Great American Quotes - Page 8

• So much of great American drama has been about a certain kind of dysfunctional family, and maybe my interests are in the kind of strange dysfunction that exists even among deeply functional families.

  Stephen Karam

  Drama, Dysfunction, Strange

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

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• I'm playing the Great American Songbook - all the blue-sky, puffy-cloud classics. Music that's been missing. I want to be one of the people who ushers it back in. Long as I can do that, man, I'm happy.

  Landau Eugene Murphy Jr.

  Men, Clouds, Blue

  Source: abilitymagazine.com

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• The media plays an essential role in our culture. It is the Fourth Estate; it's an undeniably essential instrument in the great American experiment - in keeping our democracy functional. People have very strong opinions about what that means and how information should be disseminated to a population that requires information.

  Thomas Sadoski

  Strong, Mean, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I didn't want to be on screen not nailing an American accent. It's an insult to an American! There are plenty of great American actors who can already do an American accent, so me, coming in and stealing their roles, the one thing I have to perfect is the accent. So for years I practiced. And we're lucky because the whole world is raised on a library of American movies. I would pretend to be Jim Carrey, and, I say Robin Williams now because he's in my mind, but those actors really inspired us to be crazy and be theatrical.

  Brenton Thwaites

  Crazy, Perfect, Mind

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• I do the meatball recipe a lot. I think the army stew probably too. It's the most useful dish because it was born out of necessity and poverty and any idiot can make it in 20 minutes on a hot plate. It's cheap and uses readily available commercial ingredients. And it's delicious. It should be the great American dish - perfect late-night stoner dorm food for college kids on a budget.

  Anthony Bourdain

  Kids, Army, Night

  Source: www.chicagotribune.com

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• I wouldn't use the word upset. I think it's very unfair that these really, in many cases professional, in many cases sick, protesters can put cars on a road blocking thousands of great Americans from coming to a speech and nobody says anything about that. But they'll say something about whatever.

  Donald Trump

  Block, Thinking, Car

  Source: abcnews.go.com

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• Regarding the current Broadway revival of The Music Man, Jay Nordlinger wrote: There will always be those who sniff that the show is "feel good"-but, oh, it feels good to feel good. And the main reason The Music Man feels so good is that it is good-a great American musical.

  Meredith Willson

  Music, Men, Feel Good

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• When I first got back from the war, I said, 'I'm gonna write the Great American Novel about the Vietnam War.' So I sat down and wrote 1,700 pages of sheer psychotherapy drivel. It was first person, and there would be pages about wet socks and cold feet.

  Karl Marlantes

  War, Writing, Feet

  "A Vietnam Epic Uncovers Old Wounds: An Interview with Karl Marlantes". Interview with Evan James, www.motherjones.com. April 30, 2010.

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• Ultimately, whether we are writing posts, paragraphs, essays, arguments, memoirs, monographs or even just the Great American Tweet, writing is and should be a grand adventure.

  Constance Hale

  Writing, Adventure, Argument

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• It’s Fitzgerald’s thin-but-durable urge to affirm that finally makes Gatsby worthy of being our Great American Novel. Its soaring conclusion tells us that, even though Gatsby dies and the small and corrupt survive, his longing was nonetheless magnificent.

  Maureen Corrigan

  Longing, Worthy, Novel

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• Those who have heard me speak from time to time know that quite often I cite the observation of that great American author, Mark Twain, who said, history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

  J. D. Hayworth

  Doe, Rhyming, Citing

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• Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room.

  Peter Sellers

  Inspirational, Funny, Movie

  "Fictional character: President Merkin Muffley". "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb", www.imdb.com. 1964.

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• Of the people, by the people, for the people.

  Sun Yat-sen

  4th Of July, Patriotic, Democracies Have

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• In August of 1921, one of the great American combinations was unveiled—even better than the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This fortuitous new blend was radio and baseball.

  George Vecsey

  Baseball, August, Radio

  George Vecsey (2008). “Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game”, p.95, Modern Library

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• This great American institution [Boy Scouts of America] has come under attack from homosexual activists-who may well set their sights on your church next.

  Jay Sekulow

  Boys, Sight, America

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• Education is the great American adventure, the world's most colossal democratic experiment.

  Mary McLeod Bethune

  Education, Learning, Adventure

  Mary McLeod Bethune, Audrey Thomas McCluskey, Elaine M. Smith (2001). “Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World : Essays and Selected Documents”, p.108, Indiana University Press

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• The three great American vices seem to be efficiency, punctuality, and the desire for achievement and success. They are the things that make the Americans so unhappy and so nervous.

  Lin Yutang

  Achievement, Unhappy, Desire

  Lin Yutang (1937). “The Importance of Living”

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• More great Americans were failures than they were successes. They mostly spent their lives in not having a buyer for what they had for sale.

  Gertrude Stein

  Marketing, Buyers

  Everybody's Autobiography ch. 2 (1937)

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• I want to send a very clear message to the men and women who are wearing - or who have worn - our country's uniform and to their spouses: when you have finished your service to our nation, you've got 2,000 great American companies ready and waiting to bring you on board

  Michelle Obama

  Country, Men, Waiting

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• Only a dreamer or a fool would pick a stock at random and expect it to take off like a space ship from its launching pad. Certainly this has happened - about as often as a dime-store clerk has become a Hollywood star or a boy born in a log cabin has been elected President of the United States - just often enough, that is, to keep alive the Great American Dream.

  Catherine Crook de Camp

  Dream, Stars, Boys

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• I enjoy Chicago as one of the great American cities. When I come here and take a taxi from the airport, I meet a young man from Somalia. I meet a young man from Eritrea who engages with this nation with a sense of hope and a sense of desire. But we also we know that there are other elements of this nation that are toxic.

  Kehinde Wiley

  Men, Cities, Airports

  Source: www.artpractical.com

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• When I went to the University of Iowa in order to be a writer, I thought, This is the worst way to learn how to write. To sit in a room with a bunch of would-be writers, who want to write the Great American Novel, every one of them, and you read their stories and they read yours, and you're not living a life. I don't like that. I like learning on the job. The character of my work has definitely evolved from the character of my life.

  Joe Frank

  Jobs, Character, Writing

  Interview with Jonathan Goldstein, believermag.com. March 1, 2013.

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• Losing is the great American sin.

  Jerome Holtzman

  Sports, Losing, Motivational Sports

  Jerome Holtzman (1978). “No Cheering in the Press Box”

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• Atticus Lish is a true original and this is a tremendous book, relentless, moving, written in prose of marvelous integrity. Now that America and the novel are dead, I hope we can have more great American novels as alive as this one.

  Sam Lipsyte

  Integrity, Moving, Book

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• Out of the Indian approach to life there came a great freedom, an intense and absorbing respect for life, enriching faith in a Supreme Power, and principles of truth, honesty, generosity, equity, and brotherhood as a guide to mundane relations.

  Black Elk

  Inspirational, Honesty, Native American

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