Famous quotes containing the words irish american, irish, american and/or athletic:
“Irish Americans are about as Irish as black Americans are African.”
—Bob Geldof (b. 1954)
“Irishness is not primarily a question of birth or blood or language; it is the condition of being involved in the Irish situation, and usually of being mauled by it.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)
“There is hardly an American male of my generation who has not at one time or another tried to master the victory cry of the great ape as it issued from the androgynous chest of Johnny Weissmuller, to the accompaniment of thousands of arms and legs snapping during attempts to swing from tree to tree in the backyards of the Republic.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness—a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.”
—William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878)