Quotes by American Authors - Page 1543

The ability to read becomes devalued when what one has learned to read adds nothing of importance to one's life.
Bruno Bettelheim
I hate to think that all my current experiences will someday become stories with no point.
Bill Watterson
The mind thinks thoughts that we don't plan. It's not as if we say, 'At 9:10 I'm going to be filled with self-hatred.
Sharon Salzberg
You people who have survived childhood don't remeber any longer what it was like. You think children are whole, uncomplicated creatures, and if you split them in two with a handy axe there would be all one substance inside, hard candy. But it isn't hard candy so much as a hopeless seething lava of all kinds of things, a turmoil, a mess. And once the child starts thinking about this mess he begins to disintegrate as a child and turns into something else--an adult, an animal.
Joyce Carol Oates
Fighting for peace, is like f***ing for chastity
Stephen King
S/M flies in the face of every attempt the state makes to appropriate our bodies, our labor, our time, and our imaginations.…the state is deeply offended by any group of people who say, 'My body doesn't belong to you, it belongs to me, so fuck off'…
Patrick Califia-Rice
The second this interminable wait ended, it would all start to fall away into the past, to become unreal.
Garth Risk Hallberg
The alcohol had the effect of making the black cloth blacker. This amused her; she had noted in her journal: "booze affects material as it does people.
Alice Sebold
But I’ve found that sitting around moaning about how sad it is gets no one anywhere. That’s why I get involved.
Nicole Maggi
The pitch to which he was aroused was tremendous. All the fighting blood of his breed was up in him and surging through him. This was living., though he did not know it. He was realizing his own meaning in the world; he was doing that for which he was made.... He was justifying his existence, than which life can do no greater; for life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.
Jack London
Hating yourself is like hating the sun. No matter how much you complain of it agitating your eyes, its brilliance shines on.
Curtis Tyrone Jones
Unfortunately we treat others as we treat ourselves. We should try being genuinely kind to ourselves and the rest will come naturally, like a Platinum Rule.
Erica Goros
The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.
Mark Twain
If you knew the mercy I am showing by not dismembering you where you stand for getting in my way, you would not stop thanking me.
Thomm Quackenbush
She knew there were words so terrible you heard them with your whole body. Guilty. And there were voices to say them. She knew there were people you might almost trust who would hear them, too, and be amazed, and still not really hear them because they know they were not the ones the words were spoken to.
Marilynne Robinson
Peace commerce and honest friendship with all nations - entangling alliances with none.
Thomas Jefferson
Whenever your focus is on doing what you want and making yourself feel good, you can be confident that the Spirit of God is not the one leading the way.
Leslie Ludy
Real courage is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. Doing the unpopular thing because it's what you believe, and the heck with everybody.
Justin Cronin
When you intervene on behalf of your child, your child becomes the victim. You're expressing the message 'You're incapable, you're not sturdy enough to resolve this yourself, you need me to come in and take care of this for you.'" You are, in essence, disempowering your child.
Julie Lythcott-Haims
Charles Williams loved his son with reservations, complaining that "a child is a guest of a somewhat inconsistent temperament, rather difficult to get rid of, almost pushing; a poor relation rather than a pleasant kind.
Philip Zaleski
It's hard to show you that I tried unless you end up succeeding.
Rachel Cohn
Cripes, I can’t keep up on this political correct shit. I don’t even know what to call myself. One minute I’m black. Then I’m African American. Then I’m a person of color. Who the hell makes these rules up, anyhow?
Janet Evanovich
If you invest nothing, the reward is worth little.
Richelle E. Goodrich
Habits are infinitely more beneficial to the aspiring student than motivation. Motivation may get you started, but habits keep you going.
Chris Matakas
I wish we would all just fall apart so I wouldn't have to listen to the downfall happen, so slowly, so painfully.
Hannah Moskowitz
How can you read this? There’s no pictures!” “Well, some people use their imagination.” – Gaston & Belle
Walt Disney Company
Kindness is the best style that you can wear anytime and anywhere.
Debasish Mridha
In order to pick something up, you've got to put something down.
Todd Stocker
Maturity is when you no longer get the urge to make snow angels in mud season
Josh Stern
Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends.
Harper Lee
You probably faked passing out the other day, just so you could be carried in my hot, sweaty, manly arms.
Colleen Hoover
Almost as soon as it was lit it began to sound as though it were running down, but in fact it would continue to run down for a long time. He knew the feeling.
John Crowley
I'm afraid of them and they don't like me because I'm afraid.
Ray Bradbury
Intuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain but simply points the way.
Florence Scovel Shinn
We live in an age so legalistic, we find it hard to imagine someone wanting to obey their Lord simply because they love their God.
Criss Jami
He wasn't a great man, but he had a great life.
Jeffrey Rasley
Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.
Gore Vidal
But of, but what, but whether, but who, but nevertheless, but insofar, but why, but otherwise, but even if-
Clifford Chase
Remember the son of whom you are because a good name is better than gold or silver
Emmanuel Olawale
This life is full of signs, many of which find their way to you exactly when you need them most.
Christy Hall
Don't go to a museum with a destination. Museums are wormholes to other worlds. They are ecstasy machines.
Jerry Saltz
May your life be a fountain of love and kindness to fill the world with joy.
Debasish Mridha M.D.
The common thread from all those stories was that talking helped, and listening, and time. One day I would find my own place. I couldn't run there, though, because it didn't exist yet; I had to build it myself, out of forgiveness, truth, and terrifying gestures of friendship.
I.W. Gregorio
We often take for granted the notion that some people are insiders, while others are outsiders. But such a notion is a social contrivance, that, like virtually every public construct, is a legacy of a primordial and tribal mentality.
Jamake Highwater
Humankind demonstrates an unerring ability to witness beauty. By observing nature’s beauty and striving to create beautiful things, humankind brokers its own salvation.
Kilroy J. Oldster
I should like to preface my remarks with a personal statement in order that my later remarks will not be misunderstood. I consider myself an atheist.
Subrahmanijan Chandrasekhar
Not that happiness is dull. Only that it doesn't tell well. And of our consuming diversions as we age is to recite, not only to others but to ourselves, our own story.
Lionel Shriver
I brought Sammy inside and put him to bed. Said his prayer with him. “‘Now I lay me down to sleep…’” To me, just random noise. Gibberish. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but I felt that, when it came to God, there was a broken promise in there somewhere.
Rick Yancey
This thing I am feeling, I’m almost certain, is the closest I’ll ever come to standing somewhere in between truth and reconciliation.
Raquel Cepeda
Let love, joy, hope and peace be the guiding lights during this holiday season.
Debasish Mridha
Guthrie turned to see who his attacker was. And smiled when he caught her eye.He had the most devilishly wolfish look about him -- a mixture of impending payback with a snowball and something a wee bit more intimate, like a tackle in the snow. But he wouldn't. Not in front of his clansmen. Not when they weren't courting. At least, she hoped not.
Terry Spear
There's that "margin of error" that you allow to exist in your mind, you want to give everything the benefit of the doubt, you want to look at another person and say "maybe we could be friends" and that's all well at first, but then you have to reach that point in your life, wherein you don't have time to live on the margins of error, and you have to say, "so what if there is a margin of error that exists? I don't think that this person and I could walk down the same path together, because she's like that, and I'm like this; I must relieve myself of fearing the error, the 'what could have been'." You know, sometimes we can be so afraid of the "what could have been" that we overlook the right here and now! And end up forsaking who we are and what makes us happy, and what we want and don't want! There is an error that takes place; when living too much for the "what could have been." There comes a time when you must give YOURSELF the benefit of the doubt! Know thyself. Color-in those margins of error with your favorite color; make them your own, make them work for you, let them be in your favor!
C. JoyBell C.
Synergy is the only true way to world peace. Any sort of division will cripple the beast of unity.
Suzy Kassem
If you want control, loosen your grip. You're strangling your employees. Letting go is actually holding on.
Richie Norton
There’s always been sadness hidden at the core of Hitch, but it’s never been big enough to taste. Occasionally, I’d get a whiff of it, salty on the wind, but it never pressed in between us like it does now, threatening to drown us both.
Stacey Jay
Look back upon winter with gratitude. Spring is the harvest of the darker months—everything you know starts to grow in darkness. Don't write and tell me that winter brought you only colds or the ubiquitous virus. Perhaps it did bring those (and to me as well). Who goes through the chilly months unscathed? But it also brought things not to be forgotten—silver moons and snow, brilliant under stars; it brought Christmas and a new year, and to each of us something happy, something unexpected, which was not another problem but a joy. For the pendulum swings; nothing is static; and the road, however long, does turn.
Faith Baldwin
Yes, the wind came up--" Mrs. Sharpe began. She paused."And changed us all," Petra said softly.
Blue Balliett
Murphy didn’t appear to notice my chagrin, but instead pulled up the hem of his long-sleeved tee to wipe at his face. Since he flashed his sculpted abdominals right at me, I grew hot and flushed. I mean, you could see every dip and curve, including the ones on either hip that made a V to lead the eye to the fly of his jeans.
Kathy Bryson
Powerlessness can be a self-fulfilling prophesy. There is much that is wrong with America. But it will only be made right only if we force change to occur.
Robert B. Reich
Public sentiment is everything, said Lincoln. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.
Harold Holzer