Quotes by American Authors - Page 1185

I define my life not by the things I have done, but by the people I have loved.
John Paul Warren
One forgets that part of one's performance is one's history—or sometimes the lack of it. You're playing against what an audience knows, what they expect. This seems to be true of all performers; there's baggage that gets carried into the venue that we can't see.
David Byrne
Like many people whose lives had formed around a particularly painful incident, she had grown used to providing ellipses around the event of her brother's death to keep conversations comfortable. At some point the subconscious logic of this had spread to the rest of her life so that she rarely talked about things she had been deeply affected by. It wasn't hard to do.
Mira Jacob
It is noted that from 1967 to 1995 essays on negative emotions far outnumbered those on positive emotions in the psychological literature. The ratio was 21:1. Even those supreme perpetrators of pop nihilism, The New York Times and The Washington Post, have a better ratio than psychological literature. They average 12 negative stories to every one that might be construed to be non-negative. Many of their non-negative stories, however, cover success in sports and entertainment. I demand that the purveyors of despair who pretend to be dispassionate observes of the human condition go ahead and disclose that the 10 most beautiful words in the English languages are chimes, dawn, golden, hush, lullaby, luminous, melody, mist, murmuring, and tranquil; that Java sparrows prefer the music of Back over that of Schoenberg; that math experts have determined there are 1/96 trillion ways to lace up your shoes; that the Inuit term for making love is translated as ‘laughing together in bed;' and that according to Buckminster Fuller, “pollution is nothing but resources we’re not harvesting.
Rob Brezsny
Jon:'What are you doing up there? Why aren't you at the feast?'Tyrion: 'Too hot, too noisy, and I'd drunk too much wine', the dwarf told him. 'I learned long ago that it is considered rude to vomit on your brother.
George R.R. Martin
Will we reach a friendlier shore?Will we find a haven once more?Where we'll beIn a place of miraclesNow we leave our homeFor a place of miracles Romanies again must roamCould there be a country kinder to our race?In a place of miracles
Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz
The only stirrups I like are on a saddle.
Donna Lynn Hope
Is Shimmer a floor wax or a dessert topping? Is an electron a wave or a particle? Slipstream tells us that the answer is yes.
John Kessel
I can see you are a fine lady, but this boy is randy as a goat around you and it's plain to see. If he seeks the joys of wedded bliss, he can wed you. Without a weddin' he'll be havin' no bliss.
Karen Marie Moning
Find 100 reasons to laugh. You are bound to feel better, you will cope with problems more effectively and people will enjoy being around you. Besides unhappiness, what do you have to lose?
Steve Goodier
Think you only kings have power? Stand on a stage and hold the hearts of men in your hands. Make them laugh with a gesture, cry with a word. Make them love you. And you will know what power is.
Jennifer Donnelly
Kissing - and I mean like, yummy, smacking kissing - is the most delicious, most beautiful and passionate thing that two people can do, bar none. Better than sex, hands down.
Drew Barrymore
Reach high for the stars that hidden in your soul. Dream precedes the goal
Saeed Jones
My French was neither good nor bad. I had enough to understand what people said to me, but speaking was difficult, and there were times when no words came to my lips, when I struggled to say even the simplest things. There was a certain pleasure in this, I believe – to experience language as a collection of sounds, to be forced to the surface of words where meanings vanish – but it was also quite wearing, and it had the effect of shutting me up in my thoughts.
Paul Auster
The world is a perfect design. If we can see it. If we can see ourselves and our surroundings. A vast sky held up by pillars. A carpet of earth that gives us all the food and fruit and nourishment we need to live. Animals of every species. Some that we can ride, some that we can eat, some that can help us in our work. They have specific duties.You can't tie a lion to a cart.They have all been placed here as means for us to see our inner natures. Just because we are dressed like human beings doesn't exempt us from having animal tendencies. The mouse in us that steals a little bit from here and there. The vain peacock that grooms himself all the time. The sly fox. The stubborn donkey that closes his ear to the name of Allah. The scorpion that stings. These are all in us.
Shems Friedlander
The truth will make you odd.
Judy Blume
School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?
Ray Bradbury
Do you think I could win?"t"It matter not what I believe. Only what you believe."tMaracose's comment made Brett think of the Jedi master, Yoda, in Star Wars. But he was determined to win and would try, no, not just try, but he think only positively about the outcome. He would survive the trials.
Terry Spear
What's the matter?" asked the teacher, seeing her bewildered face."Why—why," said Elizabeth Ann, "I don't know what I am at all. If I'm second-grade arithmetic and seventh-grade reading and third-grade spelling, what grade am I?"The teacher laughed at the turn of her phrase. "you aren't any grade at all, no matter where you are in school. You're just yourself, aren't you? What difference does it make what grade you're in! And what's the use of your reading little baby things too easy for you just because you don't know your multiplication table?
Dorothy Canfield Fisher
The lonely people have taught me, that I am not alone.
Anthony Liccione
I have no other destiny than the destiny of humanity.
Debasish Mridha
No matter how rich you become how famous or powerful when you die the size of your funeral will still pretty much depend on the weather.
Michael Pritchard
The evening makes me think Facebook is a blessing and a curse. Sure, it helps us keep track of people with whom we otherwise would have fallen out of touch. But sometimes relationships fade for a reason. They're better left a memory.
Rachel Bertsche
Let the mechanics of desire bring your fulfilment without interference.the more you interfere, the less likely you will get what you want.
Deepak Chopra
Healing doesn't just take a little time, it also takes commitment to get started and to complete the process.
Sereda Aleta Dailey
The part of you that's like God is the part that makes a choice. That says, I choose to. Or, I choose not to. That's what's sacred.
Willie Parker
Writing is hard work. But if you want to become a writer you will become one. Nothing will stop you.
Dorothy Day
Which is why we have now added a vow to our friendship that we will never ever "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" each other. That at we will always talk things out and never allow miscommunication to derail our relationship. But the whole conversation made me think about times in my life when I've felt that way, like I've been dropped with no sign that it was about to happen. And I think Gulley is right- it's the worst feeling in the world because it leaves you feeling completely helpless.
Melanie Shankle
When I look up at Heaven,I see the souls of those who diedBeaming down at me,Wanting to scream: “I'm still alive!”,Wishing to scribble across the sapphire sky -Letters to their loved ones,But a million dark oceans stand between us,Between those who passed and the living,Between those of us still stuck below,And those who have crossed over the threshold of time -Where what seems like eternity to us,Is really only a few minutes to them.So you see, there is no reason to weep over the shining ones -For even though the space that separates us is limitless,The wall of time that divides us is only paper-thin.And one day, we shall all reunite with them,When our souls are released like fishBack into the vast shimmering seaTo shine together likeGlittering diamonds.
Suzy Kassem
If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:36).
Cynthia Heald
It doesn’t matter where I am, or who I’m with . . . God, Caspar. I’ve dreamed about being with you.
Rie Warren
We are going to have that thing everyone talks about, that indescribable, indefinable thing that everybody wants to find...Here's to endless stargazing.
Ella Harper
When we overcome the fear of death, we become deathless, endless, and infinite.
Debasish Mridha
You're a free man, act like it.
Mike Klepper
I have lived most of my life in soldiers’ camps. I know what they saw. I know how they think. Their confidence sours as sudden as curdled milk.
Geraldine Brooks
You don't turn your back on family, even when they do.
Dominic Toretto
You can't throw kindling on a fire and deny you kept it burning. And right now, cowardice is that kindling.
Ilana Waters
A job is not a career. I think I started out with a job. It turned into a career and changed my life.
Barbara Walters
I dropped my dress to the floor and sat on the sofa with renewed determination. This man was going to have sex with me whether he liked it or not.
Denise Grover Swank
Choices create our map as we travel toward the new reality we are creating ~
Jeanne McElvaney
You looked inhuman when you were dying, Doc, your eyes glistened like dimming stars, you were wasting away and life was leaving you piecemeal, your soul no longer fit your body, you hated it and I hated it and I couldn't recognize you and I couldn't see you and I was frightened and I never knew what to do, I looked for the man I love in you and I searched for who I used to be around you and I couldn't find either.
Rabih Alameddine
See, even though Jesse's a ghost, and can walk through walls and disappear and reappear at will, he's still...well, there. To me, anyway. That's what makes me-and Father Dom-different from everybody else. We not only can see and talk to ghosts, but we can feel them too-just as if they were anybody else. Anybody alive, I mean. Because to me and Father Dom, ghosts are just like anyone else, with blood and guts and sweat and bad breath and whatever. The only real difference is that they kind of have this glow around them-an aura, I think it's called.
Meg Cabot
Though I have no productive worth I have a certain value as an indestructible quantity.
Alice James
Thinking is hard work, which is why you don't see many people doing it.
Sue Grafton
They’re taking us to the room to change. Do you think we’ll have time for a quickie? Because we never got around to doing it against the wall.”He blinked at her. She thought he hadn’t heard her. Finally he smiled, slowly at first, his grin becoming broader as she slid her hand onto his thigh. “We will always make time for a quickie,” he said. “And that is a wedding vow.
Jennifer Echols
The sun stopped shining for me is all. The whole story is: I am sad. I am sad all the time and the sadness is so heavy that I can't get away from it. Not ever.
Nina LaCour
This feeling of lessening disturbance, coming from within myself, unexpected, was profoundly disturbing. As I sat still, growing less and less alarmed by the situation, I knew that I had to move fast, as fast and as far as I could within this small, cramped house.
Alexandra Kleeman
The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them.
Denis Waitley
You dance love, and you dance joy, and you dance dreams. And I know if I can make you smile by jumping over a couple of couches or running through a rainstorm, then I'll be very glad to be a song and dance man.
Gene Kelly
Things only looked wrong when there was someone to see you.
Anna Godbersen
Whatever it is you want in this life, be it material things, a place you want to be, or an experience you want to have, you must first make it real in the realm of your consciousness.
Brandi L. Bates
Whoever controls the media, controls the mind
Jim Morrison
Act today. Think tomorrow.
Debasish Mridha
Wash, wash, wash. Tone, tone, tone. Strip the oil, then add an oil-free moisturizer to replace the oil. This is how we've been taught to care for our skin. It seems a little crazy when you see it in print, right? Take all that oil out and add chemicals to replace it. Nuts!
Yancy Lael
It's the new best way to start your day - Ram Lev on Facebook Live TOMORROW, Thursday, March 16th, at 7:30am EST."If I am not the body that was born and dies, and I am not the mind that always changes, then who am I? The One who is aware of the body, aware of the mind, and aware of the questions.
Leonard Perlmutter
Presenting “Mix, Mingle & Glow” in a social context is a lovely way to describe how you can make a great first impression by taking the initiative to help other people shine. Think of the times when you have attended an event where there were a lot of people.
Susan C.Young
That’s what I always wanted to know. Why would some fella be willing to do something generous for a kid he doesn’t even know?” Rodney asked. “Have to say I’m surprised, Mr. Burton. Of all the people on the face of the earth,” he said, his voice softening, “I figured if anyone knew the answer to that one, it’d be you.
Kenny Rogers
There is no conflict between loving others deeply and living mindfully.
Sharon Salzberg
Just as he was slowly bringing order to his own internal life, he would also bring order to his language.
David Brooks
The power you give others belongs to you. Take it back and take yourself where you would go.
Alan Cohen