But just below the grim tranquility he had learned to display, he cursed with boiling intensity the ambitious men who used him and his troops to further their careers. He cursed the air wing for not trying to get any choppers in through the clouds. H...
The Los Angeles parade would begin in Griffith Park, where a large crowd would assemble and the speeches would be given. Every politician of consequence would be there. There was no way they would miss a chance to publicly praise the troops and honor...
M. Gustave: The beginning of the end of the end of the beginning has begun. A sad finale played off-key on a broken-down saloon piano in the outskirts of a forgotten ghost town. I'd rather not bear witness to such blasphemy. Zero: Me neither. M. Gust...
Colonel Robert G. Shaw: Dear Mother, They learn, learn quickly, faster than white troops it seems to me. They are almost grave and sedate under instruction and they restrain themselves. But the moment they are dismissed from drill every tongue is rel...
Soto: Just you look at the cute little baby, Diego. Isn't it nice that he'll be joining us for breakfast? Diego: It wouldn't be breakfast without him. Soto: Especially after his daddy wiped out half our pack. And wears our skin to keep warm. An eye f...
[first lines] Sydney Schanberg: Cambodia. To many westerners it seemed a paradise. Another world, a secret world. But the war in neighboring Vietnam burst its borders, and the fighting soon spread to neutral Cambodia. In 1973 I went to cover this sid...
Mayor of Colleville: [meeting the British on the beach] Welcome; welcome, friends. I brought champagne, but I do know think it will be enough for all of you. Lord Lovat: Quite alright. We have a pressing engagement; the war. Move inland. [to his bagp...
Maj. Duncan Heyward: Might I inquire after the situation sir, given that I've seen the French engineering from the ridge above. Colonel Munro: The situation is that his guns are bigger than mine and he has more of them. We keep our heads down while h...
Patton: [apologizing to his troops after the "slapping" incident] I can assure you that I had no intention of being either harsh or cruel in my treatment of the... soldier in question. My sole purpose was to try to restore in him some sense of apprec...
Jesse: I heard this story once about when the Germans were occupying Paris and they had to retreat back. They wired Notre Dame to blow, but they had to leave one guy in charge of hitting the switch. And the guy, the soldier, he couldn't do it. You kn...
Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear, Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear. So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows As yonder lady o'er her fellows ...
We need a new, deeper appreciation of the ethnic histories of the American people, not a reduction of American history to ethnic histories.
It's American to be from somewhere else, and it's American to go from East to West. It's American to seek your fortune someplace other than where you are, or to be escaping something...
Americans are free to choose everything from what they eat, drive and watch on TV to the President of the United States. Yet, when it comes to allowing Americans to choose the health insurance that works best for them and their family, the freedom to...
Somehow, someway, for some people there's an automatic assumption that a mayor who is African-American or some other elected official has to support another African-American.
So, yes, we do celebrate America today because the majority will stand up and empower the American people to live that American Dream and to be part of making a better, freer, and safer world.
We hear a lot in this country about family, and 'American Family' just shows us a portrait we haven't seen as much of yet. 'American Family' lets us know that being American isn't about the color of your hair or eyes or skin: it's really a state of m...
The British and American literary worlds operate in an odd kind of symbiosis: our critics think our contemporary novelists are not the stuff of greatness whereas certain contemporary Americans indubitably are. Their critics often advance the exact op...
Despite the obvious damage now visible in the entropic desolation of every American home town, Wal-Mart managed to install itself in the pantheon of American Dream icons, along with apple pie, motherhood, and Coca Cola.
Many of the people who are most considered anti-American would love to partake of the American dream: the unspoken slogan of many protesters outside U.S. embassies abroad is really: 'Yankee go home, but take me with you.'
You know, American citizens, I don't think, ever thought that the right to the pursuit of happiness did not include the right to marry the person you love. But for a whole number of Americans, gay Americans, that happens to be true.
