The second day of July1776 will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. It ought to be solemnised with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the otheröfrom this time forward, for ever more.

-Adams,John
  Letter to his wife, 3  Jul, on the vote of Congress for independence from Britain.

Four and twenty Yankees, feeling very dry, Went across the border to get a drink of rye. When the rye was opened, theYanks began to sing, 'God bless America, but God save the King!'

-Anonymous
c.1919  Ditty current in Canada, referring to  Americans crossing the border to drink during Prohibition. The Duke of  Windsor, later Edward VIII, heard it during his tour of Canada (1919) and repeatedit to his father, George V, onhis return, as he recalledin A King's Story (1951).

Let's get America moving again.

-Anonymous
  John F Kennedy's presidential election slogan.

It's morning again in America.

-Anonymous
  Campaign slogan for Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign. Quoted in Hedrick Smith The Power Game (1988).

Our society distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace; and America is just ourselves, with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly.

-Arnold, Matthew
  Culture and  Anarchy, preface.

Possibly the symbol for America is the Frontier† The corresponding symbol for England is the Island† The central symbol for Canada†is undoubtedly Survival, la Survivance.

-Atwood, Margaret Eleanor
  Survival: a Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, ch.1, 'Survival'.

   America, thou half-brother of the world; With something good and bad of every land.

-Bailey, PhilipJames
  Festus, sc.10.

It seems to be typical of life in America, where opportunities, real and fancied, are thicker than anywhere else on the globe, that the second generation has no time to talk to the first.

-Baldwin,James Arthur
  Notes of a Native Son,'Notes of a Native Son'.

Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.

-Barzun,Jacques
Quoted in Michael Novak The Joy of Sport (1976), pt1.

O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed Hisgrace on thee. And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea.

-Bates, Katharine Lee
  'America the Beautiful', opening lines.

   My name is Behan, Brendan Behan, after Saint Brendan, who got into one of our little Irish boats called a curragh one day in the sixth century and sailed across the Atlantic and found America, and when he'd found it, like a sensiblemanheturned around and sailed back and left it where it fuckin' well was.

-Behan, Brendan Francis
  Speech in NewYork.

Early in life,Duveen†noticed that Europe had plenty of art and America had plenty of money, and his entire astonishing career was the product of that simple observation.

-Behrman, S(amuel) N(athaniel)
  Duveen, ch.1.  Joseph Duveen was a highly successful US art dealer.

I think that New York is not the cultural centre of America, but the business and administrative centre of American culture.

-Bellow, Saul
  In radio interview, reported in The Listener, 22 May.

In America there are two classes of travelöfirst class, and with children.

-Benchley, Robert Charles
  Pluck and Luck.

America hasjust passedthrough†an eight-yearcoma in which slogans were confused with solutions and rhetoric passed for reality.

-Bentsen, Lloyd Millard,Jr
  Recalling the Reagan administration as he accepted the Democratic nomination for Vice-President, 21  Jul.

Our special task, as French Canadians, is to insert into America the spirit of Christian France.

-Bourassa, Henri
  La Langue, Gardienne de la Foi.

There is nothing left to envyabout America.

-Bragg, Melvyn Bragg, Baron
Quoted in  Jonathan Freedland Bringing Home the Revolution: How Britain Can Live in the American Dream (1998).

Nothing less will content me, than wholeAmerica.

-Burke, Edmund
  On Conciliation with  America.

This cuisine here in America was certainly on a par with French cuisine.

-Chirac,Jacques Rene¤
  At the G8 meeting on Sea Island, Georgia,10  Jun.

Soy el cantor deAme¤  rica auto¤  ctono y salvaje; mi lira tiene un alma, mi canto un ideal. Mi verso no se mece colgado de un ramaje con un vaive¤  n pausado de hamaca tropical. I am the aboriginal and savage singer of America; my lyre has a soul, my song has an ideal. My poetry does not swing from the branches with the slow movement of a tropical hammock.

-Ch'in Chia   c.150
  Alma  Ame¤  rica,'Blaso¤   n' (translated as'Blazon',1935).