My problem was that I was blond. There were no heroes with blond hair. Robert Taylor and Henry Fonda they all had dark hair. The only one I found was Van Johnson who wasn't too cool. He was a nice homely American boy. So I created my own image. It worked.

Most Americans are very cool people.

You know the diversity that America has is so special. It's starting to really become a cool thing for young people.

I'm cute - and God I hate that. Because that's not cool. I'm like your niece and nobody wants to date their niece. It's the chubby cheeks. The whole reason people voted for me on American Idol is because I'm an everyday normal girl.

The simple truth is that balding African-American men look cool when they shave their heads whereas balding white men look like giant thumbs.

From computers to information technology to airplanes it has been America's unique blend of republican government and free-market capitalism that has allowed us to surpass all other nations in history.

I think I was lucky to come of age in a place and time - the American South in the 1960s and '70s - when the machine hadn't completely taken over life. The natural world was still the world and machines - TV telephone cars - were still more or less ancillary and computers were unheard of in everyday life.

I am a huge supporter for cash for caulkers - which allows people to make improvement for energy efficient in their homes. We should do the same for Americans purchasing appliances and computers and for that matter new air-conditioner and heating units.

China has legally purchased high performance computers advanced machine tools and semiconductor-manufacturing equipment from several American companies.

If anything characterizes the cultural life of the seventies in America it is an insistence on preventing failures of communication.

The eventual place the American army should take on the western front was to a large extent influenced by the vital question of communication and supply.

On the other hand the American public possesses a great resilience and strength and good risk communication strategies can tap into and even amplify those assets.

Power in America today is control of the means of communication.

The Bush-Cheney administration had betrayed some basic American values. So there was hunger for change.

Obama has no power to change American policy because there are people who specialize in drawing these policies which have been and still are hostile towards Islam.

I was advised by an American agent when I was about 19 to change my surname.

One-third of Americans have already been forced to change their lifestyle because their disposable income is gone. A guy can't go to the corner bar after a rough day at work to have a beer that's gone to oil!

I don't think anything changes until ideas change. The usual American viewpoint is to believe that something is wrong with the person.

President Obama's version of America is a divided one - pitting us against each other based on our income level gender and social status. His policies have failed! We are not better off than we were 4 years ago and no rhetoric bumper sticker or campaign ad can change that.

I don't think the Palestinian people or Afghan children or some other things I'm concerned about are at the top of other people's agendas - not right now when America is going through such a recession and people are suffering across the board financially. But I think all that will change.

Despite the fact that in America we incarcerate more juveniles for life terms than in any other country in the world the truth is that the vast majority of youth offenders will one day be released. The question is simple and stark. Do we want to help them change or do we want to help them become even more violent and dangerous?

Few expected very much of Franklin Roosevelt on Inauguration Day in 1933. Like Barack Obama seventy-six years later he was succeeding a failed Republican president and Americans had voted for change. What that change might be Roosevelt never clearly said probably because he himself didn't know.

We the people. Manifest Destiny. Conceived in liberty. Fear itself. Ask not. Morning in America. United we stand. Yes we can. In times of great change and tumult presidents seek to inspire beleaguered Americans by reminding them of their national identity.

Obama won the presidency on the strength of his message and the skills of the messenger. Now the talk of hope and change feels out of tune when so many Americans are out of work over-mortgaged and worried that life will be even tougher for their children.