Quotes About Americans

We probably have, right now, after the Civil Rights movement - and this was very unfortunate - the most glaring time of giving up on Africa, saying we're Americans. We are Americans. I'm not arguing that point. So are the Italians. So are the Germans. So are the Jews. We're Americans with an historical geography of origins outside of the United States as all people, maybe except the indigenous Americans who came here so long ago, who have generations of people whose historical origins are right here but whose initial historical origins are somewhere in Asia.

Not all Americans are living the American dream by a long shot. Many can't even imagine it. There are impoverished Americans, the poor and the homeless, the hungry and the hopeless, many unable to read and write. There are Americans gone astray, the kids dragged down by drugs, the shattered families, the teenage mothers struggling to cope. Then there are Americans uneasy, troubled and bewildered by the dizzying pace of change.

Because of the Civil Rights movement, new doors of opportunity and education swung open for everybody ... Not just for blacks and whites, but also women and Latinos; and Asians and Native Americans; and gay Americans and Americans with a disability. They swung open for you, and they swung open for me. And that's why I'm standing here today-because of those efforts, because of that legacy.

Latinos have not historically been a culture that unites easily. We're very factioned - you have your Mexican Americans, your Puerto Ricans, your Cuban Americans, your Central Americans - and sometimes we focus on the differences more than the commonalities.

Americans really don't know much about chess. But I think when I beat Spassky, that Americans will take a greater interest in chess. Americans like winners.

The only way Congress can get one dollar to spend is to take that one dollar from Americans, borrow that one dollar from Americans, or inflate that one dollar from Americans. So, it's very much like the visual image of a swimming pool. A person notes there is a shallow end, so he takes the water out of the deep end and pours it in the shallow end, hoping to raise the height of the water in the pool - and you would call that person stupid.

You know, I have never seen the level of anger and frustration and resentment and even disgust among millions of Americans toward the media. And I think there are a lot of self-inflicted wounds here, big mistakes that are not learned from, but also a lot of it the byproduct of a campaign in which the press appeared to be out of touch with the frustration of the many millions of Americans who helped put Donald Trump into the White House and just the way we botched it.

Today there are more African-Americans under correctional control, in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. There are millions of African-Americans now cycling in and out of prisons and jails or under correctional control or saddled with criminal records. In major American cities today, more than half of working-age African-American men either are under correctional control or are branded felons, and are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives.

I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that's the America millions of Americans believe in. That's the America I love.

I know that if a team had a derogatory name for African Americans, I would help those who helped extinguish that name. I have quite a few friends who are Native Americans. And even if I didn’t have Native American friends, the name of the team is disrespectful.

In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. We can't afford it. And I refuse to renew them again.

I do agree that the science is not settled on this. The idea we would put Americans' economy in jeopardy based on scientific theory that is not settled yet to me is nonsense. Just because you have a group of scientists who stood up and said this is the fact... Galileo got outvoted for a spell. To put Americans' economic future in jeopardy, asking us to cut back in areas that would have monstrous economic impact on this country is not good economics and I would suggest is not necessarily good science.

Americans are wonderfully courteous to strangers, yet indiscriminately shoot kids in schools. They believe they are masters of the world, yet know nothing about what goes on outside their shores. They are people who believe the world stretches from California to Boston and everything outside is the bit they have to bomb to keep the price of oil down. Only one in five Americans hold a passport and the only foreign stories that make their news are floods, famine, and wars, because it makes them feel good to be an American. Feeling good to be American is what they live for.

New York has become an example of everything that is wrong with America. White Americans, fearing the crime and social alienation in New York City, commute endless hours to raise their families in safe, clean neighborhoods. The numbers of non-Americans, especially those from the Third World, are growing, and it is the hard working White New Yorker that pays the bill.

Just because they broke the law doesn't mean they're condemned forever to a twilight status. So, I think that most Americans, if these people who have come illegally, as long as they pay back taxes, pay a fine, learn English and get behind everybody else, that's a key element of it. And most Americans now realize we can't have 11 million people sit in the twilight - the shadows of America, forever.

Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.

Professor Galbraith is horrified by the number of Americans who have bought cars with tail fins on them, and I am horrified by the number of Americans who take seriously the proposals of Mr. Galbraith.

I think on both sides of the pond, there are pros and cons to TV and film, and I think that there are things the British people can learn from the Americans and things the Americans can probably learn from us when it comes to the acting industry. But the main thing here in the USA is everything is just a hell of a lot bigger. The sets are bigger, the casts are bigger, the crews are bigger.

Most Americans have never seen the ignorance, degradation, hunger, sickness, and futility in which many other Americans live...They won't become involved in economic or political change until something brings the seriousness of the situation home to them.

I want to bring Americans into some experiences they ordinarily would not consider. Experiences in Latin America, people in Latin America, I want to bring them closer to those people, and I know I have to work extra hard at my craft to reach across these increasing chasms, these gaps that exist between different kinds of Americans, and that's the work of the artist, is to create these works that sort of help us understand our time.

When Americans look out on the world, they see nothing but dark and menacing strangers who appear to have no sense of rhythm at all, nor any respect or affection for white people; and white Americans really do not know what to make of all this, except to increase the defense budget.

I have been guilty of watching Westerns without acknowledging that Native Americans have gone through the same madness as African Americans. Isn't it extraordinary that sometimes the most offended have not seen others being offended?

The report also said that there wasn't agreement among the 17 agencies. When the FBI came out - they came out - when there was a conclusion on the DNC, their conclusion was very clear and they made it public. Now, if the CIA or whoever else comes out. But they didn't conclude that it was Russia.I don't care if it's Russia or whoever, they shouldn't - we're going to protect Americans. We don't want these countries or whoever else these people are hacking our country, our parties, our - we protect our Americans. We don't like it. We're against it.

I think Indians will pick up on a lot of the direct commentary on Delhi, which Americans will obviously miss, while Americans might get more out of watching pop-culture play out in unusual ways in a foreign country. Who knows?

I also think that we [Americans] are operating out of fear in our country. It's not that terrorism is not a threat, but it's not an existential threat. It is not the preeminent threat facing most Americans on any given day, and yet the power of nightmares is so strong.

Indeed, I think most Americans now know that in 1935 when Social Security was created, there were some 42 Americans working for every American collecting retirement benefits.

My deal is have a flat, simple tax. And - Americans want - Americans I hope - aspire to be - be wealthy. I hope they aspire to have a better quality of life. And we have this class warfare that's going on now. And I don't agree with that. I'm interested in people getting to work.

But of course, now we're told we're in recovery but this sure doesn't feel like a recovery to more than 9 percent of the Americans out there who are unemployed, or the 16 percent of the African-Americans, 11 percent of Hispanics in the same position, or the millions who can only find part-time work or those who have even stopped looking for a job.

Many Americans are feeling, you know, shut out, shut down, the great recession hasn't ended for too many Americans, wages are flat, families are struggling, not enough new jobs, or new businesses are being created, and it's important that we all try to figure out what we're going to do, and that's what I've done my entire life, fighting for a higher minimum wage, or family leave, now paid family leave which I believe in, equal pay for equal work.

You can't underestimate the sickness of the American people right now. They're really sick. And, that's, I'm more angry at the sick Americans than I am at Obama or Hillary Clinton. I'm really angry at the sick Americans.

From my perspective, what I'm really focused on, is making sure that, for the broadest number of Americans possible, limited government and free enterprise, the principles that have truly helped build our country into an exceptional one, is one that is being sold to and appeals to the broadest number of Americans.

Americans will get along with all other nations willing to get along with us. We will deal fairly with everyone. We will seek common ground, partnership not conflict.

Maybe the American Dream is too rich for us now in the U.S. Maybe we're losing it because we are not like our Swedish grandmother who came across the plains, hacked down the trees, and took the Spanish words she encountered and made them hers. Now her great-great-grandchildren sit terrified, wondering what to do with all these Mexicans. The American Dream is an impossible affirmation of possibility. And maybe native-born Americans don't have it anymore. Maybe it has run through their fingers.

When there are starving people in the world, it seems wrong that so many of us Americans eat as much for entertainment as for nourishment.

Everything that came out of Europe, every blue-eyed thing, is already an American. And as long as you and I have been over here, we aren't Americans yet.

Last year, Congress passed a law that directs the Federal Reserve to set limits on debit card swipe fees that are reasonable and proportional to the cost of processing those transactions. Like most Americans, I had no idea that swipe fees charged to American businesses are the highest in the world.

Throughout history, the arts and humanities have helped men and women around the globe grapple with the most challenging questions and come to know the most basic truths. In our increasingly interconnected world, the arts play an important role in both shaping the character that defines us and reminding us of our shared humanity. This month, we celebrate our Nation's arts and humanities, and we recommit to ensuring all Americans can access and experience them.

Here you have 22 million Afro-Americans, black people today, catching more hell than Patrick Henry ever saw. And I'm here to tell you, in case you don't know it, that you got a new - you got a new generation of black people in this country, who don't care anything whatsoever about odds. They don't want to hear you old Uncle Tom handkerchief heads talking about the odds.

The biggest problem with American music right now, is that kids don't listen. They come by it honestly, Americans don't listen anyway. When people go to concerts, they say I'm going to see... not, I'm going to hear.

One of the many things I do not understand about Americans is this: what is it like to be a citizen of a superpower, to maintain democratically the means of planetary extinction. I wonder how this contributes to the dreamlife of America, a dreamlife that is so deep and troubled.

It has been proven that more Americans watch television than any other appliance.

President Obama likes to talk about the Buffett Rule. Well, here's a Buffett Rule that all Americans should be able to support: mom and pop businesses should not pay a higher tax rate than Fortune 500 corporations like Warren Buffett's.

Using the right of veto would be shooting the Americans in the back.

When I started doing improvise music in Europe, in the beginning I thought the way that Europeans were interpreting the reconstruction of deconstruction of this thing that we call jazz - of course it's different than what Americans do, because Europeans have a different history, a different sensibility and so forth - the nature of the creative process itself it's the same; but what comes from that creative process is different, because you have a different history, you have a different society, different language.

Do you want Columbus to go across the ocean, or do you want to put a message in a bottle and hope that it lands somewhere? I'd rather have actual people be there. Whether they look like Americans or like the inhabitants of some other country, depends on who has the most drive.

But Americans find me bizarre and always ask me why I eat so many carbs. I tell them I don't get full otherwise.

From the clayey soil of northern Wyoming is mined bentonite, which is used as filler in candy, gum, and lipstick. We Americans are great on fillers, as if what we have, what we are, is not enough. We have a cultural tendency toward denial, but being affluent, we strangle ourselves with what we can buy. We gave only to look at the houses we build to see how we build *against* space, the way we drink against pain and loneliness. We fill up space as if it were a pie shell, with things whose opacity further obstructs our ability to see what is already there.

My husband [Julius Tennon] and I started a production company. We've already optioned a book and some scripts to do exactly that, to create more complicated, multi-faceted roles for African-Americans, especially African-American females. I think it's important.