Quotes by American Authors - Page 1306

You had the courage to try and what you can do is often simply a matter of what you will do.
Norton Juster
Model the qualities that you want your children to show to each other.
Elizabeth George
The joy of the bee tribes infuses my life with sweetness.
Amy Leigh Mercree
Because sometimes the Church seems like those posed circus tableaus where the curtain lifts and men, white, zinc-oxide, talcum-powder statues, freeze to represent abstract Beauty. Very wonderful. But I hope there will always be room for me to dart about among the statues, don't you, Father Stone?
Ray Bradbury
We're not going to make it," I said.The words caught in my throat, choking me. What was it Leslie had said to me when we were discussing Shannon's and Antoinetta's disappearance? 'You're beginning to sound like one of the characters in your books, Adam.' She'd been right. If this were a novel my heroes would have arrived just in the nick of time and saved the day. But real life didn't work like that. Real life had no happy endings. Despite our best efforts, despite my love for Tara [his wife] and my determination to protect her, and after everything we'd been through at the LeHorn house, fate conspired against us. We were still nine or ten miles from home, and night was almost upon us. By the time we got there it would already be too late. I fought back tears. I had the urge just to lie down in the middle of the road and let the next car run over me.
Brian Keene
Thus the vocation of the baptized person is a simple thing: it is to live from day to day, whatever the day brings, in this extraordinary unity, in this reconciliation with all people and all things, in this knowledge that death has no more power, in this truth of the resurrection. It does not really matter exactly what a Christian does from day to day. What matters is that whatever one does is done in honor of one’s own life, given to one by God and restored to one in Christ, and in honor of the life into which all humans and all things are called.The only thing that really matters to live in Christ instead of death
William Stringfellow
Forgiving himself came easy to him. His, he'd come to realize, was a forgiving nature.
Lawrence Block
I think each family has a funhouse logic all its own, and in that distortion,in that delusion, all behavior can seem both perfectly normal and crazy.
Darin Strauss
He didn't want the respect of people who weren’t worth wiping his nose on—people who weren't worth the spatout gum attached to the bottom of his worn-out shoes. The only respect he wanted was from himself and the people who really mattered in his life. The people who really loved and cared about him.
Sherrilyn Kenyon
What we have in life that we can count on is who we are and where we come from, she thought absently. For better or worse, that is what we have to sustain us in our endevors, to buttress us in our darker moments, and to remind us of our identity. Without those things, we are adrift.
Terry Brooks
What we are reluctant to touch often seems the very fabric of our salvation.
Don DeLillo
Wasn't that the gift of a home? You looked at it the same way, but then when you needed it to, it showed you all over again the many ways you'd been during the time you had been living there. The many ways it brought you back to yourself. The many ways it still brought you back to yourself.
Laura Dave
By the grace of God we will never pluck unripe fruit. We will never press people to decision, because we'll lead them to damnation and not salvation.
Jonathan Edwards
We see a first generation going through adolescence knowing their every misstep, all the awkward gestures of their youth, are being frozen in a computer's memory.
Sherry Turkle
The thing is that it could never again feel natural to talk to her
John Green
Farid, you are keeping a hawk; don't expect her to lay eggs like a chicken.
Michael Gruber
And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers, she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, and bring forth a son, yea, even the Son of God. And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.' -Alma the Younger (Alme 7:10-12)
Joseph Smith Jr.
I got food poisoning today. I don't know when I'll use it.
Steven Wright
My body is my journal, and my tattoos are my story.
Johnny Depp
Bulldog grunted. And I knew the matter was settled. My pulse thrummed with excitement. I was going to marry Juliana Wessex.
Jody Hedlund
Be a person of character people can count on.
Amber Hurdle
Nothing comes unannounced, but many can miss the announcement. So it's very important to actually listen to your own intuition rather than driving through it.
Terence McKenna
We lay on our backs, looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when He made life so sad. We made vague plans to meet in Frisco.
Jack Kerouac
Both as workers and as consumers, we feel we move in channels that have been projected from afar by vast impersonal forces. We worry that we are becoming stupider, an begin to wonder if getting an adequate grasp on the world, intellectually, depends on getting a handle on it in some literal and active sense.
Matthew B. Crawford
The real reason why so few men believe in God is that they have ceased to believe that even a God can love them.
Thomas Merton
My best advice is to first write for yourself and stay in your story and just pour all of your good stuff and bad stuff into it. By 'stuff,' I mean all the experiences and pleasures and little hurts that make up a life. Because even (and especially) the really hard experiences are worth having, if you can channel those emotions into something beautiful.
Jenny Han
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it
Elmore Leonard
Human relationships are rich and they're messy and they're demanding. And we clean them up with technology. Texting, email, posting, all of these things let us present the self as we want to be. We get to edit, and that means we get to delete, and that means we get to retouch, the face, the voice, the flesh, the body -- not too little, not too much, just right.
Sherry Turkle
There is an hour, a minute - you will remember it forever - when you know instinctively on the basis of the most inconsequential evidence, that something is wrong. You don't know - can't know - that it is the first of a series of "wrongful" events that will culminate in the utter devastation of your life as you have known it.
Joyce Carol Oates
Another part of the Puritan legacy is the belief that no one should have joy or abundance until everyone does, a belief that austere at one end, in the deprivation it endorses, and fantastical in the other, since it awaits a universal utopia. Joy sneaks in anyway, abundance cascades forth uninvited...Joy doesn't betray but sustains activism. And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated, and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.
Rebecca Solnit
Oh, never and forever aren't for mortals, love. But we won't be parted till I know it's right that we part.
Ursula K Le Guin
The walls around the hood keep the people on the inside from the changes on the outside.
Darnell Lamont Walker
All you can try to do is be better than you were yesterday, everyday.
Marcus Harrison Green
A novel is a tricky thing to map.
Reif Larsen
The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes which may greatly afflict us; and, to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes should be one of the principal studies and endeavors of our lives. The only method of doing this is to assume a perfect resignation to the Divine will, to consider that whatever does happen, must happen; and that, by our uneasiness, we cannot prevent the blow before it does fall, but we may add to its force after it has fallen. These considerations, and others such as these, may enable us in some measure to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way; to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under the burden of life; and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation, till we arrive at our journey's end.
Thomas Jefferson
It was a musty sweet smell. "Is this plague city?
Thaddeus Nowak
Suppose whatever we can recognize we can find. We can if P=NP.
Lance Fortnow
We live today amid ritualized anithumanisms. Among those intelligent enough to feel despair, some seek salvation in the literary artist. Artists love flattery; and the scam doesn't work without mystifying the process.The weather is unpredictable, but it is not mysterious.Wall Street is unpredictable, but it is not mysterious. Writing is unpredictable, (like street and sky, there are too many variables.) Its mystery vanishes, like a shadow, the moment the light aimed at your characters turns back upon yourself.
Doran Larson
Mysteries precede humankind, envelop us and draw us forward into exploration and wonder. Secrets are the work of humankind, a covert and often insidious way to gather, withhold or impose power. Do not confuse the pursuit of one with the manipulation of the other.
Mark Frost
Methodological naturalism is a “ground rule” of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify
Robert T. Pennock
A word to the unwise.Torch every book.Char every page.Burn every word to ash.Ideas are incombustible.And therein lies your real fear.
Ellen Hopkins
To be different is a lonely thing, and she has been lonely for such a long time. What she does frightens people, and she thinks, “Why shouldn't they be frightened? It's not normal: no one else does what I can do.
Helen Bell
You're not supposed to laugh at your own father. Ever.
Jeannette Walls
When I was a child, I first thought that these shades might be malevolent spirits who fostered evil in those people around whom they swarmed. I've since discovered that many human beings need no supernatural mentoring to commit acts of savagery; some people are devils in their own right, their telltale horns having grown inward to facilitate their disguise.
Dean Koontz
The need to document my insanity is an affliction I have not yet cured myself of...
Lydia Lunch
All great beginnings start in the dark, when the moon greets you to a new day at midnight.
Shannon L. Alder
Always remember, wherever you are, whether near or far, you had a mother who really, really loved you. The original mother. Once you've found your true inner guru you can never again be divided. Perfect union with the divine, through the grace of your real teacher, transcends time, space, death and all worldly limitations. Your real teacher is the original mother - regardless in which manifest or non-manifest form, or gender, she appears. The one who nurtures you and the one who also, out of wisdom and compassion, corrects you if you are misguided.
Zeena Schreck
Have you asked yourself why you protect me? Are you as messed up about all this as me?
Zoe Forward
A life filled with challenge will never be boring.
Laurel McHargue
She’s a serial kisser. I think her parents are French.
C.C. Hunter
Place your allegiance and respect in what is everlasting and real, not in the transitory and false.
Bryant McGill
Maybe everyone is just waiting for someone else to save them.
Margaret Peterson Haddix
The calm within the storm is where peace lives and breathes. It is not within perfect circumstances or a charmed life... it is not conditional. Peace is a sacred space within, it is the temple of our internal landscape. We are free to visit it, whenever we seek sanctuary. Underneath the chaos of everyday living, peace is patiently awaiting our discovery... go within.
Jaeda DeWalt
A positive attitude is most easily arrived at through a deliberate and rational analysis of what’s required to manifest unwavering positive thought patterns. First, reflect on the actual, present condition of your mind. In other words, is the mind positive or not? We’ve all met individuals who perceive themselves as positive people but don’t appear as such. Since the mind is both invisible and intangible, it’s therefore easier to see the accurate characteristics of the mind through a person’s words, deeds, and posture.For example, if we say, “It’s absolutely freezing today! I’ll probably catch a cold before the end of the day!” then our words expose a negative attitude. But if we say, “The temperature is very cold” (a simple statement of fact), then our expressions, and therefore attitude, are not negative. Sustaining an alert state in which self-awareness becomes possible gives us a chance to discover the origins of negativity. In doing so, we also have an opportunity to arrive at a state of positiveness, so that our words and deeds are also positive, making others feel comfortable, cheerful, and inspired.
H.E. Davey
Deliver more than you promise.
Patricia Ryan Madson
Faith is the key to spiritual growth and requires a deep and personal connection with God. He wants to be the head of our hearts, king of our souls, and guide to our spirit. By allowing Him free reign in these areas we create an opportunity for lasting intimacy with the Creator. From intimacy comes confidence – in Him and in us.
Kristen Clark
One would think that by the second decade of the twenty-first century, the intellectual poverty of technocracy and the primacy of politics over it would be a well-established truth in need of no further defense.
Evgeny Morozov
She could never be part of so much of his turbulent history, his youthful adventure, where life had been deeply felt.
Jane Hamilton
I learned to smile, avoiding happiness advice.
Brian Spellman
I'm not much of a believer in the so-called character story; I think that in the end, the story should always be the boss.
Stephen King