American Quotes

I try not to repeat a story. I try not to repeat an emotion. I want it to be all sort of new for the viewers and to challenge myself as a writer, so there's always pressure. What else can you come up with?

I think I would love a shot at remaking 'The Philadelphia Story,' as daunting as it is. I still think it's fantastic. I love the '30s comedies because they're allowed to be both comic and elegant, and the women are so complicated in them.

I really enjoy women and I totally understand and applaud the diversity that they have in terms of their emotions and intellects and vulnerability and strengths.

I love writing for women. The willingness to go from laughter to tears in a moment is the greatest palette you can paint with as a writer.

I love funny women. I love writing funny women characters.

Here's what happens - you create something in the moment that you feel will be good, and then... people's reactions to it or people referencing it years later, it's a compliment.

Every character when born is a stereotype.

Being a comedy writer gives you permission to be an outsider and poke fun at what people think about other people.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.