Quotes by American Authors - Page 2177

The smallest decisions made had such profound repercussions. One ten-minute wait could save a life… Or end it… One wrong turn down the right street or one seemingly unimportant conversation, and everything was changed. It wasn’t right that each lifetime was defined, ruined, ended, and made by such seemingly innocuous details. A major life-threatening event should come with a flashing warning sign that either said ABANDON ALL HOPE or SAFETY AHEAD. It was the cruelest joke of all that no one could see the most vicious curves until they were over the edge, falling into the abyss below.
Sherrilyn Kenyon
Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown.And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities.
Sarah Palin
I've never been impulsive. It's always been in my nature to consider things carefully and then decide upon the best solution. Except, sometimes the circumstances change. Sometimes things get so complicated and so bad that your nature just doesn't matter anymore.
Brenna Yovanoff
If you can't write your message in a sentence you can't say it in an hour.
Dianna Booher
You can't hold someone whoWants to leaveYou can't clutch a memoryAs if it were todayYou can't take an insultClose to heartYou can't grasp for gloryFrom your chairYou can't seize lifeThinking only of lossAnd you can't grab a laser pointer dotOn the wallNo matter how much you tryThese hard-earned truths I give to you
Francesco Marciuliano
We are all roamers of vast spaces and travelers in many ages.
H.P. Lovecraft
If the law can be broken it will. Anyone who breaks the law is a risk. You can break the law. So you see, I have to take you in for questioning. This produce stand has an ominous future.
Benson Bruno
The noble calling to rule and subdue the earth in God’s name was perverted, as male and female tried to rule and subdue each other.
Carolyn Custis James
No single decision you ever made has led in a straight line to where you find yourself now. You peeked down some roads and took a few steps before turning back. You followed some roads that came to a dead end and others that got lost at too many intersections. Ultimately, all roads are connected to all other roads.
Deepak Chopra
What happens if your choice is misguided?' I ask, softly.Miss Moore takes a pear from the bowl and offers us the grapes to devour. 'You must try to correct it.''But what if it’s too late? What if you can’t?'There's a sad sympathy in Miss Moore's catlike eyes as she regards my painting again. She paints the thinnest sliver of shadow along the bottom of the apple, bringing it fully to life.'Then you must find a way to live with it.
Libba Bray
My father told me once that the most important thing every man should know is what he would die for.
Tana French
You can't always rely on taking the pain. You need to learn to avoid it.
Meg Collett
Creativity works on a winding, circuitous route.
Gail Z. Martin
Liars are highly unlikely to admit their lies, never mind apologize for the hurt they’ve caused. Liars don’t genuinely apologize. Deceit has become their full-out lifestyle. They are centered on themselves with no thoughts of the consequences of their lies. In cowardly style, they tell more lies to try and cover their tracks. They are not good at admitting they actually have shortcomings.
Cathy Burnham Martin
Dude, you know I'm not getting paid for this shit, which is probably against the law. Child labor going on right here in the heartland of America!-Dan Garrett
Leah Rae Miller
Adapt or die. It was savagely simple." -- CelesteALL LIGHT WILL FALL
Almney King
Life is my college. May I graduate well and earn some honors!
Louisa May Alcott
It is highly probable that we choose our posture, not our problems.
T.F. Hodge
And maybe that was love. Being so vulnerable and allowing someone else in so far they could hurt you, but they also give you everything.
Christine Feehan
He's completely complicated. And lost. And frustrating. But we do something for each other. . . . We fit. We need each other.
Megan Erickson
Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to.
Alfred A. Montapert
If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and adore.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tom has been having a difficult patch, and we meet at the church of IKEA as often as possible, because it is equidistant from our houses and always cheers us up. Yesterday I asked, 'In your depression, and with so many people having such a hard time, where is Advent?' He tried to wiggle out of it by saying, 'You Protestants and your little questions!' Then, when pushed, he said: 'Faith is a decision. Do we believe we are ultimately doomed and fucked and there's no way out? Or that God and goodness make a difference? There is heaven, community, and hope - and hope that there is life beyond the grave.' 'But Tom, at the same time, the grave is very real, dark and cold and lonely.' 'Advent is not for the naive. Because in spite of the dark and cold, we see light - you look up, or you make light, with candles, or with strands of lightbulbs on trees. And you give light. Beauty helps, in art and nature and faces. Friends help. Solidarity helps. If you ask me, when people return phone calls, it's about as good as it gets. And who knows beyond that.
Anne Lamott
I rolled my eyes. To Jack I said, "Don't mind him, he's just mad no one likes him."Jonas clenched his jaw.
K.F. Breene
Whether we accept it or not, this will likely be the century that determines what the optimal human population is for our planet. It will come about in one of two ways: Either we decide to manage our own numbers, to avoid a collision of every line on civilization's graph - or nature will do it for us, in the form of famines, thirst, climate chaos, crashing ecosystems, opportunistic disease, and wars over dwindling resources that finally cut us down to size.
Alan Weisman
We knew the difference between that which cannot be expressed and that which must. We understood that while words are a path taking us only so far, they are a requisite to the journey. They are like road maps that show us which way to go.
Laura Bynum
God reproduces and lives out His image in millions of ordinary people like us. It is a supreme mystery. We are called to bear that image as a Body because any one of us taken individually would present an incomplete image, one partly false and always distorted, like a single glass chip hacked from a mirror. But collectively, in all our diversity, we can come together as a community of believers to restore the image of God in the world. (In His Image, Philip Yancey and Dr. Paul Brand, p. 40)
Philip Yancey
Probably for every man there is at least one city that sooner or later turns into a girl. How well or how badly the man actually knew the girl doesn't necessarily affect the transformation. She was there, and she was the whole city, and that's that.
J.D. Salinger
History overflows time. Love overflows the allowance of the world. All the vessels overflow, and no end or limit stays put. Every shakable thing has got to be shaken. In a sense, nothing that was ever lost in Port William ever has been replaced. In another sense, nothing is ever lost, and we are compacted together forever, even by our failures, our regrets, and our longings.
Wendell Berry
We would prefer all gain and no loss in life, yet that would gain us nothing more than great loss.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Maybe love was a myth anyhow, a brew of hormones and fantasy, evolution's way of getting men and women together long enough for them to procreate,back in the day when girls got pregnant at twelve, were pregnant or nursing for the next twenty years, and were dead of the plague by forty.
Jennifer Weiner
Eisenhower on LBJ: "He hadn't got the depth of mind nor the breath vision to carry great responsibility.
David Pietrusza
Don’t pray that God would teach you how to love like He loves; pray that He would fill you with Himself and that He would love in and through you. Don’t pray that He would teach you to have joy; pray that the living God full of joy would enter into you. Don’t pray that He would teach you how to be peaceful; ask for the God of peace, the Prince of peace to infill you. Because if you try to imitate in your own strength, you will be a miserable replica. But if you allow the impartation of Jesus Christ to overtake you, suddenly it all works because it is Him imitating Himself, and He is very good at being God.
Eric Ludy
Move to live and live to move!
Toni Sorenson
Make mistakes often without remorse or fear. You will gain experience and will be a winner.
Debasish Mridha
They keep talking about drafting a constitution for Iraq. Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys. It's worked for over 200 years, and Hell, we're not using it anymore.
Jay Leno
Sometimes the darkness beyond is not glorious at all, it truly is an absolute absence of light. A clawing, needy tar that pulls you down. You drown but you don't. It turns you to lead so you sink faster in its viscous embrace. It robs you of hope and even the memory of hope. It makes you think you've always felt like this, and there's no place to go but down, where it slowly, ravenously digests your will, distilling it into the ebony crude of nightmares. And you know the darkness beyond despair, just as intimately as you know the soaring heights. Because in this and all universes, there is balance. You can't have the one without facing the other. And sometimes you think you can take it because the joy is worth the despair, and sometimes you know you can't take it and how did you ever think you could? And there is the dance; strength and weakness, confidence and desolation.
Neal Shusterman
Psychosis is person less persona, raving sincerity.
Brian Spellman
In the distance,far over there, only the eyes can travel when the body is weary.
Yvette Christiansë
Am I an illusion?
Debasish Mridha
Nothing ever happens like you imagine it will. But then again, if you don't imagine, nothing ever happens at all
John Green
Remember babe, hurting people hurt people. And that doesn't make it right, and it won't ever make it okay. I just don't want to see you with a hurting someone that hurts people every single day.
Hope Alcocer
Jack and Bobby Kennedy were too young, too attached to real family to transfer affection and loyalty to those that of their blood or region or upbringing.
David Pietrusza
Verne frowned. “Calm down. Don’t exert yourself in your condition.”tSalen looked at Verne in amazement. “Don’t exert --! My dear woman, we are all about to die! I don’t think it damn well matters if I shit my pants at this point --
Ash Gray
Men believe that they are accomplishing something by speaking speak in a different way from men who believe that speaking is a waste of time. Bobby Shaftoe learned most of his practical knowledge – how to fix a car, butcher a deer, throw a spiral, talk to a lady, kill a Nip – from the latter type of man. For them, trying to do anything by talking is like trying to pound in a nail with a screwdriver. Sometimes you can see the desperation spread over such a man’s face as he listens to himself speak.
Neal Stephenson
violence is an evil thing, but when the guns are all in the hands of the men without respect for human rights, then men are really in trouble.
Louis L'Amour
A wisdom as constant as the North Star shines within all of us. It is always present. waiting to be tapped, waiting to guide us, to advise us. We need only use it to prevent its atrophy. No matter what our background, profession, color, or religion, employing this universal compass, this innate sense of what we know to be true, will help us establish a lifelong foundation - a place we go to recover our sanity and to regain our balance.
Nancy Cobb
As he farmed, hard labor left his hands callused, the sun bleached his hair, his face leathered, and his heart throbbed with music.
Brenda Sutton Rose
In contrast to your usual minions, I imagine, I’m a bit more awed by your conceit and arrogance than I am by your supposed magnificence.
Caitlin Crews
I realized that if what we call human nature can be changed then absolutely anything is possible. And from that moment my life changed.
Shirley Maclaine
You do not need to be temperamental or upset to be a novelist. Don’t embrace the tortured artist rhetoric that any life difficulties might serve to benefit and enhance your writing. That’s damaging. Counterintuitive. Writing can be so incredibly lonely, and when you’re alone with your thoughts for long enough to produce a hundred thousand words of your own headspace, it can be scary. Suffering is not good for your art. Mental health care is. So talk to someone other than your future readers about the problems you are facing. Someone you know and trust. There is no shame in asking for help.
Bryant A. Loney
Survival through denial. Works every time.
Carol Cassella
Leaders empower individuals by building trust and coaching competence in their job roles and networking skills.
Kenneth H. Blanchard
Some people say Earth is the bottom level of Purgatory.' She pointed toward the floor and frowned.'I call it the top floor of Hell.
Tara West
In graduate school, early on, I once overheard a classmate talking in her office as I walked by. She didn't know I was there. She was gossiping about me to a group of our classmates & said I was the affirmative-action student...Rationally, I know it was absurd, but hearing how she & maybe others saw me hurt real bad...I stopped joking about being a slacker. I tripled the number of projects I was involved with. I was excellent most of the time. I fell short some of the time. I made sure I got good grades. I made sure my comprehensive exams were solid. I wrote conference proposals & had them accepted. I published. I designed an overly ambitious research project for my dissertation that kind of made me want to die. No matter what I did, I heard that girl, that girl who had accomplished a fraction of a fraction of what I had, telling a group of our peers I was the one who did not deserve to be in our program.
Roxane Gay
Bankrupt"One midnight, deep in starlight still,I dreamed that I received this bill:(- - - - IN ACCOUNT WITH LIFE - - - -):Five thousand breathless dawns all new;Five thousand flowers fresh in dew;Five thousand sunsets wrapped in gold;One-million snow-flakes served ice-cold;Five quiet friends; one baby's love;One white-mad sea with clouds above;One hundred music-haunted dreamsOf moon-drenched roads and hurrying streams;Of prophesying winds, and trees;Of silent stars and browsing bees;One June night in a fragrant wood;One heart that loved and understood.I wondered when I waked at day,How—how in God's name—I could pay!
Cortlandt W. Sayres
Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.
August Wilson
The worst thing you can do is to hate someone. The best thing you can do is to totally love someone without expectations.
Debasish Mridha
Sometimes, you need to spit stuff out in words to get it better arranged in your head. I figure if you never talk about it, it just picks its own spot and lays there and festers.
Dan Groat
Patience is a virtue, but there comes a moment when you must stop being patient and take the day by the throat and shake it. If it fights back; fine. I'd rather end up bloody at the end of the day, then unhurt with no progress made, no knowledge gained. I'd rather have a no, then nothing. I'd forgotten that about myself.
Laurell K. Hamilton