I still believe that many Americans have a deep longing for that glorious moment when a sermon is more Biblical than American.

The truth is, immigrants tend to be more American than people born here.

For most Americans, economic growth is a spectator sport.

All children should be taught to unconditionally accept, approve, admire, appreciate, forgive, trust, and ultimately, love their own person.

When did a free country start to mean free enterprise? Who sold Democracy out for a golden calf we got to idolize?

I attained a triumph so complete that it is now rare to meet an American with marks of small pox on his face… Benefits are valuable according to their duration and extent… but the benign...

I practice karate moves when I think nobody is watching. It’s all part of being a real American badass, I guess. Chicks dig it. I mean they would, if they ever looked and caught me...

If I tell you, will you let met go?- You bet, partner. […]- You promised!- Nope. I said “you bet.” You did … and you lost.

Remember, philosophically speaking, Americans are mongrels —practical materialists but with a dreamy streak of divine approval.

The principal goal of Bush’s plan is the capacity for every American to have a vaccine in the case of a pandemic, no matter what the virus is.

thank you” an insufficient expression that makes my voice sound miserly and ungrateful.” (169).

America is a young dumb country and it needs all kinds of help. America is a dumb puppy with big teeth that bite and hurt. And we take care of America. We hold America to...

If somebody were to ask me what it means to me to be American, I’d respond, “It’s like eating scrambled eggplant with a dozen 1969 moons sunny side up at noon.” If they asked me...

…that in spite of living in a mansion an American is not above wearing a pair of secondhand pants, bought for fifty cents.

Your life can be different, Young Ju. Study and be strong. In America, women have choices.

I like color commentators. Especially red, white, and blue color commentators. As an American I sometimes feel so patriotic I feel British.

I always, always got to be the last man standing.

Make good and sure your clients all call themselves Americans —proudly so, defiantly, loudly— but without any more thought about it than wearing a hat.

All my life I wanted to go to bed with an American, and now I had, and I’m beginning to see why people don’t do it more often.

Americans are interesting creatures. They criticize those who speak their language with a slight accent but have no issues with butchering most other languages, my name included.

There was no experience, I thought, quite as wonderful as being an American in Paris.

unfettered leewardings,” here at the end of the world.

Finally, the president added, ‘The American people are idealists, but they also want their leaders to be realistic…

There are many ways to honor America. This book is mine. I have completed this journey of self-education in the belief that the most terrifying possibility since 9/11 has not been terrorism–as frightening as that...

That’s what everyone thinks–they think being a cop is about punishing people for doing wrong. But that’s not true. You know it isn’t. It’s about believing in people, believing in the good. In the will...

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago–never mind how long precisely–having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see...

Americans like to make money; Canadians like to audit it. I know no other country where accountants have a higher social and moral status.

The American people spend thousands of dollars to propagate the doctrines of the fall of man, the creation of the world out of nothing in six days by a personal God, vicarious atonement, absolution from...

You can learn English online

One of the questions I have been asked many times since this story broke is this: Now that the facts are out there, what can we do? My answer, depressing and cynical as it may...

It was a survival thing: he didn’t answer back, didn’t say anything about job security for prison guards, debate the nature of repentance, rehabilitation, or rates of recidivism. He didn’t say anything funny or clever,...

I have to return some videotapes

The law is too important to be left to the lawyers, to paraphrase Georges Clemenceau about war and generals. We laymen know too little about our Constitution and think too superficially about its influence on...

It is good for a student to be poor. Getting and spending, the typical American college student lays waste his powers. Work and contemplation don’t mix, and university days ought to be days of contemplation.

The joke was that President Bush only declared war when Starbucks was hit. You can mess with the U.N. all you want, but when you start interfering with the right to get caffeinated, someone has...

The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.

…am so deeply impressed with the fair mindedness and tolerance of the American people…

I’m starving,” it is a prelude to a midnight raid on a well-stocked refrigerator or a sudden trip to the nearest fast food restaurant.

Paine suffered then, as now he suffers not so much because of what he wrote as from the misinterpretations of others…He disbelieved the ancient myths and miracles taught by established creeds. But the attacks on...

It strikes me profoundly that the world is more often than not a bad and cruel place.

Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.

Willard Gibbs is the type of the imagination at work in the world. His story is that of an opening up which has had its effect on our lives and our thinking; and, it seems...

The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon [the ‘Super’, i.e. the hydrogen bomb] makes its very existence and the knowledge of its construction a danger to humanity as a whole....

If the Confederacy falls, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a theory.

While you’re alive there’s no time for minor amazements.

As a matter of fact, with all his wit, humor, raillery, persiflage, he was the profoundest logician that ever appealed to the intellect of an American audience. There was logic even in his laughter. He...

His [Thomas Edison] method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness...

People are invariably surprised to hear me say I am both an atheist and an agnostic, as if this somehow weakens my certainty. I usually reply with a question like, ‘Well, are you a Republican...

The Italians say ciao. The Chinese say Chow. And the Americans chow while they say stuff.

Americans bred like rabbits, expecting the reaper to slaughter at least a few before they reached ripeness.