I was into playing American music, especially the blues.
What I wish I had, is that I wish I was a little more Greek, in that I wish I could lose my North American driven attitude and that I could be a little bit more poetic and laissez faire.
American literature has never been content to be just one among the many literatures of the Western World. It has always aspired to be the literature not only of a new continent but of a New World.
In general, taking soccer out of the picture, as an American living overseas, it's so cool, and I've grown so much. Now I can look at my life from a different perspective.
I hope that no American will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant.
As America prepared for war in 1941, discrimination largely shut black Americans out of job opportunities in the growing defense industry.
Well, being that, at the house and being in the competition, it was very hard to be with family. We couldn't have visitors out of respect for everyone else there. But, being the American Idol, the focus would have been on me.
What the world needs now is more Americans. The U.S. is the first nation on earth deliberately dedicated to letting people choose what they want and giving them a chance to get it.
Today, American women bear an average of 2.2 children that live to adulthood. Across most of Europe, women bear even fewer young.
I'm a better American than 99% of the guys in the White House.
Reducing trade barriers with this key ally will go a long way toward increasing market access for American farmers, manufacturers and service providers.
All great enterprises have a pearl of faith at their core, and this must be ours: that Americans are still a people born to liberty.
We strain to tell Americans and aliens in this country that there's nothing unique about America, nothing unique about American civilization, nothing that requires their allegiance, nothing of great value that they should sacrifice for.
Americans are hidden dragons to me.
The generosity of the American people is legendary. So is their spirit.
The situation in the United States is becoming more dire for average ordinary Americans and the last thing we need to do is to spend money on death, destruction and war.
I can't tell you what will happen over the next four years. But I can only stand here tonight, as a wife, a mother, a grandmother, an American, and make you this solemn commitment: This man will not fail. This man will not let us down. This man will lift up America!
We have revenue coming in. We can pay our interest payments. And then we can prioritize what government programs that have been given to the American people that are unsustainable promises that have been made by reckless politicians that can't possibly be sustained. We can determine which one of those if any we need to keep.
The great thing about 'The Office' and it being single-camera and the documentary style is that it's mostly a comedy, but 10 percent of it is, we get to show the existential angst that exists in the American workplace.
It's impossible for most black Americans to construct full family trees. Official census records, used by so many genealogy enthusiasts to piece together their families' pasts, don't include our non-European ancestors.
Americans will respect your beliefs if you just keep them private.
Americans believe that people should work hard and get ahead on their own, but when disaster strikes and they need help with retirement or disability, Americans as a whole should come to their aid.
If we are wondering why only 19 percent of the American people feel that the Congress is in tune with their priorities, the cuts in Amtrak is one blatant reason why.
From tea parties to the election in Massachusetts, we are witnessing the single greatest political pushback in American history.
It is my hope that the number of stem cell lines available for federally-funded research will be expanded so that the government can continue to participate in this vital research and provide hope to the millions of Americans with diseases that might be cured.
Also, of course, for most of this time most Americans thought of America as a white country with, at best, only a very segregated and subordinate role for blacks.
Everybody knows about Pearl Harbor. The thing that really fascinated me is that through this tragedy there was this amazing American heroism.
Nothing manifests more persuasively the American contradiction than that the author of the Declaration of Independence, a slave owner, wrote an antislavery clause into the document - as if to compel himself to be better than he was - which then had to be edited out so the Southern states, including Thomas Jefferson's own, would sign it.
Diabetes occurs at twice the rate in the African American community as it does in white Americans.
I like everything European. Even my GPS has a British accent - it's way less annoying than the American one.
After so many years, I feel more American than anything else, but I'm also Romanian and whatever other oddities of temperament I picked up elsewhere, in Transylvania or France, for instance. These days, everybody is both an exile and a resident - they don't call it the global village for nothing.
Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial.
The American writer has his hands full, trying to understand and then describe and then make credible much of American reality.
People have no tolerance. They think all bugs are bad. It's the American way. If you don't like something, kill it.
From blood banking to the modern subway, from jazz to social justice, the contributions of African Americans have shaped and molded and influenced our national culture and our national character.
The obvious types of American fascists are dealt with on the air and in the press. These demagogues and stooges are fronts for others. Dangerous as these people may be, they are not so significant as thousands of other people who have never been mentioned.
