Quotes about america

"America, where people do not inquire of a stranger, What is he? But What can he do?"

Unknown, Source on america   

"American is a very difficult language mixed with English."

Unknown, Source on america   

"Americans see history as a straight line and themselves standing at the cutting edge of it as representatives for all mankind. They believe in the future as if it were a religion; they believe that there is nothing they cannot accomplish, that solutions wait somewhere for all problems, like brides."

Unknown, Source on america   

"America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy."

Updike, John on america   

"On 16 September 1985, when the Commerce Department announced that the United States had become a debtor nation, the American Empire died."

Vidal, Gore on america
3 fans of this quote   

"Being American is to eat a lot of beef steak, and boy, we've got a lot more beef steak than any other country, and that's why you ought to be glad you're an American. And people have started looking at these big hunks of bloody meat on their plates, you know, and wondering what on earth they think they're doing."

Vonnegut Jr., Kurt on america   

"It's the movies that have really been running things in America ever since they were invented. They show you what to do, how to do it, when to do it, how to feel about it, and how to look how you feel about it. Everybody has their own America, and then they have the pieces of a fantasy America that they think is out there but they can't see."

Warhol, Andy on america   

"I think the greatest curse of American society has been the idea of an easy millennialism -- that some new drug, or the next election or the latest in social engineering will solve everything."

Warren, Robert Penn on america   

"The ideal American type is perfectly expressed by the Protestant, individualist, anti-conformist, and this is the type that is in the process of disappearing. In reality there are few left."

Welles, Orson on america   

"I despair of the Republic! Such dreariness, such whining sallow women, such utter absence of the amenities, such crass food, crass manners, crass landscape!! What a horror it is for a whole nation to be developing without the sense of beauty, and eating bananas for breakfast."

Wharton, Edith on america   

"A man is not expected to love his country, lest he make an ass of himself. Yet our country, seen through the mists of smog, is curiously lovable, in somewhat the way an individual who has got himself into an unconscionable scrape seems lovable -- or at least deserving of support."

White, Elwyn Brooks on america   

"Their manners, speech, dress, friendships, -- the freshness and candor of their physiognomy -- the picturesque looseness of their carriage -- their deathless attachment to freedom -- their aversion to anything indecorous or soft or mean -- the practical acknowledgment of the citizens of one state by the citizens of all other states -- the fierceness of their roused resentment -- their curiosity and welcome of novelty -- their self-esteem and wonderful sympathy -- their susceptibility to a slight -- the air they have of persons who never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors -- the fluency of their speech -- their delight in music, a sure symptom of manly tenderness and native elegance of soul -- their good temper and open-handedness -- the terrible significance of their elections, the President's taking off his hat to them, not they to him -- these too are unrhymed poetry. It awaits the gigantic and generous treatment worthy of it."

Whitman, Walt on america   

"America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up."

Wilde, Oscar on america
5 fans of this quote   

"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."

Wilde, Oscar on america
10 fans of this quote   

"The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years."

Wilde, Oscar on america
4 fans of this quote   

"There is no country in the world where machinery is so lovely as in America."

Wilde, Oscar on america   

"The gap between ideals and actualities, between dreams and achievements, the gap that can spur strong men to increased exertions, but can break the spirit of others -- this gap is the most conspicuous, continuous land mark in American history. It is conspicuous and continuous not because Americans achieve little, but because they dream grandly. The gap is a standing reproach to Americans; but it marks them off as a special and singularly admirable community among the world's peoples."

Will, George F. on america   

"Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world."

Wilson, Woodrow T. on america   

"America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses."

Wilson, Woodrow T. on america   

"The interesting and inspiring thing about America is that she asks nothing for herself except what she has a right to ask for humanity itself."

Wilson, Woodrow T. on america   

"No... the real American has not yet arrived. He is only in the Crucible, I tell you -- he will be the fusion of all races, perhaps the coming superman."

Zangwill, Israel on america   

"Building a better you is the first step to building a better America."

Ziglar, Zig on america
3 fans of this quote   

"I'd like to see America but I'm afraid to risk it. As soon as I got over Mr. Frohman might request me to sit in a box at the performance of one of my plays."

Pinero, Sir Arthur Wing on america   

"We’re sleeping and there’s a bunch of creepy old dudes molesting us. "

Dye, James on america