'Sunset Boulevard' - the story of Hollywood movies draped on a depressing sex affair - is an uncompromising study of American decadence displaying a sad, worn, methodical beauty few films have had since the late twenties.

There are more than 300,000 families in the Gulf region that lost their homes and are waiting for peace of mind. The hurricane exposed the sad reality of poverty in America. We saw, in all its horrific detail, the vulnerabilities of living in inadequate housing and the heartbreak of losing one's home.

The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred.

The sad fact is that the same terrorist scenarios, if they occurred in five different States, there could be five different sets of responses to the American people. We need, at a minimum, a level of coordination on communicating threats to the public.

But now Americans, they felt a sense of peace and protection because they've been separated by so many thousands of miles of ocean. And you know, the fact that it's come to the U.S. like this is so sad, and yet you know, what can you do? It's here.

I love the script and I just thought it was a great role. Like I say, it's like this - the script is like this sad, funny, desperate love song to the lost American man.

To the indefinite, uncertain mind of the American radical the most contradictory ideas and methods are possible. The result is a sad chaos in the radical movement, a sort of intellectual hash, which has neither taste nor character.

At a time when 2500 American soldiers have given their lives for the cause of bringing democracy to Iraq, it is sad and frustrating to watch the Republican establishment disgrace the exercise of democracy in our own House of Representatives.

I love 'The Sportswriter' by Richard Ford. Ford really captures for me the bittersweetness of the quietly suffering American man. It's stoic, sad, and really beautiful.

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon shook our nation to the core. Americans were deeply frightened, sad, and angry, and they rallied around a President who, at the time, showed impressive certitude and calm.

I love books; my suitcases are always full of them. Books and shoes. I read when I am sad, when I am happy, when I am nervous. My favourite British author is Jane Austen, and my favourite American one is John O'Hara.

Americans have always been excellent at making romantic comedies - but dramatically, we don't really try to do it.

I'd always thought hurricanes were romantic, with pretty feminine names like Celestine.

The state of New Jersey is really two places - terrible cities and wonderful suburbs. I live in the suburbs, the final battleground of the American dream, where people get married and have kids and try to scratch out a happy life for themselves. It's very romantic in that way, but a bit naive. I like to play with that in my work.

My wife was the first romantic partner who understood both American and native parts of me - not so much the positive stuff, but the damage.

The first book I wrote was The Bride Price which was a romantic book, but my husband burnt the book when he saw it. I was the typical African woman, I'd done this privately, I wanted him to look at it, approve it and he said he wouldn't read it.

I think the American West really attracts me because it's romantic. The desert, the empty space, the drama.

Anglo-Saxon civilization has taught the individual to protect his own rights; American civilization will teach him to respect the rights of others.

Questlove is an artist who I respect because he constantly shifts within the idiom, challenging perceptions of hip-hop and black American culture.

There are only two occasions when Americans respect privacy, especially in Presidents. Those are prayer and fishing.

The mentality with African and European people is different. In Africa, when you come from a difficult life, when it's not so easy to eat, not so easy to survive, you respect money when you start to earn it, and you respect people more. When you respect people, they will respect you, and your life is better for that.

The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.

Some of us don't respect water. We waste it and pour it out. But a lot of disastrous stuff involves water. Tsunamis. Hurricanes.

I love our country so much. And we should all love and respect each other because this is the greatest country in the world. I see the love. I see the unity in all walks of life on a daily basis and It makes me so proud to be an American.