Quotes by American Authors - Page 2597

It was an emergency!" Seth blurted. "Read my lips - emergency reading - not some demented idea of fun. If I was starving, I would eat asparagus. If somebody held a gun to my head, I would watch a soap opera. And to save Fablehaven, I would read a book, okay, are you happy?"You had best be careful, Seth," Grandma warned. "The love of reading can be contagious."I just lost my appetite," he declared...
Brandon Mull
People have always looked to the horizon and feared that which they did not understand. Initially, this horizon was the edge of the forest. Then, when forests became better explored and their dangers were realized as not actually being that serious, human attention turned toward the darkness of the sea. Then the sea became better explored, and the new horizon became the vastness of space. And now, with space getting ever better explored, a new horizon appears. . . in the form of the horrors humanity is about to unleash on itself.
Matt Kaplan
Even if it's not appreciated, do your best. Integrity will take you further than acknowledgement.
Andrena Sawyer
New York makes one think of the collapse of civilization, about Sodom and Gomorrah, the end of the world. The end wouldn't come as a surprise here. Many people already bank on it.
Saul Bellow
Are our lives just the aggregate of the lies we've told? ('Lives' - the 'v' is silent.)
William Boyd
The system is only as good as its leaders. When they fail—when the system fails—you better damn well hope I’m there to pick up the slack.”The man’s glower lost some of its fervor. “No one appointed you humanity’s protector.”“No one had to—and if you don’t understand why that is, then you’re not nearly the man I was told you are. I’m leaving now, and I’m going to assume we’re done. But if you threaten me again, you had better bring help.
G.S. Jennsen
Beauty, to me, is about being comfortable in your own skin. That, or a kick-ass red lipstick.
Gwyneth Paltrow
Abinia,” he said, pointing toward the chickens, “you look at those birds. Some of them be brown, some of them be white and black. Do you think when they little chicks, those mamas and papas care about that?
Kathleen Grissom
The pains in my heart don't go away these days. The heartaches are chronic; they layer on top of each other from one day to the next, thickening like a callus.
Eva Lesko Natiello
Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man.
Mark Twain
The minute your group gets so big you don't know anybody in it and they don't know you, there's hell to pay.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher
I will go further and say all cats are wicked, though often useful. Who has not seen Satan in their sly faces? Some preachers will say, well, that is superstitious "claptrap." My answer is this: Preacher, go to your Bible and read Luke 8: 26-33
Charles Portis
Finally, you are in the most magical world having the most wonderful time. Let us not fill it with stress or anxieties.
Debasish Mridha
If we try to emulate the leadership style of others we perceive as successful, we end up being second-rate versions of someone else.
Henna Inam
Cinders, I would've thought you of all people would know better. There are no wicked stepmothers and there are no fairy godmothers, and there are no Prince Charmings. There in no preordained destiny. You get to decide that. You decide your destiny. - V
Gayle Forman
I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books.
Gary Paulsen
Psychoanalytic insight, Miller seems to suggest, is itself a pathological symptom.
Alison Bechdel
She closed her eyes briefly, feeling sick. Olivia had experienced strangulation before. Having to look directly into the face of the person who was killing you made the experience beyond awful. But there were worse things than that. Staring into the void of unresolved memory, living an eternal mystery, waking up night after night seeing the face of someone you desperately wanted to save but having not the slightest clue how to do it—all that was worse. If going through with this experience gave her the answers she needed, if it gave her peace, it would be well worth one-hundred-and-thirty seconds of fear and pain.
Leslie Parrish
The awareness is not part of the darkness or the pain; it holds the pain, and knows it, so it has to be more fundamental, and closer to what is healthy and strong and golden within you.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Fire is no laughing matter. In a drunken attempt to appear womanly, my neighbor tried to burn her pubes off when she was fifteen, but it hurt too much to get it completely smooth. My friend had sex with her two years later and said her clit looked like a chestnut. I’ve been pro-bush ever since.
Brian Celio
When you feel someone else's pain and joy as powerfully as if it were your own, then you know you really loved them.
Ann Brashares
It's a very excruciating life facing that blank piece of paper every day and having to reach up somewhere into the clouds and bring something down out of them.
Truman Capote
The cure for love is the love itself.
Debasish Mridha
Greatness recognizes greatness, and is shadowed by it.
Harold Bloom
Fear can't hurt you. When it washes over you, give it no power. it's a snake with no venom.
Maureen Johnson
Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.
Henry Rollins
Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others.
William Allen White
For the record…” I took her hand and held it up. “These are the only hands I want on me.
Lisa Kessler
The more I see of the ‘hounoured, famed, and great,’ the more I see of the littleness, the unsatisfactoriness of all created good; and that no earthly pleasure can fill up the wants of the immortal principle within.
Karen Swallow Prior
A lofty breeze rushed by, threatening to brush him over the ridge. He looked with hardened eyes off into the East as the first sign of the sun broke the horizon with a distinct flash. He didn’t flinch as the first rays of light shot at his eyes. He watched as the shadow of the valley gradually succumbed to the sweeping radiance of the long-awaited daylight. The dark of the night had had its turn. The morning sun had returned to once again claim its former glory.
Evan Grinde
So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won’t do in your essays.
N.H. Kleinbaum
He offered a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the bottom of the sea.
Herman Melville
I’m very interested in the emotional honesty of things, which at times looks kind of ugly and at times looks scary and not polished, and so there were many times when I would audition for something and I would come from, for me, a very honest place, but it’s completely not what they’re looking for for that type of material. But I was always very steadfast in what I was interested in, and I felt like, I’m gonna tell the truth as best as I know it. And you eventually start to understand that the projects find you that meet up with that. It takes as long as it takes, and for me it took like 20 years, but I’m really glad. You know, the jobs always ultimately end up going to the person who’s supposed to tell that story, and those weren’t my stories to tell.
Brie Larson
My interpretation can only be as inerrant as I am, and that's good to keep in mind.
Rachel Held Evans
The political mind is the product of men in public life who have been twice spoiled. They have been spoiled with praise and they have been spoiled with abuse. – Calvin Coolidge
David Pietrusza
It is as easy to find a lover as to keep a friend, but as hard to find a friend as to keep a lover.
Emma Frances Dawson
Before, you are wise; after, you are wise. In between you are otherwise
David Zindell
But it's up to us...' he said softly. 'it's up to us not to lose this.
Rainbow Rowell
This-this was what made life: a moment of quiet the water falling in the fountain the girl's voice ... a moment of captured beauty. He who is truly wise will never permit such moments to escape.
Louis L'Amour
In effect, painting is the still memory of [the artist's] human motion, and our individual responses to it depend on who we are, on our character, which underlines the simple truth that no person leaves himself behind in order to look at a painting.
Siri Hustvedt
Sit in a room and read--and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.
Joseph Campbell
The greatest joy is in giving; after all, God gave Christ for us.
Ashley Ormon
Reality is a lovely place, but I wouldn't want to live there.
Adam Young
Theology alone doesn't convine anyone.Only those words which are pregnant with action, theology that is born of suffering, of struggles, of the poor--this theology is a testimony. This theology leads to conversion. (Leonardo Boff, p. 169)
Mev Puleo
The priest's work, the priest's service, was understood as an act of worship. This was God's desire at Sinai - that everybody would understand their roles as priests. Thst everybody would worship God by serving each other.
Rob Bell
Kaladin frowned. “Wait. Are you wearing cologne? In prison?”“Well, there was no need to be barbaric, just because I was incarcerated.”“Storms, you’re spoiled,” Kaladin said, smiling.“I’m refined, you insolent farmer,” Adolin said. Then he grinned. “Besides, I’ll have you know that I had to use cold water for my baths while here.”“Poor boy.
Brandon Sanderson
The most introspective of souls are often those that have been hurt the most.
Shannon L. Alder
The only real estate I will ever truly own is the space inside my head and heart. And what I build there is up to me.
Bridget Hodder
If killing yourself is not an option anymore, you have to sink into the darkness instead, and make something out of it.
Emma Forrest
We know that for mankind to move forward, changes must be made. However, if an old man is wise only by his gray hair, yet it is inevitable that this wisdom will also become impaired by age, then it can be deduced that we cannot expect the very old or very young to make progressive strides to better society, it must be up to the men and women still in the prime of their lives to re-learn and teach the changes needed to be made.
Suzy Kassem
When we merely follow another, we take a potentially creative mind out of service-our own.
William Coperthwaite
Never apologize for the good in your life. People who try to make you feel badly because you have been blessed are consumed by self-loathing. Wear your accomplishments proudly, be it your career, your relationship, your children, your success. True friends will bask in the glow of your shine, not pray for darkness to fall.
Carlos Wallace
Shit, man, if you see a dog scratching at the dirt trying to dig something up, walk away real fast,” he said, then pulled a little square of paper from his pocket and swallowed whatever was folded inside.
Cole Alpaugh
I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation.
Edgar Allan Poe
I've developed into quite a swan. I'm one of those people that will probably look better and better as I get older - until I drop dead of beauty.
Rufus Wainwright
Worry is the opposite of power.
Bryant McGill
In the end, what I love most about contemporary yoga is its ability tosynthesize the everyday with the extraordinary, the practical with thevisionary, the mundane with the sacred. I love that yoga can work torelease my tense muscles, negative emotions, and psychic detritus at thesame time. That it can connect me to my body in ways that create newneural pathways in my brain. That it offers a practical tool for copingwith everyday stress, as well as an intuitive opening to the hidden magicof everyday life.
Carol Horton
If you can't swallow your pride, you can't lead. Even the highest mountain had animals that step on it.
Jack Weatherford
The longer you delay in seizing the treasure, the more likely you’ll lose it. The time to act is now.
Michael Hyatt
Let’s put it this way: you know how we always told you that all those years of tormenting four sisters turned you into a closet sadist? Well, if you ever decide that being a lawyer isn’t bringing you the kind of gratification you were hoping for, then I think I found the perfect job for you.
Elle Lothlorien