Ken Burns Quotes

Americans, perhaps more than most people, have pondered the question of who they are and what their country is.

My fiction occupies, actually, the very heart of American culture: this eternal question and struggle of what it means to be an American.

In the midst of applying for American citizenship, of finally attempting to get my presidents in a row, I felt it incumbent upon myself to explore the national psyche in every way.

I've always had a complex relationship towards my identity as an American.

I just wanted it to be American.

I truly appreciate the special qualities that America and American national myths offer me.

Americans' great and secret fear is that America may turn out to be a phenomenon rather than a civilization.

Each generation of Americans must define what it means to be an American.

It is a complex fate being an American.

We're Americans. It's a culture. We should defend that culture, and we should reinforce that culture.

You know, America has profoundly shaped me, and I have two American children and unbelievably rich friendships so it will always be a source of joy and good memories.

Sometimes I struggle with being American.

I think, at the end of the day, we're Americans: that's what we are, and we believe in America.

May we Americans all live up to our glorious heritage.

Diversity means, when the left teaches it, the people responsible for building America and maintaining it get the short end of the stick from now on. With this singular American culture that people came and wanted to be part of, they were proud, couldn't wait to become Americans, tears in their eyes when it happened. It was a special place. Defending it now, defending that America, defending our cultural, defending our founding, defending all of the things that made this country great is now called racism or xenophobia or hate.

We are Americans, and the future belongs to us.

To be an American is of itself almost a moral condition, an education, and a career.

The Philippines, it might be said, is a country in search of an identity.

You can call me whatever you want to call me, but I am an American. No one can take that away from me. No, no one can.

I'm an American, and always will be. I happen to love that big, awkward, sprawling country very much - and its big, awkward, sprawling people.

Actually it's great to be an American. I love my country.

I don't know whether it is fortunate or unfortunate, but I have no such thing as national pride. I don't feel proud that I am Iranian. I happen to be who I am.

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

And I think Americans are phenomenal people.

It's very important to me that people see I am an American and I was born in the States.