In America, the Supreme Court and the American people believe no one is above the law.
I'm an immigrant writer, or an African writer, or an Ethiopian-American writer, and occasionally an American writer according to the whims and needs of my interpreters.
I'm heavily influenced by European and American cinema, but the further I get in my career, the more I find myself looking back East for inspiration.
The America that I think most Americans would want, most economists on the right or left would want, is one in which a smart, ambitious, hardworking person without a huge amount of resources has a pretty good shot, in the end, of beating out a less smart, less ambitious, less hardworking rich person.
The Latino population has become such a presence. We are part of the American tapestry in a very profound way, in every area you can think of, and are very significant in popular culture.
I feel, since 2001, this huge need for Americans to have superheroes on the screen. This idea that a super-being will protect you. That this being can go above the law but, at the end of the day, would be a good force and defeat the evil. This idea that this half-god exists. This need in the subconscious of America to find these gods.
There's a specificity of language that's required in Shakespeare that most drama students in England deal with - a specificity of language that is somehow not as clear in a lot of American schools.
This is not the beginning of American civilization where we need guns because it's the Wild, Wild West... There should not be guns in our society, and we all know that; politicians know that.
Americans have a profound longing for heroes - now perhaps more than ever. We need our explorers, our sports icons, our Medal of Freedom winners, our Nobel laureates. We need our Greatest Generation warriors, our 'Sully' Sullenbergers, our Neil Armstrongs. On some level, we still subscribe to the myth of the man in the white hat.
Osama bin Laden fervently hoped that attacking the United States would create pressure on American leaders to reduce their support for Middle Eastern regimes. Bin Laden believed that without that American support, the Arab regimes would collapse and would be replaced by Taliban-style rulers.
A budget matters to Americans who can't afford to see their taxes go up or lose the jobs that would be destroyed in the process.
As Americans, we should all convey our thanks to the brave men and women who have selflessly and courageously served our nation.
I'm probably going to get in trouble for this but 'American Dad' is one of my favourite shows. It gets very dark in places but the jokes are there.
Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap - let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.
Why, in our 'free' country, do Americans meekly stand aside and let the state limit our choices, even when we are dying?
As a political weapon, it has helped me for 30 years defend the rights of American blacks and third-world people all over the world, to defend them with protest songs. To move the audience to make them conscious of what has been done to my people around the world.
Pressure selling is firmly rooted in American economic life, and I'm sorry it is, for it should not be necessary. Some people think part of the panic following 1929 was due to too much pressure in selling.
The scene of independent cinema is already a large scene in America, and not in a negative way, but it's cluttered. It's very populated with just American films, so the room left for foreign movies is not extremely vast. The American public also does not really read. They don't read subtitles. But we're like that in Canada, too.
Used to be, conservatives revered the Average American, that Norman Rockwell oil painting of diner food, humble faith, honest toil, and Capraesque virtue.
Americans want and deserve a broad array of health insurance choices so they can identify those that best fit their own individual or family needs. These choices expand when we allow free enterprise to foster innovation, not smother it with taxes and one-size fits all ideology.
While in medical school, I was drafted into the U.S. Army with the other medical students as part of the wartime training program, and naturalized American citizen in 1943. I greatly enjoyed my medical studies, which at the Medical College of Virginia were very clinically oriented.
In the ever-evolving society we live in, it is the responsibility of all of us, as individuals and as Americans, to rid ourselves of this culture of violence.
You know that American dream and American spirit of innovation we always talk about? Turns out, the bulk of it was built by people who came to America from somewhere else, not people born American. We have no birthright or natural lock on these things.
If Romney explains why where we are with Obama is unacceptable, why whither we are tending is even worse - and why his own alternative path forward is superior - then we trust the American people to make the right choice in November.
I grew up watching foreign programs - American, English, Mexican, and very little Kenyan. 'The Color Purple' was the first time I saw people who looked like me.
In 1940, President Roosevelt called on American industry to become the 'great arsenal of democracy.' Automotive manufacturers in Michigan responded and converted their assembly lines from cars to tanks and helped America win World War II.
Like the average American that I hang out with, and like my father before me, I raised all my children to respect tools and use them wisely and safely.
We need to be discussing issues specifically to help the American people. And that would not include illegal aliens. These are people - I'm for immigration - legal immigration. I've been an immigration attorney. But people who have come to our country and violated laws, we should not be providing full health care services.
The American diet causes disease. It is composed of 25 percent animal products and 62 percent processed foods and only 5 percent of calories from fruits and vegetables.
When you look at the actual numbers, the number of people who died after 9/11 was greater than the number of people who died in 9/11, even if you are talking Americans. But you know, I don't like to talk Americans. I want to talk everybody. More innocent people died after 9/11 because of 9/11 than died in 9/11.
I acted in high school and studied at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford for one summer. I minored in theater, and I was always acting growing up and stuff, but really, I was just more interested in the comedy of it all. So for me, it's always comedy, and then acting is just one medium of comedy.
Wherever I have gone in this country, I have found Americans.
The amount of U.S. debt held by countries such as China and Japan is at a historic high, with foreign investors holding half of America's publicly held debt. This dependence raises the specter that other nations will be able to influence our policies in ways antithetical to American interests.
I think a lot of Americans don't appreciate just what an incredible country this is, how lucky they are, how safe they are, how empowered they are.
You get racism crossing the street; it's in the very fabric of American society.
I was born in San Francisco's Chinatown in 1948 but grew up in a black neighborhood. During elementary and middle school, I commuted to a bilingual school in Chinatown. So I did not confront white American culture until high school.