rabbit-bone,
Quail-calling through the rain
A dozen tunes but only one refrain,
"We don't know where we're going, but we're on our way!"
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
prelude, Western Star
All colors and blends of Americans have somewhat the same tendencies. It's a breed -- selected out by accident. And so we're overbrave and overfearful -- we're kind and cruel as children. We're overfriendly and at the same time frightened of strangers. We boast and are impressed. We're oversentimental and realistic. We are mundane and materialistic -- and do you know of any other nation that acts for ideals? We eat too much. We have no taste, no sense of proportion. We throw our energy about like waste. In the old lands they say of us that we go from barbarism to decadence without an intervening culture.
JOHN STEINBECK
East of Eden
Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the field of battle.
JAMES BALDWIN
Notes of a Native Son
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.
OSCAR WILDE
attributed, Hating America: A History
That's why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.
GEORGE CARLIN
standup routine
The American Dream means giving it your all, trying your hardest, accomplishing something. And then I'd add to that, giving something back. No definition of a successful life can do anything but include serving others.
GEORGE H. W. BUSH
interview, Academy of Achievement, Jun. 2, 1995
America: It's like Britain, only with buttons.
RINGO STARR
attributed, The Mammoth Book of Great British Humor
What Americans should by now be able to see is that neither the laissez-faire marketplace nor strong government has given them a satisfying or permanent resolution. The problem is not the marketplace and it is not government. The problem originates in the contest of clashing values between society and capitalism and, since this human society cannot surrender its deepest values, it must try to alter capitalism's. As we look deeper for the soul of capitalism, we find that, in the terms of ordinary human existence, American capitalism doesn't appear to have one.
WILLIAM GREIDER
The Soul of Capitalism
Most people, I suspect, still have in their minds an image of America as the great land of college education, unique in the extent to which higher learning is offered to the population at large. That image used to correspond to reality. But these days young Americans are considerably less likely than young people in many other countries to graduate from college. In fact, we have a college graduation rate that's slightly below the average across all advanced economies.
PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times, Oct. 8, 2009
There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.
BARACK OBAMA
attributed, Of Thee I Speak: A Collection of Patriotic Quotes
If you're thinking seriously about the future of America, you know that right now all bets are off. Face it: America is going down. It's full of enemy combatants ready to strike. It's a nuclear time bomb. It's the tallest buildings crumbling to dust. It's a corporate-controlled surveillance state. It's ghettos, graffiti, and the abandoned shell of industry. It's endless ugly chain stores, transient strip-mall architecture, cheaply built McMansions, and shoddy imported goods no one is proud of. It's the glamorous, Golden Age of Hollywood transformed into a raunchy, foul-mouthed, violent beast. It's the Titanic about to test her might upon an iceberg. It's a catastrophe right out of a 70s disaster film.
MICHAEL STUTZ
"America is a 70s Disaster Film Starring Donald Trump", The Daily Caller, February 16, 2016
There seems to be an alternative reality out there, from some of the political folks, that America's down in the dumps. It's not. America is pretty darn great right now and making strides.
BARACK OBAMA
"Obama touts job numbers: America is 'pretty darn great'", The Hill, March 4, 2016
I've always felt that my relationship to the United States is analogous to a marriage. I love this country. I hate it. I get angry at it. I feel close to it. I'm charmed by it. I'm repelled by it. And it's a marriage that's gone on for let's say at least 50 years of my writing life, and in the course of that, what's happened? It's gotten worse. It's not what it used to be.
NORMAN MAILER
The New York Times, Oct. 4, 2000
America was based on a big promise--a great big one: the Declaration of Independence. When you have to live with that in the house, that's quite a problem--particularly when you've got to make money and get ahead, open world markets, do all the things you have to, raise your children, and so forth. America is stuck with its self-definition put on paper in 1776, and that was just like putting a burr under the metaphysical saddle of America--you see, that saddle's going to jump now and then and it pricks.
ROBERT PENN WARREN
The Paris Review, spring/summer 1957
Traveling across the United States, it's easy to see why Americans are often thought of as stupid. At the San Diego Zoo, right near the primate habitats, there's a display featuring half a dozen life-size gorillas made out of bronze. Posted nearby is a sign reading CAUTION: GORILLA STATUES MAY BE HOT. Everywhere you turn, the obvious is being stated. CANNON MAY BE LOUD. MOVING SIDEWALK IS ABOUT TO END. To people who don't run around suing one another, such signs suggest a crippling lack of intelligence.
DAVID SEDARIS
Me Talk Pretty One Day