I still say black. I say it because… African American… doesn't make your life any easier. You don't see black people… saying, "Oh yeah, African American. Man, I'll tell ya, this beats the hell outta being black."… You don't see any of us going into Bank of America [saying], "Excuse me, I'm here to pick up my loan."… You were rejected for that loan last week."… "I was black then. See, I'm African American now. I'll just go in the vault and take what I need.
—Wanda Sykes
I think it's helpful to remind white ethnics that they, too, came here in boats; that they, too, lived in slums; that they, too, had yellow fever; that they, too, were stigmatized as incorrigible; that they, too, had the highest homicide rates and the highest incarceration rates and the highest rates of mental illness; and that everything that was said about them in those days is now being said about Salvadorans, Dominicans, African Americans, Mexicans, Vietnamese, and Cambodians in our inner cities.
—Tom Hayden
Financial ruin from medical bills is almost exclusively an American disease.
—Roul Turley
American foreign policy issues largely from a domestic mill of competing forces. If the forces are not there competing to cause us to do the right thing, invariably nothing right happens.
—Randall Robinson
Look at the typical American family scene: Man walking around farting. Woman walking around scratching. Kids going around hollering. Hey, man, fuck that.
—Elvis Presley
As America celebrates Memorial Day, we pay tribute to those who have given their lives in our nation's wars.
—John M. McHugh
My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.
—Ronald Reagan
The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.
—Sir William Preece
America is not a mere body of traders; it is a body of free men. Our greatness-built upon freedom-is moral, not material. we have a great ardor for gain; but we have a deep passion for the rights of man.
—Woodrow Wilson