Quotes by American Authors - Page 1230

He alone has lost the art to live who cannot win new friends.
S. Weir Mitchell
The Lord commands us to learn and discover all we can in this life. There's nothing wrong with wanting to know the mysteries of outer space or the latent powers of the mind. The problem comes when we desire to use that knowledge for our own gratification, rather than to build the kingdom of God... It's an unwise habit to use knowledge to further personal ends. Truth should never be used as a means to make us prisoners. It was meant to make us free.
Chris Heimerdinger
The children almost broken by the world become the adults most likely to change it.
Frank Warren
I've learned that we're all entitled to have our secrets.
Nicholas Sparks
I have seldom met an individual of literary tastes or propensities in whom the writing of love was not directly attributable to the love of writing.A person of this sort falls terribly in love, but in the end it turns out that he is more bemused by a sheet of white paper than a sheet of white bed linen. He would rather leap into print with his lady than leap into bed with her. (This first pleases the lady and then annoys her. She wants him to do both, and with virtually the same impulse.)
E B White
Give me your wrists, Alayna. I sense your impatience, and I know exactly where you intend for those hands to go.
Scarlet Wolfe
Fate had kept me alive just to get to this point, just to see if I had been listening.
Sarah J Maas
The love between friends could create life.
Betsy Cornwell
Discipling our children is not about teaching them to behave in a way that won’t embarrass us. We’re working toward something much more important than that. We’re actually raising our children with a view toward leading them to trust and to follow Christ.
Voddie T. Baucham Jr.
fuckshe pulled her dress offover her headand I saw the pantiesindented somewhat into thecrotch.it's only human.now we've got to do it.I've got to do itafter all that bluff.it's like a party--two trappedidiots.under the sheetsafter I have snappedoff the lighther panties are stillon. she expects anopening performance.I can't blame her. butwonder why she's here withme? where are the otherguys? how can you belucky? having someone theothers have abandoned?we didn't have to do ityet we had to do it.it was something likeestablishing new credibilitywith the income taxman. I get the pantiesoff. I decide not to tongue her. even thenI'm thinking aboutafter it's over.we'll sleep togethertonighttrying to fit ourselvesinside the wallpaper.I try, fail,notice the hair on herheadmostly notice the hairon herheadand a glimpse ofnostrilspiglikeI try it again.
Charles Bukowski
I am quite scandalous, you see. I come packaged with unpredictable moments, brutal honesty, calamitous outbursts, the ghastly need for love, a fiendish lack of filter, the horrific need to question everything, nauseating affection, offensive kindness, indecent spirituality, obscene beauty, monstrous creativity, barbaric embellishments, contemptuous passion, sinful childhood traumas, unscrupulous hobbies, vexatious caring, abominable sensitivity, reprehensible humor, hideous sarcasm, displeasing feelings, unpalatable confidence, offensive compassion, villainous inspiration and a devilish wit. I am quite grotesque in my imperfectness and I am not ashamed to admit it.
Shannon L. Alder
I think Heaven will be like a first kiss.
Sarah Addison Allen
...Americans didn’t stick to cities, which makes us different from the people in other industrialized countries. We no sooner arrived in town, turning those towns into great mid-century metropolises, than we decided to take off for the green world beyond, so that by the 1970 Census, we had become the first suburban nation in the history of the world. And Detroit led the way, with a population curve up and down just like everywhere else, but with its urban decline a lot steeper over the past sixty years—so typical a place that it only looks like an exception.
Jerry Herron
Every peak and valley of your life has led you to deeper understanding and, ultimately, growing compassion.
Amy Leigh Mercree
Don't beg for approval or expect respect. Respect comes from within and your choice to allow people to take it from you, by how you teach them to treat you.
Shannon L. Alder
People who think nothing can go wrong are usually disappointed.
Lemony Snicket
I had so much respect for the fact that Father Andrew saw his own sins in my actions. I wished all adults were like Father Andrew.
Jenny McCarthy
What's the face of a coward? The back of his head as he runs from the battle
Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey)
Love is hateWar is PeaceNo is YesAnd we're all free.
Tracy Chapman
When we do things with love, we gain the knowledge and wisdom and do it better.
Debasish Mridha
Which means every tomorrow is going to be worse than every today. Why feel sorry for myself today when tomorrow's bound to be worse?
Susan Beth Pfeffer
People buy into leaders through the 3R's of Leadership: Relationship, Reason, and Results.
Orrin Woodward
To be or not to be: that is the question. That's from Hamlet's - maybe Shakespeare's - most famous soliloquy. I had to memorize the whole speech for sophomore English, and I can still remember every word. I didn't give it much thought back then. I just wanted to get all the words right and collect my A.
Gayle Forman
Champions are built on a thousand invisible mornings.
Kirk Cousins
A woman reading Playboy feels a little like a Jew reading a Nazi manual.
Gloria Steinem
My mother was strong, in all the ways I was weak. She fell, she hurt, she felt. She lived. And for all the tumble of her experiences, she still had hope. Maybe this next time would do the trick. Or maybe not. But unless you stepped into the game, you will never know.
Sarah Dessen
The woods were made for the hunter of dreams The brooks for the fishes of song.
Sam Walter Foss
We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes—one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximum freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way.
Stephen Jay Gould
Too often our lives are soiled to desperation by endings that in reality are magnificently outnumbered by beginnings. And unless we become convinced that an ending is always the birthplace of a beginning that is on its way, we will live terribly soiled lives.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Kids: they dance before they learn there is anything that isn't music
William Stafford
I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate — it’s apathy. It’s not giving a damn.
Leo Buscaglia
You're murderers," she told the stunned crowd. "You killed him. He was a miracle, and you killed him. Now you've just got me. And I'm a curse.
J.L. Bryan
He would have been careful not to violate his conscience in any way that might keep him from devoting his full attention to the sin he had decided to commit. Pedro was not really very different from all men, at least in that. Not very different from the bank teller who makes sure to give every customer exact change, even while he is embezzling.
Warren Eyster
We know Existence, because we are existence. We know Truth, because we are truth.We know Life, because we are life itself.The mind cannot remember this, because it is an experience far removed from it. The mind is an observer, not a knower. It can remember, but it cannot become what it remembers.The mind is a false witness to truth, life, and existence.
Robert S. Cosmar
With hardly any effort at all, she made me feel special. Just like all the other people she toyed with.
Neal Shusterman
Goodbyes are on of the hardest things about life. One way or another people were always leaving... Always moving on.
Karen Kingsbury
Spend one more day in pursuit of art that only you can produce, and somewhere, someone is envying your courage to do just that.
Teresa R. Funke
The Scripture makes it clear that this planet would already be a literal hell on earth were it not for the presence of the Holy Spirit in the world.
Billy Graham
DJ, are you awake? Freaking elf. “Go home, Rand.” I am home. Where are you? I frowned and burrowed my face into the soft down pillow. Which wasn’t my pillow. Holy crap. What had happened? I sat up and took in several observations at once, none of which made sense and all of which sent my heart rate jack-rabbiting hard enough to send my blood pressure into the ozone. First, I was lying beneath a heavy bedspread woven in a rich blue-and-cream print. The bed was an elaborate confection made to look like an antique half-tester, and a brass chandelier hung overhead. I recognized the Hotel Monteleone. I recognized Jean Lafitte’s bedroom in the posh Eudora Welty Suite in the Monteleone. I didn’t have a clue as to how I got here. Second, I wore only underwear. My clothes were thrown across a chair in the corner. I had no recollection of removing them. Third, the pillow next to mine still held the clear indentation of a head, and there was water running behind the closed bathroom door. What in God’s name had I done? Rand! Where are you? So help me, if that elf was behind this, I’d splay him open like a catfish and watch his guts fall on the floor. Then I’d batter and deep-fry him. God, Dru. Stop shrieking like an elven shrew. I think you got too cold and went into a survival state.
Suzanne Johnson
The dance that I wasn't going to attend in about a jillion years just turned into a make-out session with random boys we have never met.
Adriana Trigiani
...I would be the last person to say that madness is not a solution.
James Thurber
Let's have some precision in language here: terrorism means deadly violence -- for a political and/or economical purpose -- carried out against people and other living things, and is usually conducted by governments against their own citizens (as at Kent State, or in Vietnam, or in Poland, or in most of Latin America right now), or by corporate entities such as J. Paul Getty, Exxon, Mobil Oil, etc etc., against the land and all creatures that depend upon the land for life and livelihood. A bulldozer ripping up a hillside to strip mine for coal is committing terrorism; the damnation of a flowing river followed by the drowning of Cherokee graves, of forest and farmland, is an act of terrorism.Sabotage, on the other hand, means the use of force against inanimate property, such as machinery, which is being used (e.g.) to deprive human beings of their rightful work (as in the case of Ned Ludd and his mates); sabotage (le sabot dropped in a spinning jenny) -- for whatever purpose -- has never meant and has never implied the use of violence against living creatures.
Edward Abbey
Are You Ready for New Urban Fragrances?Yeah, I guess I'm ready, but listen:Perfume is a disguise. Since the middle ages, we have worn masks of fruit and flowers in order to conceal from ourselves the meaty essence of our humanity. We appreciate the sexual attractant of the rose, the ripeness of the orange, more than we honor our own ripe carnality.Now today we want to perfume our cities, as well; to replace their stinging fumes of disturbed fossils' sleep with the scent of gardens and orchards. Yet, humans are not bees any more than they are blossoms. If we must pull an olfactory hood over our urban environment, let it be of a different nature.I want to travel on a train that smells like snowflakes.I want to sip in cafes that smell like comets.Under the pressure of my step, I want the streets to emit the precise odor of a diamond necklace.I want the newspapers I read to smell like the violins left in pawnshops by weeping hobos on Christmas Eve.I want to carry luggage that reeks of the neurons in Einstein's brain.I want a city's gases to smell like the golden belly hairs of the gods.And when I gaze at a televised picture of the moon, I want to detect, from a distance of 239,000 miles, the aroma of fresh mozzarella.
Tom Robbins
The green thumb is equable in the face of nature's uncertainties; he moves among her mysteries without feeling the need for control or explanations or once-and-for-all solutions. To garden well is to be happy amid the babble of the objective world, untroubled by its refusal to be reduced by our ideas of it, its indomitable rankness.
Michael Pollan
We’re all looking for a bit of recognition, even if it’s the unconscious and hypocritical need for attention over the fact that we’re not publically seeking out attention.
Abby Rosmarin
People are naturally hardworking but will stop working hard at anything if they learn from experience that their effort makes no difference.
Deborah Stone
American journalism (like the journalism of any other country) is predominantly paltry and worthless. Its pretensions are enormous, but its achievements are insignificant.
H.L. Mencken
Love is that micro-moment of warmth and connection that you share with another living being
Barbara L. Fredrickson
Shocking, sad, revealing, and deeply researched, this true account of the life and crimes of serial killer Aileen Wuornos will fascinate true-crime fans.
John E. Douglas
An example is the best inspiration for a young mind.
Debasish Mridha
Transparent tubes divided Phil’s blood into shades of red, fading to straw colored plasma. I watched his fluid swirl past his shoulders and disappear into machines. He offered himself to blood banks all over the city, his plasma rushed to hospitals where it would circulate through other people’s bodies. The map of my love’s tapped arteries would look like a bloodshot eye over the city of Albuquerque. His blood bought us dinner. I dreamed he was my mother, and I nursed his arm. I wrote a poem about it, how I suckled his arm dry like a sore teat.
Jalina Mhyana
She needed Andrew Simpson Smith, it was that simple. And he had spent his life training to help people like her. Gods. "Okay, Andrew. But let's leave today. I'm in a hurry.""Of course. Today." He stroked the place where his slight beard was beginning to grow. "These ruins where your friends are waiting? Where are they?"Tally glances up at the sun, still low enough to indicate the eastern horizon. After a moment's calculation, she pointed off to the northwest, back toward the city and beyond that, the Rusty Ruins. "About a week's walk that way." "A week?""That means seven days.""Yes, I know the gods' calendar," he said huffily. "But a whole week?""Yeah. That's not so far, is it?" The hunters had been tireless on their march the night before. He shook his head, an awed expression on his face. "But that is beyond the edge of the world.
Scott Westerfeld
When I was in Piazza di Spagna, in Rome, I watched (along with others) how many locals came to drink water from the fountain there. The people beside me said to each other "Oh my goodness, how disgusting, people just drink water from anywhere," while the whole time, I was thinking "Oh my goodness, how wonderful, people can drink water from anywhere." We can be in the exact same place, looking at the exact same thing, but see that thing in a completely different way. You can go around the world, and go to all the beautiful places, but never be happy, because happiness is something that you bring inside of you, it is not where you are or what you are looking at, but it is how you are and how you look at.
C. JoyBell C.
Many people will never read a Bible, but they will read you.
Ricky Maye
Men and the pursuit of them are strongly intertwined with my mental health. I would say, in my defensive defense, that the problem with being a serial monogamist is, there isn't anybody random or unimportant: everybody you sleep with really means something, which is to say each of them is on your public record. At some point I wake up thinking, Fuck this! I don't want another man in my bed ever again. What I really want is a cat.
Emma Forrest
You must remember, my dear lady, the most important rule of any successful illusion: First, the people must want to believe in it.
Libba Bray
Snowflakes swirl down gently in the deep blue haze beyond the window. The outside world is a dream.Inside, the fireplace is brightly lit, and the Yule log crackles with orange and crimson sparks.There’s a steaming mug in your hands, warming your fingers.There’s a friend seated across from you in the cozy chair, warming your heart.There is mystery unfolding.
Vera Nazarian
I believe the best service to the child is the service closest to the child, and children who are victims of neglect, abuse, or abandonment must not also be victims of bureaucracy. They deserve our devoted attention, not our divided attention.
Kenny Guinn
Please,” I gasped out.He just brushed his lips against my jaw, my neck, my mouth.“Tamlin,” I begged. He palmed my breast, his thumb flicking over my nipple. I cried out, and he buried himself in me with a mighty stroke.For a moment, I was nothing, no one.Then we were fused, two hearts beating as one, and I promised myself it always would be that way as he pulled out a few inches, the muscles of his back flexing beneath my hands, and then slammed back into me. Again and again.I broke and broke against him as he moved, as he murmured my name and told me he loved me. And when that lightning once more filled my veins, my head, when I gasped out his name, his own release found him. I gripped him through each shuddering wave, savoring the weight of him, the feel of his skin, his strength.For a while, only the rasp of our breathing filled the room.I frowned as he withdrew at last—but he didn’t go far. He stretched out on his side, head propped on a fist, and traced idle circles on my stomach, along my breasts.
Sarah J Maas
He set his whisky tumbler on the table, but kept his fingers around it. "What do you see in my eyes?"..."Tell me, lass," he urged softly.She suddenly understood the term 'old soul,' because one sat before her now. And, as if opening a book, she caught a glimpse of Asher. The words then tumbled out of her mouth. "Endlessness. Sorrow. Agony. Distress. Rage.
Donna Grant