Quotes by American Authors - Page 1158

Once you understand who you are, you can become more of what you are.
Linda Deir
I know I'm the one who put limits on this... this thing," she said, and bit her lower lip, suddenly nervous. "But I'm pretty sure we're not quite done with each other."tHe looked at her for what felt like a long time. "You want another night."tStill unable to take her eyes off his mouth, she didn't muzzle herself. "I want as long as it takes."tHe cupped her jaw, lifting her head up so that she was looking into his eyes again. "Don't make promises you can't keep."t"What makes you think I can't keep it?"t"Because you seem to like things one night at a time," he said in that low, sexy voice. "But no way is one more night going to be enough.
Jill Shalvis
It was the deepest part of the night. There was a name for it that I couldn’t remember – that mystical black hour where all is darkest and you can’t sleep, when the weight of all your sorrows and bad decisions come weighing on you most heavily, and when the monsters scratch just outside your door.
kkat
You have people out here trying to tell you to accept imperfections and that nobody is perfect (except for a dead/make-believe entity?) but if you are telling yourself that you are not perfect, aren't you downgrading your own character? Why would you keep telling yourself you are less than what you are? Why destroy your pride? People, raise your heads and gain some vanity. If you are the best in the world at what you do, and the best in the world in who you are, you are certainly perfect. The only way you are not perfect, is if you let everyone fool you into believing you are not perfect; that you are the same as everyone else - less than what you are and could be.
Lionel Suggs
Everyone has it within his power to say this I am today that I shall be tomorrow.
Louis L'Amour
A person does not grow from the ground like a vine or a tree, one is not part of a plot of land. Mankind has legs so it can wander.
Roman Payne
The construct of retirement is dubious at best and a farce at worst. Expectations contrary to this are to be dashed.
Miles Anthony Smith
What do you want, MacGuffin, a duel?”“No.” Julian held out both hands, one palm flat, the other held over it in a fist. “Rock, paper, scissors. Two out of three.”Ty rolled his eyes and held out his fist, apparently willing to play. Julian hit his palm three times, and Ty kept time with his fist in the air. But when Julian threw a paper, Ty reached into his jacket with his other hand and pulled his gun, aiming it at Julian.“Ty!” Zane said in exasperation from the front seat.“Glock, paper, scissors. I win.”“You are an ass,” Julian muttered.
Abigail Roux
We lie under the sheetafter making love, speakingof lonelinessrelieved in a bookrelived in a bookso on that pagethe clot and fissureof it appearswords of a manin paina naked wordentering the clota hand graspingthrough bars:deliveranceWhat happens between ushas happened for centurieswe know it from literaturestill it happenssexual jealousyoutflung handbeating beddryness of mouth after pantingthere are books that describe all thisand they are useless
Adrienne Rich
The internet illuminates what has always been -- our interconnectedness. The internet is not a tool or a thing. It is how we communicate with God. It is sacred. Holy. All that time I thought I'd been far from God I wasn't. I'd been talking to God everyday for years -- online. The internet saved me from the hell of Christian fundamentalism and the despair of atheism. And then it saved my life.
Jim Gilliam
To be one of a pair of bodies that knew that melting fusion. To reach and find. To be and reached for and found. To belong to a mutual certainty. To wake up holding hands.
Laini Taylor
You, know, the only thing I can be is a writer. I'm absolutely unprepared for anything else. When you've lived the kind of life I have, you are good for nothing. Only writing can save you.
Anne Rice
The unknown can be a great tool.
George M. Gilbert
Art is the reflection of an imaginative mind.
Debasish Mridha
The individual cannot think and communicate his thought, the governor and legislator cannot act effectively or frame his laws without words, and the solidity and validity of these words is in the care of the damned and despised litterati...when their very medium, the very essence of their work, the application of word to thing goes rotten, i.e. becomes slushy and inexact, or excessive or bloated, the whole machinery of social and of individual thought and order goes to pot.
Ezra Pound
Life is simply a collective thought. Didn't you know we made it all up? Don't you know it can be different?
Bryant McGill
Oh my God, I am such a liar. And I can't even leave it at just one lie, either. Oh, no. I have to pile it on. I am sick, I tell you. Sick.
Meg Cabot
A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.
Josh Billings
I'm married. And pregnant.
Edan Lepucki
My old grandmother always used to say, Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever.
George R.R. Martin
Poetry is dancing with words.
Ana Monnar
A good story should make you laugh, and a moment later break your heart.
Chuck Palahniuk
Life is like an onion; you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.
Carl Sandburg
Our minds are always active. We analyze, reflect, daydream, or dream. There is not a moment during the day or night when we are not thinking. You might say our thinking is 'unceasing.' Sometimes we wish that we could stop thinking for a while; that would save us from many worries, guilt feelings, and fears. Our ability to think is our greatest gift, but it is also the source of our greatest pain. Do we have to become victims of our unceasing thoughts? No, we can convert our unceasing thinking into unceasing prayer by making our inner monologue into a continuing dialogue with our God, who is the source of all love.Let’s break out of our isolation and realize that Someone who dwells in the center of our beings wants to listen with love to all that occupies and preoccupies our minds.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
This is your life. This is your moment. Think of all you have been through just to get here… MAKE IT COUNT!
Steve Maraboli
Insomnia is a variant of Tourette's--the waking brain races, sampling the world after the world has turned away, touching it everywhere, refusing to settle, to join the collective nod. The insomniac brain is a sort of conspiracy theorist as well, believing too much in its own paranoiac importance--as though if it were to blink, then doze, the world might be overrun by some encroaching calamity, which its obsessive musings are somehow fending off.
Jonathan Lethem
You know, without a doubt, that surrender is the only option to fulfill whatever you are attempting.
Jean Hamilton-Fford
Whenever I saw her, I felt like I had been living in another country, doing moderately well in another language, and then she showed up speaking English and suddenly I could speak with all the complexity and nuance that I hadn't realized was gone. With Lucy I was a native speaker.
Ann Patchett
They have no discipline. They’ll still need us.”t“Ha!” said Postel. “No discipline? Behold!!!! My cat has written a book! ...And she's published!" — Amok 2015
Fred Barnett
The night seemed long. Wilbur's stomach was empty and his mind was full. And when your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it's always hard to sleep.
E B White
To you character is a psychosis. Integrity is a complex.
John Kennedy Toole
Stories are for joining the past to the future.
Tim O'Brien
Think about yourself because no one has time to think about you. Everyone is busy thinking about themselves.
Debasish Mridha
I regretted what a serious teenager I'd been: There were no posters of pop stars or favorite movies, no girlish collection of photos or corsages. Instead there were paintings of sailboats, proper pastel pastorals, a portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt. The latter was particularly strange, since I'd known little about Mrs. Roosevelt, except that she was good, which at the time I suppose was enough. Given my druthers now, I'd prefer a snapshot of Warren Harding's wife, "the Duchess," who recorded the smallest offenses in a little red notebook and avenged herself accordingly. Today I like my first ladies with a little bite.
Gillian Flynn
If Jesus didn't do it, don't say the Father does. If Jesus did do it, don't say the Father doesn't.
D.R. Silva
If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door
Milton Berle
The person you became with her is worth being.
Veronica Roth
When Compasia took pity on me, she reached down into the Underworld, touched the shoulder of Moritas, and asked her forgiveness. Then Compasia took my sister in her arms and placed her in the sky, where she, too, turned to stardust.Magiano looks at me, his eyes wide. It seems as if he already, somehow, understands.“My goddess made me a promise,” I whisper.Only now do I realize that I have never seen him cry before.In the stories, Compasia and her human lover would descend each night from the stars to walk the mortal world, before vanishing with the dawn. So, together, we stare at the sky, waiting.
Marie Lu
Vibration is the core of the spirit. It is the breath of life.
Suzy Kassem
I love when my mind focuses on how wonderful I am and lets all the other (less generous) thoughts recede into the background. You're wonderful too, by the way. Way wonderful.
Scott Stabile
If we stay with animal analogies for a moment, owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are god. (Cats may sometimes share the cold entrails of a kill with you, but this is just what a god might do if he was in a good mood.)
Christopher Hitchens
I'm not a humanitarian, I'm a hell-raiser.
Mary Harris Jones
Before you examine the body of a patient, be patient to learn his story. For once you learn his story, you will also come to know his body.
Suzy Kassem
A girl got kicked out of the swimming hole today. Inge Hachmann. They said they wouldn’t let us swim with a half-breed. Unsanitary. A half-breed, Werner. Aren’t we half-breeds too? Aren’t we half our mother, half our father?
Anthony Doerr
This has been my greatest challenge: because the current reality now seems so unreal, it's hard to make nonfiction seem believable. But you, my friend [Michael Moore], are able to do that.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Far too many doctors-many of them excellent physicians-commit suicide each year; one recent study concluded that, until quite recently, the United States lost annually the equivalent of a medium-sized medical school class from suicide alone. Most physician suicides are due to depression or manic-depressive illness, both of which are eminently treatable. Physicians, unfortunately, not only suffer from a higher rate of mood disorders than the general population, they also have a greater access to very effective means of suicide.
Kay Redfield Jamison
I am opposed to animal welfare campaigns for two reasons. First, if animal use cannot be morally justified, then we ought to be clear about that, and advocate for no use. Although rape and child molestation are ubiquitous, we do not have campaigns for “humane” rape or “humane” child molestation. We condemn it all. We should do the same with respect to animal exploitation. Second, animal welfare reform does not provide significant protection for animal interests. Animals are chattel property; they are economic commodities. Given this status and the reality of markets, the level of protection provided by animal welfare will generally be limited to what promotes efficient exploitation. That is, we will protect animal interests to the extent that it provides an economic benefit.
Gary L. Francione
The greatness of poetry comes from its struggle to express the rapture of the soul in the contemplation of beauty.
Anthony S. Maulucci
The world is vicious, too huge to care about even its own survival
Richard Powers
I nearly had a cakegasm at the table. My eyes rolled back in my head, and I moaned. "Sweet Christ." I opened my eyes to find Hunter watching me with the strangest expression on his face."What? It's really good; you should try some," I said, pushing the plate at him. It was a testament of how embarrassed I was about the cakegasm that I was even sharing at all."I swear, if there weren't a table between us, I would be kissing you right now. And none too gently."I put my form down and swallowed so I wouldn't choke. "You didn't seem to mind about the recliner," I said. "True. But there wan't an audience, and that's a very ugly recliner. This is a very nice table. Also there is glass and sharp things I wouldn't want hurting you.""Good point. Please, have some.""If you're going to make that noise and that face again, I don't know if I can let you have any more.""I'll be good. I swear.""You're not good. That's the problem.""You're right. I'm not," I said, giving him my own smirk. "I do try, though.""Cruel. That's the word to describe you right now.""Just have some cake.
Chelsea M. Cameron
Someone else's vision will never be as good as your own vision of your self. Live and die with it 'cause in the end it’s all you have. Lose it and you lose yourself and everything else. I should have listened to myself.
Georgia O'Keeffe
Mothers are only human, you turn it over to God and then you just wing it.
Jo-Ann Mapson
Once you tell a man he's pretty, there's no taking it back. They think they're pretty all the time, and I suppose, in a way, they are. It's got to do with believing it.
Sandra Cisneros
Emotionally intelligent people think before they speak and exercise discretion.
Susan C.Young
Everyone I have lost in the closing of a doorthe click of the lockis not forgotten, theydo not die but remainwithin the soft edgesof the earth, the ashof house fires and cancerin sin and forgivenesshuddled under old blanketsdreaming their way intomy hands, my heartclosing tight like fists.- "Indian Boy Love Song #1
Sherman Alexie
You are now 18standing on the precipice,trembling before your own greatness.This is your call to leap.There will always being those who say you are too young and delicate to make anything happen for yourself. They don’t see the part of you that smolders.Don’t let their doubting drown out the sound of your own heartbeat.You are the first drop of a hurricane.Your bravery builds beyond youYou are needed by all the little girls still living in secret, writing oceans made of monsters andthrowing like lightening.You don’t need to grow up to find greatness.You are stronger than the world has ever believed you to be.The world is waiting for you to set it on fireTrust in yourselfand burn.
Clementine von Radics
There’s no denying that it takes effort to set the intention to see our fundamental connected-ness with others.
Sharon Salzberg
You want to be able to say, for example, “I will know I am successful if these three things happen.
Amber Hurdle
When you're the only pea in the pod your parents are likely to get you confused with the Hope diamond.
Russell Baker
It was the sort of bone deep emotion that made him want to hold her tighter with one hand, and draw a sword against the world with the other.
Jeaniene Frost