Quotes by American Authors - Page 1229

Did you never wonder why the old books are so full of dragons chasing after maidens? The serpents think the girls are orphans, and long to get them away in a lair so that they may grow up strong and tall.
Catherynne M. Valente
We stand at the onset of a great age of adventure—and always shall, so long as we keep doing science.
Timothy Ferris
He wasn't what I'd thought he was; maybe he never had been. I wasn't what I'd thought I was, either.
Sarah Dessen
Temptation goes both ways. Sometimes, you can be tempted to live a half life because it pleases someone else. Don't ever live in such a way that your heart splits into two souls. You might find yourself sinning for the rest of your life because you don't want to really be in that situation, but you don't want to hurt the kids. That is a hell that your children will pick up on soon enough. Staying for the kids is possible, but it takes two people to agree that choice is their lifestyle, not one. Otherwise, you hold another person captive because of your fear of stating the obvious-- you are not in love with them.
Shannon L. Alder
Enchantment and fulfillment were on the gold and garnet horizon - autumn's breath, a dormant dream reawakened, a yearning nearly satiated, a tender thank you with a brush of the lips, and a connection as fingers touch and go hand in hand.
Donna Lynn Hope
I no longer follow the voices of the sane. I follow the ill because they see farther, feel much more and change what the sane will not. This is the paradox of philosophers---trying to understand mass delusion among great people that have faith and knowledge, yet they can’t graduate from their institutions of religious theology to apply the knowledge they have gained for the shifting of Zion---- from words to action; from comfort to uncomfortable; from self serving to self giving; from competition to supporting; to tradition to unity; from bias to acceptance; from me to us.
Shannon L. Alder
In the story of the Ugly Duckling, when did the Ugly Duckling stop feeling Ugly? When he realized he was a Swan. Each of us has something Special, a Swan of some sort, hidden inside somewhere. But until we recognize that it's there, what can we do but splash around, treading water?
Benjamin Hoff
Do you know what a fate map is in biology? It’s a map of which cells in an embryo should develop into which specific adult tissues. But what they should develop into isn’t necessarily what they actually do develop into. They can be manipulated, or change on their own, and end up as something completely different from what they were fated for.
Maggie Hall
I don’t want any other girl.” He shook his head and took a step closer, cupping my face in his hands. “I belong with you and you belong with me.
Magan Vernon
The very secret of life for me, I believed, was to maintain in the midst of rushing events an inner tranquility.
Margaret Bourke-White
I can be happy or unhappy in all situations. I am sure of it, because I have been. I have felt distraught and joyful in situations of abundance as well as poverty, in situations of popularity and anonymity, in situations of success and failure. The difference was never based on the situation itself, but always on my state of mind and heart. When I knew I was walking with God, I always felt happy and at peace. When I was entangled in my own complaints and emotional needs, I always felt restless and divided.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.
Eleanor Roosevelt
...people don't think in chu
Robert Noyce
If Lincoln were alive today he'd be turning over in his grave.
Gerald R. Ford
Words are the fallen ruins of silent majesty.
Bryant McGill
World War II was the last government program that really worked.
George Will
As a general rule, you won't find the love of your life while you're on your knees under a table." -- Helios Dayspring
Belinda McBride
Speak with your heart when you speak love.
Debasish Mridha
Life teaches us the right path is rarely the easy one.
Roy T. Bennett
There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go....
Richard Bach
Dear Natasha,It's the middle of the night. I can't sleep. Thoughts are creeping through my head like darkness slips around the bodies of sky scrapers in every city we've ever been to. From the bottom up, suffocating the life on the street first and then raising to the head and the brain, circling into smog and clouds until the black stretches up so high that nobody can even remember what the stars used to look like.This is how I feel when I lie awake and think of you. I miss you.
Melodie Ramone
Does love survive? Yes, I thought, somewhere in some place it is saved and made sacred.
Christopher Pike
It is not good to have TOO MUCH of anything.
Andrew Clements
The guy you don't see will kill you.
Robin Olds
Your truth isn't everybody else's truth.
Miranda Kenneally
Let's always try to paint the truth ... our art must be made to mean something.
E.A. Bucchianeri
In theory, the idea of eternity in heaven singing God’s praises sounds really good, but when I realize I have to go through the death part to get there, I’m not quite so enamored with the idea.
Kim Hunt Harris
Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind.
Marston Bates
The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century.
Dan C. Quayle
Thus nature provides a system for proportioning the growth of plants that satisfies the three canons of architecture. All modules are isotropic and they are related to the whole structure of the plant through self-similar spirals proportioned by the golden mean.
Jay Kappraff
There is more to living than not dying.
James Carstairs Cassandra Clare
I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.
Mark Twain
Give me the discipline to get rid of the stuff that's not important, the freedom to savor the stuff that gives me joy, and the patience not to worry about the stuff that's messy but not hurting anybody.
Vinita Hampton Wright
His words were almost soundless. "I've gotten to a really dark place, Melly. The darkest place I've ever been.""You don't have to be there anymore," she told him gently. "Don't you know what happens at the darkest point of the day?"He stroked her soft lower lip with the ball of one thumb. "What?"She rubbed her fingers soothingly along his muscled forearms. "A beautiful, brand-new day begins, and it's all fresh and full of promise." She smiled into his gaze. "That's why magic in the fairy tales happens at midnight, you know. When you reach that point, you have the power to change everything.
Thea Harrison
I don't know which Bible stories ought to be treated as historically accurate, scientifically provable accounts of facts and which stories are meant to be metaphorical. I don't know if it really matters so long as those stories transform my life.
Rachel Held Evans
One learns by doing, not by learning to do.
Marty Rubin
The sensation I had experienced vanished like smoke from a snuffed candlem, leaving behind wisps of nameless longing.
Julianne Donaldson
Most photographers have some kind of verbal patter going on when they shoot: "Great. Turn to me. Big smile. Less shark eyes. Have fun with it. Not like that." Some photographers are compulsively effusive. "Beautiful. Amazing. Gorgeous! Ugh, so gorgeous!" they yell at shutter speed. If you are anything less than insane, you will realize this is not sincere. It's hard to take because it's more positive feedback than you've received in your entire life thrown at you in fifteen seconds. It would be like going jogging while someone rode next to you in a slow-moving car, yelling, "Yes! You are Carl Lewis! You're breaking a world record right now. Amazing! You are fast. You're going very fast, yes!
Tina Fey
Mindfulness is a quiet strength and deeply rooted value which many other cultures understand and often practice better than we do. It can be puzzling to people from other countries as to why Americans are so task-driven and action-oriented.
Susan C.Young
Crew up, Nailer!" Lucky Girl shouted. "You think I'm going to pull your ass up here like a damn swank?
Paolo Bacigalupi
The fourth gift is Compassion. May you be gentle with yourself and others. May you forgive those who hurt you and yourself when you make mistakes.
Charlene Costanzo
Democratic citizenship in an anxious world can be deeper, more informed citizenship. Without full spectrum of voices from partisan political elites, though, anxious citizens in search of protection from threats to their health and way of life may support charlatans or madman who offer bodily protection while destroying the body politic.
Bethany Albertson
It is the leader’s job to model and enforce the values and behaviors that make up the company culture. “Model” the behaviors is key. “Do as I say” only breeds contempt from others.
Beth Ramsay
Drama!" said Mr. Hitchens.Robin Shrugged. "That's what terrorism is, basically--pure theater. Nothing in particular is ever accomplished by it, other than to focus attention on a small group of people who seize absolute power by threatening everything that holds civilization together.""Absolute power," mused Mrs. Pollifax. "Like monstrous children thumbing their noses at adults who live by codes and laws and scru
Dorothy Gilman
Equal rights meant just that, rights for both blacks and women, with the association working for both at the same time. Women should not be told to "stand back and wait." [Frederick] Douglas said that women should be generous and allow the Negro to get his vote first. A young woman in the audience replied that she did not think it generous "to compel women to yield on all questions ... simply because they are women.
Miriam Gurko
That is one thing that in all my years among your folk I have never become accustomed to. The great importance that you attach to what gender one is.
Robin Hobb
The true essence of a dictatorship is in fact not its regularity but its unpredictability and caprice; those who live under it must never be able to relax, must never be quite sure if they have followed the rules correctly or not.
Christopher Hitchens
It’s for the best. But no matter how many times I repeat it, the strange, hollow feeling in my stomach doesn’t go away. And ridiculous as it is, I can’t shake the persistent, needling feeling that I’ve forgotten something, or missed something, or lost something forever.
Lauren Oliver
… the secret in handling fear is to move yourself from a position of pain to a position of power.
Susan Jeffers
Ed Welch says that all counseling is a variation on a single theme: knowing and praying for the counselee. Of all the questions the counselor might ask, then, the central guiding question in the counselor's mind is, "How can I pray for you?
James MacDonald
Pride has traditionally been regarded as the foremost of the Seven Deadly Sins, but it has rather obviously been overtaken by Greed.
James Carlos Blake
Sometimes God doesn't deny, he delays.
Shannon L. Alder
The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
Emily Dickinson
Torture?” she asked with a laugh. “My first piece of information I’ll divulge to you? I wouldn’t recommend trying to torture me. I dislike it and grow sulky under pincers.It’s a fault.
Kresley Cole
The Bible never speaks of God's grace as simply making up our deficiencies--as if salvation consists in so much good works (even a variable amount) plus so much of God's grace. Rather the Bible speaks of "a God who justifies the wicked" (Romans 4:5) who is found by those who do not seek Him, who reveals Himself to those who do not ask for Him (see Romans 10:20).
Jerry Bridges
Because I'm selfish. I'm a coward. I'm the kind of girl who, when she might actually be of use, would run to stay alive and leave those who couldn't follow to suffer and die.
Suzanne Collins
I’m the only one who gets to kiss that sexy mouth of yours....The only one who gets to taste between your legs. And I’m the only one who gets to bury himself inside you...and make you come.
Robin Bielman
To be a writer and political is a dangerous thing. To be a writer and apolitical is even more dangerous. Art is right, left; in truth, it has only one direction and that is forward.
Chris Campanioni
A pink razor is like a mouse, where ever it is the pussy will follow.
Helen Ellis
It seems to occur to few of the attendees [of a writing retreat] that if you have a feel you just can't describe, you might just be, I don't know, kind of like, my sense of it is, maybe in the wrong fucking class.
Stephen King