Quotes by American Authors - Page 1660

Writers have come to master nearly every trade. They are inventors and entrepreneurs of character, plot, and dialogue. They are the eager scientists that can’t wait to try out their new experiment. They are the maestros of the symphony that plays in their head, conducting what happens, where, and at what precise moment. They are engineers and architects that design the structure of their piece so it stands the test of time and continues to fire on all cylinders. They play mechanics and doctors in their revisions, hoping they prescribe the correct diagnosis to fix the piece’s 'boo boos'. They are salesmen who pitch not an idea or a product, but themselves, to editors, publishers, and more importantly, their readers. They are teachers who through their craft, preach to pupils about what works and what doesn’t work and why. Writers can make you feel, can make you think, can make you wonder, but they can also grab your hand and guide you through their maze. Similar to what Emerson stated in 'The Poet,' writers possess a unique view on life, and with their revolving eye, they attempt to encompass all. I am a writer.
Garrett Dennert
Oh, God, Francesca,Now there’s a good one.Why?Why? Why?” He gave each one a different tenor, as if he were testing out the word, asking it todifferent people.“Why?” he asked again, this time with increased volumeas he turned around to face her.“Why? It’sbecause I love you, damn me to hell. Because I’ve always loved you. Because I loved you when youwere with John, and I loved you when I was in India, and God only knows I don’t deserve you, but Ilove you, anyway.”Francesca sagged against the door.“How’s that for a witty little joke?” he mocked. “I loveyou. I loveyou, my cousin’s wife. I loveyou, theone woman I can never have. I loveyou, Francesca Bridger-ton Stirling.
Julia Quinn
He could have killed me for the blunder— which really wasn’t my fault— but I was lucky , and he gave me another chance. The two officers who questioned him were also incredibly lucky for not having had any idea who it was they’d been questioning.
Floyd C. Forsberg
Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep.
Fran Lebowitz
He had come to that time in his life (it varies for every man) when a human being gives himself over to his demon or to his genius according to a mysterious law which orders him either to destroy or to surpass himself.
Marguerite Yourcenar
Beautiful surroundings, the society of learned men, the charm of noble women, the graces of art, could not make up for the loss of those light-hearted mornings of the desert, for that wind that made one a boy again. He had noticed that this peculiar quality in the air of new countries vanished after they were tamed by man and made to bear harvests. Parts of Texas and Kansas that he had first known as open range had since been made into rich farming districts, and the air had quite lost that lightness, that dry, aromatic odour. The moisture of plowed land, the heaviness of labour and growth and grain-bearing, utterly destroyed it; one could breathe that only on the bright edges of the world, on the great grass plains or the sage-brush desert.
Willa Cather
Today you live, child. Tomorrow, you dream.
Lawrence Hill
If you aren't diligently working towards changing something that bothers you, you rescind your right to complain about it.
Rob Liano
The worst fear of the race yes, the world suddenly transformed into a senseless nightmare, horrible dissolution of things. Nothing compares, even oblivion is a sweet dream. You understand why, of course. Why this peculiar threat. These brooding psyches, all the busy minds everywhere. I hear them buzzing like flies in the blackness. I see them as glow worms flitting in the blackness. They are struggling, straining every second to keep the sky above them, to keep the sun in the sky, to keep the dead in the earth-to keep all things, so to speak, where they belong. What an undertaking! What a crushing task! Is it any wonder that they are all tempted by a universal vice, that in some dark street of the mind a single voice whispers to one and all, softly hissing, and says: 'Lay down your burden.' Then thoughts begin to drift, a mystical magnetism pulls them this way and that, faces start to change, shadows speak... sooner or later the sky comes down, melting like wax. But as you know, everything has not yet been lost: absolute terror has proved its security against this fate. Is it any wonder that these beings carry on the struggle at whatever cost?
Thomas Ligotti
One of the strangest things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live for ever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender, solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange, unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun - which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in someone's eyes.
Frances Hodgson Burnett
You may be a good warrior... But you've made a mistake I never did. You agreed to serve a stupid king.
Aleksandra Layland
Love, kindness, compassion and forgiveness are divine.
Debasish Mridha
Pay attention! At all moments of the day you are either leading or being led.
Steve Maraboli
The word "impossible" is only in the mindAnd not in the heart.If we can remain in the heart,There will be no end to our progress.
Sri Chinmoy
The walls were coming down around me, but still, I couldn't imagine telling the truth. Not now. It was too late. How can I tell Mom and Dad what we'd done? It would ruin everything. It would ruin their image of me; it would ruin every thought they'd ever had about who I was. It would be another death.Another loss. Another miscarriage.
Dana Reinhardt
Prayer that is born of meditation upon the Word of God is the prayer that soars upward most easily to God's listening ears. Topics: Prayer, MeditationI am ready to meet God face to face tonight and look into those eyes of infinite holiness, for all my sins are covered by the atoning blood. Topics: Salvation, AtonementWhen the devil sees a man or woman who really believes in prayer, who knows how to pray, and who really does pray, and, above all, when he sees a whole church on its face before God in prayer, he trembles as much as he ever did, for he knows that his day in that church or community is at an end. Topics: Satan, PrayerGod's Word is pure and sure, in spite of the devil, in spite of your fear, in spite of everything. Topics: ScriptureDo not study commentaries, lesson helps or other books about the Bible: study the Bible itself. Do not study about the Bible, study the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God, and only the Bible is the Word of God. Topics: The BibleAll that God is, and all that God has, is at the disposal of prayer. Prayer can do anything that God can do, and as God can do everything, prayer is omnipotent.
R.A. Torrey
The highest form of wisdom is to be simple and live in the beauty of love.
Debasish Mridha
But people need lift, too. People don't get moving, they don't soar, they don't achieve great heights, without someone buoying them up.
Elizabeth Wein
A joyful rebellion is you living differently not because you're mad at how things are but because you are swelling with joy at the thought of how things could be. When you joyfully rebel against your circumstances, against mediocrity or negativity, you invite others into something really beautiful.
Brad Montague
Philip says to fear me. Do you have any idea how afraid I am of him?
Linnea Sinclair
A gentle answer turns away wrath.
Gary Chapman
Love is a song, written in your heart.
Debasish Mridha
When kids are unhappy, we don’t have to prop them up with frantic praise. It’s more helpful to say, "Ugh, you are not happy with the way that bicycle came out. It doesn't look like what you see in your head. It's not easy to draw a bike. It's hard to put something from real life onto a flat piece of paper and get it to look right.
Julie Adair King
The Christian story, centered as it is on the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the only story for making sense of desire and loss.
Jen Pollock Michel
The morning sun will bring you a fresh new day with a fresh new world of possibilities.
Debasish Mridha
Somehow the thought she might be next wasn't nearly as terrifying as the realization he was gone.
Marcha A. Fox
when man determined to destroy himself he picked the was of shall and finding only why smashed it into because
E.E. Cummings
What lies behind us & what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Don’t think about the possibilities of failing. Never forget to think about the possibilities of flying.
Debasish Mridha
The idea that blacks, or anyone for that matter, need the government to get ahead in life is despicable. And even more important, this idea is a failure. Our communities are just as poor as they’ve always been. Our schools continue to fail children. Our prisons are filled with young black men who should be at home being fathers. Our self-initiative and our self-reliance have been sacrificed in exchange for allegiance to our overseers who control us by making us dependent on them.
Elbert Guillory
All men are created equal, it is only men themselves who place themselves above equality.
David Allan Coe
Those things that hurt instruct.
Benjamin Franklin
The author's alliterative description of politics since the 1960 presidential debates: "Government by Gotcha".
David Pietrusza
To my amazement, miraculously, the lid suddenly loosened and slid all the way open, revealing its hidden cargo: A stack of small paper booklets. Dozens and dozens of them. Booklets made of ordinary sheets of white writing paper, folded in half, and hand-stitched along the spine. Booklets in remarkably pristine condition, all covered in a small, neat handwriting that I instantly recognized. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. I could hardly breathe.
Syrie James
I was stirred only like a leaf in the wind, that is all. . .
Anaïs Nin
When our minds are on Christ, Satan has little room to maneuver.
Billy Graham
The wise know their days are numbered and act accordingly.
Michael Hyatt
The dead do not needaspirin orsorrow,I suppose.but they might needrain.not shoesbut a place towalk.not cigarettes,they tell us,but a place to burn.or we're told:space and a place to flymight be thesame.the dead don't need me.nor do theliving.but the dead might needeachother.in fact, the dead might needeverything weneedandwe need so muchif we only knewwhat itwas.it isprobablyeverythingand we will allprobably dietrying to getitor diebecause wedon't getit.I hopeyou will understandwhen I am deadI got as muchaspossible.
Charles Bukowski
But a society in which pluralism is not undergirded by some shared values and held together by some measure of mutual trust simply cannot survive. Pluralism that reflects no commitments whatever to the common good is pluralism gone berserk... ..Leaders unwilling to seek mutually workable arrangements within systems to their own are not surviving the long-term interest of their constituents
John W. Gardner
At some point, most of us reach a place where we’re afraid to fail, where we instinctively avoid failure and stick only to what is placed in front of us or only what we’re already good at.This confines us and stifles us. We can be truly successful only at something we’re willing to fail at. If we’re unwilling to fail, then we’re unwilling to succeed.
Mark Manson
WHAT am I, after all, but a child, pleas’d with the sound of my own name? repeating it over and over;t I stand apart to hear—it never tires me.t To you, your name also;t Did you think there was nothing but two or three pronunciations in the sound of your name?
Walt Whitman
First of all there is matter—and, remarkably enough, all matter is the same. The matter of which the stars are made is known to be the same as the matter on the earth...The same kinds of atoms appear to be in living creatures as in non-living creatures.
Richard Feynman
If there is one thing I have come to believe over the years, it’s the notion that there really is somebody for everybody. Every single person is going to look at beauty from a different angle. Every single person is going to be attracted to certain features and characteristics that are completely different than the next person. And… there isn’t a person on earth that everybody on earth finds attractive.
Dan Pearce
The nature of the enemy's warfare in your life is to cause you to become discouraged and to cast away your confidence. Not that you would necessarily discard your salvation, but you could give up your hope of God's deliverance. The enemy wants to numb you into a coping kind of Christianity that has given up hope of seeing God's resurrection power.
Bob Sorge
What is family anyway but people who are always supposed to be there for you? Family should be rock solid, the earth beneath your feet, wind beneath your wings, and all that.
Arlaina Tibensky
The center [of the supermarket] is for boxed, frozen, processed, made-to-sit-on-your-shelf-for-months food. You have to ask yourself, "If this food is designed to sit in a box for month and months, what is it doing inside my body?" Nothing good, that´s for sure.
Morgan Spurlock
A human wasn't an acceptable boyfriend for a witch; nor would a human wish to date a witch. The two would never in a million light years be interested in each other. Then, again, unwritten rules were made to be broken.
Terry Spear
Only the redeeming, all-powerful, transforming grace of God can raise our sin-besotted heart from the dead, give us eternal life, and set our gaze on Jesus, our blessed hope.
Gloria Furman
From our immersion in scarcity arise the habits of scarcity. From the scarcity of time arises the habit of hurrying. From the scarcity of money comes the habit of greed. From the scarcity of attention comes the habit of showing off. From the scarcity of meaningful labor comes the habit of laziness. From the scarcity of unconditional acceptance comes the habit of manipulation.
Charles Eisenstein
Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.
Brené Brown
I cannot at the same time accept the glory and give God the glory... Glorifying God means being occupied with and committed to His ways rather than preoccupied with and determined my own way. It is being so thrilled with Him, so devoted to Him, so committed to Him that we cannot get enough of Him!
Charles R. Swindoll
I think you could wear a paper bag and still look good.
Robin Bielman
Life is simple and short but love is infinite and eternal. So give it away, as much as you can, without judging anyone.
Debasish Mridha
She could not have told why she was crying. Such experiences as the foregoing were not uncommon in her married life. They seemed never before to have weighed much against the abundance of her husband’s kindness and a uniform devotion which had come to be tacit and self-understood. An indescriptible oppression which seemed to generate in some unfamiliar part of her consciousness, filled her whole being with a vague anguish. It was like a shadow, like a mist passing across her soul’s summer day. It was strange and unfamiliar; it was a mood. She did not sit there inwardly upbraiding her husband, lamenting at Fate, which had directed her footsteps to the path which they had taken. She was just having a good cry all to herself.
Kate Chopin
I don't believe in school prayer. I think it's total nonsense...who is the teacher there that is going to have them pray? And is the teacher going to be Catholic or Mormon or Episcopalian or what? It just causes all sorts of problems. And what are the kids praying about anyway? Does it really matter, does praying in school...what are you doing it for? The whole thing just opens up all sorts of elements of discussion. I think it's crazy.
Charles M. Schulz
If you like her, if she makes you happy, and if you feel like you know her---then don't let her go.
Nicholas Sparks
All because I fell in love with a madman.
Carrie Butler
Our children... have a passionate need for the dimension of transcendence, mysticism, way-outness. We're not offering it to them legitimately. The tendency of the churches to be relevant and more-secular-than-thou does not answer our need for the transcendent. As George Tyrrell wrote about a hundred years ago, "If a [man's] craving for the mysterious, the wonderful, the supernatural, be not fed on true religion, it will feed itself on the garbage of any superstition that is offered to it.
Madeleine L'Engle
But sadness was familiar; sadness was manageable. It didn't transform her, the way the raging anger did. She could remain herself and still feel this aching grief.
Aprilynne Pike
I had seen the light, come to believe that a wedding should be about a feeling between two people, not a show for the masses...It was a magical, romantic evening, and although I occasionally wish I had worn a slightly fancier dress, and that Nick and I had danced on our wedding night, I have no real regrets about the way we chose to do things.
Emily Giffin