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American Quotes

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American Quotes

“Thank you,’ I answered, unsure of the proper American response to her gracious enthusiasm. In the Arab world, gratitude is a language unto itself. “May Allah bless the hands that give me this gift”; “Beauty is in the eyes that find me pretty”; “May Allah never deny your prayer”; and so on, an infinite string of prayerful appreciation. Coming from such a culture, I have always found a mere “thank you” an insufficient expression that makes my voice sound miserly and ungrateful.” (169).”

LanguageExpressionGratitudeGiftComplimentThank YouAmericanTranslationArabic
Book:Mornings in Jenin
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“Social rank has always been one of the pricier commodities sold in the great American department store, and the ceaseless revision of what constitutes society gives rise to the great American comedy that has been playing continuous performances since the beginning of the Republic. As one generation of parvenu rich acquires the means to buy the patents of nobility, it looks down upon the next generation of arrivistes as clubfooted upstarts.”

AmericaMoneyClassSocietyCapitalismCapitalAmerican
Author:Lewis Lapham
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“The jet-fuel smell thick in the air, the flame and smoke surrounding you, you can only get to 011 and that's enough to make you foreign, to make you other, to make you Mexican. You take out your wallet and put an ID between your teeth so they can find you when it all collapses. Your flesh may burn but your teeth will remain and the ID will be there. It's a fake ID. Nobody will ever know you died. Nobody will ever know you lived.”

IdentitySadTragedyDepressingAmericanAmericansWorld Trade Center911Twin TowersUndocumented
Book:The Undocumented Americans
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“On top of old Smokey, All covered in snow, I lost my true lover By courting too slow. On top of old Smokey, I went there to weep For a false-hearted lover Is worse than a thief. For a thief he will rob you, And take what you have, But a false-hearted lover Will put you in your grave. They'll hug you and kiss you And tell you more lies Than cross ties on the railroad Or the stars in the skies. So come all you young maidens And listen to me: Never place your affections On a green willow tree, For the leaves they will whither And the roots will die, And you'll all be forsaken And never know why.”

LostNatureLoversSadMountainLyricsAmericanFolksong
Author:Anonymous
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“But nobody wanted to speak on the true disposition of the world. And no one wanted to hear it... The whites came to this land for a fresh start and to escape the tyranny of their masters, just as the Freeman had fled theirs. But the ideals they held up for themselves, they denied others. Cora had heard Michael recite the Declaration of Independence back on the Randall plantation many times, his voice drifting through the village like an angry phantom. She didn't understand the words, most of them at any rate, but created equal was not lost on her. The white men who wrote it didn't understand it either, if all men did not truly mean all men. Not if they snatched away what belonged to other people, whether it was something you could hold in your hand, like dirt, or something you could not, like freedom.”

FreedomSlaveryNative AmericanAmerican
Book:The Underground Railroad
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“My Lady Liberty (The Sonnet) O my beloved lady liberty, Here, I place my head at your feet. The way you've been upholding freedom, May I live as vigorous without greed. You have given refuge to the persecuted, You have shown light to the distressed. May I be as upright as you my dear, May my life shelter the meek and repressed. Let me absorb you through my every pore, So I may draw from your eternal strength. The way you stand as testament of justice, May I stand as steady giving up my last breath. I can never repay my debt to you lady liberty. Take my life and use it as ointment for society.”

PoetryFreedomLibertyAcceptanceAmerican PoliticsSonnetAmericanStatue Of LibertyLand Of The FreeLand Of Liberty
Book:Earthquakin' Egalitarian: I Die Everyday So Your Children Can Live
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“I was born and raised in America. However, I am not red or blue. I am red, white and blue. Those are the same colors in my body (my heart, blood and veins). I am only human, and the human race is the only race in which I am an active participant - mind, body and soul.”

SoulAmericaBloodRepublicanDemocratAmericanSuzy KassemPolitical Party
Book:Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
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“By these standards at least, it sometimes appears that Americans today value nothing so much as being rich, thin, young, famous, safe, and entertained. We say we value the legacy we leave the next generation and then saddle that generation with mountains of debt. We say we believe in equal opportunity but then stand idle while millions of American children languish in poverty. We insist that we value family, but then structure our economy and organize our lives so as to ensure that our families get less and less of our time.”

YoungRichSafeFamousAmericanThin
Book:The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
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“Privately I've always considered myself to have some talent for measuring a woman's mood. But the expression on (her) face is forcing me to reconsider. Not blank, but the opposite. Regret coexisting with pride, with hints of resentment, joy, frustration, shame, resignation, and curiosity. When it comes to emotions, women know how to paint with the full set of oils, while men are busy doodling with crayons”

RomanceLiteratureFictionHumourHumorousContemporaryLiterary FictionAmerican CultureNovelsAmerican
Book:God Hates Us All
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“The American really loves nothing but his automobile: not his wife his child nor his country nor even his bank-account first (in fact he doesn't really love that bank-account nearly as much as foreigners like to think because he will spend almost any or all of it for almost anything provided it is valueless enough) but his motor-car. Because the automobile has become our national sex symbol. We cannot really enjoy anything unless we can go up an alley for it. Yet our whole background and raising and training forbids the sub rosa and surreptitious. So we have to divorce our wife today in order to remove from our mistress the odium of mistress in order to divorce our wife tomorrow in order to remove from our mistress and so on. As a result of which the American woman has become cold and and undersexed; she has projected her libido on to the automobile not only because its glitter and gadgets and mobility pander to her vanity and incapacity (because of the dress decreed upon her by the national retailers association) to walk but because it will not maul her and tousle her, get her all sweaty and disarranged. So in order to capture and master anything at all of her anymore the American man has got to make that car his own. Which is why let him live in a rented rathole though he must he will not only own one but renew it each year in pristine virginity, lending it to no one, letting no other hand ever know the last secret forever chaste forever wanton intimacy of its pedals and levers, having nowhere to go in it himself and even if he did he would not go where scratch or blemish might deface it, spending all Sunday morning washing and polishing and waxing it because in doing that he is caressing the body of the woman who has long since now denied him her bed.”

LoveSexAmericanCars
Book:Intruder in the Dust
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“I can't get it why did I name my book series, I'm talking about "The Life Of One kid". I'm talking about the last word "Kid"?? Aren't your curious I'm with British Accent and putting "Kid" the American word for child the last? I'm also curious I still don't know, I really don't know why. Child sounds like a baby maybe that's all, kid sounds like a child in aobut 7-8 years old!”

YearsBritishChildOldAmericanWhyKidAlsoThe Life7 8Of One Kid
Author:Deyth Banger
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“The founders of America were more criminal than modern immigrants – you know why – because the founders of America didn’t only enter this land illegally, but after entering they drove the natives out of their own home, whereas all that the immigrants of today want is to have a better life for their family. Now tell me – who are the real criminals?”

American DreamAmerican HistoryUnited States Of AmericaRefugeeAmerican CultureRefugeesAmericanSystemic RacismIllegal ImmigrantsIllegal Immigration
Book:Generation Corazon: Nationalism is Terrorism
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“In a country addicted to the virus of consumption, wealth, individualism, and judgement — be a person who is committed to the act of serving with love. To the act of spreading love. To serving with love. To uplifting with love. United we stand, divided we fall. Choose your part. Choose leadership. Be a leader, not a follower. You were born an original. Don’t die a copy. Freedom ain’t free and that just so happens to be the problem and the answer to the solution. All men are created equal but not treated equal. The only thing that is free is love, and love with conditions is not love. Liberty and life with conditions is not liberty and life. Ask more of your country and your countrymen. Protect all American’s rights to true freedom. Not the declaration of freedom but the actualization of freedom, which includes true liberty, true equality and the unconditional ability to pursue the highest virtues of life.”

LoveAmericaHappinessPatriotismIndividualismAmerican DreamConsumerismGritAmericanTrue Grit
Author:Drue Grit
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