Chinese American Quotes

Bruce Lee was the first star I idolized. Growing up as a Chinese American, there weren't many people like me on the big screen. ~ Daniel Wu

They said I looked like a foreign devil; they said I spoke like a foreign devil. I made mistakes in manners, and I didn't know delicacies that had grown up since my father left. They wouldn't have me. You can believe it or not - I'm less foreign here than I was in China. ~ John Steinbeck

Dare I ask Mao and his Communist Party?
I fear my throat will be cut into two pieces.
In the name of revolution, for thought crimes,
Such questions can turn me to ashes. ~ Zoe S. Roy

My father was second-generation Chinese-American, born in 1923 in California. My mother emigrated to the States from China when she was in her early twenties, in part to escape the political turmoil in China. ~ Tess Gerritsen

I had no idea what I was gonna do after I got my degree in philosophy in 1940. But what I did know was at that time, if you were a Chinese-American, even department stores wouldn't hire you. They'd come right out and say, 'We don't hire Orientals.' ~ Grace Lee Boggs

What makes you think I ever got married? Married women work themselves to death, all their money goes to husbands who gamble it away. Why would I ever do that to myself? ~ Kim Van Alkemade

If you don't have a bed, or a dresser or a wall, or a book or a toy you are oppressed. An African American in a white world. A Jew in a Christian world. A gypsy. A Native American. A Chinese American. Let's say, you were born deprived. ~ Gerald Stern

Westerners who go native with Chinese ideas are called 'eggs' - outside white, inside yellow -, and are often systematically excluded from their expat community's activities, let alone the financial support system. ~ Thorsten J. Pattberg

I didn't point out that I'm part Chinese-American and so the odds that I would have been in England back in Shakespeare's time were highly unlikely. "And, ~ Ally Condie

I can represent my culture while helping not only the Chinese-American community, but also the community at large. ~ Martin Yan

Moon grew up, lost weight and became a famous singer, which proves that there is no justice in the universe, or that indeed, there is justice. Your interpretation of the denouement mostly depends on your race, creed, hair color, social and economic class and political proclivities -- whether or not you are a revisionist feminist and have a habit of cheering for the underdog. What is the moral of the story? Well, it's a tale of revenge, obviously written from the Chinese American girl's perspective. My intentions are to veer you away from teasing and humiliating little chubby Chinese girls like myself. And that one wanton act of humiliation you perpetrated on the fore or aft of that boat on my arrival may be one humiliating act too many.

For although we are friendly neighbors, you don't really know me. You don't know the depth of my humiliation. And you don't know what I can do. You don't know what is beneath my doing. ~ Marilyn Chin

Fly you crows. My father was not a spectacle. He was the greatest man I ever knew. He was my everything. ~ Stacey Lee

Because my dad's Chinese-American, and they're very concrete, he said, 'There's no money to be made in literature.' So he told me to go into the sciences. And I was a good girl. And I did what Daddy said. And that's how I ended up being a doctor. But you know, you just can't stamp out that desire to tell stories. ~ Tess Gerritsen

As a Chinese American legislator, I applaud the RNC's Growth and Opportunity Project. Engaging Asian American and Pacific Islander communities about Republican principles is a worthwhile effort. I thank Chairman Priebus and Co-Chairman Day for making this a priority. We need to ensure our message of growth and opportunity is being heard in all communities throughout this nation, and I am proud to be a part of this effort. ~ Kimberly Yee

Okay. I'm not a white male. At least, not predominantly so. And as I mentioned before, I'm in an environment right now where race is really important. See, Chinese men are not that physically intimidating. We're not that tall. We're not that built. We have exactly one thing going for us in a fight - that our opponent recognizes that there's a possibility, no matter how remote, that we might know kung-fu. ~ Phillip Andrew Bennett Low

The world is a big place, and there are many paths that lead to success. This applies to both political and economic concepts. For this reason, we see no need to stoically pursue the Chinese, American or French way. But we have socialism in common with China. ~ Nguyen Minh Triet

Be wary of feeling as through there is not enough room at the table. Oftentimes a female Chinese-American might feel as through she is in competition with another Chinese-American woman writer of the same generation. A writer friend of mine calls it the "There Can Only Be One ... " syndrome. This isn't "Survivor." The more good writers, of all walks of life and all ethnicities and persuasions, the better. ~ ZZ Packer

If I were to limit myself to the opportunities that were presented playing only Chinese-American parts, I would be virtually without a career. ~ BD Wong

My experiences growing up in both a Chinese American household and the Catholic Church define much of who I am. ~ Gene Luen Yang

The crack in your heart allows light in. ~ GOOD FORTUNE page 238 ~ Leslie Bratspis

We didn't have last names before they came. When they decided they needed to keep track of us, last names were given to us, just like the name "INDIAN" itself was given to us. These were attempted translations and botched Indian names, random surnames, and names passed down from white American generals, admirals, and colonels, and sometimes troop names, which were sometimes just colors. ~ Tommy Orange

The Anglo-American can indeed cut down and grub up all this waving forest, and make a stump speech on its ruins, but he cannot converse with the spirit of the tree he fells, he cannot read the poetry and mythology which retire as he advances. He ignorantly erases mythological ~ Henry David Thoreau

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1965

My fellow countrymen, on this occasion, the oath I have taken before you and before God is not mine alone, but ours together. We are one nation and one people. Our fate as a nation and our future as a people rest not upon one citizen, but upon all citizens.

This is the majesty and the meaning of this moment.

For every generation, there is a destiny. For some, history decides. For this generation, the choice must be our own.

Even now, a rocket moves toward Mars. It reminds us that the world will not be the same for our children, or even for ourselves m a short span of years. The next man to stand here will look out on a scene different from our own, because ours is a time of change-- rapid and fantastic change bearing the secrets of nature, multiplying the nations, placing in uncertain hands new weapons for mastery and destruction, shaking old values, and uprooting old ways.

Our destiny in the midst of change will rest on the unchanged character of our people, and on their faith.

THE AMERICAN COVENANT

They came here--the exile and the stranger, brave but frightened-- to find a place where a man could be his own man. They made a covenant with this land. Conceived in justice, written in liberty, bound in union, it was meant one day to inspire the hopes of all mankind; and it binds us still. If we keep its terms, we shall flourish.

JUSTICE AND CHANGE

Firs ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

It is a distinctive American genius, this ability to transmute subversion into a marketable commodity. ~ George F. Will

I've done shows that aired on American TV, but none of them proved to be successful, so yes, no one here knows who I am. ~ Adam Rayner

America became a great civilization thanks to a culture based on the value of having to earn almost everything an American got in life. As it abandons this value, it will become a mediocre civilization. And eventually it will not be America. It will be a large Sweden, and just as influential as the smaller one. ~ Dennis Prager

The American Constitution declares 'All men are born equal.' The British Socialist Party add: 'All men must be kept equal'. ~ Winston Churchill

In choosing Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney made a fantastic choice and a bold statement to the American people. ~ Bob Beauprez

The basic issue of an American society which is fair, which is providing opportunity for all, is nowadays being replaced by the correct perception that we're living in a rigged economy - where it doesn't matter how hard you worked, the result will be all the income goes to the people at the very top. It's leading to a lot of frustration and anger, and people want some fundamental changes to the way we do economics and growth. ~ Bernie Sanders

I prefer the Chinese method of eating. You can do anything at the table except arm wrestle. ~ Jeff Smith

It's always the same wherever one goes- it's not the most powerful rulers who have the happiest populations ~ Graham Greene

Even respectable characters speak of a monarchical form of government without horror. ~ George Washington

My first trip to China, in 1995, was among the most memorable of my life. The Fourth World Conference on Women, at which I declared, "Human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights," was a profound experience for me. I felt the heavy hand of Chinese censorship when the government blocked the broadcast of my speech, both throughout the conference center and on official television and radio. Most ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton

Prayer is asking God to incarnate, to get dirty in your life. Yes, the eternal God scrubs floors. For sure we know he washes feet. So take Jesus at his word. Ask him. Tell him what you want. Get dirty. Write out your prayer requests; don't mindlessly drift through life on the American narcotic of busyness. If you try to seize the day, the day will eventually break you. Seize the corner of his garment and don't let go until he blesses you. He will reshape the day. ~ Paul E. Miller

Alas! what are you, after all, my written and painted thoughts! Not long ago you were so variegated, young and malicious, so full of thorns and secret spices, that you made me sneeze and laugh - and now? You have already doffed your novelty, and some of you, I fear, are ready to become truths, so immortal do they look, so pathetically honest, so tedious! And was it ever otherwise? What then do we write and paint, we mandarins with Chinese brush, we immortalizers of things which lend themselves to writing, what are we alone capable of painting? Alas, only that which is just about to fade and begins to lose its odour! Alas, only exhausted and departing storms and belated yellow sentiments! Alas, only birds strayed and fatigued by flight, which now let themselves be captured with the hand - with our hand! We immortalize what cannot live and fly much longer, things only which are exhausted and mellow! And it is only for your afternoon, you, my written and painted thoughts, for which alone I have colours, many colours, perhaps, many variegated softenings, and fifty yellows and browns and greens and reds; - but nobody will divine thereby how ye looked in your morning, you sudden sparks and marvels of my solitude, you, my old, beloved - evil thoughts! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

American English is the greatest influence of English everywhere. ~ Robert Burchfield

I bring the experiences of women. As a daughter, as a mother, as a wife, as a sister. That is who I am. Those experiences are part of me. And it is part of our American journey that we have moved through so much of what used to hold people back because of gender, because of race. ~ Hillary Clinton

You never feel more American than when you leave America. ~ David Lebovitz

Never forget that it is we New Yorkers and New Englanders who have the monopoly of whatever oxygen there is in the American continent. ~ Van Wyck Brooks

I didn't want to argue with my hosts. I wanted them to talk. But I felt like reminding Li that perhaps forty million Chinese people had died of starvation a half century earlier because they followed their government's orders. It was the largest famine in history. A snapshot taken then would have given a very different picture of the supposedly essential character of Chinese people, and it would have entirely missed the point. Governments matter. Markets matter. History matters. International circumstances matter. ~ Howard W. French

The man standing closest to her was eating an ice cream cone; she had always found it a little irresponsible, the eating of ice cream cones by grown-up American men, especially the eating of ice cream cones by grown-up American men in public. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In the mid-1980s, there was a grassroots desire for American culture. Maybe it was not a definite harbinger to what was to come in terms of the fall of the Soviet Union, but it certainly gave a heads up to the global merging of the retail culture. ~ Brian Shactman

Hardly anyone in the world is an American ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I don't feel alienated from American culture, but I understand people who do. ~ John Podhoretz

In every American there is an air of incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning. ~ A.E. Housman

We all know the Lincoln of the Second Inaugural and the Gettysburg Address. We need to know the Lincoln of the Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society and of the Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions, both talks in which he vents his favorite enthusiasms. We need to understand his thirst for economic and industrial development. We need to realize that he was a lawyer for corporations, a vigorous advocate of property rights, and a defender of an "elitist" economics against the unreflective populist bromides of his age. We need to focus on his love for the Founders as guides to the American future. We need to grapple with his ferocious ambition, personal and political. ~ Rich Lowry

The American people cannot close their eyes to abuses of human rights and injustice, whether they occur among friend or adversary or even on our own shores. ~ Ronald Reagan

There are times throughout history and it doesn't take long for either an American or a German, to think about times in the history of their country where the law provided the Government to do things which were not right. ~ Edward Snowden

By extension, anyone who liked smelling the daisies, and having daisies to smell, and eating mercury-free fish, and who objected to giving birth to three-eyed infants via the toxic sludge in their drinking water was a demon-possessed Satanic minion of darkness, hell-bent on sabotaging the American Way and God's Holy Oil, which were one and the same. ~ Margaret Atwood

As long as the United States - and the world - gets its oil from the Middle East, we will be drawn into the endless crises that seem endemic to the region. American energy independence would not only liberate us, it would also drive down the worldwide price of oil. ~ Kathleen Troia McFarland

There are lots of excellent analysts out there. John Holdren at the Harvard Kennedy School, who was just president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, has been talking about this stuff for years. There are lots of people out there who understand what's going on. The problem is, they aren't much picked up on Fox News. ~ Paul R. Ehrlich

Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had expounded: the Taliban, or specifically the Haqqanis, were an asset that Pakistan needed to keep in order to have a strong ally in Afghanistan when the American and international forces left.4 At the core of Pakistan's thinking was an obsessive desire to dominate Afghanistan in order to protect its own rear flank from India. In that way of thinking, the Taliban were guarantors of Pakistan's national strategic interests. As ~ Carlotta Gall

The bottom line is ... if you were in the civilian population, you'd be a serial killer. Working for the government means you get to wave the American flag around when it suits you, but the truth is, you do what you do because you enjoy picking the wings off of flies. And everybody's an insect in your eyes. ~ J.R. Ward

Well my thoughts on American swimming are that our prospects look favorable, but we may not have as strong a showing in the gold medal count as in previous Olympics. But I am not coaching. ~ Mark Spitz

Let us remember that the main purpose of American aid is not to help other nations, but to help ourselves. ~ Richard M. Nixon

On various occasions, especially in trying to think of western American history in the context of the worldwide history of colonialism, it has struck me that much of the mental behavior that we sometimes denounce as ethnocentrism and cultural insensitivity actually derives less from our indifference or hostility than from our clumsiness and awkwardness when we leave the comfort of the English language behind ... [V]enturing outside the bounds of the English language exercises and stretches our minds in ways that are essential for getting as close as we can to the act of seeing the world from what would otherwise remain unfamiliar and alien perspectives. ~ Patricia Nelson Limerick

I constantly signal to the Iraqi leaders that our patience, or the patience of the American people, is running out ~ Zalmay Khalilzad

Whether or not you liked George W. Bush, there was no doubt about what position he was going to take, and that's what endeared him to a significant segment of American society. ~ Frank Luntz

The burden therefore rests with the American legal community and with the American human-rights lobbies and non-governmental organizations. They can either persist in averting their gaze from the egregious impunity enjoyed by a notorious war criminal and lawbreaker, or they can become seized by the exalted standards to which they continually hold everyone else. The current state of suspended animation, however, cannot last. If the courts and lawyers of this country will not do their duty, we shall watch as the victims and survivors of this man pursue justice and vindication in their own dignified and painstaking way, and at their own expense, and we shall be put to shame. ~ Christopher Hitchens

The cultural decoding that many American writers require has become an even harder task in the age of globalisation. The experience they describe has grown more private; its essential background, the busy larger world, has receded. ~ Pankaj Mishra

I love Britain, I lived there for nine years doing shows and things, but I don't know what a British sensibility is. I'd like to have someone tell me what an American sensibility is. ~ Frank Oz

The Dominion in 1983 was first published as a thirty page booklet in 1883 under the pseudonym Ralph Centennius. (The author's real name is unknown.) This edition has been proof-read word-by-word against a copy of the original on microfiche. (Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions no. 00529) In this text, a mixture of American and British spelling can be found. (For example ~ Ralph Centennius

It was in 1931 that the historian James Truslow Adams coined the phrase "the American dream."
The American dream is not just a yearning for affluence, Adams said, but also for the chance to overcome barriers and social class, to become the best that we can be. Adams acknowledged that the United States didn't fully live up to that ideal, but he argued that America came closer than anywhere else. ~ Nicholas D. Kristof

I didn't feel that I was an American at all, with all that suburban ideal and sex repression and general dreary newspaper grey censorship of all our real human values ... ~ Jack Kerouac

I like motivational books, because I like the go-getting American spirit - your destiny is in your own hands, life is what you make it, don't accept your limitations, jump before you're pushed, leap before you look. ~ Louise Mensch

Some guy refuses to fight and we call that the sin, but he's standing up for what he believes in and that seems pretty damned American to me. ~ Iris Dement

Justice will be served
And the battle will rage
This big dog will fight
When you rattle his cage
And you'll be sorry that you messed with
The U.S. of A.
'Cause we'll put a boot in your *ss
It's the American way ~ Toby Keith