You are Americans. You love this country. Together we are entrusted with the principles that represent mankind's greatest political and social achievement.

When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth - then all Americans are in peril.

Ninety eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.

As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?

Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.

The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.

In the months leading up to World War II, there was a tendency among many Americans to talk absently about the trouble in Europe. Nothing that happened an ocean away seemed very threatening.

Well, today, we are in the struggle brought on to us by the terrorists of Islam. It is a war that we did not choose. It was a war that was declared against us as Americans, against our people, against our Constitution.

Today, there are more Americans working than ever before in the history of our Nation, and the average wage of those workers is higher than it has ever been in the history of our Nation.

Now is not the time to compromise on the economy. Instead, we should be doing everything in our power to support long-term economic growth. Permanent repeal of the death tax will mean more high-quality, high-paying jobs for Americans.

I fully recognize and appreciate the many substantial contributions of black Americans and other minorities to the creation and preservation and development of our great nation.

We are fans because the game also appeals to our local pride, our pleasure in thinking of ourselves as, yes, Americans but nonetheless different from residents of other towns, other states, other regions.

Americans know as much about Canada as straight people do about gays. Americans arrive at the border with skis in July, and straight people think that being gay is just a phase. A very long phase.

To us Americans much has been given; of us much is required. With all our faults and mistakes, it is our strength in support of the freedom our forefathers loved which has saved mankind from subjection to totalitarian power.

You know, they were returning to the language of the people and trying to use musical language, particularly as Copland did to create a musical language in which all Americans would feel that they had a stake.