Quotes by American Authors - Page 1631

I circle around them, my sword pointed in their direction. "Hermes Trismegistus. Ostanes the Persian. Olympiodorous of Thebes---" I stop, feeling like an idiot. These necromancers and the ridiculous names they give themselves. They're always trying to outdo one another. "You five," I said instead. "By the authority of King Malcolm of Anglia, I am commanded to arrest you for the crime of witchcraft.
Virginia Boecker
I never lose sight of the whole. An impeccable dress is made to be lived in, to be torn, wet, stained, crumpled.
Anaïs Nin
Creating a novel means moving into the past, the hoped for, the imagined. It is an emotional journey, fraught at times with characters who don't always do or say what a writer wishes.
Jacqueline Woodson
Living in low-income neighborhoods, I've seen sexual health campaigns aimed at slut-shaming us into celibacy. They talk about things like self-esteem and value and all the usual abstinence arguments. They assume that our bodies are a gift that we should bestow selectively on others, rather than the one thing that can never be anything but our own. Even if we do share it, it is ours irrevocably.These are the bodies that hold the brains we're supposed to shut off all day at work, the same bodies that aren't important enough to heal. These are the bodies that come with the genitalia that we should be so protective of? I really don't understand the logic.You can't tell us that our brains and labor and emotions are worth next to nothing and then expect us to get all full of intrinsic worth when it comes to our genitals. Either we're cheap or we're not.Make up your fucking mind.
Linda Tirado
You’re not as good as you think. You don’t have it all figured out. Stay focused. Do better.
Ryan Holiday
The second rule of improvisation is not only to say yes, but YES, AND. You are supposed to agree and then _add something of your own._ If I start a scene with 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you just say, 'Yeah...' we're kind of at a stand-still. But if I say, 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you say, 'What did you expect? We're in hell.' Or if I say, 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you say, 'Yes, this can't be good for the wax figures.' Or if I say, 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you say, 'I told you we shouldn't have crawled into this dog's mouth,' now we're getting somewhere.
Tina Fey
There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat. That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions. You run into someone, you ask what they’re doing, you say ‘wow,’ and soon you’re cooking up all sorts of ideas.
Steve Jobs
There are two ways to slide easily through life: Namely, to believe everything, or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking. The majority take the line of least resistance, preferring to have their thinking done for them; they accept ready-made individual, private doctrines as their own and follow them more or less blindly. Every generation looks upon its own creeds as true and permanent and has a mingled smile of pity and contempt for the prejudices of the past. For two hundred or more generations of our historical past this attitude has been repeated two hundred or more times, and unless we are very careful our children will have the same attitude toward us.
Alfred Korzybski
The fastest that human spacecraft are likely to achieve in the twenty-first century, I think, is 300 kilometres per second.
Kip S. Thorne
I choose my reality. My vision and actions create my life. I am an amazing reality creator.
Amy Leigh Mercree
On your journey to achievement, you should never be without good positive materials and people who will encourage you, excite you and give you a reason to move forward.
John Patrick Hickey
The worst thing to be afraid of is fear. Give yourself grace. – Jessica Willis
The Willis Clan
Trying to write something of permanent value is a full-time job.
Ernest Hemingway
An atheist waving a cross at a vampire was a truly pitiful sight.
Laurell K. Hamilton
Only within the 20th Century has biological thought been focused on ecology, or the relation of the living creature to its environment. Awareness of ecological relationships is — or should be — the basis of modern conservation programs, for it is useless to attempt to preserve a living species unless the kind of land or water it requires is also preserved. So delicately interwoven are the relationships that when we disturb one thread of the community fabric we alter it all — perhaps almost imperceptibly, perhaps so drastically that destruction fol
Rachel Carson
That churchgoers do the lion's share of the charitable work in our communities is simply untrue. They get credit for it because they do a better job of tying the good works they do to their creed. But according to a 1998 study, 82% of volunteerism by churchgoers falls under the rubric of "church maintenance" activities -- volunteerism entirely within, and for the benefit of, the church building and immediate church community. As a result of this siphoning of volunteer energy into the care and feeding of churches themselves, most of the volunteering that happens out in the larger community -- from AIDS hospices to food shelves to international aid workers to those feeding the hungry and housing the homeless and caring for the elderly -- comes from the category of "unchurched" volunteers.
Dale McGowan
The Bible is meant to be down-to-earth. It was written for real people facing real issues.
Judah Smith
Interesting fact from the front lines: raw grief smells like ripped leaves and splintered branches, a jagged green shriek.
Tana French
What have the nibblers ever done for you?"The breeze ruffled her hair, pushing it back from her face, giving him a clear shot of her eyes. They were asking for an answer. Needing to know if she could count on him."They saved your life," he said.And for just a moment, Luxa's face softened and she smiled.
Suzanne Collins
Blood might be thicker than water, but love was the most powerful magic of all.
Lucy Connors
Adventure can be an end in itself. Self-discovery is the secret ingredient...
Grace Lichtenstein
And not only narrativity but the quality of the writing is of the first importance to me. Rightly or not, I believe a dull, inept style signals poverty or incompleteness of thought. I see the accuracy, scope, and quality of Darwin’s intellect directly expressed in the clarity, strength, and vitality of his writing — the beauty of it.
Ursula K Le Guin
Chance, you've gone past something you couldn't afford to go past; your time, your youth, you've passed it. It's all you had and you've had it.
Tennessee Williams
They were growing closer and closer every day, and Charlotte was finding something magical at Wildflower, something she never thought she would find again—love.
Lindsay Detwiler
we developed a firm, practical feeling of solidarity, which grew, on the battlefield, into the best thing that the war produced - comradeship in arms.
Erich Maria Remarque
What was the point of spying if you couldn't keep it a secret?
Thea Harrison
The moment she was cursed, I lost her. Once it wears off- soon- she will be embarrassed to remember things that she said, things she did, things like this. No matter how solid she feels in my arms, she is made of smoke.
Holly Black
Deprived is the one who has never witnessed his own desperate need for God. Reliant on his own means, he forgets that the means, his own soul, and everything else in existence are His creation.
Yasmin Mogahed
His so-fucking-vivid imagination rarely gave him the horrors, but when it did, God help him. God help him once it was warmed up. It was not only warmed up now, it was hot and running on full choke. That there was no sense at all in what he was thinking made not a whit of difference in the dark. In the dark, rationality seemed stupid and logic a dream. In the dark he thought with his skin.
Stephen King
Only God knows when the alarm will sound, ending the work and ministry of evangelism as we have known it.
Billy Graham
When everything seems hopeless, turn your mind toward the three people who mean most to you in this world. Think about what you must mean to them, and from those thoughts of those three people will stem all the hope and meaning you’ll need to fight through.
Shenita Etwaroo
I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass.When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything and anything except me.
Ralph Ellison
People from all walks of life are searching for answers to life’s problems. I believe the Bible has the answer to man’s deepest needs.
Billy Graham
It’s true that many overly negative people actually fear letting go of their negativity, and it’s because it has become a part of their identity. If this is the case, make it a smoother transition by releasing and replacing one negative opinion at a time. It certainly is an identity shift, but it’s one that brings greater fulfillment and life satisfaction.
Alaric Hutchinson
Either we're a team or we aren't. Either you trust me or you don't.
Ally Carter
For now, I'll let you plead temporary amnesia," he said and lifted my chin to him. "But I'm never going to forget what it felt like when you were biting my lip instead of your own.
Magan Vernon
I don't know which end is up. One minute I want to kiss the life out of her, and the next she frustrates the hell out of me. I don't know if I should scratch my watch or wind my ass.""Welcome to the club, Ronan." Gavin laughed and clapped his brother on the shoulder. "That sure sounds like love to me.
Sara Humphreys
Obey the principles without being bound by them.
Bruce Lee
All the characters in this book are fictional, but they are as real to me as the members of my own family. I had to tell their story because they could not.
Maral Boyadjian
It was her, something about her- whenever she did something that felt like a raw invitation, he simply went mad in his effort to take up the gauntlet.
Jacquelyn Frank
When I was packing those, I caught myself taking all the important, profound, and indispensable titles I could – nearly filled the box. But one of the more eccentric librarians at the internment compound I’d gotten permission to riffle had put up a whole shelf full of cubes of women writers or texts about women. She was convinced nobody could be truly educated unless they’d read them – though nobody I ever met had, except her, maybe. […]
Samuel R. Delany
Getting ink felt right, like it would help her put her life in order, to move forwards. It was her body, despite the things that'd been done to it, and she wanted to claim it, to own it, to prove that to herself. She knew it wasn't magic, but the idea of writing her own identity felt like the closest she could get to reclaiming her life. Sometimes there's power in the act; sometimes there's strength in words. She wanted to find an image that represented those things she was feeling, to etch it on her skin as tangible proof of her decision to change.
Melissa Marr
He stares at me—taking me in—with his lips slightly parted. I struggle to hold myself in place as we gawk at each other. I want so desperately to run, but something is holding me back, keeping me in place.
Ashley Earley
Given our socialization into dependency, women are also poor risk takers. (...) We avoid new situations, job changes, moves to different parts of the country. Women are afraid that if they should make a mistake, or do "the wrong thing", they'll be pun
Colette Dowling
I had become an arrow of sound aimed at the most terrible creature in the city.
Fran Wilde
The complex human eye harvests light. It perceives seven to ten million colors through a synaptic flash: one-tenth of a second from retina to brain. Homo sapiens gangs up to 70 percent of its sense receptors solely for vision, to anticipate danger and recognize reward, but also—more so—for beauty.
Ellen Meloy
Someone once told me that children are like kites. You struggle just to get them in the air; they crash; you add a longer tail. Then they get caught in a tree; you climb up and bring them down, and untangle the string; you run to get them aloft again. Finally, the kite is airborne, and it flies higher and higher, as you let out more string, until it's so high in the sky, it looks like a bird. And if the string snaps, and you've done your job right, the kite will continue to soar in the wind, all by itself.
Charmian Carr
Hush now, ‘tis time to sleep and dream secrets of long ago.
Jan Reid
What the mother sings to the cradle goes all the way down to the coffin.
Henry Ward Beecher
In our lives are special moments that live as their own, the rest is movement with the passage of time.
Donna Lynn Hope
You couldn't erase the past. You couldn't even change it. But sometimes life offered you the opportunity to put it right.
Ann Brashares
Be good.See good.Choose good.It's a no-brainer.
Richelle E. Goodrich
If I must know something in order to believe in it, what I am able to believe in will be severely limited. If I choose to believe in something in order to know it, then what I believe in can be boundless.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Death..." The voice dropped even more, black-gloved hands disappearing into the black folds of material. "Don't you feel it? We're all dead here...all...very...dead.
Richie Tankersley Cusick
In theory momentos serve to bring back the moment. In fact they serve only to make clear how inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here. How inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here is something else I could never afford to see.
Joan Didion
Four healthy ways to spur people to keep the agreements they make:1. Specificity Boosts Clarity and AccountabilityThe more concrete the agreement, the more clear the obligation and the more difficult it is for someone to misunderstand. "Please get right on that" does not create as much clarity nor accountability as, "Please finalize your choice of vendors by 5 p.m. tomorrow."2. Peer Accountability Pins Us TogetherAlthough this did not work on the non-profit committee, when peers meet face-to-face or via group video and make specific agreements with each other and they all have a stake in the outcome there's a higher probability of securing accountability.3. Written Proof So We Don't GoofTo reinforce the power of mutual accountability, have a designated meeting recorder (or take turns with the role) so one participant is responsible for recording action items, deadlines and who's responsible for each item. The recorder sends that list to all participants' computers before they leave the meeting.4. Upfront Rules of Engagement Are Our GuardrailsA company, team, or committee is more likely to spur mutual accountability when it adopts a few, specific agreements about how people will operate together, from punctuality to pithiness in writing or conversing.
Kare Anderson
A crowd of men stood in front of them. Of all ages, with expressions of sex-wonder in their eyes, gazing curiously as men who cannot solve a mystery that populates graveyards and through the ages has sent poets, popes, kings and fools to the junk heap.
Jim Tully
In Bobby Ogle's version of heaven everyone would wind up in one place, criminals and Muslims included.
Barbara Kingsolver
And yet the feeling of injustice itself turned out to be strangely physical. Even realer, in a way, than a her hurting, smelling, sweating body. Injustice had a shape, an a weight, and a temperature, and a texture, and a very bad taste.
Jonathan Franzen
Learn from history or you're doomed to repeat it.
Jesse Ventura