Best American Quotes

• The American, by nature, is optimistic. He is experimental, an inventor and a builder who builds best when called upon to build greatly.

  John F. Kennedy

  Inspirational, Life, Optimistic

  9 Copy quote

• Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

  Tecumseh

  Death, Song, Hero

  "A Sourcebook for Earth's Community of Religions". Book by Joel Diederik Beversluis, 1993.

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• When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.

  Tecumseh

  Life, Death, Wisdom

  "A Sourcebook for Earth's Community of Religions". Book by Joel Diederik Beversluis, 1993.

  201 Copy quote

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• All things are bound together. All things connect.

  Chief Seattle

  Native American, Web Of Life, Earth Day

  Seattle (Chief) (1980). “How can one sell the air?: the manifesto of an Indian chief”, Book Publishing Company (TN)

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• That government is best which governs least.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Government

  Civil Disobedience (1849) See Ralph Waldo Emerson 29; O'Sullivan 1; Shipley 1

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• When good Americans die they go to Paris.

  Oscar Wilde

  Paris, Dies, American Cities

  The Picture of Dorian Gray ch. 3 (1891). Similar dialogue appears inWilde's A Woman of No Importance (1893) as well. See OliverWendell Holmes 4

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• Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.

  Chief Seattle

  Life, Lonely, Nature

  202 Copy quote

• A boy's best friend is his mother.

  Joseph Stefano

  Movie, Family, Mom

  "Fictional character: Norman Bates". "Psycho", www.imdb.com. 1960.

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• The best American is one who considers themselves as a citizen of the world.

  Chuck D

  Citizens, World

  25 Copy quote

• There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Country, Rooms, Born

  Theodore Roosevelt (2005). “Fear God and Take Your Own Part”, p.361, Cosimo, Inc.

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• At best Americans give but a limited attention to history. Too much happens too rapidly, and before we can evaluate it, or exhaust its meaning or pleasure, there is something new to concern us. Ours is the tempo of the motion picture, not that of the still camera, and we waste experience as we wasted the forest.

  Ralph Ellison

  Giving, Attention, Too Much

  Ralph Ellison (2011). “The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison: Revised and Updated”, p.239, Modern Library

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• I produced a play in New York that got nominated for an Outer Critics Circle Award for Best American Play.The play is called Stalking The Bogeyman. It was a story on This American Life, and my former roommate is the artistic director of the New York Repertory Theater. He heard the NPR show, contacted them, and essentially - shortest synopsis ever, like I'm the Cablevision guide button - it's the true story of a man stalking and plotting to kill the man who raped him when he was seven. It's by a brilliant reporter named David Holthouse.

  Adam Richman

  New York, Men, Awards

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• 'Breaking Bad.' Because it's the best American narrative fiction of the last ten years.

  David Benioff

  Years, Lasts, Fiction

  Source: variety.com

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• I've been to Iraq three times. I've been to Afghanistan, I've been quite a few places, and I want to tell you something, these kids, they're the best we've got. They're the best Americans, they're the most loyal Americans we've got. And we owe them when they come back.

  Charlie Daniels

  Kids, Iraq, Three

  Source: www.cbn.com

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• Hollywood movies of the Fifties, like The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, with their epic clash of pagan and Judeo-Christian cultures, tell more about art and society than the French-infatuated ideologues who have made a travesty of the "best" American higher criticism.

  Camille Paglia

  Christian, Art, Epic

  "Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders : Academe in the Hour of the Wolf". Arion, Third Series, Vol. 1, No. 2, Spring 1991.

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• Profound as race prejudice is against the Negro American, it is not practically as far-reaching as the prejudice against women. For stripping away the sentimentality which makes Mother's Day and Best American Mother Contests, the truth is that women suffer all the effects of a minority.

  Pearl S. Buck

  Mother, Race, Profound

  Pearl S. Buck (1941). “Of Men and Women”

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• The best of America drifts to Paris. The American in Paris is the best American.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Paris, America, City Lights

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• Thank you for the music, Sleater-Kinney. This gang of three was the best American punk rock band ever. Ever.

  Rob Sheffield

  Thank You, Rocks, Three

  4 Copy quote

• This book is the best treatment of the best American Marxist philosopher-and the best philosopher to emerge from American slums. Young Sidney Hook is essential reading for anyone interested in democratic theory and practice in America.

  Cornel West

  Book, Reading, Practice

  4 Copy quote

• I think The Exorcist is the best American horror movie ever made. Friedkin was at the top of his game.

  Jason Patric

  Thinking, Games, Usa

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• David Burnett was the son of Martha Foley, who edited the Best American Short Stories series. She hired me to work with David and her to read stories for the anthology.

  Terry Southern

  Son, Stories, Anthology

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• Eric Schlosser's book on the economy and strategies of the fast-food business should be read by anyone who likes to take their children to fast-food restaurants. I shall certainly never do that again. He employs a long, cold burn, a quiet and impassioned accumulation of detail, with calm, wit and clarity. (...) Fast Food Nation is witness to the rigour and seriousness of the best American journalism, readable, reliable and extremely carefully done.

  Adam Nicolson

  Children, Book, Long

  6 Copy quote

• The best American writers have come from the hinterlands -- Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, Hemingway, Faulkner, Wolfe, Steinbeck. Most of them never even went to college.

  Edward Abbey

  College, London, Mark

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.32, RosettaBooks

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• The best of America drifts to Paris. The American in Paris is the best American. It is more fun for an intelligent person to live in an intelligent country. France has the only two things toward which we drift as we grow older—intelligence and good manners.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Country, Fun, Intelligent

  58 Copy quote

• I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality.

  Mark Strand

  Thinking, Personality, Triumph

  7 Copy quote