Quotes by American Authors - Page 1548

The acquisition of knowledge from books provides an experience different from the Internet. Reading is relatively time-consuming; to ease the process, style is important. Because it is not possible to read all books on a given subject, much less the totality of books, or to organize easily everything one has read, learning from books places a premium on conceptual thinking - the ability to recognize comparable data and events and project patterns into the future. And style propels the reader into a relationship with the author, or with the subject matter, by fusing substance and aesthetics.
Henry Kissinger
Home development is about wishful thinking. It's about capturing a dream.
Barbara Delinsky
In the end, what will you fight for-- what got there first, what got there last or what has been there all along?
Shannon L. Alder
Centuries have passed since the wars of religion ceased in Europe, and since men stopped dying in large numbers because of arcane theological disputes. Hence, perhaps, the incredulity and denial with which Westerners have greeted news of the theology and practices of the Islamic State. Many refuse to believe that this group is as devout as it claims to be, or as backward-looking or apocalyptic as its actions and statements suggest."Their skepticism is comprehensible. In the past, Westerners who accused Muslims of blindly following ancient scriptures came to deserved grief from academics—notably the late Edward Said—who pointed out that calling Muslims 'ancient' was usually just another way to denigrate them. Look instead, these scholars urged, to the conditions in which these ideologies arose—the bad governance, the shifting social mores, the humiliation of living in lands valued only for their oil."Without acknowledgment of these factors, no explanation of the rise of the Islamic State could be complete. But focusing on them to the exclusion of ideology reflects another kind of Western bias: that if religious ideology doesn’t matter much in Washington or Berlin, surely it must be equally irrelevant in Raqqa or Mosul. When a masked executioner says Allahu akbar while beheading an apostate, sometimes he’s doing so for religious reasons.
Graeme Wood
Stupid kissing. Stupid roaming hands. Stupid boys.
Jessica Park
Life is at the bottom of things and belief at the top, while the creative impulse, dwelling in the center, informs all.
Patti Smith
The on and off thing is kind of annoying, isn't it? First with Cole, now with Gavin. "Maybe you need a tune up." I rolled my eyes. "I'll just pop into the supernatural ability repair shop sometime tomorrow." He grinned, his fingers tracing the line of my jaw.
Gena Showalter
And you are more than the mistakes of your youth. You are more than the label you’ve been assigned by people who might love you, but don’t really know who you are anymore.
Penny Reid
It's my job as best friend to make sure he's not a serial killer. Or an English major, not sure which one's worse.
Shelly Crane
One's desire to be alone, biologists have found, is partially genetic and to some degree measurable. If you have low levels of the pituitary peptide oxytocin--sometimes called the master chemical of sociability-- and high quantities of the hormone vasopressin, which may suppress your need for affection, you tend to require fewer interpersonal relationships.
Michael Finkel
If God wanted a world filled with saints, He never would have created adolescence.
Susan Beth Pfeffer
Ask yourself this question: 'Will this matter a year from now?
Richard Carlson
Sometimes I just wonder.Do we believe that God revolves around us?Or, do we believe that we revolve around God?These are staggering questions.
Brandon Andress
We must evaluate every person, place, product, perspective, position, or pleasure we have looked to in place of the promises of God, and turn away from those things accordingly.
James MacDonald
The sun's brightness painted our shadows on the ground.
Ishmael Beah
preemptive strike n.A blow or punch delivered by military aircraft to a target who is suspected of being adverse to one's plot for world domination.
Leslie Starr O'Hara
A mistake is simply another way of doing things.
Katharine Graham
If you had the ability to make things right, you would have kept them from going wrong in the first place. That's the problem. You don't have the ability, as we all are. It is only the grace of God that can make amends for your mistakes.
Carey Green
While we teach knowledge, we are losing that teaching which is the most important one for human development: the teaching which can only be given by the simple presence of a mature, loving person.
Erich Fromm
The years pass in their hundreds and their thousands, and what does any man see of life but a few summers, a few winters? We look at mountains and call them eternal, and so they seem... but in the course of time, mountains rise and fall, rivers change their courses, stars fall from the sky, and great cities sink beneath the sea. Even gods die, we think. Everything changes.
George R.R. Martin
What had been quiet and restful was now silent and empty.
Frederick Barthelme
I want to have faith in strangers. I want to have faith in what we're all going to do next. But I'm worried. I see things shifting from United We Stand to God Bless America. I don't believe in God Bless America. I don't believe a higher power is standing beside us and guiding us. I don't believe we're being singled out. I believe much more in United We Stand. I have my doubts, but I want it to be true. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we really came together, if we really found a common humanity? The hitch is that you can't find a common humanity just because you have a common enemy. You have to find a common humanity because you believe that's true.
David Levithan
Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.
Mark Twain
You think you want me now. But you'll change. Someday you'll find it damned easy to forget about me. I'm a bastard. A servant, and not even an upper servant at that--""You're the other half of me." (Again The Magic)
Lisa Kleypas
Adults are just obsolete children and the hell with them.
Dr. Seuss
Here is the node, you who hate change and fear revolution. Keep these two squatting men apart; make them hate, fear, suspect each other. Here is the anlage of the thing you fear. This is the zygote. For here 'I lost my land' is changed; a cell is split and from its splitting grows the thing you hate--'We lost *our* land.
John Steinbeck
Many well-meaning Dutch people have told me in all earnestness that nothing in Islamic culture incites abuse of women, that this is just a terrible misunderstanding. Men all over the world beat their women, I am constantly informed. In reality, these Westerners are the ones who misunderstand Islam. The Quaran mandates these punishments. It gives a legitimate basis for abuse, so that the perpetrators feel no shame and are not hounded by their conscience of their community. I wanted my art exhibit to make it difficult for people to look away from this problem. I wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that "Islam is peace and tolerance.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The hardest calling in our lives is to be truly ourselves.
J.R. Rim
The sound of the rain faded away and she kissed him, letting herself be as honest as she'd wanted to be, letting her kiss speak for everything she was afraid to say with words.
Mary Jane Hathaway
In that eternity of his, where everybody will be happy, how could he feel the lack of her, the loss of her?
Marilynne Robinson
If you don't think too good, don't think too much.
Ted Williams
I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won't.
Mark Twain
Me? I had no dreams. No longings. Dreams only set you up for disappointment. Plus, you had to have a life to have dreams of a better life.
Julie Anne Peters
If someone can handle you at your worst, they'll stick around for your best.
Ruth Ann Nordin
Take off that coat,' he told him.'Sir?''You heard me.'The boy slipped out of his jacket, whining, 'What you gonna do? What I'm gonna wear?'The man untied the baby from her chest and wrapped it in the boy's coat, knotting the sleeves in front.'What I'm gonna wear?'The old man sighed and, after a pause, said, 'You want it back then go head and take it off that baby. Put the baby naked in the grass and put your coat back on. And if you can do it, then go on 'way somewhere and don't come back.
Toni Morrison
Pain is as expansive as life itself. Pain grows with us and in us as a cultivation of life's unfolding.
Bryant McGill
Can't you see that it's just raining?There ain't no need to go outside.
Jack Johnson
Magic is dangerous: it's neither good nor bad, right nor wrong; it can be both a blessing and a curse. It takes strength, the strength of a man, to make the magic his own, to make it serve him, and not the other way around.
Daniel Wallace
The same few dozen organic molecules are used over and over again in biology for the widest variety of functions.
Carl Sagan
Pornography won’t be enough. Because it never is. Sooner or later, all niggers want to touch the real thing. All dogs want to smell and taste the true information. All artists want to make their fantasies reality. And everyone with a cock wants to use it to fall in love.
Peter Sotos
I don’t really consider myself to be a teacher, although I understand that others do. There’s a certain restriction or reduction in that stereotype that doesn’t ring true. Especially the underlying assumption that I know something that others don’t, and my job is to give them what I know. That’s simply not true.
Darrell Calkins
Oh, Major, you do so love to annoy, don't you?""It is the stuff of living, my lady.
Gail Carriger
I would like to point out, though, Lady Georgiana," he continued, "that you have decided to stay in a household with five single gentlemen, three of them adults.""Four," Andrew broke in, coloring. "I'm seventeen. That's older than Romeo was when he married Juliet.""And it's younger than I am, which is what counts," Tristan countered, sending his brother a stern look.
Suzanne Enoch
Positive thinking by itself does not work. Your embodied vision, partnered with vibrant and energetic thinking, and balanced with active listening, followed with intentional action - will clear the path for your miracles.
Sumner Davenport
you are not an athlete because of what you can do, but because of who you are: a team player, someone who never quits, who strives to be his personal best, and who believes in fair play.
Rosemary Rawlins
I was nauseous and tingly all over. I was either in love or I had smallpox.
Woody Allen
There was no up, there was no down. There was a steady, nauseated life five minutes ago, but nothing five minutes from now. And then, very suddenly, there was no 'now.
Paige Harbison
Eat good food, keep moving, and let your body take care of the rest.
Stephen Le
No one in the world -- in the entire world -- know more -- knows Americans better or, odd as this may sound, loves them more than the American Negro. This is because he has had to watch you, outwit you, deal with you, and bear you, and sometimes even bleed and die with you, ever since we got here, that is, since both of us, black and white, got here -- and this is a wedding. Whether I like it or not, or whether you like it or not, we are bound together forever. We are part of each other.
James Baldwin
It’s hard to build models of inflation that don't lead to a multiverse. It’s not impossible, so I think there’s still certainly research that needs to be done. But most models of inflation do lead to a multiverse, and evidence for inflation will be pushing us in the direction of taking [the idea of a] multiverse seriously.
Alan Guth
We had visceral, rich memories of dull, interminable hours. Then a day would pass in perfect harmony with our projects, our family members, and our coworkers, and we couldn’t believe we were getting paid for this.
Joshua Ferris
He noticed her eyes were a rich, warm brown, the same color as his favorite horse."Yes?"He realized he'd been staring. At least he had the sense not to voice his thoughts. He doubted she would appreciate her eye color being compared to that of his horse's hide even if it was his favorite.
B.J. Daniels
I smiled. “You mean like a psychic imprint? I know your assistant director of the Preternatural Division, and I mean no disrespect, but I never got the feeling you believed in magic as an investigative tool.'From the book 9 Incarnate - Caitlin Diggs Series
Gary Starta
Trusting the vision without forcing the way is a lesson worth learning in every port.
Colleen Mariotti
We could talk about the retraction of re-productive rights in North Carolina and Texas and Ohio, or we could conjure up a lot of statistics about domestic and sexual violence or women living in poverty. If the patriarchy is dead, the numbers have not gotten the memo.
Roxanne Gay
We must come together in ways that respect the solitude of the soul that avoid the unconscious violence we do when we try to save each other that evoke our capacity to hold another life without dishonoring its mystery never trying to coerce the other into meeting our own needs.
Parker J. Palmer
Well, I can throw a mean comeback, so there's that. I will crush them on wit.
Rachel Caine
Theirs was a long, complicated story with a monster and a knight. What made their story unique was that these two players were the same person.
Aleatha Romig
I don't eat junk food and I don't think junk thoughts.
Peace Pilgrim
I’d go to hell and back and cut off the devil’s head myself to save you.
Melika Dannese Lux