Quotes by American Authors - Page 213

Don't let the magic slip away," he says, "or you'll sink into the quicksand of the ordinary.
Elena Gorokhova
No,” Gideon says. “No guns. The most dangerous weapon you have is your brain. Give someone a gun and they tend to quit using it.
Paula Stokes
The only way to find out if you can write is to set aside a certain period every day and try. Save enough money to give yourself six months to be a full-time writer. Work every day and the pages will pile up.
Judith Krantz
The worst part of success is trying to find someone who is happy for you.
Bette Midler
Ever notice how we are constantly talking to ourselves in our heads. We not only profess to know what others are thinking, but also what their responses will be––and even what they really meant by what they said. Apparently, we are all mind readers, without much proven psychic ability.
Lauren Handel Zander
The art of art the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters is simplicity: nothing is better than simplicity.
Walt Whitman
How soon will we accept this opportunity to be fully alive before we die? (88)
Stephen Levine
Just because I understand does not mean I agree.
Carlos Wallace
(He) mourned mankind, and the blindness of men, who thought that the Kosmos had rules and limits that would shelter them from their own freedom. There were no shelters. There were no final purposes. Futility, and freedom, were Absolute
Bruce Sterling
Sometimes I daydream about merging my body with my computer so that I can more fully enter the landscapes of Google Earth, lush surface world without pollution or traffic, planet seen from the vantage point of space and roving surveillance vehicles, a motionless field, magnifying the normal imperfections and irregularities of the earth so that the planet is rendered transparent, misshapen and yet intoxicating in its languishing distinction from the real.
Andrew Durbin
Fear can force obedience, but it can never transform a heart.
Stacey Jay
Jiu Jitsu can be a source of total transparency such as a mirror, but it takes a conscious choice to see what it has to say.
Chris Matakas
Buck up, baby blowfish. Just puff up bigger than your sadness and scare it right off. That's the only way to live in the awful old ocean.
Catherynne M. Valente
One percent of people will always be honest and never steal," the locksmith said. "Another one percent will always be dishonest and always try to pick your lock and steal your television. And the rest will be honest as long as the conditions are right - but if they are tempted enough, they'll be dishonest too. Locks won't protect you from the thieves, who can get in your house if they really want to. They will only protect you from the mostly honest people who might be tempted to try your door if it had no lock".
Dan Ariely
The important thing is to learn a lesson every time you lose.
John McEnroe
things change and they are never the same again. This looks like one, of those times, Hem. That's life! Life moves on. And so should we.
Spencer Johnson
Art reaches its greatest peak when devoid of self-conciousness. Freedom discovers man the moment he loses concern over what impression he is making or about to make.
Bruce Lee
The only problem is time.
Seth MacFarlane
You know, there are good reasons to learn how to read. Poetry isn't one of them. I mean, so what if two roads go two ways in a wood? So what? Who cares if it made all that big a difference? What difference? And why should I have to guess what the difference is? Isn't that what he's supposed to say?Why can't poets just say what they want to say and then shut up?
Gary D. Schmidt
I did not reach thee,tBut my feet slip nearer every day;tThree Rivers and a Hill to cross,tOne Desert and a Sea—tI shall not count the journey onet When I am telling thee.tTwo deserts—but the year is coldtSo that will help the sand—tOne desert crossed, the second onetWill feel as cool as land.t Sahara is too little pricetTo pay for thy Right hand!tThe sea comes last. Step merry, feet!tSo short have we to gotTo play together we are prone,t But we must labor now,tThe last shall be the lightest loadtThat we have had to draw.tThe Sun goes crooked—that is night—tBefore he makes the bendt We must have passed the middle sea,tAlmost we wish the endtWere further off—too great it seemstSo near the Whole to stand.tWe step like plush, we stand like snow—t The waters murmur now,tThree rivers and the hill are passed,tTwo deserts and the sea!tNow Death usurps my premiumtAnd gets the look at Thee.
Emily Dickinson
My Miracle, living through a Traumatic brain Injury
Rodney Barnes
Rockabye Baby, in the treetopDont you know a treetopis no safe place to rock?And who put you up there,and your cradle too?Baby,I think someone down herehas got it in for you!
Shel Silverstein
Daily irradiation of the human body by natural sunlight is an extremely important aspect of human health.
Steven Magee
A book is like a pump. It gives nothing unless first you give to it. You prime a pump with your own water, you work the handle with your own strength. You do this because you expect to get back more than you give.
Stephen King
What do you mean?” Leslie’s voice was cool, as if she questioned witches who were flat on their backs being threatened by werewolves every day.
Patricia Briggs
...the basic premise of religion—that if you live a good life, things will go well for you—is wrong. Jesus was the most morally upright person who ever lived, yet he had a life filled with the experience of poverty, rejection, injustice, and even torture.
Timothy J. Keller
The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid stable business.
John Steinbeck
I write for myself and strangers. The strangers dear Readers are an afterthought.
Gertrude Stein
My vanity suggested I should take offense, but the deeper part of me was relieved- relieved that he was noble enough to want to make such a sacrifice from his heart rather than from his desire to impress me.
Jody Hedlund
People who succeed in business aren't afraid to hear feedback from their customers -- they actually thrive from it.
Adam Kirk Smith
That's the kind of guy you'd follow to hell and back.
Richelle Mead
I want to Live! Not Die, Not Hide, LIVE!
Margaret Peterson Haddix
The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.
Edward R. Murrow
What we believe about something often creates the outcome we experience.
Michael Hyatt
I have read that long ago there was a land of glass castles that sank beneath the sea. It was not called Atlantis, but Lyonesse. This happened before history and across the ocean, but when I was little I wondered about that place, how it could be so beautiful and so lost. Sometimes it seemed that the land around my New England home was like that flooded country, with mud where the streets of gold should be and mayflies swarming where there should be lovely fishes, but here and there a shard of crystal to call the heart to beauty. --"Wetlands," in Phoebe.
Claudia Putnam
Love knew no bounds, know no limitations. It looked beyond the unseen realm and reached in for a taste, for a moment of regenerated happiness, and in that moment fate was altered and the destinies of many were changed. Their land, their Northbrook, they discovered, was a very magical place.
Madison Thorne Grey
In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy and confusion.
Ishmael Beah
Obscurity is a good thing. You can fail in obscurity. It removes the fear of failure.
Jason Fried
Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice.
Peter F Drucker
God is always willing to give you the best life possible. If you change your mind at any time you are free to go back to enjoying hell.
Shannon L. Alder
Balance is not always obtainable in every situation, however, we have the option to surrender our control over the desired outcome and live more easily in the present moment . This will result in greater peace of mind.
Nanette Mathews
I realize thirty is just a number, that you're only as old as you feel and all that. I also realize that in the grand scheme of things, thirty is still young. But it's not that young.
Emily Giffin
Listen to your conscience. You have to live with yourself for the rest of your life.
Frank Sonnenberg
Even though your time on the job is temporary, if you do a good enough job, your work there will last forever.
Idowu Koyenikan
Writing requires a prolong period of academic education supplemented by studiously scrutinizing society and its customs. Writers also analyze their own nature and physical surroundings, a self-directed exploration of their internal and external environment.
Kilroy J. Oldster
Technology is the idol of our age. The Bible describes the evils of worshipping things built by the hand of man. Back then, it was a simple statue, today it is far more insidious. And for every problem technology creates, we look to technology for solutions.
James Rozoff
Life wants you to know that feelings are more important than facts, and you should never hurt someone just to be right.
Bryant McGill
She's my /sister./" He had no doubt that Clarisse was telling the truth: that Darri was down here in the caves, that she was trying to end the spell. And that she was about to die. "If you kill her, I'll tear this country down. I'll grind silver into the soil. I swear it." Clarisse blinked at him, completely unconcerned. "Why? You don't love her." "I don't like her," Varis snarled. "I /do/ love her.
Leah Cypess
When we read stories of heroes, we identify with them. We take the journey with them. We see how the obstacles almost overcome them. We see how they grow as human beings or gain qualities or show great qualities of strength and courage and with them, we grow in some small way
Sam Raimi
The instinct to tell our children that they are better than someone else’s children, based on nothing more than the color of their skin, is now a fossilized aberration that serves no useful purpose.
Aberjhani
You are the storyteller and the editor of your book of life. So write tales of imagination, tragedy, and adventure and illustrate it with the colors of beauty.
Debasish Mridha
My world view is somewhat unique. I have learned from many great philosophers including Plato, Socrates, Buddha, Jesus, Darwin, Tagore, Emerson, and many more.
Debasish Mridha
The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.
Henry Miller
From the union of power and money,from the union of power and secrecy,from the union of government and science,from the union of government and art,from the union of science and money,from the union of ambition and ignorance,from the union of genius and war,from the union of outer space and inner vacuity,the Mad Farmer walks quietly away.
Wendell Berry
We realize, though, because we must, that remembrance is finite. It crosses only so many generations before it fades to indistinction. One man remembers his father and perhaps his grandfather and the details of the lives that were lived. But it's harder to see further back in time. I know the name of my great-grandfather, but our living time did not intersect. We did not walk the earth at the same time. Thus, to me he's a photograph; a story I heard my grandfather tell. He's not a life I remember. And my children may not know him at all, unless by chance they can find him in a book. In time, he will be forgotten entirely, just as we all will with enough revolutions of the earth around the slowly expiring sun. Each fragile heart now beating will one day stop ... We are little more than one tree's growth of leaves in hillside forest. We will enjoy our brief moment in the sun, only to fall away with all the other to make way for the next bright young generation.
Phillip Lewis
Later, I walked towards the dorm circle beside Alaska. The cicadas hummed their one-note song, just as they had at home in Florida. She turned to me as we made our way through the darkness and said,"When you’re walking at night, do you ever get creeped out and even though it’s silly and embarrassing you just want to run home?”It seemed too secret and personal to admit to a virtual stranger but I told her, “Yeah, totally.”For a moment, she was quiet. Then she grabbed my hand, whispered,“Run run run run run,” and took off, pulling me behind her.
John Green
We've all started to put down the virtues of the other factions in the process of bolstering our own. I don't want to do that. I want to be brave, and selfless, and smart, and kind, and honest." He clears his throat. "I continually struggle with kindness.
Veronica Roth
That night she wrote a hasty sketch and showed it to Oliver. "It's all right," he said. "But I'd take out that stuff about Olympian mountains and the Stygian caverns of the mine. That's about used up, I should think.
Wallace Stegner
Here's the bottom line: The secret world of intelligence--at least in the United States of America--represents everything wrong with the government, the industrial era, our financial-economic system, and our ethics.
Robert David Steele
...when I thought he loved me, when I thought we were joined not just for breath’s time, but for the long continuance, the hard candies of femur and stone, the fastnesses.
Sharon Olds