A Quote by Yakov Smirnoff

Americans think Soviets are so grim. I want them to see that they can smile. — © Yakov Smirnoff
Americans think Soviets are so grim. I want them to see that they can smile.
Smile your best smile at everyone you see. Think about all the things you have to be thankful for... and smile. The world will smile with you.
I don't know why my smile has become a signature pose. I think it's a nice change. I think people want to see happiness, so a smile is what can bring that. I didn't make it my trademark on purpose.
Despite what many Americans think, most Soviets do not yearn for capitalism or Western-style democracy.
I just smile. And they - my opponents don't like it when I smile at them. They think I'm playing or something. But - like I smile throughout the whole fight. Sometimes I'll be throwing combinations and I just smile and stick my tongue out at them.
I was used on a number of occasions by the United States and China as a conduit. For instance, I was up there talking with the Chinese leadership and they said to me that they were a bit concerned that the Americans had a misunderstanding about their relationship with the Soviets. There was some suggestion that there was a rapprochement developing between China and the Soviets, but nothing could have been further from the truth.
My grandmother, whom we call Biel, thinks it's very unbecoming of me not to smile for the paparazzi. So every time I see them, I think, 'Smile for Biel!'
Americans are good people. They have no aggressions against us and they like us as we like them. They must know I don't hate them. I love them.... I hear it is a complex society inside. Many Americans don't know about the outside world. The majority have no concern and no information about other people. They could not even find Africa on a map. I think Americans are good, but America will be taken over and destroyed from the inside by the Zionist lobby. The Americans do not see this. They are getting decadent. Zionists will use this to destroy them.
Americans understand that the game is rigged, and they've had enough of it. They're ready to fight back. They want a Washington that works for them, i think that people are getting more engaged, politically, and they're seeing through a lot of the rhetoric that politicians have been throwing out there for a long time. They want to see some real change, and I think that's what we need to work on.
I don't smile a lot in my pictures. I'm always so... grim.
I think Americans are good, but America will be taken over and destroyed from the inside by the Zionist lobby. The Americans do not see this. They are getting decadent. Zionists will use this to destroy them.
What a sight there is in that "smile!" it changes like a chameleon. There is a vacant smile, a cold smile, a smile of hate, a satiric smile, an affected smile; but, above all, a smile of love.
During the Cold War, we gathered information by listening to the Soviets, taking pictures of the Soviets, and we allowed our human intelligence to decline.
Just because a situation is grim doesn't mean you don't have every right to smile.
Americans want beauties, not me. I’m not the Parisian bombshell they expected. Can you see me as a chorus girl? Where’s my feather up the ass? They think I’m sad, they’re dumb. I don’t connect to them
What if the Soviet intervention was a blessing in disguise? It saved the myth that if the Soviets were not to intervene, there would have been some flowering authentic democratic socialism and so on. I'm a little bit more of a pessimist there. I think that the Soviets - it's a very sad lesson - by their intervention, saved the myth.
When I smile at the audience, I'm not smiling because I was told that you're supposed to smile to the audience. I smile because they're all smiling at me, and it's a great feeling to see all these happy people out there, and it makes me happy to see them happy.
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