How can you tell somebody whose is pursuing happiness that they're somehow not American when that was the very first promise that America made?

The pursuit of happiness which American citizens are obliged to undertake tends to involve them in trying to perpetuate the moods tastes and aptitudes of youth.

I don't understand why Europeans and South Americans can take more sophistication. Why is it that Americans need to hear their happiness major and their tragedy minor and as jazzy as they can handle is a seventh chord? Are they not experiencing complex emotions?

When I was waiting tables washing dishes or mowing lawns for money I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life. I was on my own path my own journey an American journey where I could think for myself decide for myself define happiness for myself.

Let's face it - think of Africa and the first images that come to mind are of war poverty famine and flies. How many of us really know anything at all about the truly great ancient African civilizations which in their day were just as splendid and glorious as any on the face of the earth?

Americans are blessed with great plenty we are a generous people and we have a moral obligation to assist those who are suffering from poverty disease war and famine.

From the world wars of Europe to the jungles of the Far East from the deserts of the Middle East to the African continent and even here in our own hemisphere our veterans have made the world a better place and America the great country we are today.

The '20s ended in an era of extravagance sort of like the one we're in now. There was a big crash but then the country picked itself up again and we had some great years. Those were the days when American believed in itself. I was happy and proud to be painting it.

The overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.

Like me the great majority of Americans wish both to preserve the traditional definition of marriage and to oppose bias and intolerance directed towards gays and lesbians.

I see great things in baseball. It's our game - the American game.

And the American people are the greatest people in the world. What makes America the greatest nation in the world is the heart of the American people: hardworking innovative risk-taking God- loving family-oriented American people.

Americans in particular are myopic. They're not traveling as much. When you were a college student the next thing you would do on graduation was to take a year off and travel. That's what I did. I went to Indonesia.

Really the potential for first of all any college graduate today is enormously good. These are good times for anyone with a college degree today particularly African Americans. With a college degree today you really breach the unemployment rate.

Big-government proponents embrace both the power of the federal government and the idea that millions of Americans ought to be dependent on its largesse. It's time to return to our Founders' love for small government. More is not always better.

Americans accept that gangsters are running the government.

We have to attack those things which stand in the way of America progress. And what stands in the way of American progress right now is the federal government.

I don't consider Americans bullies but I do consider the American government bullying.

I think people are confused about what the Tea Party is. I mean they were a broad cross-section of Americans who came together concerned about our debt and our spending. And they're interested in constitutional limited government. And so they're not one group of people. They're thousands of small groups all over the country.

Let's just do what is right for the American people. And those of us who are involved in politics and government know that our responsibility is to the American people that we have a responsibility to find our common ground to seek it and to find it.

One of the essential elements of government responsibility is to communicate effectively to the American people especially in time of a potential terrorist attack or a natural disaster.

To Republicans I humbly suggest that we make it possible for Democrats to give up their quest for redistribution of income and wealth by our acceptance of an appropriate role for government in financing those public goods and services necessary to secure a social safety net below which no American would be allowed to fall.

We should not have the U.S. government buying stock in American industries - the financial industry or any other industry.

The American Dream coupled with government subsidies of utilities and cheap consumer goods courtesy of slave labour somewhere else has kept the poor huddled masses from rising up.