Quotes by American Authors - Page 2740

In the museums we used to visit on family vacations when I was a kid, I used to love those rooms which displayed collections of minerals in a kind of closet or chamber which would, at the push of a button, darken. Then ultraviolet lights would begin to glow and the minerals would seem to come alive, new colors, new possibilities, and architectures revealed. Plain stones became fantastic, “futuristic…” Of course there wasn’t any black light in the center of the earth, in the caves where they were quarried; how strange that these stones should have to be brought here, bathed with this unnatural light in order for their transcendent characters to emerge. Irradiation revealed a secret aspect of the world.Imagine illness as this light; demanding, torturous, punitive, it nonetheless reveals more of what things are. A certain glow of being appears. I think this is what is meant when we speculate that death is what makes love possible.
Mark Doty
A relationship could be a place to hide too.
Deb Caletti
If you're a follower of Jesus, He has given you abundance so that you can care for others, not so you can stock up on capri pants for next summer or afford a leather interior in the new SUV. As long as you don't own the responsibility of being blessed with resources so that you can give to those around you, then you can stay focused on getting more for yourself.
Craig Groeschel
He's outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard's.And when the larder's looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke's been stifled,Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair -Ay, there's the wonder of the thing! Macavity's not there!And when the Foreign Office find a Treaty's gone astray,Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way,There may be a scrap of paper in the hall or on the stair -But it's useless to investigate - Mcavity's not there!And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:'It must have been Macavity!' - but he's a mile away.You'll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,Or engaged in doing complicated long-division sums.Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.He always has an alibi, and one or two to spaer:At whatever time the deed took place - MACAVITY WASN'T THERE!And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the timeJust controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!
T.S Eliot
So yeah, maybe this will be the rest of our lives. Pot roast and Diet Cokes and my parents making eyes at each other. As for those slaps and punches and hateful words, we'll just sweep those under the rug or wherever they can go.
Travis Thrasher
You missed breakfast," Jason announced as Trevor stepped into the large busy kitchen filled with Bradfords and food."That's fine. I'm not really hungry," he said, barely aware or caring that all activity in the busy kitchen suddenly stopped as every Bradford in the room, even one year old Cole stopped trying to climb onto the counter to get at the large platter of cookies his mother made to stare at him in disbelief.
R.L. Mathewson
She got inside me with her story. I could feel her flowing in me and far, faraway I related in parallel. Her smile was a reflection of my own brokenness. It defined buried feelings that I could never ignore.
Robert M. Drake
Create your best life with your consciously chosen thoughts, words, and actions.
Amy Leigh Mercree
We live in a day when the adversary stresses on every hand the philosophy of instant gratification. We seem to demand instant everything, including instant solutions to our problems. . .It was meant to be that life would be a challenge. To suffer some anxiety, some depression, some disappointment, even some failure is normal.
Boyd K. Packer
Boys play with death as though it were a game, cutting their teeth on daggers.
Sheri S. Tepper
Fearing failure is fearing life. Failure is a great way to learn from life.
Debasish Mridha
Whatever course you have chosen for yourself it will not be a chore but an adventure if you bring to it a sense of the glory of striving if your sights are set far above the merely secure and mediocre.
David Sarnoff
Doubt kills more dreams than failure will.
Suzy Kassem
Although some of her passages seek to persuade the reader of the meaninglessness and marginalization of the mathematics, Hayles is content to use mathematics as a means for understanding Borges, perhaps in the same way a sponge riddled with holes is useful in sopping up fluid reality.
Bloch William Goldbloom
Cosmopolitan theology affirms and radicalizes the belief that the Divine creates each and every human being as equal to every one else as a _citizen-of-the-cosmos and that no one is either superior or inferior to the other.
Namsoon Kang
Did you see that dress?” "I saw the dress.” "Did you like it?” He didn't answer. I took that as a yes. "Am I going to endanger my reputation if I wear it to the dance?” When he spoke, I could barely hear him. "You'll endanger the school.” I smiled and fell asleep.
Richelle Mead
According to the science writer Philip Ball, when it was pointed out to musicologist Deryck Cookethat Slavic and much Spanish music use minor keys for happy music, he claimed that their liveswere so hard that they didn’t really know what happiness was anyway.
David Byrne
The pressure of public opinion is like the pressure of the atmosphere you can't see it - but all the same it is sixteen pounds to the square inch.
James Russell Lowell
An Indian Affairs agent said, 'The question will suggest itself, which of these people are the savages?
David Grann
Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My dark side says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
The only way to entertain some folks is to listen to them.
Kin Hubbard
As proof that HOW we see things matters, Gen. Montgomery took a preprepared text that had been deemed an innocuous complement to his American troops and delivered it in such a way that his condescension prompted more division than unity.
Jean Edward Smith
It was hard to judge a man's full character by his bachelor party etiquette.
Lola Dodge
I want to be Tragedy, I want to be Juliet, I want to be Romeo. Thus with a kiss I die.
Lee Smith
If Christ is missing from your life, it isn’t because He is lost.
Toni Sorenson
It was grotesque and eerie, too strange of a dream.
Catherine Lacey
A young man who doesn't have the foresight to seek out the girl he wants to be with and actively pursue her, doesn't deserve her.
Colleen Houck
I was in the parking lot, with the key in the car, and I thought to myself: If this is my last night on earth, would I rather spend it at a business meeting or with this woman? I ran across the parking lot, asked her if she'd have dinner with me. She said yes, we walked into town, and we've been together ever since.
Steve Jobs
I am not and autobiographical writer--one can't be without a solid and explicable self--and read all autobiographical writers with the same curiosity. What kind of life permits a person the right to become his own subject?
Yiyun Li
When I was young” … “Before I was twenty, I mean, I used to think that life was a thing that kept gaining impetus, it would get richer and deeper each year. You kept learning more, getting wiser, having more insight, going further into the truth” – she hesitated.Port laughed abruptly. – “And now you know it’s not like that. Right? It’s more like smoking a cigarette. The first few puffs it tasted wonderful, and you don’t even think of its ever being used up. Then you begin taking it for granted. Suddenly you realize it’s nearly burned down to the end. And then’s when you’re conscious of the bitter taste.
Paul Bowles
He nodded and leaned down to kiss me. I let him, Dad be damned.
S.C. Stephens
Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.
Lewis Hyde
You do not have to know which path you must take. That's not how life works. You simply must be curious and daring enough to take a step into the unknown. That's how you come to know.
Toni Sorenson
There once was a kindly farmer who found a viper freezing on the ground in the snow. Please help me, the poor creature said, for I am too cold to live. The farmer took the viper and put it inside of his shirt, and the viper began to warm itself and come alive again. But upon coming alive, it bit the farmer most wretchedly, and as the farmer died, he asked the viper, but why? Why when I was so trusting of you?Because I am a viper, the snake replied. And one cannot expect kindness from evil.
Rachel Caine
A dream is a kind of nocturnal drama to which the only price of admission is falling asleep.
Henry Gleitman
The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.
William James
The earth has grown a nervous system, and it's us.
Daniel Dennett
Blaming the woman for the loss of a child is like blaming the soldier for the loss of his life in battle.
Katherine Longshore
[Men] are incomprehensible animals... They walk about boasting of their wisdom, strength, and sovereignty, while they have not sense so much as to swallow an apple with the aid of an Eve to put it down their throats.
Frances Wright
Missional leaders not only feel the burden of God's mission but they also act on the burden and act upon it sacrificially.
Gary Rohrmayer
...and I realized no matter what you do it’s bound to be a waste of time in the end so you might as well go mad.
Jack Kerouac
Expressing yourself when he takes for granted doesn't work.
Sherry Argov
If liberty has any meaning it means freedom to improve.
Philip Wylie
But one doesn't wait for a revolution. One becomes it.
Carl Safina
I don't know if you've ever been covered head to toe in prickle bush, but let me tell you, it's not a pleasant experience, as I'm sure you can imagine.
Elizabeth Newton
The pink-haired boy is scared, so incredibly scared - only the thing you've most wished for can scare you in that way.
David Levithan
The purpose of a writer is to keep civilisation from destroying itself.", September 14, 1958)
Bernard Malamud
It's hard to believe. Where does the times go?' Betty sighs. 'I've always hated that phrase. It makes it would like time went on a holiday, and is expected back any day now. Time flies is another one I hate. Apparently, time does quite a bit of traveling, though.
Gabrielle Zevin
The blessing of the omnivore is that he can eat a great many different things in nature. The curse of the omnivore is that when it comes to figuring out which of those things are safe to eat, he's pretty much on his own.
Michael Pollan
Anxiety is the poison of human life the parent of many sins and of more miseries.... Can it alter the cause or unravel the mystery of human events?
Paxton Blair
To uncover your true potential you must first find your own limits and then you have to have the courage to blow past them."— Picabo Street
Picabo Street
Cole sat back up, slowly, and I opened my eyes. His expression, as ever, was blank, the face he wore when something mattered. He said, "That's how I would kiss you, if I loved you.
Maggie Stiefvater
Love is what freed me from the cell of my selfishness.
Seth Adam Smith
Most people don't plan to fail they fail to plan.
John L. Beckley
But nobody is born being able to hear [intervals], and many people never master them. Some people never even notice that "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and "The Alphabet Song" follow the same melody (and hence consist of the same sequence of intervals).
Gary F. Marcus
Years from now, I will pass this same park, and I won’t remember any of this.Instead, I will feel something like a spark— a heat like Augustin a suburban town,and a desire to groweven when I know I’ll be cut down.
Kris Kidd
If Alice had a post-engagement policy, it was to pass.
Alexis Coe
If you didn't understand the need for friendship or love, could you be lonely?
Laurell K. Hamilton
Who can know when his world is going to change? Who can tell before it happens, that every priorexperience, all the years, were a preparation for . . . nothing.
William Goldman
The Golds dance in pairs,Obsidians in threes, Grays in dozens. We dance alone, because only alone do Helldivers drill.~Uncle Narol
Pierce Brown