It may be the optimist in me, but I think America has a uniquely powerful and capacious glue internally. The American identity has always been ethnically and religiously neutral, so within one generation you have Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Jamaican-Americans - they feel American. It's a huge success story.
I believe in the American Dream because I have lived the American Dream.
And the reason I really appreciated this is because after the picture came out, I was invited by the American Psychiatric Association to give a lecture. I couldn't believe it!
My biggest worry is that Obama says he's going to tax the upper 5 percent by raising their taxes by 20 percent. But among that 5 percent are the corporations that are hiring middle-class Americans.
There is no way for the American economic system to function without advertising. There is no other way to communicate enough information about enough products to enough people with enough speed.
Actually it's great to be an American. I love my country.
Obesity among young Americans is a serious problem that can have serious ramifications in the long run.
Strangely enough, 'I've Seen All Good People' is, I think, the second most played Yes song on American radio after 'Owner Of A Lonely Heart.' And then I think 'Roundabout' is third.
What makes 'American Pie' so unusual is that it isn't a relic from the counterculture but a talisman, which, like a sacred river, keeps bringing joy to listeners everywhere. When 'American Pie' suddenly is played on a jukebox or radio, it's almost impossible not to sing along.
There was a widespread indignation in the American media. They were saying, 'How can you make a movie during an election that's about politics? What are you doing? Are you trying to influence people's lives?' To which my response was, 'Well, I hope so.'
I'm sure I can make a movie that doesn't feel like a seventies movie! But the truth is, that's my favorite era in American filmmaking. To me, those were the great years.
My sentiments for the American cause, from the Stamp Act downward, have never changed... I am still of opinion that it is the cause of liberty and of human nature.
These are some of the things for which we believe the American people owe no little gratitude to the Dutch; and these are the things for which today, speaking in the name of the American people, we venture to express their heartfelt thanks.
The American public is sick and tired of being lied to.
Tolerance is the value that was selected to put on here, and tolerance is as American as apple pie.
Today, most Americans are too cynical, or tired, or both, to even approximate our Founders' courageous repudiation of injustice.
Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe.
There's a lot of things we can do to balance out what Obama's done and going forward show the American people the Republican Party can govern. I want a coalition of tea party people, independents, moderate Democrats trying to find a way to move this country forward before we become Greece.
I think I'm a very American director, but I probably should have been making movies somewhere around 1976. I never left the mainstream of American movies; the American mainstream left me.
I know I'm not known as method. By nature I'm not a brooder. What I continue to use is a mixture of the English school, which is traditionally outside-in, and the more American way of working from the inside out.
Then you get to the last half of the 20th century, Americans are getting very skeptical about their leaders and their institutions, and another place that is affected is parties and conventions.
So, one of the things I was doing with the aliens in The Quiet Invasion was creating that advanced society which had ideas about morality and proper use of natural resources that were radically different from ours, as the Europeans were from the American Indians.
I would lose straight away if I went on 'American Idol.'
If I were king of the world, babies born in airplanes, balloons and blimps would, instead of choosing to be German, Maldivian or American, all get special heavenly blue passports with a stork on the cover labeled 'Sky Baby' - and they'd be allowed to come and go anywhere they please.
I mentioned that one of the tripartite formulas in American worldview involves time: past, present, and future.
We wonder if we will be the first generation in American history to leave our children with fewer opportunities and a less prosperous nation than the one we inherited.
I'm saying the federal government is taking away the freedom of Americans to make choices.
Any American who has spent time in Iraq or Afghanistan will tell you: the closer you get, the less certain you are of anything. If you are in Iraq, if you are in Afghanistan, everything is ambiguous. Everything is murky and gray and uncertain and possibly lethal.
I have lived a life that has been beautiful and painful at some moments. But I am convinced others can learn how to control a certain kind of rage that bubbles up in many Americans, particularly, but not limited to, women, blacks, and other minorities.
I had faith in the concept and the theory that all Americans are endowed with the right to a fair trial and I would be fairly judged and fairly tried.
Nixon's grand mistake was his failure to understand that Americans are forgiving, and if he had admitted error early and apologized to the country, he would have escaped.
American literature had always considered writing a very serious matter.
I think if we're going to live in this - in this world - in this technological world where information can be disseminated so quickly, we have to be serious and take firm, strong action against those who are putting American lives at risk. Because this will put people's lives at risk.
I've always been a big fan of the American soul sound.
This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.
Interestingly, the American Embassy mentioned that our efficient relief effort has significantly improved the image of the United States among the Pakistani people.
