Quotes by American Authors - Page 1968

If America and the Western world continue in their state of unconscious hopelessness, lack of faith and of fortitude, it is predictable that they will not be able to resist the temptation of the big bang by nuclear weapons, which would end all problems - overpopulation, boredom, and hunger - since it would do away with all life.
Erich Fromm
Will looked horrified. "What kind of monster could possibly hate chocolate?
Cassandra Clare
It’s almost as if all the sleazy men in this country attended the same seminar, where they learned that all American women go to Italy to sleep with them. The teacher at the seminar told them, “You don’t need to learn English to seduce an American woman, you only need to learn one word: ‘bella.’ If you say it, their belts will snap and pants fall from their hips.If I ever find that seminar teacher, I’m going to kick him in the shin.
Rita Stradling
Life's a freaking mess. In fact, I'm going to tell Sarah we need to start a new philosophical movement: messessentialism instead of existentialism: For those who revel in the essential mess that is life. Because Gram's right, there's not one truth ever, just a bunch of stories, all going on at once, in our heads, in our hearts, all getting in the way of each other. It's all a beautiful calamitous mess. It's like the day Mr. James took us into the woods and cried triumphantly, "That's it! That's it!" to the dizzying cacophony of soloing instruments trying to make music together. That is it.
Jandy Nelson
The religious and scholarly alike arrive at conclusions as to Jesus’ nature based on the world-view they hold, the belief structure that shapes their interpretation. Inaccurate views of the function of reality can only lead to erroneous conclusions.
Thomas Daniel Nehrer
I wanted her to have the full, long life that every parent promises his or her child by the simple act of bringing that child into the world.
Cristina Henriquez
We look at other people's lives, & we see what looks like a beautiful, adventurous, wonderful or tragic life. But so seldom do we see or even understand that what we see isn't their lives. Especially nowadays with news feeds, & statuses, we see only the surface, with not hint at the inner workings.To me, it's like a movie. We see the culmination of ones efforts, work, hardships, difficulties, progress, & pains. On a big screen that is life, but so rare & seldom, do we every acknowledge nor see the directorial point of view. The metaphorical behind the screens.So while we view others lives with a romantic envy, sweet longing, disheartened sympathy, or joyous reverence. We are so oblivious to the fact that their lives take the same trials, hardships, wonders, difficulties, & joys as we, it's merely manifested in a different on screen production. My longing, is to see that which is off screen. The inner workings, mundane & trivial, as well as the intense & breathtaking because without it, the picture it culminated in would not be.If we only take things at face value, we'll miss the wonders of the inner working. That which lies beyond sight, hidden away within. While it is what appears without that we all see, that which lies within makes what we see make sense.And it's in understanding someone's life & situation, that you can come to value their life & them.
Trevor Driggers
The only man meant to be in your life is a man that knows your worth.
Shannon L. Alder
Modern society drinks in streams of information while dying of wisdom thirst.
Orrin Woodward
Before her lay the enemy. The only end guaranteed if she forgot that fact? Death - or worse. "Strangely enough, approval from those who don't even bother to introduce themselves before commenting on my shortcomings...tends not to make much of an impression on me.
Danielle Monsch
The truth is, anyone who puts so much of herself and her life into art as you do must naturally fear any failure in that art as a potential threat to your life. And so you protect your art more than you protect your health or the common forms of happiness the rest of us have. And you probably have this in common with every artist you admire.
Arthur Phillips
Indeed, God is always with us even when things look hopeless.
Jennifer Hudson Taylor
There’s a Chinese word that means “soul sister,” and that is the word I would use to address you in my heart. Listen to me, soul sister: Fate or luck or destiny already put you through hell once. Please don’t make it worse by condemning yourself. There is no choice that would have left you feeling no guilt. Every time I watch Adam struggle to speak, every time I see another child laugh and point at him, every time I watch his face fall as he realizes he is not going to be treated like the other kids, I feel wrenched by guilt just as you did when you heard my story. Life is hard. We make the best choices we can. Condemnation, whether it comes from around you or inside you, only robs the world of another dram of compassion. God knows, we need all the compassion we can get. If you promise to try to forgive yourself, I’ll try to forgive myself as well. I think, in my heart of hearts, that there is nothing for either one of us to forgive.
Martha Beck
A miracle is a single mom who works two jobs to care for her kids and still helps them with their homework at night. A miracle is a child donating all the money in their piggy bank to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. That's where you'll find the hand and face of God.
Cathie Linz
I want true love in this life, and true contentment and peace. But maybe the only way I can find those things is to let go of the belief that this life is my reality.
Elizabeth Kim
The small wad of burning paper drew down to a wisp of flame and then died out leaving a faint pattern for just a moment in the incandescence like the shape of a flower, a molten rose. Then all was dark again.
Cormac McCarthy
Society is like a stew. If you don't stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.
Edward Abbey
Are you one of those fifty-shades-of-bondage people? I haven't been into that in the past, but I might be willing to try with you. Although I would want to be the one to do the bondaging, while you would have to be the bondagee.
Katie MacAlister
Wherever he found his speech growing too modern -- which was about every sentence or two -- he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as "exceeding sore," "and it came to pass," etc., and made things satisfactory again. "And it came to pass" was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet.
Mark Twain
My mother said the cure for thinking too much about yourself was helping somebody who was worse off than you.
Sylvia Plath
To dream only of what is ‘possible’ is to be fooled into believing that one is dreaming in the first place.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
getting old means getting lucky sometimes means sometimes you learn & along with other sweeter acquisitions you learn that ninetenths of what goes down is bullshit that there's just no way to be with people & not smear yr tongue with bullshit lies that it doesn't help to fuck with people & anyway once you know how it's no fun any more
John Thomas Idlet
The goal of marriage is not happiness, it is holiness...There is no mechanism whereby God can sanctify a person more than having them live in close proximity to another imperfect person....Our fundamental problem is that we are selfish. Marriage is the means whereby God eradicates our selfishness because it is not about "me" anymore, i t is about "we.
Mark Batterson
I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading.
John Adams
People will reveal themselves to you. In single moments they show you what they are.
Travis Mulhauser
His changes are true, And oh for a reason.His work is eternal, And arrives in due season.
Kari L. Greenaway
If you live long enough there's no line that you won't cross.
Tracy Manaster
Pick up a pinecone and count the spiral rows of scales. You may find eight spirals winding up to the left and 13 spirals winding up to the right, or 13 left and 21 right spirals, or other pairs of numbers. The striking fact is that these pairs of numbers are adjacent numbers in the famous Fibonacci series: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21... Here, each term is the sum of the previous two terms. The phenomenon is well known and called phyllotaxis. Many are the efforts of biologists to understand why pinecones, sunflowers, and many other plants exhibit this remarkable pattern. Organisms do the strangest things, but all these odd things need not reflect selection or historical accident. Some of the best efforts to understand phyllotaxis appeal to a form of self-organization. Paul Green, at Stanford, has argued persuasively that the Fibonacci series is just what one would expects as the simplest self-repeating pattern that can be generated by the particular growth processes in the growing tips of the tissues that form sunflowers, pinecones, and so forth. Like a snowflake and its sixfold symmetry, the pinecone and its phyllotaxis may be part of order for free
Stuart A. Kauffman
The hard way is my favorite way to learn.
Sarah McCarry
Jesus Followers are called to be reflectors of His character, servants of his grace, ambassadors of His message and magnifiers of His glory!” ~ © gfp '42
Gary Patton
We can breathe in the sweet scent of a tepid summer’s meadow after the kiss of a warm rain, and in the very same moment we can stand utterly breathless underneath the expanse of untold galaxies that breech the very edges of the universe itself. Such are the privileges we enjoy because of God’s unimaginable imagination.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
There aren't many things a man finds more appealing than loyalty. Unless it's a woman with really big knockers.
Lois Greiman
Our lives are marked and shaped by our regrets. Things we all want to take back and can’t. In a perfect world, we would never hurt the ones we love or cause hurt to befall them. But the world isn’t perfect and neither are we
Sherrilyn Kenyon
The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism but February.
Joseph Wood Krutch
I see it all through the lens of my camera—the flurry of movement, the venue staff in black T-shirts, giving orders into their headsets. As I take it all in, my mind weighs the texture, the composition, the possibility of each changing scene, and I struggle to hold back, to keep my finger from pressing too soon. That’s my biggest flaw as a photographer. I’m impatient—trigger-happy. I want the shot now, now, now, click, click, click, and if I could just wait a second more, the moment would really flourish.
Emery Lord
death is not a pretty flower that had almost pricked me. It was not a small annoyance I could simply bypass and quickly disregard. It was really The End.
Aspen Matis
Holding Eleanor's hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive.
Rainbow Rowell
All good writers are thieves. The best get away with a heist.
Michael Stutz
Sometimes I'm real cool, but sometimes I could be a real asshole. I think everyone is like that.
Eminem
When we forgive someone, we don’t pretend that the harm didn’t happen or cause us pain. We see it clearly for what it was, but we also come to see that fixating on the memory of harm generates anger and sadness.
Sharon Salzberg
They’d stolen his life.And rebirthed him as a monster.
Lisa Carlisle
The sands of time blew into a storm of images... Images in sequence to tell the truth! Glorious legends of revolutionaries, bound only by a desire to be true to themselves... And to hope! Parables of colliding worlds, of forbidden love... of enemies healing the wounds of circumstance! Projected myth of persecution through greed and selfishness... And the will to survive! The Will to survive! And to survive in the face of those who claim credit for your very existence! We survive not as pawns, but as agents of hope... Sometimes misunderstood, but always true to our story. The story of man.
Scott Morse
Some stories are rooted in adventure, some in strife. Others are born of the heart, and the horrors and the joys locked therein are often immeasurable, and make us truly wonder what became of those children we once were.
David E. Hilton
The relief of opening one's hand and letting go was immense. But soon after, I tightened again. A desire for revenge, a strange revenge.
Anaïs Nin
Man is not a beast of burden, and the Sabbath is not for the purpose of enhancing the efficiency of his work.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
He was stupid. If I killed everyone who was stupid, I wouldn't have time to sleep.
Tamora Pierce
In our time together, you claimed a special place in my heart, one I'll carry with me forever and that no one can ever replace.
Nicholas Sparks
Her fatigue was gone; she felt vital and strong, like a tree coming back to life in the springtime, vibrant with sap, ready to put out buds and then blossoms.
Linda Lael Miller
The author describes the critic within us as adults as "the selves who live too much in their heads rather than their bodies, who are burdened with too much knowledge about how the world works rather than excited about how it could work or should, who are afraid of being judged and not being loved. Most adults do not live in a world of forgiveness and unconditional love, unless, that is, they have small children.
Jennifer Senior
The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.
Kalu Ndukwe Kalu
If your church is not going to support the committed same-sex relationships of LGBT congregants, be honest about that. Bait-and-switch is deceptively un-Christ-like and serves to push gay and transgender believers farther away each time the deception happens.
Kathy Baldock
The history of a place fascinates me through the echoes and remains you learn alot
D.B. Shultz
He was safe for the moment, here in the playground, but people all over the world were suffering, starving, fleeing, killing one another as they waged their wars. How much energy they put into harming one another. How little into saving. Would it ever change? What would it take to make it change? He thought of Luxa's hand pressed into Ripred's paw. That's what it would take. People rejecting war. Not one or two, but all of them. Saying it was an unacceptable way to solve their differences. By the look of things, the human race had a lot of evolving to do before that happened. Maybe it was impossible. But maybe it wasn't. Like Vikus said, nothing would happen unless you hoped it could. If you had hope, maybe you could find the way to make things change. Because if you thought about it, there were so many reasons to try.
Suzanne Collins
For a split second, I wondered if he were some type of sexy sorcerer, who was able to remove my clothing by the force of his will alone. I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on the buttons of his shirt, willing them to pop
M.C. Lavocat
One of the effects of the gospel going deeper into our souls is that it frees our fingers to loosen their grasp on our goods.
David Mathis
Harriet, to hide her excitement, had turned to the bookshelves in the corner between the windows and the fireplace. The books, untidily arranged, some standing, some piled on their sides, with newspapers and magazines wedged among them, confused her. There were no sets and a great many were paper-backed. She saw friends - Mr. Dickens was present — and nodding acquaintances - Laurence Sterne, for instance, and Theodore Dreiser — but they were among strangers: Henry Miller, Norman Douglas, Saki, Ronald Firbank, strangers all.
Jack Iams
Humanity is a parade of fools, and I am at the front of it, twirling a baton.
Dean Koontz
The student can read as fast as his mind will let him, not as slow as his eyes make him.
Mortimer J. Adler
I didn't feel sad or happy. I didn't feel proud or ashamed. I only felt that in spite of all the things I'd done wrong, in getting myself here, I'd done right.
Cheryl Strayed
I'm no model lady. A model's just an imitation of the real thing.
Mae West