Top 1200 American Dad Quotes & Sayings - Page 17

I think the American people should know there's already strong influences toward another deployment of American troops in an open-ended commitment.

Biggest influence is my parents. It's funny but my mom was the first one that allowed me to play tackle football. My dad was not ready to let me play yet. She definitely was the one who allowed me to do it. Obviously my dad taught me to throw and be a quarterback.

I love my dad and respect him and miss him, but I never hung around my father that much because my dad was a lawyer and engineer, and he really didn't understand what I was about. I was supposed to go to law school at UCLA - I was admitted - and instead of going to law school, I went on the road with a band.

A British director directed 'American Beauty,' an important film about American life, and it didn't matter. What only mattered was everyone's sensibility.

I was fortunate to be under my dad. And there's a ton of things that I learned from my dad what to do. There's probably a few things I learned what not to do.

The American Revolution and Declaration of Independence, it has often been argued, were fueled by the most radical of all American political ideas.

A trillion dollars spent, 2,000 American lives lost - Afghanistan is the longest war in American history. But you don't hear a word about it.

Driving around with my dad, growing up, he would play everything: Philip Bailey, Manhattan Transfer, Frank Zappa, Cream. I'd be like, 'Dad, cut this stuff off!' And he'd say, 'No, you're gonna listen to it.' I didn't understand why he liked it so much. In my mind, I would be thinking about the theme song to 'Sonic the Hedgehog.'

My dad had his own business and was extremely busy, but on a very rare occasion, he would play guitar and sing a bit. I was always fascinated by it. I wrote my first song in first grade because my dad was making songs up during those special moments, and it seemed like a fun thing to try myself.

I thought food and drink were just part of the perks of living at the White House. The next day, I got a call from his secretary saying my dad wanted to see me in the Oval Office, and when I got there, dad was waving this little pink receipt. I didn't know it came out of his salary.

Next to religion, baseball has had a greater impact on our American way of life than any other American institution.

Evidently, there are many great American writers. But sometimes it can feel as though American fiction is dominated by relatively linear narrative form, with a heavy emphasis on psychological realism. If you limit yourself to a certain kind of American literary fiction, it's easy to forget about the different kinds of books that are being written. You can forget to be ambitious, both as a reader and a writer.

Now I see other kids and their parents, and I compare them to my dad. Our dad was a really normal father when he was with us. We would get grounded if we did something bad. He would ground us. He wouldn't call it grounding; he'd just say, 'You're on punishment.' Sometimes we'd be on punishment a lot.

Of course L.A. has its mad bits: you can get a collagen cappuccino if that's what you really want. But the American Dream is so ingrained in the American culture, and the place you go to find it is L.A.

I'm a writer. In Latin America, they say I'm a Latin-American writer because I also write in Spanish and my books are translated, but I am an American citizen and my books are published here, so I'm also an American writer.

I'll tell you something: my dad was a nuclear engineer and he was really bright, and I've always said that because of negotiating at such a young age with my dad, it was really such a gift because I could then negotiate with very difficult personalities - and not end up being the scapegoat. I learned to really pick and choose my battles.

My children's favorite, and it's funny because they've seen it but they have a difficult time watching it because it's their dad and they make that connection, but Edward Scissorhands is by far my kids' favorite. They just connect with the character, and they see their dad feeling that isolation, that loneliness. He's a tragic character, so I think it's hard for them. They bawl.

When we look at the arts and letters in America, especially if we look at poetry, and poetry set to music, this dialogue, we have this very powerful beautiful, eclectic, diary, or narration of being in America, being American, participating in America, becoming more of America and also as an American, the American creative spirit, which is quite interesting. Our composers and poets have spent more time writing and thinking and speaking out of what it means to be a composer or poet as well as to be an American, or a composer or poet In America; both relationships.

Codifying discrimination in our laws should be something we read about in American history, not on the front pages of today's American newspapers and magazines.

My dad traveled so much for work that, when he was home, we always wanted to spend as much time with him as we could, so going to practices and doing stuff like that with him took precedence over Saturday morning cartoons. We'd go to practice with my dad just so we could be a part of it.

This is going to be a very transparent Justice Department. But I'm not gonna sacrifice the safety of the American people or our ability to protect the American homeland.

The American Negro never can be blamed for his racial animosities - he is only reacting to four hundred years of the conscious racism of the American whites.

The power of the American system of republicanism lies in its capacity to allow religious belief to be a competing, not a controlling, factor in American life.

I am an American, not by accident of birth but by choice. I voted with my feet and became an American because I love this country and think it is exceptional.

Harvey Weinstein does not personify American liberalism any more than Bill O'Reilly personifies American conservatism.

I have heard earnest American sociologists say that American children have a right to the divorce experience as an enriching element of an advanced civilisation.

The death tax punishes the American dream - making it virtually impossible for the average American family to build wealth across generations.

As a little kid, not only is my dad Jo-Jo White, but M. L. Carr is involved in the family, Red Auerbach is my godfather, and my stepmother was an Olympic-caliber sprinter. Athletes were all around. I happened to be a natural athlete. If I wasn't, it might have been hell. But I never got any pressure from my mom and dad to be an athlete.

I went home one night and told my dad that an older kid was picking on me. My Dad, a Korean War vet and a Chicago cop for 30 years, told me, 'You better pick up a brick and hit him in the head.' That's when I thought, 'Wow, I'm going to have to start dealing with things in a different way.'

I think it's interesting being American, the expectations for an American guy, and the image that has to be projected. 'Oh, I can't wear pink,' that kind of stuff. There's none of that in Europe.

My dad and uncles listened to a lot of rap. My dad is a big fan of LL Cool J. Driving in the car with him, we'd listen to Jay-Z and Nas. My sister listened to a lot of No Limit, so I listened to Master P. and Cash Money - Lil Wayne and Juvenile. They had jewelry and nice cars. I was drawn to them.

I remember my dad watched a lot of TV that we watched, too. I remember watching Saved By The Bell because me and my sister watched it, and my dad kind of watched it with us, too, while he was cooking or whatever he was doing in the kitchen.

I called up and said, 'Dad, I won a MacArthur.' My father goes: 'I always thought your sister would win that,' and I said, 'Dad, just say congratulations and keep your private thoughts private.' At that point he laughed, then burst into tears, and it was obvious that he was so happy and proud.

A youthful American voice isn't particularly challenging - I've been a young American, and they're all around me. I can walk from my house to Barrington High School.

We will rebuild our country with American workers, American iron, American aluminum, American steel. We will create millions of new jobs and make millions of American dreams come true. Our infrastructure will again be the best in the world. We used to have the greatest infrastructure anywhere in the world, and today, we are like a third-world country. We are literally like a third-world country. Our infrastructure will again be the best, and we will restore the pride in our communities, our nation.

It's not that I don't like American pop; I'm a huge admirer of it, but I think my roots came from a very English and Irish base. Is it all sort of totally non-American sounding.

The largest untapped constituency in American politics are the 300 million American citizens who have been completely left out of the immigration debate.

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.

Any American who joins al Qaeda will know full well that they have joined an organization that is at war with the United States. Any American who did that should know well that they in fact are part of an enemy... and that the U.S. will do anything that is possible to destroy that enemy to save American lives.

This obsession with leadership... It's not neutral; it's American, this idea of the heroic leader who comes in on a white horse to save the day. I think it's killing American companies.

I am emphatically against the privatization of Social Security. It is going to hurt millions of American women, American families and ultimately the whole country.

I am emphatically against the privatization of Social Security. It is going to hurt millions of American women, American families and ultimately the whole country

Perhaps we could do without tragedy in art - but what about comedy? Is it a coincidence that so many of the best American humorists have been Jewish and African-American?

German women love American men. That's why a lot of American servicemen go to Germany - and never come back.

The American oligarchy increasingly has less in common with the American people than it does with the equivalent oligarchies in Germany or Mexico or Japan.

My every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families.

France loves American cinema because when an American remake is successful, it makes us money to produce more French films.

The American Dream has really good PR. It's kind of difficult to live in the United States and not on some level be pulled into the allure of the American Dream. It's in the DNA of the country. So, for a population coming out of slavery, desperate to become part of the full life of the United States, it only makes sense that they would embrace this route to the American Dream.

A movie that makes me cry every time is 'Billy Elliot.' That scene where he's dancing in the hall, and his dad walks in. And the first time his dad can see how amazing he is dancing, but he's so conflicted with kind of his own feelings towards it. Oh, it's so emotional.

Teachers and librarians can be the most effective advocates for diversifying children's and young adult books. When I speak to publishers, they're going to expect me to say that I would love to see more books by Native American authors and African-American authors and Arab-American authors. But when a teacher or librarian says this to publishers, it can have a profound effect.

I remember being, like, 5 years old, and my dad took me to a Yankees-Mets game. My dad had me on his shoulders and taught me one of the most important lessons about sports. He said, 'Jesse, just remember one thing, the Mets suck.'

Dad: Honey, have you seen my glasses? I can"t find them. Mom: I haven't seen them. Calvin: (with glasses, to Dad) Calvin, go do something you hate! Being miserable builds character!

I must say it's pretty dreary living in the American Age - unless you're an American of course. Perhaps all our children will be Americans.

I'm more American than anything else. I grew up in China, but I was fulfilled at a young age by American music. It was my biggest inspiration.

Both my mom and my dad have always included me in intelligent conversations about people, about characters, about how people work. My dad and my mom still read all scripts that I find interesting. I send them an e-mail, and I'm like, 'Okay, I have my eye on this,' or whatever.

American Medical Association [AMA] was strongly opposed to any scheme for group practice and to health insurance ... because they are un-American.

I was always going to church with my mom, dad and sister. I was literally raised under the godly influence both at home and church. There was no alcohol and no smoking at our house. That was the way a Bowden was supposed to live. My dad always told me to represent the Bowden name in a respectful manner.

My dad was a New York City cop. His father was a New York City fireman. And my mother's dad was a city taxi driver.

When one child says to another, "I can do this, I bet you can't"; "My dad has a bigger car than yours"; or, "My dad is stronger than yours." Children identify with this or that, trying to build up a sense of self - a mentally defined sense of self.

Growing up, I was lucky that my dad was never out of work. I was very fortunate in one way: that I never experienced real hardship, because my dad is this real dynamo. He was always working, so I had a sense of the ups and downs and endless disappointments, but at the same time I was never worried that we couldn't eat or pay the bills.