Quotes by American Authors - Page 1876

Starting the day—Another chance to be new again. How many of us still wish for that? To be your own sunrise. To awaken like a prayer—both solemn and joyful at still being alive . . .
Carew Papritz
At the base of the immense pillar, tiny Babylon was in shadow. Then the darkness climbed the tower, like a canopy unfurling upward. It moved slowly enough that Hillalum felt he could count the moments passing, but then it grew faster as it approached, until it raced past them faster than he could blink, and they were in twilight... For the first time, he knew night for what it was: the shadow of the earth itself, cast against the sky.
Ted Chiang
There is a fullness and calmness there which can come only from knowing pain.
Dan Simmons
We did musical chairs to sit with our partner. Glasses were refilled and heads bent in pairs. Looking over the table, I was suffused with affection for my friends. If you could bottle this warm feeling and turn it into words, I thought, that would be the perfect toast.
Kerry Reichs
She had opened the refrigerator door and was looking at her supply of frozen microwave dinners with an expression of distaste when the doorman buzzed. Deciding to forget about dinner, something she'd done too often lately, she depressed the switch. "Yes, Dennis?"t"Mr. Payne and Mr. McCoy are here to see you, Ms. Granger," Dennis said smoothly. "From the FBI."t"What?" Jay asked, startled, sure she'd misunderstood.tDennis repeated the message, but the words remained the same.tShe was totally dumbfounded. "Send them up," she said, because she didn't know what else to do. FBI? What on earth? Unless slamming your apartment door was somehow against federal law, the worst she could be accused of was tearing the tags off her mattress and pillows. Well, why not? This was a perfectly rotten end to a perfectly rotten day.
Linda Howard
SHUT UP!...PADDLE!
Ridley Pearson
I thought how wise he was to lure his rival out into the woods, where every fight's fair.
Peter Geye
Publishing is definitely something you do because you enjoy educating or entertaining people.
Steven Magee
Neuroanatomy, political history, and introspection all offer evidence that human beings are quite capable of resisting the urge to surrender to every impulse of reptilian core of brain.
Carl Sagan
I define science fiction as the art of the possible. Fantasy is the art of the impossible. Science fiction, again, is the history of ideas, and they're always ideas that work themselves out and become real and happen in the world. And fantasy comes along and says, 'We're going to break all the laws of physics.
Ray Bradbury
Darkness engulfed me...There was no ground below me, no sky above. Only the black, and the cold.
Amanda Hocking
I know that in life there will be sickness, devastation, disappointments, heartache - it's a given. What's not a given is the way you choose to get through it all. If you look hard enough, you can always find the bright side.
Rashida Jones
I'm realizing that some of my greatest (or at least most determined) genius lies in my ability to procrastinate.
Scott Stabile
The man is in his work,read it if you want to know about him.
R.M. Engelhardt (TALON)
I am happy in every moment and every day. My happiness depends on me, not on the way.
Debasish Mridha
And despite the insignificance of the instant we have so far occupied in cosmic time, it is clear that what happens on and near Earth at the beginning of thesecond cosmic year will depend very much on the scientific wisdom and the distinctly human sensitivity of mankind.
Carl Sagan
More often than not, it’s disrespectful to them (our children) - and disrespectful to their struggle with their tasks in life- if our own anxiety as parents makes us cling to our children. It’s disrespectful is we demand more intimacy than they are willing or able to give. Too much involvement with our children is not an act of love- it’s an act of selfishness.
Daniel Gottlieb
just because you fail once, it doesn't mean you're going to fail at everything. keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself because if you don't, then who will? so keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.
Marilyn Monroe
It’s going to be a pretty day to fly.
Jennifer Echols
Friends have ways of speaking without words.
Alice Dalgliesh
Being safe doesn't mean you won't be sorry.
Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
A decision is the action an executive must take when he has information so incomplete that the answer does not suggest itself.
Arthur William Radford
All stories are, in some form, prayers.
Brian Doyle
As information processing machines, our ability to process data about the external world begins at the level of sensory perception. Although most of us are rarely aware of it, our sensory receptors are designed to detect information at the energy level. Because everything around us - the air we breathe, even the materials we use to build with, are composed of spinning and vibrating atomic particles, you and I are literally swimming in a turbulent sea of electromagnetic fields. We are part of it. We are enveloped within in, and through our sensory apparatus we experience what is.Each of our sensory systems is made up of a complex cascade of neurons that process the incoming neural code from the level of the receptor to specific areas within the brain. Each group of neurons along the cascade alters or enhances the code, and passes it on to the next set of cells in the system, which further defines and refines the message. By the time the code reaches the outermost portion of our brain, the higher levels of the cerebral cortex, we become conscious of the stimulation. However, if any of the cells along the pathway fail in their ability to function normally, then the final perception is skewed away from normal reality.
Jill Bolte Taylor
Progress is a natural result of staying focused on the process of doing anything.
Thomas M. Sterner
Honesty is as rare as a man without self-pity.
Stephen Vincent Benét
The word lethologica describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want.
Sarah Addison Allen
High heels were invented by a woman who had been kissed on the forehead.
Christopher Morley
Cats - a standing rebuke to behavioural scientists . . . least human of all creatures.
Lewis Thomas
We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark.
Elie Wiesel
God will never call you in a direction that would cause you to sin. However, he will call you to be creative enough to find a way to make what you want come true through honorable ways.
Shannon L. Alder
They massacred the servants before killing my parents. I saw it all through a knothole in the wood. As I said, my eyes were better back then.
J.R. Ward
Sometimes I hate him. When he does the dishes, he shakes off each one before setting it in the drying rack. Water flies everywhere. A couple of drops always hit me in the face. I have to leave the room to avoid smashing a plate against his head.
Tarryn Fisher
Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.
Douglas MacArthur
Afterwards, over drinks, one of the barbarians asked me what I dreamt of. I, of course, was taken aback. They say barbarians don't dream. But I told him... "I dream of tangible nothing," I said."So you mean nothing as something, then?" the barbarian replied over the rim of his gin-and-tonic."I mean unity, dissolving into non-self," I said, just to be confusing.
James Curcio
Hate is not a good counselor.
Victoria Wolff
Please don't look for me. You won't find me.
Jalpa Williby
I love being single. It's almost like being rich.
Sue Grafton
The more I write stories for young people, and the more young readers I meet, the more I'm struck by how much kids long to see themselves in stories. To see their identities and perspectives—their avatars—on the page. Not as issues to be addressed or as icons for social commentary, but simply as people who get to do cool things in amazing worlds. Yes, all the “issue” books are great and have a place in literature, but it's a different and wildly joyous gift to find yourself on the pages of an entertainment, experiencing the thrills and chills of a world more adventurous than our own.And when you see that as a writer, you quickly realize that you don't want to be the jerk who says to a young reader, “Sorry, kid. You don't get to exist in story; you're too different.” You don't want to be part of our present dystopia that tells kids that if they just stopped being who they are they could have a story written about them, too. That's the role of the bad guy in the dystopian stories, right? Given a choice, I'd rather be the storyteller who says every kid can have a chance to star.
Paolo Bacigalupi
It's hopeless. And it's stupid. It's suicidal. But love is a weapon they have no answer for. They know how you think, but they can't know what you feel.
Rick Yancey
We judge others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions. We need to offer grace to all, because we all need a little grace.
Jayce O'Neal
See?" he said, with an unholy amount of glee. "I hardly broke any laws at all. I should drive more often.""No. Trust me, you shouldn't," Eve said. "Think of all the little old people and the children.
Rachel Caine
You here to finish me off, Sweetheart?
Suzanne Collins
Q: Best part about being a musical theatre book writer?A: Explaining what that is.
Christy Hall
Often times we allow ourselves to become impatient, by viewing God’s promises based on our human knowledge. Our thoughts and ways are irrelevant in his judgment to grant any of our requests. We need to have patience and trust in God for answers to our requests.
Ellen J. Barrier
By every mortal standard, the worst faeries in the world were those in the Dark Court. They fed on the baser emotions; they engaged in activities that the other-also amoral-faery courts repudiated. They were also the only ones she truly trusted or understood.
Melissa Marr
The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who'll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you're sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that's almost never the case.
Chuck Close
When you love someone, its never over. You move on, because you have to but you take them with you in your heart
Elizabeth Chandler
I press my lips hard against hers, tasting her desire, her pain, her love, her confusion. At once I’m in two lives, two worlds, two places.
Christine Fonseca
Where men can't live gods fare no better.
Cormac McCarthy
I think the only answer is to live life to the fullest while you can and collect memories like fools collect money. Because in the end, that's all you have - happy memories.
Sarah Strohmeyer
So I'd been captured? So I was starving?Did that mean I had to shrivel up and die?I could still slither. I could still hiss. Nothing had been stolen from me except my freedom.What I needed was a new plan.
Patrick Jennings
By the time you're thirty, your worst enemy is yourself.
Chuck Palahniuk
Like I’ve told you before, Beverly, I don’t care where we live as long as we’re together.” Vance... "The Elder Effect
D.L. Given
When I eventually met Mr. Right I had no idea that his first name was Always.
Rita Rudner
The power of the undefeatable human spirit, came alive in me, and stirred the embers of my long smoldering anger into a rage of fire. I screamed a battle cry inside myself, and felt the same vigor ignite within me that inspired men for thousands of years to fight when the odds were against them. I became passionate, as I adopted a plan to fight back and win.
Sara Niles
What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness.
Barbara Kingsolver
...patriarchy, hierarchy, and capitalism create, encourage, maintain, and perpetuate addiction and dependency. Patriarchy and hierarchy are based on domination and subordination, which result in fear. This fear is expressed by the dominators through control and violence, and in subordinated people through passivity and repression of anger. The external conflict of hierarchy between dominants and subordinates becomes internalized in individuals, creating personal inner chaos, anxiety and duality. To quell the inner conflict people resort to addictive substances and behavior.
Charlotte Davis Kasl
It has been my experience that guilt can burst through the smallest breach and cover the landscape, and abide in it in pools and danknesses, just as native as water.
Marilynne Robinson
If you tell me I'm sensible in addition to normal and wise, I'm going to punch you in the stomach.
J D ROBB