Quotes by American Authors - Page 1277

The critical issues here concern what is right, what is just -- not the balancing of benefits.
Carl Cohen
The real winners in life are the people who look at every situation with an expectation that they can make it work ot make it better.
Barbra Pletcher
Mr. Freeman: You are getting better at this, but it's not good enough. This looks like a tree,but it is an average, ordinary, everyday, boring tree. Breathe life into it. Make it bend - trees are flexible, so they don't snap. Scar it, give it a twisted branch - perfect trees don't exist. Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.
Laurie Halse Anderson
I lead Paco through the house. We pass Shelley in the family room looking at some magazine. "Shelley, this is Paco. He's Alex's friend. Paco, this is my sister, Shelley."At the mention of Alex's name, Shelley gives a happy squeal."Hey, Shelley," Paco says.Shelley smiles wide."Shell-bell, I need you to do me a favor." Shelley bobs her head in response as I whisper, "I need you to keep Mom occupied while I talk to Paco."Shelley grins, and I know my sister will come through for me.
Simone Elkeles
119When you bring together the national security state and the military-industrial complex, when you bring together the prison-industrial complex and all the profits that flow from it, when you bring together the corporate media multiplex that don’t want to allow for serious dialogue... and then, when you bring together the Wall Street oligarchs and the corporate plutocrats, and they tell any person or any group, 'If you speak the truth, we’ll shoot you down like a dog and dehumanize you the way we did to dehumanize the brothers in Attica,' the only thing that will keep you going is you better have some love in your heart for the people.
Cornel West
That is my rule of life. If fate means you to lose, give him a good fight anyhow. Do you remember Henley's magnificent lines? 'Under the bludgeonings of chanceMy head is bloody, but unbowed.' ? That is my gospel. What do you think of it?
William McFee
may I be I is the only prayer
E.E. Cummings
Aren’t you at all curious about your past?” Rhys asked.“No, my present is who I am. Your identity is whoever you choose to be, not who your parents were.”“But as a scientist you know that prior events influence it, and the future.”“In physics, yes. In people, no.
Jeffrey Perren
I could not but wonder at the queen's unprecedented civility, until I realized with a flush of shame that it was my own improved behavior that motivated hers. So it is that we in life determine our own treatment.
Catherine Gilbert Murdock
How bittersweet is it to realize that we are the creators of our realities and that we have allowed others to do the creating for us for so many years? So much time wasted…so much guilt, regret and bitterness. It can be easier to numb that pain than face it. Yet once we face our pain and take responsibility, we gain the freedom to move forward and unleash our Divine Potential. We also gain the freedom to move forward and respond to life with Divinity; thus, we alter the very fabric of the collective realities experienced on our planet.
Alaric Hutchinson
1. Do what you say you're gonna do 2. Show up! 3. Give genuine praise whenever you can 4. Never say sorry when you don't mean it 5. Never use sarcasm in email (and use the corny ass emoticons)
Matthew Lasar
Somewhere along the way we all go a bit mad. So burn, let go and dive into the horror, because maybe it’s the chaos which helps us find where we belong.
Robert M. Drake
It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry.
Albert Einstein
It takes a pillage.
Nomi Prins
Your reality is not my reality.
Edward Averett
I've been playing the game of life for over 52 years now and I don't feel one day younger or older than I am. Maybe its I just don't feel
Stanley Victor Paskavich
Happy people can look back and say they chose their life, not settled for it.
Shannon L. Alder
If the will remains in protest it stays dependent on that which it is protesting against.
Rollo May
Far from being Eurocentric, my analysis "exoticizes" Europe. Europe is historically aberrant. In some ways this was a historical accident, not entirely Europe's fault. But, in any case, it is nothing about which Europe should boast. Perhaps Europe and the world will one day be cured of this terrible malady with which Europe (and through Europe the world) has been afflicted.
Immanuel Wallerstein
Basch: So why don't you ask her out?The Runt: I'm scared she wouldn't like me and say no.-So what? What have you got to lose?-The possibility -if she says no- that she might have said yes. Whatever I do, I don't want to lose that possibility.
Samuel Shem
The way you treat me babyCheat and tell me liesI guess I shouldn't care at allBut still I sympathize'cause you got heart troubleComing onYeah you got heart trouble coming onWell you think that you don't need me babyBut you're gonna miss me when I'm gone
Martina Mcbride
To be honest, my life has exhibited many strange and sometimes troubling characteristics, but shortness is not one of them. It feels like an eternity since I started school and a techno-social epoch since I moved to San Francisco. My phone couldn't even connect to the internet back then.
Robin Sloan
Education is the means to end, not the end itself. Education should not become another status quo, or silo, or the end.
Pearl Zhu
I’d rather have a cup of coffee and a cigarette than live in all that honesty.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
I miss everything about youCan't believe that I still want youAnd after all the things we've been through
Colbie Caillat
John Hay calls the telegraph reporter, "the natural enemy of the scribe.
Harold Holzer
Excuses are great, they come in handy in life. Except when they come between a relationship.
lauren gould
He danced with the sky instead, and the sky dropped him like a rotten plum.
Laini Taylor
What if we promoted, like, Adidas shoes?’ Percy wondered. ‘Would that make Nike mad enough to show up?" Leo smiled nervously. Maybe he and Percy did share something else – a stupid sense of humour. "Yeah, I bet that would totally be against her sponsorship deal. THOSE ARE NOT THE OFFICIAL SHOES OF THE OLYMPICS! YOU WILL DIE NOW!
Rick Riordan
Before we invented civilization our ancestors lived mainly in the open out under the sky. Before we devised artificial lights and atmospheric pollution and modern forms of nocturnal entertainment we watched the stars. There were practical calendar reasons of course but there was more to it than that. Even today the most jaded city dweller can be unexpectedly moved upon encountering a clear night sky studded with thousands of twinkling stars. When it happens to me after all these years it still takes my breath away.
Carl Sagan
All evil seems to arise from the desire to dominate others. Most men in our society are taught from a very early age to try to dominate. It isn’t something that they think about consciously. It operates at a subconscious level. They are taught by the adults around them and their peers. Someone dominates them and they in turn try to dominate others. They do it without even realizing it and they do it without even thinking about why. It is without question. In their conscious awareness they may aspire to grandiose ideals but their actions speak for what really motivates them from a subconscious level.
Mark Alberto Yoder Nunez
What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
God is closer than you think. In your heart, is his truth and light.
Suzy Kassem
When using the Law of Attraction to manifest one’s more desired reality, it is not simply enough to shift one’s conscious thoughts – for it is actually our beliefs that ‘attract’ the reality. Our thoughts are of our Conscious Mind, while our beliefs rest within our Subconscious Mind. The Conscious Mind acts as the objective observer and receiver of information, while the Subconscious Mind acts as storage and the subjective projector of reality. Projector meaning that the Subconscious Mind projects out, or creates, the perceived reality we see by 1) attracting the vibrational matching experiences in alignment with our beliefs, and 2) coloring the film (information) received through the Conscious Mind in accordance with our belief systems (perception). How we see reality is strongly hued by the beliefs imbedded within us.Thus: shift a belief – shift reality.For example: We are treated exactly the way we expect to be treated by the world and its people.Call to Action: Adopt beliefs that are empowering, heart-connecting, and full of gratitude and peace.
Alaric Hutchinson
Adapt to your surrounding but remain flexible for growing.
Ashley Porter
It's not reasonable to love people who are only going to die.
Kristin Cashore
Love is the action verb of life, and of the heart.
Chris Vonada
Her dreamy countenance infuriated me more than her words. I had seen that expression directed at me once upon a time.
David Z. Hirsch
How can you live without everything touching you?
Lauren Bird Horowitz
They were all gone now, broken or taken by people who had no idea what such items represented. Let them go. She held the past in her heart, with no need of physical items to tie it down.
Robin Hobb
When we see love as the will to nurture one's own or another's spiritual growth, revealed through acts of care, respect, knowing, and assuming responsibility, the foundation of all love in our life is the same. There is no special love exclusively reserved for romantic partners. Genuine love is the foundation of our engagement with ourselves, with family, with friends, with partners, with everyone we choose to love.
Bell Hooks
Sobs force their way out of my throat. I feel like I’m trapped in a disaster movie where everything is shriveling into darkness and ash. Sunflowers are being uprooted. Puppies are being trampled. Whole cities are crumbling to dust.
Paula Stokes
It is very difficult to evolve by altering the deep fabric of life; any change there is likely to be lethal. But fundamental change can be accomplished by the addition of new systems on top of old ones…Thus evolution by addition and the functional preservation of the preexisting structure must occur for one of two reasons-either the old function is required as well as the new one, or there is no way of bypassing the old system that is consistent with survival.
Carl Sagan
Planted, a single corn seed yielded more than 150 fat kernels, often as many as 300, while the return on a seed of wheat was something less than 50:1
Michael Pollan
History is nothing if not far-fetched.
Albert O. Hirschman
Be open minded to the empowering nature of being alone.
Dee Waldeck
I'm going to treat myself to one of these as a reward for not knocking himself unconscious with a skillet.
Nora Roberts
No one wants to die with vacation time on the books.
Andrea Goeglein
Heresy is the eternal dawn, the morning star, the glittering herald of the day. Heresy is the last and best thought. It is the perpetual New World, the unknown sea, toward which the brave all sail. It is the eternal horizon of progress.Heresy extends the hospitalities of the brain to a new thought.Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy, a coffin.
Robert G. Ingersoll
He'll be down with the books. My old septon used to say books are dead men talking. Dead men should keep quiet is what I say. No one wants to hear a dead man's yabber.
George R.R. Martin
As filthy as any night was, a New York City morning is always clean. The eyes get washed.Flowers in white deli buckets are replenished. The population bathes, in marble mausoleums of Upper East Side showers, or in Greenwich Village tubs, or in the sink of a Chinatown one-bedroom crammed with fifteen people. Some bar opens and the first song on the jukebox is Johnny Thunders, while bums pick up cigarette butts to see what’s left to smoke. The smell of espresso and hot croissants. The weather vane squeaks in the sun. Pigeons are reborn out of the mouths of blue windows.
Jardine Libaire
Your expertise can elevate your impressions to bring you to an entirely new realm.
Susan C.Young
I am the child of a lunatic. Not a child of God.
Chuck Palahniuk
The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.
Steven Furtick
Fight for the only thing she knew was good enough, noble enough, powerful enough to be worth risking everything... Love.
Lauren Kate
Today's public education system is a failed monopoly: bureaucratic rigid and in unsteady control of dissatisfied captive markets.
David T. Kearns
Loyalty, while it can be admirable is also conditional. Dependent on forces inside and out, on perceptions, on likes and dislikes. It can be misguided and flawed, even dumb depending on circumstance.Integrity, however, has no conditions. It cannot be earned. It is not based on circumstance, but on inherent strength, belief and purpose. To be called loyal isn't necessarily a compliment. Hitler's henchman were loyal. To be recognized for integrity is a true honor.
Red Haircrow
Belief compelled through fear is not belief, it is blind and forced obedience.
Carlton D. Pearson
If you'd told me even a year before...that I'd wind up whispering my sins in the confessional or on my knees saying the rosary, I would've laughed myself cockeyed. More likely pastime?Pole dancer. International spy. Drug mule. Assassin.I drive under a sky black as graphite to meet my new spiritual director...a bulky Franciscan nun named Sister Margaret, patiently going blind behind fish-tank glasses that magnify her eyes like goggles.
Mary Karr
I´ve given you my time. Its all I´ve got to give - its all any man has. And for a pitiful buck and a quarter an hour.
Charles Bukowski