Quotes by American Authors - Page 1546

Only You Can Change Your Life. No One Can Do It For You.
Chris Mentillo
Being happy is something you have to learn. I often surprise myself by saying "Wow this is it. I guess I'm happy. I've got a home that I love. A career that I love. I'm even feeling more and more at peace with myself." If there's something else to happiness let me know. I'm ambitious for that too.
Harrison Ford
If we never experienced the the valuable lessons from failure, then we would never truly appreciate the pure joy of our success.
Lindsey Rietzsch
This is where Jean's stubbornness and, perhaps, God's stubborn grace came into play. “My definition of grace would be multifaceted, but part of it would certainly be God's passion for brokenness. He does, he really does love brokenness,” Jean told me. “Grace doesn't obsess with ourselves. It obsesses with people and with brokenness. This is a hard place to live, but God is bigger than hard places to live.
Cathleen Falsani
Stories nowadays are put in to squares, just like everything else. Stories are ever changing. They are like rivers that flow, but mankind is busy trying to dam them up and as a result, they become stagnant. They divert the water into square swimming pools, and then add chemicals to it in order to keep it sterile.
James Rozoff
It's some twisted, limited, grocery-store mentality, where people have to be dairy products or vegetables or frozen foods for us to be able to understand them and feel safe. Maybe we've just become such mega-consumers that we can't deal with anything that's slightly inconvenient (basically, anything that requires thought). I was the tofu amidst the Baking Products and Cleaning Supplies." (pg. 71)
Deb Caletti
In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to all and it often comes with bitter agony. Perfect relief is not possible except with time. You cannot now believe that you will ever feel better. But this is not true. You are sure to be happy again. Knowing this, truly believing it will make you less miserable now. I have had enough experience to make this statement.
Abraham Lincoln
If you're Strigoi," the boy interrupted loudly, "then why don't you have horns? My friend Jeffrey said Strigoi have horns."Dimitri's eyes fell not on the boy but on me for a moment. Again, that spark of knowing shot between us. Then, face smooth and serious, Dimitri turned to the boy and answered, "Strigoi don't have horns. And even if they did, it wouldn't matter because I'm not a Strigoi.
Richelle Mead
Don’t be afraid to change. Without change, there is no life.
Debasish Mridha
The sun which warms the plant can under other conditions also wither it. The rain which nourishes the flower can under other conditions rot it. The same sun shines upon mud that shines upon wax. It hardens the mud but softens the wax. The difference is not in the sun, but in that upon which it shines. The Divine Life which shines upon a soul that loves Him, softens it into everlasting life; that same Divine Life which shines upon the slothful soul, neglectful of God, hardens it into everlasting death.
Fulton J. Sheen
A lie was something you told because you were mean or a coward. A story was something you made up out of something that might have happened. Only you didn't tell it like it was, you told it like you thought it should have been.
Betty Smith
It is no loss to mankind when one writer decides to call it a day. When a tree falls in the forest, who cares but the monkeys?
Richard Ford
But what are our stories if not the mirrors we hold up to our fears?
Wally Lamb
Do you know what it's like to be blessed with someone so special, to love them so much it hurts, and then have them taken from you forever?
Kim Holden
I don’t want to be labeled as one thing or another. In the past I’ve had successful relationships with men, and now I’m in this successful relationship with a woman. When it comes to love I am totally open. I don’t want to be put into a category, as in ‘I’m this’ or ‘I’m that.
Amber Heard
Remember this—the journey is part of the dream.  Whatever it is you're chasing, so long as you are actively moving in the right direction, the dream is coming true.
Richelle E. Goodrich
The noisy jay swoops by and reviles me, he complains of my meow and my malingering.I too am not a bit subdued, I too am uncontrollable,I sound my splenetic yowl over the roof of the h
Henry N. Beard
It's a very old word, it means 'to breathe into.' That's how it works: An angel breathes into men and shows us what to play, what to draw. How to find the truth of who we are and why we are here.
Jon Steele
Few endeavors, if any at all, I find to be inherently mature or inherently immature. Maturity is neither defined by one's particular preferences nor by one's particular activities; rather, it is defined by the strength of one's character.
Criss Jami
The indie kids, huh? You've got them at your school, too. That group with the cool-geek haircuts and the charity shop clothes and names from the fifties. Nice enough, never mean, but always the ones who end up being the Chosen One when the vampires come calling or when the alien queen needs the Source of All Light or something. They're too cool to ever, ever do anything like go to prom or listen to music other than jazz while reading poetry. They've always got some story going on that they're heroes of. The rest of us just have to live here, hovering around the edges, left out of it all, for the most part.
Patrick Ness
Biblical interpretation is not a passive matter. It requires our own active negotiation. When we pretend that, deep down, all the voices are really saying the same thing and ought to be able to get along, we forfeit our responsibility as inheritors of this richly, sometimes disturbingly, contradictive literature.
Timothy Beal
Teach that God is, not was; that He speaketh, not spake.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Yeah, well. I don’t try to be awesome. It just comes natural.
Rick Riordan
The world is but a canvas for our imagination
Henry David Thoreau
The best way to relieve stress is to trust yourself.
Debasish Mridha
The only guaranteed way to be a genius is to surround yourself with idiots.
Ziad K. Abdelnour
The beginning of men's rebellion against God was and is the lack of a thankful heart.
Francis Schaeffer
And I learned that it's a bad idea to curse if you're in trouble, but a good idea to sing, if you can.
Tobias Wolff
I would rather have a lucky general than a smart general. ... They win battles and they make me lucky.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
You should never use propaganda to teach kids the truth.
Lisa Samson
Don't give up the calling, Magda. Know yourself. Know what you are. Though few would admit it, even those on the council, I truly believe we all need you. - Councilman Sadler
Terry Goodkind
For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up. We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace--business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Every child must have chores to do. It gives them dignity in work and the joy of labor.
Earl Hamner Jr.
Why? What kind of man would pleasure his woman by hurting her.' Angus paced across the path. ''Tis a man's duty, nay, his privilege, to give his woman all the pleasure she can bear. She should be panting and writhing with pleasure.'Emma remained silent, staring at him. Did she not believe him?He walked toward her. 'A real man would take all night if need be to make sure his woman was fully sated. She should be screaming that she canna endure any more.'Emma's eyes widened.'It should be a man's greatest pleasure to see his woman shuddering in the throes of passion.'She took a deep breath and shifted her weight from one foot to another.He paced back and forth. 'Only when she is begging for him should a man see to his own needs. And he should never, ever harm her.' He stopped in front of her 'Am I totally wrong in this?''No,' she squeaked.
Kerrelyn Sparks
Even if it was just walls and a roof with papers inside, it had bewitched him, and drawn him in, and given him everything he needed to become himself.
Laini Taylor
Yet our ability to exercise free will and transcend the most extraordinary obstacles does not make the conditions of our life irrelevant. Most of us struggle and often fail to meet the biggest challenges of our lives. Even the smaller challenges—breaking a bad habit or sticking to a diet—often prove too difficult, even for those of us who are relatively privileged and comfortable in our daily lives. In fact, what is most remarkable about the hundreds of thousands of people who return from prison to their communities each year is not how many fail, but how many somehow manage to survive and stay out of prison against all odds.
Michelle Alexander
Rule #1: Life is supposed to be fun!
John McGrail
I couldn’t trust my own emotions. Which emotional reactions were justified, if any? And which ones were tainted by the mental illness of BPD? I found myself fiercely guarding and limiting my emotional reactions, chastising myself for possible distortions and motivations. People who had known me years ago would barely recognize me now. I had become quiet and withdrawn in social settings, no longer the life of the party. After all, how could I know if my boisterous humor were spontaneous or just a borderline desire to be the center of attention? I could no longer trust any of my heart felt beliefs and opinions on politics, religion, or life. The debate queen had withered. I found myself looking at every single side of an issue unable to come to any conclusions for fear they might be tainted. My lifelong ability to be assertive had turned into a constant state of passivity.
Rachel Reiland
I held it together for the rest of the drive home but as soon as Kelsey dropped me off I flopped face down on the couch and sobbed like a reality TV star on confessional day.
Molly Harper
Mr. Buckley, let me explain it this way. And I'll do so very carefully and slowly so that even you will understand it. If I was the sheriff, I would not have arrested him. If I was on the grand jury, I would not have indicted him. If I was the judge, I would not try him. If I was the D.A., I would not prosecute him. If I was on the trial jury, I would vote to give him a key to the city, a plaque to hang on his wall, and I would send him home to his family. And, Mr. Buckley, if my daughter is ever raped, I hope I have the guts to do what he did.
John Grisham
Life is short unless agony is long.
Brian Spellman
Perfection is death,' Anastasia said. 'The world is imperfect, but if it weren't, who would love it?
Michael Swanwick
Everybody wants to cut off the limb to to deal with the problem. You can’t just keep cutting off limbs and destroying fruit. We have to become committed enough to examine the root. The root of the problem in our community, in our country is a systematic problem. And until all who are a part of the problem admit their role in the problem, we will never have a holistic solution.
Bobby F. Kimbrough Jr.
Beauty could be defined simply as 'that which pleases.' But there is another aspect to art, and that... is the sublime. Like the mushroom cloud of the atom bomb, or the vastness of space as projected to us by satellite... the greatness of the experience goes beyond your ethical and aesthetic judgment, cutting you free from the binding ego of yourself. With the diminishment of your ego, the less there is of you, the more you see the sublime.
Jen Wang
With each day that passes, it becomes more and more clear that the most true way to make it through this life is with the deepest possible commitment to compassion and a relentless dedication to love.
Scott Stabile
[M]any people believe that memory works like a recording device. You just record the information, then you call it up and play it back when you want to answer questions or identify images. But decades of work in psychology has shown that this just isn't true. Our memories are constructive. They're reconstructive. Memory works a little bit more like a Wikipedia page: You can go in there and change it, but so can other people.
Elizabeth F. Loftus
There's nothing you can do about the past." "You're wrong. I can learn from it..." Tariq dug his heels into his stallion's flanks, and the horse shot forward, painting a dark smudge across the sand. "And I can make sure it never happens again!
Renee Ahdieh
Things can turn out differently, Apollo. That's the nice thing about being human. We only have one life, but we can choose what kind of story it's going to be.
Rick Riordan
Not forgiving someone is like not pulling a thorn out of your foot just because you weren't the one to put it there.
Mercedes Lackey
The philosophies of men surround us. The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance. Do not be deceived; behind that facade is heartache, unhappiness, and pain. You know what is right and what is wrong, and no disguise, however appealing, can change that. Be the one to make a stand for right, even if you stand alone. Have the moral courage to be a light for others to follow.
Thomas S. Monson
Sometimes life seems like a match between oneself and one's gaolors. The gaolers, of course, are one's mistakes; and the question is, who'll hold out longest? When I think of that, life instead of being too long, seems as short as a winter day....
Edith Wharton
Every category has its snobs: music, books, movies. There are so many things a man is only pressured into liking or disliking.
Criss Jami
This was a plunge encompassing sorrow and revulsion far beyond the personal: a sick, drenching nausea at all humanity and human endeavor from the dawn of time. The writhing loathsomeness of the biological order. Old age, sickness, death. No escape for anyone. Even the beautiful ones were like soft fruit about to spoil. And yet somehow people still kept fucking and breeding and popping out new fodder for the grave, producing more and more new beings to suffer like this was some kind of redemptive, or good, or even somehow morally admirable thing: dragging more innocent creatures into the lose-lose game.
Donna Tartt
I just never noticed how little of me existed before. I was a shadow without a person.
Michael J. Sullivan
I was having that dream again, the good one where we're all in heaven and never heard of Treegap.
Natalie Babbitt
Is today a good day to die?Is today the day?And if not today–when?
Jennifer Niven
A gifted violin player in danger of becoming a virtuoso and thus too attached to his instrument handed it over to the Oneida authorities and never played again. When a visiting Canadian teacher complained that the community did not foster “genius or special talent,” Noyes was delighted, replying, “We never expected or desired to produce a Byron, a Napoleon, or a Michelangelo.” You know you've reached a new plateau of group mediocrity when even a Canadian is alarmed by your lack of individuality.
Sarah Vowell
The night-haunts never lie. They could, if they wanted to, but they don’t really see the point. The truth is so much more dangerous than a lie.
Seanan McGuire
When you make eye contact with another person, you can send thousands of silent messages without even speaking a word. No wonder eye contact can be both a direct form of communication and an elusive attribute at the same time.
Susan C.Young
When you are at the end of the road, turn around and take another road. I promise it will be less painful.
Debasish Mridha