Great American Quotes

There is a novella inside every anus; there is a broken heart inside every mind; there is a bisected hug inside every arm; there is a pun inside every belly. "The Great American Novel," thinks the typographer, who at this point is severely constipated. He tries to squeeze out an 'o' but can't. "The Great American Navel," he says, then waits for a laugh. ~ Jimmy Chen

Tom Paine was a great American visionary. His book, Common Sense, sold a couple of hundred thousand copies in a population of four or five million. That means it was a best seller for years. People were thoughtful then. Hope is one thing. But you need to have hope with thought. ~ Studs Terkel

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

Losing is the great American sin. ~ Jerome Holtzman

I'm not promoting myself as the next great American driver, as some people are describing me. If that's what people want to call me, fine. But I've got more important things to focus on. ~ Buddy Rice

We do have some strong traditions of community in the United States, but it's interesting to me that our traditionally patriotic imagery in this country celebrates the individual, the solo flier, independence. We celebrate Independence Day; we don't celebrate We Desperately Rely on Others Day. Oh, I guess that's Mother's Day [laughter]. It does strike me that our great American mythology tends to celebrate separate achievement and separateness, when in fact nobody does anything alone. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

My style of music is the great American songbook meets the pop world of the Seventies and Eighties. ~ Barry Manilow

I once donated a pint of my finest red corpuscles to the great American Red Cross and the doctor opined my blood was very helpful; contained so much alcohol they could use it to sterilize their instruments. ~ W.C. Fields

Jazz music is as American as it gets, and so is the U.S. Postal Service. A Miles Davis stamp is a perfect marriage of two great American institutions. ~ Henry Rollins

Paste may be the last great American music magazine left. ~ Patterson Hood

Just As Soon As" should be printed on dollar bills, replacing "In God We Trust" as the great American slogan. ~ Robert A. Johnson

When I was in my late twenties, a friend suggested that, since I was an avid SF reader and had been since I was barely a teenager, that since it didn't look like the poetry was going where I wanted, I might try writing a science fiction story. I did, and the first story I ever wrote was 'The Great American Economy.' ~ L.E. Modesitt Jr.

Education is the great American adventure, the world's most colossal democratic experiment. ~ Mary McLeod Bethune

The trap into which all writers have, will, or should fall into, of writing The Great American Watchamacallit, is such an uncluttered and inviting one that from time to time I'm sure even the greatest have to pull themselves up short by the Shift key to remind themselves that it is story first that they should write. ~ Harlan Ellison

The great American novel has not only already been written, it has already been rejected. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Lots of talk lately about the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL that seems to be exclusively masculine. And how many of the characters in the GENIUS BOOKS are likable? Is Holden Caulfield likable? Is Meursault in The Stranger? Is Henry Miller? Is any character in any of these system novels particularly likable? Aren't they usually loathsome but human, etc., loathsome and neurotic and obsessed? In my memory, all the characters in Jonathan Franzen are total douchebags (I know, I know, I'm not supposed to use that, feminine imagery, whatever, but it is SO satisfying to say and think). How about female characters in the genius books? Was Madame Bovary likable? Was Anna Karenina? Is Daisy Buchanan likable? Is Daisy Miller? Is it the specific way in which supposed readers HATE unlikable female characters (who are too depressed, too crazy, too vain, too self-involved, too bored, too boring), that mirrors the specific way in which people HATE unlikable girls and women for the same qualities? We do not allow, really, the notion of the antiheroine, as penned by women, because we confuse the autobiographical, and we pass judgment on the female author for her terrible self-involved and indulgent life. We do not hate Scott Fitzgerald in "The Crack-Up" or Georges Bataille in Guilty for being drunken and totally wading in their own pathos, but Jean Rhys is too much of a victim. ~ Kate Zambreno

Writing is not about how well you can write the next "Great American Novel," using flawless grammar and snooty punctuation; sometimes, it's only about making someone smile, or laugh out loud. Sometimes, its sharing a fun thought, or putting a vivid life experience on paper so others' can share a great moment that had an impact on you, the author. ~ T. Hammond

There are jokes about breast surgeons.
You know-- something like-- I've seen more breasts in this city than--
I don't know the punch line.
There must be a punch line.

I'm not a man who falls in love easily. I've been faithful to my
wife. We fell in love when we were twenty-two. We had plans. There
was justice in the world. There was justice in love. If a person was
good enough, an equally good person would fall in love with that
person. And then I met-- Ana. Justice had nothing to do with it.

There once was a very great American surgeon named Halsted. He was
married to a nurse. He loved her-- immeasurably. One day Halsted
noticed that his wife's hands were chapped and red when she came back
from surgery. And so he invented rubber gloves. For her. It is
one of the great love stories in medicine. The difference between
inspired medicine and uninspired medicine is love.

When I met Ana, I knew:
I loved her to the point of invention. ~ Sarah Ruhl

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

When I was young, I kept trying to read 'Moby-Dick', and I couldn't get that far into it. And I kept thinking, 'Well, man, if I can't read the great American novel, I could never be a writer.' And this bothered me a great deal. ~ Nick Tosches

Maybe just as many women writers as male writers could be billed as the next great American writer by their publisher. Maybe book criticism sections could review an equal amount of female and male writers. Maybe Oprah could start putting some books by women authors in her book club, since most of her audience is women. ~ Jami Attenberg

She was in a difficult position being the widow of a great American hero, a role that carried high expectations but she did a credible job of continuing Dr King's dream especially in the face of a changing and often hostile American public. ~ Morris Dees

I was never pegged to be the next great American tennis player by any means. I wasn't a prodigy. I'm a late bloomer. Whatever happens, I'm proud of what I've done. ~ John Isner

Fischer, the great American chess champion, famously said, 'Chess is life.' I would say, 'Pi is life.' ~ Daniel Tammet

I don't think everyone wants to create the great American novel, but we all have a dream of telling our stories-of realizing what we think, feel, and see before we die. Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate. ~ Natalie Goldberg

Great American power and responsibility are not unprecedented, and have been used with restraint and great benefit in the past. We have not assumed that super strength guarantees super wisdom, and we have consistently reached out to the international community to ensure that our own power and influence are tempered by the best common judgment. ~ Jimmy Carter

For me, the essence of the great American Dream is spiritual. I believe that our Constitution is inspired and that it is based on principles that are timeless and universal. This is the reason why 95% of all written constitutions throughout the world are modeled after our Constitution. ~ Stephen Covey

As our great American philosopher William James has said, an individual has as many selves as there are individuals whom he knows. There isn't the slightest hypocrisy in this, but only pragmatic ethics. For not all persons are worthy of our acquaintance, and not all persons require equal time from us. You save your most valuable 'personality' for the most valuable persons you know. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

Bankruptcy is about financial death and financial rebirth. Bankruptcy is the great American story rewritten. We're a nation of debtors. ~ Elizabeth Warren

Dennis Hopper is one of the great American lives. ~ Jeffrey Deitch

As the Battle of Normandy raged, the Germans held fast to the illusion, so carefully planted and now so meticulously sustained, that a great American army under Patton was preparing to pounce and the German forces in the Pas de Calais must remain in place to repel it. ~ Ben Macintyre

Great American Novel" = "doorstop of a book, usually pretentious, written by a man. ~ Lionel Shriver

It may not be the "Great American Novel" they talk about, because its scope is not broad enough to take in all of America, but it pictures the people and the customs and the drama of upstate New York in the days preceding and following the Civil War with a simplicity that, to my mind, is true art. ~ Clyde Brion Davis

Early on I set out to write the next Great American Novel, and then later on I set out the silverware and enjoyed my dinner in silence. ~ Jarod Kintz

Almost all the great American graphic designers have used white space as the significant silence to better hear their message loud and clear. ~ Massimo Vignelli

I want a president who will teach our children that everyone in this country matters, a president who truly believes in the vision that our Founders put forth all those years ago that we are all created equal, each a beloved part of the great American story. ~ Michelle Obama

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

For me, Fitzgerald was one of the great American writers of the last century; a wordsmith, a storyteller, a perfectionist. ~ Robert Littell

Education is one of the Grand Christianson Obsessions. They've been whole years my mother's kept us home for intensive private study. As a result of that, Paul will perform the first brain transplant, James will someday build a bridge across the Atlantic Ocean, Charlie – who is an actual musical genius – will probably end up writing the Great American Symphony, and I – I know a little bit about a lot of things.
I can tell you the chemical composition of the stuff your stick in your hair; how long it would take you, at just under the speed of light, to get to Alpha Centauri – and how old your body would be when you finally got there; the middle name of the third president of the United States; the amount of the present budget deficit; the author of the Brothers Karamazov, and how many feet there are in a line of trochaic heptameter. The Little Girl Who Had to Know Why, Paul used to call me. But even my mother couldn't reconcile me and math. ~ Kristen D. Randle

We are going by you without fighting if you will let us, but we are going by you anyhow! ~ Chief Joseph

IF you wish to be a writer then don't wait until you write the "great American novel" for they aren't written they are created. If you don't write at all you won't know how "great" that simple book can be. ~ Shiree McCarver

American cold war culture represented an age of anxiety. The anxiety was so severe that it sought relief in an insistent, assertive optimism. Much of American popular culture aided this quest for apathetic security. The expanding white middle class sought to escape their worries in the burgeoning consumer culture. Driving on the new highway system in gigantic showboat cars to malls and shopping centers that accepted a new form of payment known as credit cards, Americans could forget about Jim Crow, communism, and the possibility of Armageddon. At night in their suburban homes, television allowed middle class families to enjoy light domestic comedies like The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, and Leave It to Beaver. Somnolently they watched representations of settled family life, stories where lost baseball gloves and dinnertime hijinks represented the only conflicts. In the glow of a new Zenith television, it became easy to believe that the American dream had been fully realized by the sacrifice and hard work of the war generation.

American monsters in pop culture came to the aid of this great American sleep. Although a handful of science fiction films made explicit political messages that unsettled an apathetic America, the vast majority of 'creature features' proffered parables of American righteousness and power. These narratives ended, not with world apocalypse, but with a full restoration of a secure, consumer-oriented status quo. Invaders i ~ W. Scott Poole

We need to give everybody a chance, treat everybody with respect, and let them share in this great American dream that we have. ~ John Kasich

I think John Coltrane is one of the great American heroes, like Abraham Lincoln and Emily Dickinson. ~ Simon Van Booy

By now you've probably noticed that except when safely contained by quotes, Zampanò always steers clear of such questionable four-letter language. This instance in particular proves that beneath all that cool psuedo-academic hogwash lurked a very passionate man who knew how important it was to say "fuck" now and then, and say it loud too, relish its syllabic sweetness, its immigrant pride, a great American epic word really, starting at the lower lip, often the very front of the lower lip, before racing all the way to the back of the throat, where it finishes with a great blast, the concussive force of the K catching up then with the hush of the F already on its way, thus loading it with plenty of offense and edge and certainly ambiguity. FUCK. A great by-the-bootstrap prayer or curse if you prefer, depending on how you look at it, or use it, suited perfectly for hurling at the skies or at the world, or sometimes, if said just right, for uttering with enough love and fire, the woman beside you melts inside herself, immersed in all that word-heat. ~ Mark Z. Danielewski

The great American game should be an unrelenting war of nerves. ~ Ty Cobb

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

Great American thinker and philosopher Earl Nightingale said, "If you spend one extra hour each day in the study of your chosen field, you'll be a national expert in five years or less." What do you want to be an expert in? ~ Abby Beale

I got the feeling: It's time to do a Marco Polo story. I felt like everything was lining up right because long-form television series were becoming to me like the new great American novel. ~ John Fusco

America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great. ~ Alexis De Tocqueville

The Roaring Twenties were the period of that Great American Prosperity which was built on shaky foundations. ~ J. Paul Getty

Chicago is the great American city, New York is one of the capitals of the world, and Los Angeles is a constellation of plastic; San Francisco is a lady ~ Norman Mailer

The car was full of unhappy people heading west. It was the Great American Family Road Trip, all right. Whaaa-hoo! ~ Kim Harrison

The actors in Britain are incredible, and I didn't appreciate that until I got there. They interpret your words and you realize how deliberate and thoughtful they are. There are great American actors, too, don't get me wrong, but the technique that British actors have is something really special. ~ Frank Spotnitz

Biography of the great American Benjamin Franklin. ~ Robin S. Sharma

There might be people who have never even tweeted before who are just working on their great American tweet. It will be so good that we'll all have to stop Twitter right away. I would like to write the great American tweet. I don't think the great American tweet has been written yet. We'd know. ~ Megan Amram

When you heard Jimi Hendrix, you knew it was Jimi Hendrix. He introduced himself with his instrument. His attack to a guitar man, was, oh, something else! You think of one of the great American ball players, or one of the great fighters of the world, you know, that's the way he would attack any note on his guitar. ~ B.B. King

There's nothing more embarrassing than to have earned the disfavor of a perceptive animal. ~ Michael Chabon

I think the zenith of popular songwriting to the United States of America was that period that started in the '20s and went into the '50s. It was the period of the great American standard song. ~ Linda Ronstadt

It's no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it's sanctimony. ~ Nathan Hill

Gjerji raises his hand. In English he says, "I like to tell in the words of a great American philosopher what freedom is."
"Say it in your language to your peers," I urge.
Gyerji makes his statement. The class grows silent and thoughtful; there is much nodding. Twain perhaps? Emerson? Diana sidles up and whispers in my ear. "He says to them that freedom is a word when nothing is anymore able to be losed."
Janis Joplin, de-syntaxed. ~ Laura Kelly

It has long been a dream of mine that this important story one day would be told on the great American stage of Broadway. In fact, I've dedicated much of the latter half of my life to ensuring the story of the internment is known. ~ George Takei

We have trains to hop, voyages to embark on, and rides to hitch. And then there's the great American wild - vanishing but still there - ready to impart its wisdom from an Alaskan peak or a patch of grass growing in a crack of a city sidewalk. And no matter how much sprawl and civilization overtake our wilds, we'll always have the boundless wildlands in ourselves to explore. ~ Ken Ilgunas

At one point I would read nothing that was not by the great American Jews - Saul Bellow, Philip Roth - which had a disastrous effect of making me think I needed to write the next great Jewish American novel. As a ginger-haired child in the West of Ireland, that didn't work out very well, as you can imagine. ~ Kevin Barry

Ivan and Misha is the great American Russian Novel told as Chekhov would tell it, in stories of delicacy, humanity, and insight. From Kiev to Manhattan, Brighton Beach and Bellevue, Michael Alenyikov lays out a series of compelling arguments for brotherhood between brothers, between lovers, between men from an old country. Alenyikov confronts big subjects - illness and madness, sex and love in the age of AIDS, old and new world values, a fallen wall, the metaphysics of survival, the march of generations. ~ Carolyn Cooke

Fuck off!" Stuart says, admiring himself in the glass of the oven door. "You're just jealous you wouldn't be able to carry off something so stylish."
"Um, hottest male two thousand and twelve here, as voted by the great American public. ~ Samantha Towle

Contrary to what we hear, the great American divide is not a clash between conservatives who advocate liberty versus progressives who oppose liberty. Rather, the two sides each affirm a certain type of liberty. One side, for example, cherishes economic liberty while the other champions liberty in the sexual and social domain. Nor is it a clash between patriots and anti-patriots. Both sides love America, but they love a different type of America. One side loves the America of Columbus and the Fourth of July, of innovation and work and the "animal spirit" of capitalism, of the Boy Scouts and parochial schools, of traditional families and flag-saluting veterans. The other side loves the America of tolerance and social entitlements, of income and wealth redistribution, of affirmative action and abortion, of feminism and gay marriage. ~ Dinesh D'Souza

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

Great American sport. Horseshoes is a very great game. I love it. ~ Dan Quayle

So, Cheers! Cheers to you, my friend! Here's to the girl who can proudly cherish
her ethnicity and traditions, while simultaneously embracing the great American
spirit of independence and strength. Here's to you, the girl who can navigate
through sheer madness, and in the end appreciate her blessings. And here's to
you, the girl who can dance in that ancient land with as much grace as she can
glide on that thin piece of ice called America. You are truly amazing!" -From Veils to Thongs ~ Dalel B. Khalil

Don't start right off writing the 'Great American Novel', that's too much pressure and you'll get disappointed; start with porn, it's fun and a good way to get your feet wet. ~ Scavola

I've had the good fortune to read a lot of great American writers in translation, and my absolute beloved, for me one of the greatest writers ever, is Mark Twain. Yes, yes, yes. And Whitman, from whom the whole of 20th-century poetry sprung up. Whitman was the origin of things, someone with a completely different outlook. But I think that he's the father of the new wave in the world's poetry which to this very day is hitting the shore. ~ Wislawa Szymborska

In general, of course, a stranger who tries to get you into an automobile is anything but noble, and in general a person who quotes great American novelists is anything but treacherous, and in general a man who says you needn't worry about money, or a man who smokes cigarettes, is somewhere in between. ~ Lemony Snicket

One day the English language is going to perish. The easy spokenness of it will perish and go black and crumbly - maybe - and it will become a language like Latin that learned people learn. And scholars will write studies of Larry Sanders and Friends and Will & Grace and Ellen and Designing Women and Mary Tyler Moore, and everyone will see that the sitcom is the great American art form. American poetry will perish with the language; the sitcoms, on the other hand, are new to human evolution and therefore will be less perishable. ~ Nicholson Baker

You don't sit up in a cave and write the Great American Novel and know it is utterly superb, and then throw it page by page into the fire. You just don't do that. You send it out. You have to send it out. ~ Theodore Sturgeon

I've got a collection of songs that I've had, I keep adding to and they're all great American composers. I wanted to showcase American composers and I've done that on a lot of my records and played things by American composers that I really respect. ~ Charlie Haden

I knew you'd be lucky today. I was pretty lucky myself, 693 came out and I played 698. Had the first two numbers right, anyway." Andy smiled. "Are you a ducker for that number racket. I guess everybody is a sucker for some kind of racket. Horses, numbers, cards, bingo, pinball machines...the great American hobbies. Everybody trying anything to make a few bucks." "I only play two cents a day," Charley said weakly. "Go ahead, play, if you get a bang out of it. Maybe you'll hit...one of these days! There's our old pal, one of these days, and some day, popping up. ~ Len Zinberg

[Mark] Twain is pointing at you. You, the reader of the book one hundred and thirty years ago and today. That is what has made it a great American novel and the most widely read book in American Literature around the world today. ~ Hal Holbrook

It is not about promoting a distinct and great American culture because today's Democrat Party does not believe in one. ~ Rush Limbaugh

I don't think theater is dying, and musicals are a great American art form. We've got apple pie, jazz and musical theater. ~ Laura Benanti

Integration my undead ass. Did they teach you about the Great American Melting Pot in grade school?" she asked. "Some of us don't like the idea of being melted down and blended into stew for the rest of you to devour. ~ Jim C. Hines

[upon hearing that the school received funding for the football field, but not for any of the arts] Well, we might never have another Great American Novel or amazing musicals written by Americans, but at least we will always be able to toss a ball between some metal posts. Our priorities are right on track. ~ Chris O'Guinn

Until you have done something for humanity," wrote the great American educator Horace Mann, "you should be ashamed to die. ~ Christopher Hitchens

I focus a little more on pacing when I write books in the young adult category, and of course there's the great American fear of anything sexual, so that's somewhat backed off in YA. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi

[I am] someone who represents a very complex country which insists on being simple-minded. And simplicity, it occurs to me, it has occurred to me more than once, in my somewhat stormy life, simplicity is taken to be a great American virtue, along with sincerity. And the result of this is, if you are simple-minded enough, you can become - I didn't want to go that far [laughs]. And as long as you're sincere in what you say, you haven't got to know what you're talking about. These are the American virtues - two of them anyway. One of the results of this is that immaturity is taken to be a virtue too. ~ James Baldwin

Sex gets people killed, put in jail, beaten up, bankrupted, and disgraced, to say nothing of ruined - personally, politically, and professionally. Looking for sex can lead to misfortune, and if you get lucky and find it, it can leave you maimed, infected, or dead. Other than that, it's swell: the great American pastime ... You probably won't see it on a bumper sticker, but sex kills. ~ Edna Buchanan

If proud Americans can be who they are and boldly stand at the altar with who they love then surely, surely we can give everyone in this country a fair chance at that great American Dream. ~ Michelle Obama

Benny McClenahan arrived always with four girls. They were never quite the same ones in physical person but they were so identical one with another that it inevitably seemed they had been there before. I have forgotten their names - Jaqueline, I think, or else Consuela or Gloria or Judy or June, and their last names were either the melodious names of flowers and months or the sterner ones of the great American capitalists whose cousins, if pressed, they would confess themselves to be. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

I have often been mildly amused when I think that the great American novel was not written about New England or Chicago. It was written about a white whale in the South Pacific. ~ James A. Michener

Let Americans disdain to be the instruments of European greatness! Let the thirteen States, bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union, concur in erecting one great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence, and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world! ~ Alexander Hamilton

The Head of the Charles in Cambridge, Mass., is the great American crew event, athletically and socially. It occurs the second weekend in October; secondary schools and colleges send shells in all categories in the three-mile race up the Charles River. Drunken Preps line the banks and bridges at Harvard, ready to howl with glee as a coxswain rams his shell into a stanchion of the Eliot Street Bridge (where the river narrows and curves with treacherous suddenness). ~ Lisa Birnbach

The Bouviers and the Lees alike operated within the great American tradition of immigrant ambition, which held that in making yourself anew, you had the right to embellish the past. ~ Alice Kaplan

There is really no crisis except an artificial one ... If the great American people will only keep their temper, on both sides of the line, the trouble will come to an end. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Great American art needs the idea of uninterrupted spaces, like a loft, which itself is something very American. ~ Renzo Piano

Of course I planned to write the Great American Novel; that lasted about a week, at which point I decided I had nothing to say that could possibly qualify. So I wrote a romance instead. ~ Jasmine Cresswell

TV has eaten up everything else, and Warhol films are all that are left, which is fabulous. Pork could become the next I Love Lucy, the great American domestic comedy. It's about how people really live, not like Lucy, who never touched dishwater. It's about people living and hustling to survive. ~ David Bowie

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

You say that as if he's sick," Mathilde said. "He is. Great American Artistitis, ~ Lauren Groff

I have to say I owe my career to the master composers of the Great American Songbook who have written such high-quality songs - the best popular music ever composed. ~ Tony Bennett

I have an English literature degree. I wanted to be the next great American novelist from a very early age, but I put it aside for a while, because I got very realistic at one point. ~ Daniel Suarez