American English Quotes

• My momma always said, "Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

  Winston Groom

  Life, Motivational, Movie

  "Fictional character: Forrest Gump". "Forrest Gump", www.imdb.com. 1994.

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• American English is the greatest influence of English everywhere.

  Robert Burchfield

  Influence

  4 Copy quote

• We have room but for one Language here and that is the English Language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans of American nationality and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  America, People, House

  Theodore Roosevelt (1954). “Letters: The days of Armageddon, 1909-1914”

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• You can't handle the truth!

  Jack Nicholson

  Movie, Memorable, Great Year

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• Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

  Clark Gable

  Movie, Badass, Wind

  "Fictional character: Rhett Butler". "Gone with the Wind", 1939.

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• I feel the need... the need for speed.

  Tom Cruise

  Movie, Gun, Great Year

  FaceBook post by Tom Cruise from Jan 24, 2013

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• I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.

  Marlon Brando

  Movie, Film History, Hollywood Films

  "Fictional character: Don Vito Corleone". "The Godfather", www.imdb.com. March 14, 1972.

  86 Copy quote

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• I'll make him an offer he can't refuse.

  Mario Puzo

  Movie, Hollywood Films, Film History

  The Godfather ch. 1 (1969)

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• May the Force be with you.

  George Lucas

  Movie, Film History, Psychics

  Star Wars (motion picture) (1977)

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• I am sure that the two main forms of English, American English and British English, separated geographically from the beginning and severed politically since 1776, are continuing to move apart, and that existing elements of linguistic dissimilarity between them will intensify as time goes on, notwithstanding the power of the cinema, TV, Time Magazine, and other two-way gluing and fuelling devices.

  Robert Burchfield

  Moving, Two, Cinema

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• American English is essentially English after having been wiped off with a dirty sponge.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Dirty, Sponges

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• That's American English for you: more roots than a mangrove swamp.

  Roy Blount, Jr.

  Roots, Swamps

  Roy Blount, Jr. (2009). “Alphabet Juice: The Energies, Gists, and Spirits of Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof; Their Roots, Bones, Innards, Piths, Pips, and Secret Parts, Tinctures, Tonics, and Essences; With Examples of Their Usage Foul and Savory”, p.466, Macmillan

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• All messages from Satan are played forward and are in standard American English.

  George Carlin

  Messages, Satan, Standards

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• All I can say in my solitude is, May Heaven's rich blessing come down on every one - American, English, Turk - who will help to heal this open sore of the world.

  David Livingstone

  Blessing, Heaven, Solitude

  David Livingstone (1940). “Some letters from Livingstone: 1840-1872”

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• It appears that the present-day form of African American English is not the inheritance of the period of slavery, but the creation of the second half of the 20th century.

  William Labov

  African American, Half, Slavery

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• 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.

  Lupita Nyong'o

  Color, Purple, People

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• Part of what makes a language 'alive' is its constant evolution. I would hate to think Britain would ever emulate France, where they actually have a learned faculty whose job it is to attempt to prevent the incursion of foreign words into the language. I love editing Harry with Arthur Levine, my American editor-the differences between 'British English' (of which there must be at least 200 versions) and 'American English' (ditto!) are a source of constant interest and amusement to me.

  J. K. Rowling

  Wise, Witty, Jobs

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• The North American intellectual tradition began, I maintain, in the encounter of British Romanticism with assertive, pragmatic North American English - the Protestant plain style in both the U.S. and Canada, with its no-nonsense Scottish immigrants.

  Camille Paglia

  Intellectual, Style, Encounters

  5 Copy quote