Quotes by American Authors - Page 1052

John Brown, raised by disciplinarians, became one himself.
Tony Horwitz
Books are like people: fascinating, inspiring, thought-provoking, some laugh, some meditate, others ache with old age, but still have wisdom: some are disease-ridden, some deceitful; but others are a delight to behold, and many travel to foreign lands; some cry, some teach, others are lots of fun, they are excellent companions and all have individuality - Books are friends. What person has too many friends?
Gladys M. Hunt
Easter is a time when God turned the inevitability of death into the invincibility of life.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Because I'm a man who works, who knows what a human being is like inside, who knows that every human being has his worth, and who wants the world to be governed by work and not by opinions about work.
Wilhelm Reich
You were created to know abundance ... even spiritual and sexual abundance.
Tina Schermer Sellers
Nobody's having any babies, yet," Mason said, spreading both arms wide. Still pale after the onslaught of questions, he managed to smirk at his brothers and add, "Although I'm enjoying the practice of making them.
Lisa Carlisle
We've finally given liberals a war against fundamentalism, and they don't want to fight it. They would, except it would put them on the same side as the United States.
Ann Coulter
Depression is like being under house arrest, only there is no house.
Lisa Eley
It's a power that I can't explain. As it flows and it grows and it shapes my faith. There've been hundreds of moments I can't deny. When it brushe against the fire or dwelt in the Fire of God.
Kenneth Copeland
For my sake,” he said firmly, addressing the air in front of him as though it were a tribunal, “I dinna want ye to bear another child. I wouldna risk your loss, Sassenach,” he said, his voice suddenly husky. “Not for a dozen bairns. I’ve daughters and sons, nieces and nephews, grandchildren—weans enough.”He looked at me directly then, and spoke softly.“But I’ve no life but you, Claire.”He swallowed audibly, and went on, eyes fixed on mine.“I did think, though . . . if ye do want another child . . . perhaps I could still give ye one.
Diana Gabaldon
You seem to think you have a choice," Cam said. "But you have it backwards. Love chooses you. The shadow moves as the sun commands.
Lisa Kleypas
Evil demons dwelling in underworlds, Gods sitting on-high, angels battling and protecting. We have become so wrapped up in these stories, and in the in-fighting between the different religions, that the reality of the matter has gone unseen and unresolved. We—humanity—must move out of this adolescence, put down the fairy tales, and take responsibility for our actions. There is no devil to blame, and there is no God to plead to. There is simply you and the choices you make each day—choices that will either make you a force of good in this world or an ill-presence. People are the evil in this world, and likewise we are the divine. “Evil”—all that is detrimental to humanity—has come about as a result of poor choices and, by the same hand, the divine—the immortal goodness—endures as a result of loving, compassionate choices. Heaven is created here—on this earth—by a community of compassionate people, and Hell is created here—on this earth—by a community of greedy, self-centered, apathetic people. Our small choices define the greater picture.
L.M. Browning
As if the night had said to me, ‘You are the night and the night alone understands you and enfolds you in its arms’ One with the shadows. Without nightmare. An inexplicable peace.
Anne Rice
Neither black/red/yellow nor woman but poet or writer. For many of us, the question of priorities remains a crucial issue. Being merely "a writer" without a doubt ensures one a status of far greater weight than being "a woman of color who writes" ever does. Imputing race or sex to the creative act has long been a means by which the literary establishment cheapens and discredits the achievements of non-mainstream women writers. She who "happens to be" a (non-white) Third World member, a woman, and a writer is bound to go through the ordeal of exposing her work to the abuse and praises and criticisms that either ignore, dispense with, or overemphasize her racial and sexual attributes. Yet the time has passed when she can confidently identify herself with a profession or artistic vocation without questioning and relating it to her color-woman condition.
Trinh T. Minh-ha
As change is a constant – as our houses, our money, our friends, our things and even our lovers can always disappear - the one thing that we will always remain the closest to, will be our minds and our bodies.
lauren klarfeld
You can't betray yourself too often, or you become somebody else.
Ed Harris
when I am feelinglowall i have to do iswatch my catsand mycouragereturns
Charles Bukowski
Think about peace, dream about peace, and take action to make the world peaceful.
Debasish Mridha
And I say,I crash in to things in the darkEven when the lights are onAnd I am wrong more often than I am writingAnd even then, I am often wrongBut when my friends are in the bathroom at the barRolling dollar bills in to telescopes,Claiming they can see God,I will come to you
Andrea Gibson
I know that you are my guard, and you are my best friend. I know you would die for me. And I know that should that ever happen, I would die immediately after.
Marissa Meyer
Sometimes asking God for a reason for something is like asking Him why the sky is blue. There is a complex, scientific reason for it, Claire, but most children, including you, are content with knowing it is blue because it is. If we understood everything about everything, we would have no need for faith.
Susan Meissner
He looked down at his boots. "That berth belongs to you too. It will always be there when―if you want to come back."Inej could not speak. Her heart felt too full, a dry creek bed ill-prepared for such rain. "I don't know what to say.
Leigh Bardugo
We need faith and the mind of the Lord Jesus to recognize something of lasting value in even our most ordinary tasks.
Philip Yancey
In life you find pleasure. In life you find pain. Pain and pleasure is an example of the duality in life. Enjoy them both, they are part of the ride. The key is to not turn the pain into something else - regret.
J.R. Rim
Inner peace is more a question of cultivating perspective, meaning, and wisdom even as life touches you with its pain.
Rachel Naomi Remen
I wasn't trying to reach England. or Paris. I thought that if I made the broadcast powerful enough, my brother would hear me. That I could bring him some peace, protect him as he had always protected me." You'd play your brother's own voice to him? After he died?""And Debussy." Did he ever talk back?" The attic ticks. What ghosts sidle along the walls right now, trying to overhear? She can almost taste her great-uncle's fright in the air. "No," he says. "He never did.
Anthony Doerr
Readers, not critics, are the people who determine a book's eventual fate.
Edward Abbey
I think everybody's weird. We should all celebrate our individuality and not be embarrassed or ashamed of it.
Johnny Depp
Times and scenes like that put Janie to thinking about the inside state of her marriage. Time came when she fought back with her tongue as best she could, but it didn’t do her any good. It just made Joe do more. He wanted her submission and he’d keep on fighting until he felt he had it. So gradually, she pressed her teeth together and learned to hush. The spirit of the marriage left the bedroom and took to living in the parlor. It was there to shake hands whenever company came to visit, but it never went back inside the bedroom again. So she put something in there to represent the spirit like a Virgin Mary image in a church. The bed was no longer a daisy-field for her and Joe to play in. It was a place where she went and laid down when she was sleepy and tired. She wasn’t petal-open anymore with him.
Zora Neale Hurston
The coward’s fear of death stems in large part from his incapacity to love anything but his own body. The inability to participate in others’ lives stands in the way of his developing any inner resources sufficient to overcome the terror of death. — J. Glenn Gary, The Warriors
Sebastian Junger
More than anything." Rob persisted. "You'd crawl on your belly over broken glass for her. Easy.
L.J. Smith
The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed the collection of myths to which white Americans cling: that their ancestors were all freedom-loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen, or that Americans are invincible in battle and wise in peace, that Americans have always dealt honorably with Mexicans and Indians and all other neighbors or inferiors, that American men are the world's most direct and virile, that American women are pure. Negroes know far more about white Americans than that; it can almost be said, in fact, that they know about white Americans what parents—or, anyway, mothers—know about their children, and that they very often regard white Americans that way. And perhaps this attitude, held in spite of what they know and have endured, helps to explain why Negroes, on the whole, and until lately, have allowed themselves to feel so little hatred. The tendency has really been, insofar as this was possible, to dismiss white people as the slightly mad victims of their own brainwashing.
James Baldwin
So, really," continued Jacob as if this were perfectly normal to expound on art in these circumstances, "when you think about it, the artists who make people stop and think, who push the form, who make you uncomfortable, who are laughable, well, they're the ones who get remembered." Idly, Jacob dug a hole in the snow with his shovel and then another one next to it. "So why wouldn't you want to join the ranks of the ridiculed?
Justina Chen
Nothing gets easier but our abilities get better.
Debasish Mridha
Mia stood between the bed and the broken window, holding an active plasma blade at waist-height in front of her. A thick coat of blood stained the plasma nearly from hilt to tip, hissing as it dribbled from blade to floor.“Are you all right?”Mia gave her a wan, distant smile. “It’s okay. I’ve done it before.
G.S. Jennsen
...if you spent all your time being protected, you never got to find out anything new.
Sage Blackwood
Your mind should be on one thing and one thing only: gaining enough power to be free to live your own purpose and not another man’s.
Cheryl Matthynssens
If Cinderella were given a single shining epiphany (instead of a fairy godmother), she would have realized: "This is my father's house. This is my father's estate. I am the rightful heiress to everything here!" then she would have said: "Get off of my property, take nothing with you, and never show your faces to me again! You ugly, bitter, insecure, envious witches!" And I'm sure she would have been happier, sooner!
C. JoyBell C.
I’d forgotten how enlivening it could feel, seeing clearly and far. Aridity frees light. It also unleashes grandeur. The earth here wasn’t cloaked in forest, nor draped in green. Green was pastoral, peaceful, mild. Desert beauty was “sublime” in the way that the romantic poets had used the word- not peaceful dales but rugged mountain faces, not reassuring but daunting nature, the earth’s skin and haunches, its spines and angles arching prehistorically in sunlight.
Julene Bair
Happiness is a result of the relative strengths of positive and negative feelings rather than an absolute amount of one or the other.
Norman Bradburn
You own your feelings. You own your thoughts. You control both. No one has the right to any of it—to any of you without your permission.
Carlos Wallace
I want to do everything to you, all at once,” he muttered. “I want to stroke you, fuck you, hold you down, lift you up, pin you, take you. I want you to take me. Lord and Lady, Sophie, I don’t know that I have any gentleness in me tonight.
Thea Harrison
Each one a little bit different but following some blueprint somewhere. As if each of us might have a blueprint. As if somewhere there's the shape of my life, and I had the chance to choose a few variations, but not far from the pattern.
David Vann
Crusoe and Friday. Ishmael and Ahab. Daisy and Gatsby. Pip and Estella. Me. Me. Me. I am not alone. I am surrounded by words that tell me who I am, why I feel what I feel. Or maybe they just help me while away the hours as the rain pounds down on the porch roof, taking me away from the gloom and on to somewhere sunny, somewhere else.
Anna Quindlen
Maturity is about ripeness, thoughtfulness, quality, balance, and wisdom.
Pearl Zhu
My blood makes noise. And I’m saying this now, because I have a strange gut feeling that it will be silenced someday soon.
Kris Kidd
This must be what an addict feels like, I think, trying to fight the pull of one last, quick read. My fingers itch toward the binding, and finally, with a sigh of regret, I just grab the book and open it, hungrily reading the story.
Jodi Picoult
Every poet has his dream reader: mine keeps a look out for curious prosodic fauna like bacchics and choriambs.
W.H. Auden
He turned the crank handles, hoping the thing wouldn’t explode in his face. A few clear tones rang out-metallic yet warm. Leo manipulated the levers and gears. He recognized the song that sprang forth-the same wistful melody Calypso sang for him on Ogygia about homesickness and longing. But through the strings of the brass cone, the tune sounded even sadder, like a machine with a broken heart-the way Festus might sound if he could sing.Leo forgot Apollo was there. He played the song all the way through. When he was done, his eyes stung. He could almost smell the fresh-baked bread from Calypso’s kitchen. He could taste the only kiss she’d ever given him.
Rick Riordan
The Spirit filters through what I want and shows me who I am.
E'yen A. Gardner
We all struggle alone through the ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows of our lives.
Elizabeth Kim
And that fear I'd felt, the disembodying confusion, seemed to be a drug I was now addicted to, because moving through the ordinary world- watching CNN, reading the Times, walking to Sant Ambroeus to have a coffee at the bar- made me feel exhausted, even depressed. Perhaps I was suffering from the same problem as the man who'd sailed around the world and now on land, facing his farmhouse, his wife and kids, understood that the constancy of home stretching out before him like a dry flat field was infinitely more terrifying than any violent squall with thirty-foot swells.
Marisha Pessl
Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing.
John Erskine
She smiled thoughtfully. “I think Jackson was like a lost puppy. He needed purpose, someone to believe in him and love him despite his bullshit. But he didn’t have that, so he just went around humping everyone’s leg and peeing everywhere. Then you came along and he thought he found that owner that would give him that purpose—something that would make him feel needed—but you chose the fancy pet store puppy instead, so he went back to peeing on everything and destroying all the furniture.”“Um, Whit...is there a point to this?”“We all need someone to believe in us. It helps us see our full potential. You were that someone to believe in him. I think he’ll be a new man because of it.” “So you’re saying I rescued a lost puppy, and now he’ll become a topnotch show dog because I’m just so amazing?”“Exactly.”“You have such an eloquent way with words.”“No shit, right?”“Precisely.”-Emma and Whitney
Rachael Wade
There is no such thing as fear until you allow it to enter your heart. If I told you what really happens to your soul when it is put to eternal sleep, you would not fear death; hence, you would never have fear — or fear Fear. But this is something I will share with you another day and time, in another story. We are taught to fear anything that can bring us closer to death — to keep us from taking huge leaps that involve risk. The only thing you should fear in this lifetime is not taking risks while you are living. I do not mean to go jump off a bridge. I mean, to go all out to reach your dreams, to dare to do things you typically would not do out of fear. Pain has a threshold and so does death. Fear neither, and never fear what has no right to be feared. Fear only the Almighty, for he is the only one who can terminate a soul forever. No man can do that. No leader can do that. Only the Creator can do that. As long as the heart is good, a soul can live forever. The body is simply a coating for the soul, and when you die, your soul takes the soul of your heart along with it. Love strengthens both, while fear cripples both. Starting today, train your mind and heart to reject fear. Once you reject fear, you will become the perfect candidate to receive and reflect Truth.
Suzy Kassem
I wish I could remember the moment when I was a kid and I discovered that the letters linked into words, and that the words linked to real things. What a revelation that must have been. We don't have the words for it, since we hadn't yet learned the words. It must have been astonishing, to be given the key to the kingdom and see it turn in our hands so easily.
David Levithan
A few months ago, a fog blinded me, thicker than ever before. I slept in the monster’s arms. I felt its breath on my neck, its scaled stomach rising and falling against my back, its head and face invisible as always. I couldn’t pretend anymore to Margaret that I was working. The children receded into noises grating on my ears. I stopped moving. Weeks went by indistinguishable one from another. I could smell the rot of myself, my armpits, my breath, my groin, as though the living part of death had already commenced, the preliminary decomposing, as the will fades. In Dante and Milton hell is vivid. Sin organizes the dead into struggle. The darkness bristles with life. There is story upon story to tell. But in the fog there is nothing to see. The monster you lie with is your own. The struggle is endlessly private. I thought it was over. That one night the beast at my back would squeeze more tightly and I would cease breathing. What remained of me hoped for it.
Adam Haslett
You're mine, Angel, and don't you forget it. Your fights are my fights. What if something bad had happened today? It was bad enough when I thought your ghost was haunting me; I don't think I can handle the real thing.
Becca Fitzpatrick
The years passed. Untouched by age, he lived and did as his creator had suggested. Victim after victim, drink after drink, he tried to stop his hunger; however, it did not last for long. The tingling ache of emptiness crawled up from his gut until he could no longer stand it, and soon he would be out on the hunt all over again. He had never felt guilt for his murders. The power inside him reassured that he was above such emotions. Besides, he was the gate that opened their soul to his creator. He fed not only himself, but it.
Jettie Necole
Do you want to know the cause of war? It is capitalism, greed, the dirty hunger for dollars. Take away the capitalist, and you will sweep war from the earth.
Henry Ford