David Sedaris Quotes

The notion of American exceptionalism is effective in part because there is little on the face of it that is offensive.

This self-congratulatory notion Americans have that their country is Number One is borne of ignorance and bad manners.

Most Americans are exceptionalists; we think we live outside of history.

There's nothing wrong with loving your country. There's nothing wrong with caring about who gets into your country. There's nothing wrong about wanting your country to be great. There's nothing wrong with thinking that the country comes before the world. There's nothing wrong at all, and that's been wrong in the past and we're gonna make it right. We're gonna love America, we're gonna unify, we're gonna make America great again.

Our Scottish theory ... is that every country has need of Scotchmen, but that Scotland has no need of the citizens of any other country.

American ideals are superior to countries all across the world.

The American press exists for one purpose only, and that is to convince Americans that they are living in the greatest and most envied country in the history of the world. The Press tells the American people how awful every other country is and how wonderful the United States is and how evil communism is and how happy they should be to have freedom to buy seven different sorts of detergent.

America is the greatest nation in the history of the world. There's nothing like America.

I get always a little uptight when I hear politicians say how exceptional America is.

America has an almost obscene infatuation with itself. Has there ever been a big, powerful country that is as patriotic as America? And patriotic in the tinniest way, with so much flag waving? You'd really think we were some poor little republic, and that if one person lost his religion for one hour, the whole thing would crumble. America is the real religion in this country.

There is a fuzzy but real distinction that can and I believe should be made, between patriotism, which is attachment to a way of life, and nationalism, which is the insistence that your way of life deserves to rule over other ways of life.

Well, I had a small degree, that little infection of skepticism about America which resides in the minds of even America's closest friends. That America can't be quite as good as it says it is. And why does it need so relentlessly to keep saying how good it is?

I believe the United States is the greatest country on Earth. I really do.

The United States of America - once great, grand and free - is on the path to becoming just another country.

We live in a great country. It's time again to get religion about it.

I don't know much about Americanism, but it's a damn good word with which to carry an election.

France will always be France no matter what, but America involves striving toward an ideal.

Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.

There's a civic nationalism in Britain and dozens of other countries.

Every Englishman is convinced of one thing, viz.: That to be an Englishman is to belong to the most exclusive club there is.

It's a deft trick to turn American exceptionalism into an exceptional political tactic.

I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.

I'm not super-patriotic, but the U.S. is where I live, and it's the passport that I carry.

If a man is going to be an American at all let him be so without any qualifying adjectives, and if he is going to be something else, let him drop the word American from his personal description.

However British you may be, I am more British still.