Quotes by American Authors - Page 1347

Lonely people tend, rather, to be lonely because they decline to bear the psychic costs of being around other humans. They are allergic to people. People affect them too strongly.
David Foster Wallace
I have finally reverted the publishing rights for my Cocoon Trilogy back to me and, for the first time, e-published the final book - Butterfly: Tomorrow's Children. Cocoon, the movie and the book, was only the beginning.
David Saperstein
The closer and more confidential our relationship with someone, the less we are entitled to ask about what we are not voluntarily told.
Louis Kronenberger
Don't exercise your freedom of speech until you have exercised your freedom of thought.
Tim Fargo
In your dream you call for Chaplain Charlie. You met the Navy chaplain when you interviewed him for a feature article you were writing. Chaplain Charlie was an amateur magician. With his magic, Chaplain Charlie entertained Marines in sick bays and distributed spiritual tourniquets to men who were still alive, but weaponless. To brutal, godless children Chaplain Charlie spoke about how God is merciful, despite appearances, about how the Ten Commandments lack detail because when you're writing on stone tablets with lightning bolts you've got to be brief, about how the Free World will conquer Communism with aid of God and a few Marines, and about free fish. One day a Vietnamese child booby-trapped Chaplain Charlie's black bag of tricks. Chaplain Charlie reached in and pulled out a bright ball of death...
Gustav Hasford
Oh, crap.The last person she wanted to run into this morning when she had to be super-professional was Hot Pool Guy. Before she had a chance to hide behind a plant or something, his gaze connected with hers and held her hostage.He flashed a smile and headed her way. Shit. She got to her feet thinking she'd say a quick hello before telling him she was meeting someone and excuse herself. Look away from those amazing dark eyes before you get yourself in trouble. She forced her attention down.And found a logo on the breast pocket of his white polo shirt.Word.Heritage.Fund.Kill her now.
Robin Bielman
His mama beat him with an ugly stick so hard, it gone straight on till his soul.
Delia Sherman
I wouldn’t be a good wife, but I would be a wife in a way that was cinematically compelling.
Gabby Bess
For some stupid reason, I had this irrational need to prove to Cooper that I could inspect dead bodies over black coffee and maple bars just like him and the other guys on the police force.(Violet Parker)
Ann Charles
To touch the soul of another human being is to walk on holy ground.
Stephen R. Covey
There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can’t know better until knowing better is useless.
John Green
The spiritual energy of our time, as I've come to understand it, is not a rejection of the rational disciplines by which we've ordered our common life for many decades - law, politics, economics, science. It is, rather, a realization that these disciplines have a limited scope. They can't ask ultimate questions...they don't begin to tell us how to order our astonishments, what matters in life, what matters in a death, how to love, how we can be of service to each other. These are the kinds of questions religion arose to address and religions traditions are keepers of conversation across generations about them.
Krista Tippett
Yeah, sure,” I scoffed. “You’re the picture of respectability and moral character…You expect me to believe you were your parents’ worst nightmare? What was your criminal act of choice—drunken bar fights? Or maybe grand theft auto? Don’t tell me you sold the crown jewels to buy drugs…It’s so disappointingly cliché.
M.A. George
Transcendence and transformation of consciousness will create a new reality for humanity—not our economic success.
Debasish Mridha
Between the new, happy him, and the old, depressing him, there stood in the way only his lack of imagination.
Vann Chow
Always refer to those of the female gender as ladies.The descriptive woman is usually reserved in Dixie for females of questionable respect.
Ann Barrett Batson
An empty bottle of Jack is almost just as beautiful as a new and unopened bottle...in the same sense as looking down at muddied feet, and looking back the way you came. The journey you've taken to get to this point, the experiences and sights and music listened to, the shit scrolled down on paper. An empty bottle may hold more promise than a full one in that regard...
Dave Matthes
(Meanwhile, other people seem to be getting along with God just fine, very well indeed. Why not me?)
Lauren F. Winner
Amateurs hope. Professionals work.
Garson Kanin
The return to reality was as painful as the return to consciousness after taking an anesthetic
Edith Wharton
Information is valuable. Librarians and libraries are, at best incidental; at worst, in the way.
Donald A. Barclay
When you feel low self-confidence, it is usually the result of the negative thoughts your inner critic whispers in the darkness of your mind.
Susan C.Young
But the Wisconsin tradition meant more than a simple belief in the people. It also meant a faith in the application of intelligence and reason to the problems of society. It meant a deep conviction that the role of government was not to stumble along like a drunkard in the dark, but to light its way by the best torches of knowledge and understanding it could find.
Adlai Stevenson
I was seeing the world, and it turned out to be a lonely place.
Tyler Mcmahon
Ranger is an unusual name," she managed. "Is it a nickname?"It's a street name," Ranger said. "I was a Ranger in the army."I heard about them Rangers on TV," Grandma said. "I heard they get dogs pregnant."My father's mouth dropped open and a piece of ham fell out.My mother froze, her fork poised in midair.That's sort of a joke," I told Grandma. "Rangers don't get dogs pregnant in real life."I looked at Ranger for corroboration and got another smile.
Janet Evanovich
To hope is to wait for things to come to you. To dream is part of the process of setting goals and then striving to achieve them. You first must dream of doing things before you can do them.
Arnold Palmer
The painting has a life of its own
Jackson Pollock
Words have the greatest power to inflict everlasting pain. Words have the greatest power to heal the soul.
Aneta Cruz
Wealth isn't always measured in dollar signs. We each have time, talent and creativity, all of which can be powerful forces for positive change. Share your blessings in whatever form they come and to whatever level you have been blessed.
Jon M. Huntsman Sr.
Sometimes I wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. I’d lie awake in bed, wondering, wishing, hoping that I’d close my eyes and then I just … wouldn’t open them ever again.
Brighton Walsh
I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,I see my father strolling outunder the ochre sandstone arch, thered tiles glinting like bentplates of blood behind his head, Isee my mother with a few light books at her hipstanding at the pillar made of tiny bricks with thewrought-iron gate still open behind her, itssword-tips black in the May air,they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they areinnocent, they would never hurt anybody.I want to go up to them and say Stop,don't do it--she's the wrong woman,he's the wrong man, you are going to do thingsyou cannot imagine you would ever do,you are going to do bad things to children,you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,you are going to want to die. I want to goup to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,her hungry pretty blank face turning to me,her pitiful beautiful untouched body,his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me,his pitiful beautiful untouched body,but I don't do it. I want to live. Itake them up like the male and femalepaper dolls and bang them togetherat the hips like chips of flint as if tostrike sparks from them, I sayDo what you are going to do, and I will tell about it
Sharon Olds
Travel always excited her--the strong and unfamiliar smells, the movement, the anxiety of arrival and departure times, she shouting of conductors, the idea of her tired old self changed by ever new surroundings.
Anna Godbersen
It's not objective. It's subjective.” Katya hooks her bra behind her back. “It's just what you think, not the truth.
E. Lockhart
If your child can't resist throwing gravel in the park, in spite of your efforts to offer tempting alternatives, you can say, "I'm taking you home now. I don't want anyone to get hit by a rock, even a little one." If your child wants to help put pancake batter in the pan, but despite friendly reminders you can't convince him not to jump around at the stove, you can say, "I can't cook with you now. I'm too worried about burns.” If your child refuses to get in his carseat, "I can see the seat belt is uncomfortable. You feel freer without it. I can't take you to your friend's house without the belt buckled." Or, "I don't want to be late for work. I'm buckling you in. I know how much you hate it!
Joanna Faber
What’s important is that you make the leap. Jump high and hard with intention and heart. Pay no mind to the vision that the commission made up. It’s up to you to make your life. Take what you have and stack it up like a tower of teetering blocks. Build your dream around that.
Cheryl Strayed
I'd rather have weeks, days, hours with you happy and content than a lifetime filled with regret.
Faith Sullivan
Also, in the dismal Cold Waste, any man treasures illusions, though knowing them almost certainly to be such.
Fritz Leiber
Tackle issues not people. Am I trying to prove my point or improve the relationship?
Lysa TerKeurst
Is he nice?” one whispered over her gum paste roses for this weekend’s wedding cakes.t“Um, obviously,” Kimmie said.t“You’re why he’s always coming around? I know he’s hot stuff in Chicago, but he always seems so stiff when he comes here,” another added from the sink.t“Honey, you want them stiff,” a third said…
Jamie Farrell
Everything I do is going to contain the message that men who are going to be comfortable with powerful women are going to be more powerful men
Joss Whedon
I walk out the door with a heavy feeling in my heart as another secret falls on top of it.
Jessica Sorensen
people need me. I fillthem. if they can't see mefor awhile the get desperate, they getsick.but if I see them too oftenI get sick. it's hard to feedwithout getting fed.
Charles Bukowski
Love those wrongdoers, they need it more than you.
Alfred Hitchcock
Lark: "You shouldn't yell at
Tamora Pierce
By a route obscure and lonelyHaunted by ill angels only,Where an eidolon, named NIGHT,On a black throne reigns upright,I have reached these lands but newlyFrom an ultimate dim Thule --From a wild, weird clime that lieth, sublime,Out of SPACE, out of TIME.
Edgar Allan Poe
Every man, it seems, interprets the world in the light of his habits and desires
Richard Wright
A man is as old as his arteries and as young as his ideas.
Will Durant
white middle-upper class guys in highly educated families have a unique burden placed on us to be the hero of every story that we tell. I don’t think it’s merely that we’re self-centered and arrogant, but that we feel like we’re supposed to be in charge, and if we’re not the hero of the story, we’ve somehow failed in our life duty.group
Morgan Guyton
The Pekes and the Pollicles, everyone knows, Are proud and implacable, passionate foes;It is always the same, wherever one goes.And the Pugs and the Poms, although most people saythat they do not like fighting, will often displayEvery symptom of wanting to join in the fray.And theyBark bark bark bark bark barkUntil you can hear them all over the park.
T.S Eliot
I should at least have learned more about how it had come to be that Rema had abandoned her mother, before I asked her to marry - and hopefully not abandon - me. But I saw Rema all prismatically, all fractured and reconstituted as if seen in the valley of an unshined silver spoon and actually I'm glad love does that, I shouldn't complain about love or love's perspective - distorted or no, to feel superior to it would be wrong, as if there were some better way of seeing.
Rivka Galchen
Doing great work is a struggle. It's draining, it's demoralizing, it's frightening - not always, but it can feel that way when we're deep in the middle of it.
Ryan Holiday
You look like a lesbian artist fairy.
LaCour Nina
It was a rainy night. It was the myth of a rainy night.
Jack Kerouac
I don't like favors; they oppress and make me fell like a slave. I'd rather do everything for myself, and be perfectly independent.
Louisa May Alcott
Certain things are extremely difficult to understand, such as the concept of unconditional love, perhaps it is due to mislead thoughts about God’s love for us. Assuming that we can say or do certain things and suddenly lose this love and approval. But I when I picture God I picture him standing with his arms out saying, "Beth stop punishing yourself." And he says it like my dad used to say, with such great authority and assurance in his voice that I can't help but smile, and know it's gonna be ok.
Bethany Brookbank
Adventures call a valiant few, happenstance upon calls many.
Anastasia Bolinder
Hate is like zero because true love is not divisible by hate.
Khang Kijarro Nguyen
His music was an outlet of that romantic energy and sensitivity.
Kailin Gow
You tell me the dead are coming through a crack in my barn, but I shouldn’t worry?
Kathy Bryson
One cannot make bargains for blissesOr catch them like fishes in netsAnd sometimes the things that life misses Help more than the things that it gets.
Alice Carey