Quotes by American Authors - Page 237

If voting made any difference they wouldn't let us do it.
Mark Twain
Like a comet pulled from orbit, As it passes a sun. Like a stream that meets a boulder, Halfway through the wood. Who can say if I've been changed for the better? But because I knew you, I have been changed for good It well may be, That we will never meet again, In this lifetime. So let me say before we part, So much of me, Is made of what I learned from you. You'll be with me, Like a handprint on my heart. And now whatever way our stories end, I know you have re-written mine, By being my friend... Like a ship blown from its mooring, By a wind off the sea. Like a seed dropped by a skybird, In a distant wood. Who can say if I've been changed for the better? But because I knew you, Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.
Stephen Schwartz
Outward beauty is the frame for the masterpiece of your soul.
Shannon L. Alder
... I grant you that anyone who pokes around in history long enough may well go mad.
Elizabeth Kostova
Things go backward.And then, one day, whatever it is we had, it’s gone. It won’t come back. We both know it.Whatever it is she let me have, she has taken it away. Whatever it is when two people agree to briefly occupy the same space, agree to allow their lives to overlap in some small area, some temporary region of the world, a region they create through love or convenience, or for us, something even more meager, whatever that was, it has collapsed, it has closed. She has closed herself to me.
Charles Yu
Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man's attitude toward history and nature.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
He had an idea that even when beaten he could steal a little victory by laughing at defeat.
John Steinbeck
Dresden’s not gone,” I said. I touched a hand lightly to my brow. “He’s here.” I touched Will’s bare chest, on the left side. “Here. Without him, without what he’s done over the years, you and I would never have been able to pull this off.”“No,” he agreed. “Probably not. Definitely not.”“There are a lot of people he’s taught. Trained. Defended. And he’s been an example. No single one of us can ever be what he was. But together, maybe we can.
Jim Butcher
Marriage is a game. They (the anxious and powerful) set the rules. We (the ordinary and subversive) bow obediently before those rules. And then we go home and do whatever the hell we want anyhow.
Elizabeth Gilbert
Kindness has the warmth in it and it can melt a hateful heart.
Debasish Mridha
the way to create art is to burn and destroyordinary concepts and to substitute themwith new truths that run down from the top of the headand out of the heart
Charles Bukowski
The recent spate of magazines for "parents" (i.e., mothers) bombard the anxiety-induced mothers of America with reassurances that they can (after a $100,000 raise and a personality transplant) produce bright, motivated, focused, fun-loving, sensitive, cooperative, confident, contented kids just like the clean, obedient ones on the cover.
Susan Douglas
When she made her way to the big picture window that framed the dining room table she froze. She stopped breathing. The anger was growing again.It grew up into her throat, where she could taste it, coppery like blood, in the back of her mouth. It grew down into her stomach, where it knotted her intestines. It made her arms stiffen and her shoulders lock. It pushed against her ribs until she felt they would snap like sticks.
Ann Brashares
I flutter my eyes ladylike. "I know the green fairy is absinthe, but what's the white angel?" "Cocaine. Wilde, by the way frequents this café. He claims he once saw an angel fluttering over the square. I image what he saw flying was one of the stone angels from atop the Opera across the street. No doubt he saw the image after partaking of cocaine and absinthe.
Carol McCleary
Kiss me. My lips are on fire.You, my friend, are the object of mysecret desire.
Lisa Canfield
Remember,too,that all who succeed in life get off to a bad start,and pass through many heartbreaking struggles before they "arrive". The turning point in the lives of those who succeed usually comes at some moment of crisis,through which they are introduced to their "other selves".
Napoleon Hill
If you lovesomeone, tell them.
Alison G. Bailey
Is there magic in this world? Certainly! But it is not the kind of magic written about in fantasy stories. It is the kind of magic that comes from ideas and the hard work it often takes to make them real.
Robert Fanney
i don't want to hate the presidenti don't want to go to harvardi don't want to win the pulitzer prizei just want to sit in my bathtuband think about relationships i will never havewith people i will never meetand then go lay in my bedwith a magnifying glassand count all the stiches in my sheetsuntil i fall asleepand wake upto repeat again.
Ellen Kennedy
Life moved, as inconstant and fickle as Wind Baby, frolicking, sleeping, weeping, but never truly still. Never solid or finished. Always like water flowing from one place to the next. Seed and fruit. Rain and drought, everything traveled in a gigantic circle, an eternal process of becoming something new. But we rarely saw it. Humans tended to see only frozen moments, not the flow of things.
Kathleen O'Neal Gear
They don’t see what they’re doing. The only thing they see are their intentions.
Amy Neftzger
Any problems that may occur have ultimately been caused by you, because you are responsible for where you are and what you are doing there.
Garth Stein
Down there between our legs, it's like an entertainment complex in the middle of a sewage system. Who designed that?
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Though we may choose to view them symbolically, dreams are actually no more or less symbolic than everyday waking reality. When the images and events don't conform to our view of reality, we call them symbols. When they do, we call them facts.
Eric Micha'el Leventhal
Until we see each other again, keep your head together, read some good books, be useful, be happy.
Stephen King
Recognizing that God exists in all of us is the first step toward genuine kindness.
Charles F. Glassman
Lord, Your Word is a love letter to me, showing me how much You love me. And every time I read it, I love You more.
Stormie Omartian
The past isn’t always as beautiful as we paint it in our minds.
Laura Miller
There is one problem, however, at least for alternative experiments of the American variety (and possibly some European as well), namely that we have no clear litmus test to determine which models are truly steady-state (non-expansionist) and which are business as usual hiding under “green wigs.” This latter trend is known as “greenwashing,” in which the language is hip and the bottom line remains profit. Thomas Friedman and Al Gore are major (and wealthy) players in this category, perpetuating the notion of “green corporations.” Other examples include a 2012 conference on “Sustainable Investing,” sponsored by Deepak Chopra, among others, which had as its slogans “Make Money and Make a Difference” and “Capitalism for a Democratic Society.” All of this is the attempt to have one’s cake and eat it too (or simply eat someone else’s cake); there is no real interest in disconnecting from growth, and it is growth that is the core of the problem. As Professor Magnuson tells us, while traveling around the U.S. to interview varous alternative businesses and experiments, he discovered that many of them were shams—capitalist wolves in green clothing.
Morris Berman
Advice to young writers who want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man write about a man.
E B White
Be kind. Always if you have a choice, be kind.
Anne Rice
If you change your dance steps you will change the dance.
Sue Detweiler
Only insecure boys will belittle a woman. The greatest way to "man-up" is to empower women.
Steve Maraboli
Life is the most effective school ever created. Once upon a time they made children bow their heads and read books. It would take ages to get anything across." He taps his head. "But we have widgets and datapads now, and we Golds have the lower Colors to do our research. We need not study chemistry or physics. We have computers and others to do that. What we must study is humanity. In order to rule, ours must be the study of political, psychological, and behavioral science - how desperate human beings react to one another, how packs form, how armies function, how things fall apart and why. You could learn this nowhere else but here.
Pierce Brown
Rum is tonic that clarifies the vision,and sets things in true perspective.
Brian D'Ambrosio
Scarlett's nana used to say the world of Caraval was Master Legend's playground. No words were spoken that he didn't hear. Not even a whisper could escape his ears, no shadow went unseen by his eyes. No one ever saw Legend---or if they did, they didn't know it was him---but Legend saw all during Caraval.
Stephanie Garber
The real genesis is forbidden to me, vis-à-vis N´s inability to confess even the mildest transgressions.
Suzanne Finnamore
I have been the patient one. I have waited for the world to stop being silly. I have waited for it to stop wars. I have waited for politicians to be honest. I have waited for real estate men to be good citizens. But while I wait, I dance!
Ray Bradbury
Intellect is not wisdom.
Thomas Sowell
I know for a fact that I would be awful if I was built like Serena Williams or Jennifer Lopez... If I had a body remotely close to what they have, I would be a terror. My ass would cause me to do really inappropriate and rude things. I'd be so ridiculous that people would be able to pick my labia out of a lineup. I'd wear zero clothes any- and everywhere, every day. I'd show up at church rocking a denim thong and a cropped T-shirt and have the nerve to sit right next to the head usher and dare her to say anything to me. And if anyone did say something to me, I'd tell them, "Jesus blessed me in many ways, and I am just showing off His works. HALLELUJAH." People would be disgusted and appalled by me and I wouldn't care. All insults would bounce off my ample backside. To whom much is given, much is required, and I'd require that my much would be given nary an inch of fabric. I'd hire a band whose sole job would be to follow me around and play theme music for my yansh, based on the mood I was in... I might opt to walk backwards into any room I entered, because why not?... I might also declare my booty its own limited liability corporation, assigning myself as CEO and chairman of the Donk. My jeans would be tax-deductible business expenses, and I would add my ass to my LinkedIn profile's Skills section. Everyone would throw hate ration in my dancery, and I wouldn't even see it, protected as I would be by the throne I sat atop.
Luvvie Ajayi
Empathy is a breaking down of the false constructs of division between the observer and the observed.
Chris Matakas
An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.
Ernest Hemingway
Never wanna leave my Justice, my home.So I bring her with me, my baby Lonesome.Don't matter, Justice is always there,Always right there, no matter where I go.My baby Lonesome,Makin' it so I'm never missin' home.
Kristen Ashley
It is only on the battlefield of ideas that the best ones can be recognized and ultimately prevail. Only those afraid of the truth seek to silence debate, intimidate those with whom they disagree, or slander their ideological counterparts. Those who know they are right have no reason to stifle debate because they realize that all opposing arguments will ultimately be overcome by fact.
Glenn Beck
Complete. What an awful word for an infected people, that final, animal stage that was the future of all of them. Chels swallowed, unsure what to say. “That’s…sad. I didn’t even know he was infected.”Semesz whispered, “He was just infected yesterday. We saw him last night, and he already had mouse whiskers and a tail.
Daniel Ausema
I cannot think who my residents hurt but how I can give them tools to remain on the right side of civilization.
Thomm Quackenbush
Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.
Jonathan Safran Foer
She remembered Fiona saying something once, there was nothing more attractive than a competent man. At the time she'd been a young girl, without true understanding, but now she agreed.
Lily Blackwood
You know very well that whether you are on page one or page thirty depends on whether they fear you. It is just as simple as that.
Richard Nixon
Knights do protect ladies, but only to keep them from being abducted by other knights.
Steven Pinker
What an irony it is that these living beings whose shade we sit in,whose fruit we eat, whose limbs we climb, whose roots we water, towhom most of us rarely give a second thought, are so poorlyunderstood. We need to come, as soon as possible, to a profoundunderstanding and appreciation for trees and forests and the vitalrole they play, for they are among our best allies in the uncertainfuture that is unfolding.
Jim Robbins
Failure are given power, not success ..
David S. Mark
After years of selfish lovers, my preference for pleasuring as opposed to being pleasured had unsettled her at first but as brief fumbles had turned into stolen weekends, her confidence and trust in me had grown to the point where she was now totally relaxed and at ease with me. There was nothing, not a single thing I couldn’t do for or to her if I so wished it. We didn’t even have a safe word because we didn’t need one. We just knew.
Michael Bayswater
It takes a little crazy to make a difference.
Dafna Michaelson Jenet
What if there's no such thing as PMS, and this is just my personality?
Lois Greiman
Ideally, love is unconditional; practically, it is more often the opposite.
T.F. Hodge
Let your actions, not your words, be an inspiration.
Debasish Mridha
Feelings follow actions.
Roxanne Henke
He roars, “What have you done?”I don’t answer. My heart beats crazy happy just to see her get across the iron. She’s not burned. She’s still human.“Zara.” His voice is measured. “I need her to maintain control.”“You don’t need to be in control. You’re all trapped. So there’ll be no more stealing boys, no more shooting arrows in the woods, getting people lost. It’s all over.” The metal is cold on my fingers.Devyn grabs more wire, starts another flight. A group of pixies leaps for him, screaming, a wild, chaotic mess. They start clawing at each other, lost in fear and hunger, angry. A pixie in a pink dress shrieks when another wearing a black gown lashes at her, slashing through the skin on her arm.“Zara?” The king tries to be calm and nice. He tries to look human. It doesn’t work. “Do you know what this means? Do you know the power that I’ll lose? The need? We will fight in here. We will kill each other.”“I know,” I say and my voice shakes as I stare at him, this man who is in my blood, but not me. He is not me. Still, I understand his need, his fear. He is stuck in this awful place where there is no moral way to move forward. “I’m so sorry.”And I am.
Carrie Jones
...we should all fortify ourselves against the dark hours of depression by cultivating a deep distrust of the certainties of despair. Despair is relentless in the certainties of its pessimism. But we have seen again and again, from our own experience and others', that absolute statements of hopelessness that we make in the dark are notoriously unreliable. Our dark certainties are not sureties.
John Piper