Quotes by American Authors - Page 1002

She thought of the recurrent waves of pain that for some reason or other she and her husband had had to endure; of the invisible giants hurting her boy in some unimaginable fashion; of the incalculable amount of tenderness contained in the world; of the fate of this tenderness, which is either crushed or wasted, or transformed into madness; of neglected children humming to themselves in unswept corners; of beautiful weeds that cannot hide from the farmer.
Vladimir Nabokov
Honesty is a moral virtue, a matter of the will. Honesty means willing the truth with the whole of your heart. This demands sacrifice. We have little hope of attaining honesty unless we realize how demanding it is. It demands sacrifice of self-will, self-image, the desire to win, and the comfort of being right.The “honesty” often praised today is usually only emotional honesty with others, not intellectual honesty with one’s self; only “letting it all hang out,” not asking what is the real truth. Sometimes “honesty” is only a code word for shamelessness. Rarely does it mean the absolute, fanatical, selfless love of truth.
Peter Kreeft
Wouldn't you like to be my lord Duke of Exeter? Come on, Dom. Say something.""You have lost your mind.""Say something less insulting.
Laura Andersen
One-third to one-half of humanity are said to go to bed hungry every night. In the Old Stone Age the fraction must have been much smaller. This is the era of hunger unprecedented. Now, in the time of the greatest technical power, is starvation an institution. Reverse another venerable formula: the amount of hunger increases relatively and absolutely with the evolution of culture.
Marshall Sahlins
We are now dealing with a bizarre new morality where a woman cannot simply say, in one way or another, "I'm on the pill because I like dick.
Roxane Gay
Sitting still is a pain in the ass.
Noah Levine
The author describes Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn as "seldom at ease without a gavel in his hand.
Robert A. Caro
Democracies are indeed slow to make war, but once embarked upon a martial venture are equally slow to make peace and reluctant to make a tolerable, rather than a vindictive, peace.
Reinhold Niebuhr
No matter how grave the secret, how imperative absolute silence, someone would always feel the urge to confess, and an unleashed secret is a terrible force.
Téa Obreht
You need to be doing fewer things for effect instead of doing more things with side effects
Gary Keller
A man should be taller older heavier uglier and hoarser than his wife.
Edgar Watson Howe
I regret..." Tobias tilts his head, and sighs. "I regret my choice.""What Choice?", and... I felt like maybe I could make something more of my decision."
Veronica Roth
Commonality doesn't inoculate against hurt.
Leslie Jamison
Everything was fine, would continue to be fine, would eventually get even better as long as the supermarket did not slip.
Don DeLillo
Do you know how many men are incarcerated in solitary confinement? About 100,000 on any given day, if my numbers are correct. Do you know how many men commit suicide in The Hole? Very high. Twenty-four hours in a box with no windows can break a man. Some more quickly than others.
H.L. Sudler
Classroom teaching withholds nothing. I say to my young students every year, “I know how to add two numbers, but I’m not going to tell you.” And they laugh and shout, “No!” That’s so absurd, so unthinkable. What do I have that I would not give to you?Bringing nothing, producing nothing, expecting nothing, withholding nothing — what does that remind you of? Is this a bizarre occurrence that will go into The Journal of Irreproducible Results? Or is it something that happens every day, all the time, all over the world,and is based not on gain and fame, but on love.
Margaret Edson
When I was a child I had a fishless aquarium. My father set it up for me with gravel and plants and pebbles before he'd got the fish and I asked him to leave it as it was for a while. The pump kept up a charming burble, the green-gold light was wondrous when the room was dark. I put in a china mermaid and a tin horseman who maintained a relationship like that of the figures on Keat's Grecian urn except that the horseman grew rusty. Eventually fish were pressed upon me and they seemed an intrusion, I gave them to a friend. All that aquarium wanted was the sound of the pump, the gently waving plants, the mysterious pebbles and the silent horseman forever galloping to the mermaid smiling in the green-gold light. I used to sit and look at them for hours. The mermaid and the horseman were from my father. I have them in a box somewhere here, I'm not yet ready to take them out and look at them again.
Russell Hoban
When Christ’s love fills our hearts, it puts selfishness on the run.
Billy Graham
You can purify your existence by feeling deep within yourself a beautiful rose or lotus, or any other flower that you like. A flower is all purity. Try to identify yourself with the consciousness of the flower or with the purity of the flower. Today it is imagination, but if you continue imagining for five days, or ten days, or a month or two, then you are bound to see and feel the flower within you. First you may feel it, then you are bound to see the existence of the flower, and then automatically the fragrance and the purity of the flower will enter into you to purify you.
Sri Chinmoy
Peace is more of an internal settlement rather than what is visible on the external.
Criss Jami
Oh, don't mind me," came an extremely sarcastic voice near the wall. “You two go ahead and make out–I'll just sit here and bleed quietly.
Julie Kagawa
Why is it when we talk to God we are said to be praying and when God talks to us we're said to be schizophrenic?
Lily Tomlin
Things hurt, and don't hurt, and hurt again.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
You say you just want to be my friend. I know that you mean you want to relate to my mind but not my body. I can understand that and will not ask you to relate to me in a way that you don't want to, or talk to me about subjects you find uncomfortable. But likewise I refuse to castrate myself for you by pretending not to have the feelings I have. If you want me as your friend you will have to accept my penis along with me.
Hugh Prather
Perfectionism is a dangerous state of mind in an imperfect world.
Robert Hillyer
Please follow these instructions:1. Stack the pages of this letter neatly. 2. Roll the pages up into a cylinder. 3. Smack yourself over the head with it. 4. Repeat. You complete ass.
Leah Thomas
A delicate balance is required: keep the penitent tautly close to the point of recognizing sin, and then allow the relief of that pressure to flow through forgiveness. Confession increases this tautness, only to clear the path for release.
Thomas C. Oden
Our success depends on goal-oriented, focused actions, not on distractions.
Debasish Mridha
So hologram means--" I finally said."It means non-corporeal, yeah. Which sucks seeing as how there are a lot of very corporeal things I'd like to do with you right now.
Rachel Hawkins
We are all blessed ones. Heaven is no longer in the clouds. It is right here, all around us, everywhere; we must only open our eyes to see it.
Kim Chestney
In South Africa, they dig for diamonds. Tons of earth are moved to find a little pebble not as large as a little fingernail. The miners are looking for the diamonds, not the dirt. They are willing to lift all the dirt in order to find the jewels. In daily life, people forget this principle and become pessimists because there is more dirt than diamonds. When trouble comes, don’t be frightened by the negatives. Look for the positives and dig them out. They are so valuable it doesn't matter if you have to handle tons of dirt.
Robert J. Ringer
O you youths, Western youths,So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,Pioneers! O pioneers!
Walt Whitman
The candle glimmers but an hour. The nightLooms in its ancient hunger. Would you knowThe tragedy of human love and need?Gaze on the stars, then on a brother's face!
George Sterling
I wonder how much space I take up, if a thought can take up secondary space.
Meia Geddes
Out of all the things I do, I think being a mom is the most important and satisfying.
Michelle M. Pillow
Some build their castles 'mid thunderbolts and fireworks. My worlds take shape in silence.
Richelle E. Goodrich
...his lazy eye drifting around the room like a child looking for the bathroom.
Chuck Klosterman
I can already feel myself falling hard, something I've been known to do. All because she smiled at me.
Jennifer Niven
With high hope and optimism, start swimming with time.
Debasish Mridha
It's far too easy to forget, miss or not appreciate the tiny things a partner does every single day, but should you wait until it's over or they've gone to miss who they were?
James Perrin
The more pleasure a universe can yield, other things being equal, the more beneficent and generous is its general nature; the more pains its constitution involves, the darker and more malign its total temper. To deny this would seem impossible, yet it is done daily; for there is nothing people will not maintain when they are slaves to superstition; and candor and a sense of justice are, in such a case, the first things lost.
George Santayana
But we can't go back. We can only go forward.
Libba Bray
Christ sometimes delays His help so He may test our faith and energize our prayers. Our boat may be tossed by the waves while he continues to sleep, but He will awake before it sinks.
Mrs. Charles E. Cowman
What the new science of anthrozoology reveals is that our attitudes, behaviors, and relationships with the animals in our lives- the ones we love, the ones we hate, and the ones we eat- are, likewise, more complicated than we thought.
Hal Herzog
Rise up to wise up.
T.F. Hodge
We as a people have become so addicted to DYSFUNCTION that we don't recognize PEACE (man or woman) when it enters our energetic space.We call PEACE soft, too nice, pushover, doormat and other names because PEACE respects you. PEACE cares about & for you. PEACE doesn't want to argue, PEACE speaks it's mind with healthy discussion & at the end of the day, PEACE says I Love you. PEACE keeps their word. PEACE enjoys spending time with you & treating you better than anyone else ever has but because of our addiction, we say this is too good to be true. We wait for the other shoe to drop. We check PEACE phone, follow PEACE home or just dismiss PEACE altogether because something just ain't right!" LEAVE that phone alone, STOP looking for a reason, and CHANGE your mindset. "Once you have begun down this new path, your vibrations will change & PEACE will start to walk with you, YOU will attract his siblings-Love, Joy, Kindness, Happiness & your relationships will become everything you inwardly desired but secretly believed you were not worthy of attaining.
Sanjo Jendayi
Maybe if people can't have an end to their suffering, the next thing they seek for is to know why they suffer. Suffering is a part of life in this world, part of a cycle....Stories give you a way to see things. A way to understand the events of your life. Even if you don't realize it while you're hearing the tale.
Matthew J. Kirby
The only question left to be settled now is are women persons?
Susan B. Anthony
Sin is a revolt against God.
Billy Graham
We’re happier when the assholes are villains.
Christopher Bram
Community is a context and can either facilitate or inhibit the movement of change for the individual.
Sharon Weil
The rig began shaking like caffeine withdrawal." --Opening sentence of THE FURY. "The duct-taped Buick swam north on Rush Street, hunting whores like a lesser white shark." --First sentence of Chapter One, THE FURY
Shane Gericke
What is it about men, anyway? You can't live with 'em and the law frowns on neutering them. It's not exactly a win-win situation.
Susan Andersen
Boredom is the inner conflict we suffer when we lose desire, when we lack a lacking.
Robert McKee
When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.
Ansel Adams
When he saw Tyler, his face went serious, which struck me as comical. Andy had always been protective, but when it came to me having anything to do with guys, he felt it was his duty to inform and protect me from the ones he thought were most like himself. When I turned thirteen, he pulled me aside and we had his version of 'the talk,' which mostly consisted of a bunch of 'uhs' and 'ums,' but I got the gist of his speech: boys only wanted one thing, and I shouldn't give it to them until I was at least thirty-three. And married.
Jessi Kirby
Then it was silent. Heavy now, not the sleepy silence of before. The kind of silence that meant horrifying things.
Natalie J. Damschroder
Death lurked everywhere. Death was alive and well.
Eric Rickstad
it's like kissing a boy, finally, a boy
David Levithan
Life is full of little surprises.Time travel is full of big ones.
David Gerrold