I like America, just as everybody else does. I love America, I gotta say that. But America will be judged.
—Bob Dylan
America, thou half brother of the world, with something good and bad of every land.
—Philip James Bailey
Although the desire of acquiring the good things of this world is the prevailing passion of the American people, certain momentary outbreaks occur when their souls seem suddenly to burst the bonds of matter by which they are restrained and to soar impetuously toward heaven.
—Alexis de Tocqueville
The Americans have none of the irony of the English, none of their cool poise, none of their manner. But they do have friendliness. Where an Englishman would give you his card, an American would very likely give you his shirt.
—Raymond Chandler
America is so vast that almost everything said about it is likely to be true, and the opposite is probably equally true.
—James T. Farrell
What a pity, when Christopher Colombus discovered America, that he ever mentioned it.
—Margot Asquith
Don Quixote is the true American.… You do not have to look in many American eyes to suddenly meet somewhere the beautiful grave lunacy of his gaze.
—Tennessee Williams
It is supposed to be part of the American tradition that if we want to step out of line, we step out of line. Democracy isn't falling in line behind the president. Democracy is for people to think independently, be skeptical of government, look around and try to find out what's going on. And if they find out that government is deceiving them, to speak out as loudly as they can.
—Howard Zinn
We started from scratch, every American an immigrant who came because he wanted change. Why are we now afraid to change?
—Eleanor Roosevelt
Making weapons is what we know how to do best, the supreme achievement of late-twentieth-century American civilization. To this blessed work we assign our finest intellect and the largest share of our treasure, and in the magnificence of an aircraft carrier or a cruise missile we find our moral and aesthetic equivalent of the Sistine ceiling and Chartres Cathedral.
—Lewis Lapham
America is addicted to wars of distraction.
—Barbara Ehrenreich
This was the dawn of plastic eating in America.… We doted on Velveeta. Spam. Canned ravioli. Instant puddings. Instant anything. The farther a thing was from the texture, flavor, and terrifying unpredictability of real food, the better.
—Shirley Abbott
I just don't know why they're shooting at us. All we want to do is bring them democracy and white bread. Transplant the American Dream. Freedom. Achievement. Hyperacidity. Affluence. Flatulence. Technology. Tension. The inalienable right to an early coronary sitting at your desk while plotting to stab your boss in the back.
—Alan Alda as Hawkeye on M*A*S*H
The way to write American music is simple. All you have to do is be an American and then write any kind of music you wish.
—Virgil Thomson
We Americans live in a nation where the medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe 25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in seconds if we felt like it.
—Dave Barry