Europeans are much more serious than we are in America because they think that a good place to discuss intellectual matters is a beer party.

If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.

A president can ask for reconciliation in the racial conflict that divides Americans. But reconciliation comes only from the hearts of people.

Given a fair shot, given a fair chance, Americans have never, ever, ever, ever let their country down. Never. Never. Ordinary people like us. Who do extraordinary things.

I don’t need you to be funny. I don’t want to be entertained.

Men are convinced of your arguments, your sincerity, and the seriousness of your efforts only by your death.

Here in England, everyone’s a pop star, innit, whereas in America they believe in the term artist.

I don’t go to parties in general.

The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.

The Americans at heart are a pure and noble people; things to them are in black and white. It’s either ‚rawk‘ or it’s not. We Brits putter around in the grey area.

America is not just a country, it’s an idea, and real Americans are getting busy.

I think when the president of the United States calls for military action, he should do it for a united people, especially when the methods have been so cruel, so explicitly directed at Americans.

At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

Everyone carries his own inch rule of taste, and amuses himself by applying it, triumphantly, wherever he travels.

Sometimes I’ve been to a party where no one spoke to me for a whole evening. The men, frightened by their wives or sweeties, would give me a wide berth. And the ladies would gang up in a corner to discuss my dangerous character.

He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.

Both times I was in India, I could not get people to listen to each other. I had to literally tell people to listen to each other and tell them that they can’t get creative and find alternate solutions if they don’t listen to each other. There’s a lot of arguing and justifying.

While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.

If one could only teach the English how to talk, and the Irish how to listen, society here would be quite civilized.

Hostesses who entertain much must make up their parties as ministers make up their cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking.

You can be a little ungrammatical if you come from the right part of the country.

Americans are rising to the tasks of history, and they expect the same of us.

When it comes to the qualifications that we should demand of our president, to start with, we need someone who will take the job seriously.

I think it’s an Irish thing. We don’t really care. We say it as we mean it, and you have to deal with it. The truth is the truth.

I was a little girl in World War II and I’m used to being freed by Americans.

I know that there are millions of Americans who are content with their health care coverage – they like their plan and, most importantly, they value their relationship with their doctor.

This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

If anything, a lot of electronic music is music that no one listens to at home, hardly. It’s really only to be heard when everyone’s out enjoying it.

Do creative, social, and civic attitudes change depending on where we live? Yes, I think so.

The Vietnamese see their history as an unending series of struggles of resistance to aggression, by the Chinese, the Mongols, the Japanese, the French, and now the Americans.

The truth is that the vast majority of Americans are good, fair, and just, and they want their country to reflect those ideals.

We don’t believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans.

My message to the Americans is the same as to everyone – that is to unite behind the science and to act on the science.

Tobacco exports should be expanded aggressively because Americans are smoking less.

Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.

Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.

Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets. The rich and the poor.

In fact, the best thing we could do on taxes for all Americans is to simplify the individual tax code. This will be a tough job, but members of both parties have expressed an interest in doing this, and I am prepared to join them.

To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

I think Canadians are more interested in international events than Americans because it is such a small country, so politics affect it more.

We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.

The problem with Yanks is they are wimps.

When good Americans die they go to Paris.

Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.

There’s very little dislike of Americans in the world, shown by repeated polls, and the dissatisfaction – that is, the hatred and the anger – they come from acceptance of American values, not a rejection of them, and recognition that they’re rejected by the U.S. government and by U.S. elites, which does lead to hatred and anger.

I’m very, very serious – I’m serious enough not to take myself too seriously. That means I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment.

Americans are far more remarkable than we give ourselves credit for. We’ve been so busy damning ourselves for years. We’ve done it all, and yet we don’t take credit for it.

Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.

The Welsh people have a talent for acting that one does not find in the English. The English lack heart.

I often look ridiculous in Japan. There’s really no way to eat in Japan, particularly kaiseki in a traditional ryokan, without offending the Japanese horribly. Every gesture, every movement is just so atrociously wrong, and the more I try, the more hilarious it is.

National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.

No intelligent black man or black woman in his or her right black mind wants white boys and white girls coming to their homes to marry their black sons and daughters.

Sometimes, reading a blog, which I do infrequently, I see that generations of Americans have been wilfully crippled, and can no longer spell or write a sentence.

Americans play to win at all times. I wouldn’t give a hoot and hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost nor ever lose a war.

Humor is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.

I’m always surprised when people respond positively to what I am saying, given its seriousnessness and strange nature.

There are only two occasions when Americans respect privacy, especially in Presidents. Those are prayer and fishing.

I was in Europe and it was at this stage that I fell in love with Americans in uniform. And I continue to have that love affair.

We sold ‚Seinfeld‘ all over the world but it was a very specific kind of show. In some countries it went down really well, in others they hated it.

A large majority of Americans believe that the U.N., not the U.S., should take the lead in working with Iraqis to transfer authentic sovereignty as well as in economic reconstruction and maintaining civic order.