"I had always loved beautiful and artistic things, though before leaving America I had had a very little chance of seeing any." - Emma Albani

"I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie." - H. Rap Brown, press conference (1967)

"This is America . . .- brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky." - George Bush, speech (accepting nomination for President, 1988)

"America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilisation." - Georges Clemenceau, attributed

"A truly American sentiment recognises the dignity of labour and the fact that honour lies in honest toil." - Grover Cleveland

"The chief business of the American people is business." - Calvin Coolidge, speech (1925)

"[Thanksgiving] `Twas founded be th' Puritans to give thanks f'r bein' presarved fr'm th' Indyans, an' . . . we keep it to give thanks we are presarved fr'm th' Puritans." - Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley's Opinions

"The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children." - Edward, Duke of Windsor, quoted in Look

"We grew up founding our dreams on the infinite promise of American advertising." - Zelda Fitzgerald, Save Me the Waltz

"The only foes that threaten America are the enemies at home, and these are ignorance, superstition and incompetence." - Elbert Green Hubbard

"The big majority of Americans, who are comparatively well off, have developed an ability to have enclaves of people living in the greatest misery without almost noticing them." - Gunnar Myrdal

"The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them which we are missing." - Gamel Nasser

"America's abundance was not created by public sacrifices to 'the common good,' but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes." - Ayn Rand

"In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors." - Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays

"In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take." - Adlai E. Stevenson

"I have every sympathy with the American who was so horrified by what he had read about the effects of smoking that he gave up reading." - Henry G. Strauss

"I don't believe in quotas. America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights." - Clarence Thomas

"America is a large friendly dog in a small room. Every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair." - Arnold Toynbee

"There is no distinctly American criminal class, except Congress." - Mark Twain

"We Americans... bear the ark of liberties of the world." - Mark Twain

"Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris." - THOMAS GOLD APPLETON, quoted by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., in The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table

"We expect to eat and stay thin, to be constantly on the move and ever more neighborly . . . to revere God and to be God." - DANIEL J. BOORSTIN, The Image

"This is America . . .a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky." - GEORGE BUSH, speech (accepting nomination for President, 1988)

"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, introduction to H.L. Mencken's Prejudices: A Selection

"Americans have always been eager for travel, that being how they got to the New World in the first place." - OTTO FRIEDRICH, in Time

"Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbow: red, yellow, brown, black and white and we're all precious in God's sight." - JESSE JACKSON, speech (1984)

"America is the greatest of opportunities and the worst of influences." - GEORGE SANTAYANA, The Last Puritan

"It's complicated, being an American, Having the money and the bad conscience, both at the same time." - LOUIS SIMPSON, On the Lawn at the Villa

"In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is. This is what makes America what it is." - GERTRUDE STEIN, The Geographical History of America

"You will find that the truth is often unpopular and the contest between agreeable fancy and disagreeable fact is unequal. For, in the vernacular, we Americans are suckers for good news." - ADLAI E. STEVENSON, speech (1958)

"The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colors breaking through." - ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE, Democracy in America

"The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years." - OSCAR WILDE, A Woman of No Importance

"For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us." - JOHN WINTHROP, sermon written during the voyage to Massachusetts (1630)

"America. . . It is a fabulous country, the only fabulous country; it is the only place where miracles not only happen, but where they happen all the time." - THOMAS WOLFE, Of Time and the River

"More die in the United States of too much food than of too little." - JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH, The Affluent Society

"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." - Barry, Dave

"The Americans will always do the right thing... after they've exhausted all the alternatives." - Churchill, Winston (1874-1965)

"All the taxes paid over a lifetime by the average American are spent by the government in less than a second." - Fiebig, Jim

"The worst thing about Europe is that you can't go out in the middle of the night and get a Slurpee." - Frank, Tellis

"What we should have fought for was representation without taxation." - Levenson, Sam

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." - Mencken, H[enry] L[ouis] (1880-1956)

"The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them we are missing." - Nasser, Gamel Abdel

"If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad, he should see how bad it is WITH representation." - Old Farmers Almanac

"I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting." - Reagan, Ronald

"My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes." - Reagan, Ronald in a radio broadcast test

"Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings." - Will, George [Columnist]