Quotes by American Authors - Page 2887

I feel like I failed," I said. "Don't beat yourself up," Jim said. "She might not have turned out like you planned, but that don't mean she turned out wrong.
Jeannette Walls
A good place to meet a man is at the dry cleaner. These men usually have jobs and bathe.
Rita Rudner
It was like a Russian party, Arkady thought. People got drunk, recklessly confessed their love, spilled their festering dislike, had hysterics, marched out, were dragged back in and revived with brandy. It wasn't a French salon.
Martin Cruz Smith
It is the wilderness inthe mind, the desert wastes in the heart through which one wanders lost and a stranger. When one is astranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then onecannot touch others.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Art is an adventure. When it ceases to be an adventure, it ceases to be art. Not all of us pursue the inaccessible landscapes of the twelve-tone scale, just as not all of us strive for inaccessible mountain-tops, or glory in storms at sea. But the human incidence is there. Could it be that these two impractical pursuits — of beauty and of adventure’s embrace — are simply two differing profiles of the same uniquely human reality?
Robert Ardrey
He's already tan, and leaning on the rail in his yellow linen shirt, with the pure glory of Venice racing behind him, I think he looks like someone I'd like to run off with, if I already hadn't.
Frances Mayes
I wasn't afraid of you!' Ryan protested. 'I was half intimidated, half infatuated, and I didn't know how to act because of it.'Sin made a face at Ryan and picked up his chips again. 'How could you be infatuated with me when you didn't even know me?'Ryan scoffed and pointed his cheese-covered fork at Sin. 'You're gorgeous and tragic—gay boys like that kind of thing.
Santino Hassell
I love you,” was his reply. “I make myself keep on loving you, despite what you do. I've got to love you. We all have to love you, and believe inyou, and think you are looking out for our best interests. But look at us, Momma, and really see us.
V.C. Andrews
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences...
Susan B. Anthony
Jenny Marzen is who again?" Amy knew perfectly well who she was. Jenny Marzen was hot, hotter than Amy had ever been, and Jenny Marzen would be washed up in ten years and didn't know it. "And Jenny is my number one fan?""No, but she likes you. She read your stories in grad school.""What is she, twelve?""The point is, she really liked the article, and all that stuff about experience and news. Lex says she says you've got gravitas.""That's a dirty lie. I never even had mono.
Jincy Willett
When we focus on people and life instead of material possessions and mere wants, there's not much room for emotional hand-wringing. Instead, there's more space to weigh what we value in our lives and to acknowledge what really counts. Chapter 9 Simplicity Laura Ingalls in The Long Winter
Erin Blakemore
Don't give in to the darkness, for there is so much life ahead of you.
Seth Adam Smith
The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but Size.
Stephen King
God's beauty is better by far than anything that comes out of a jar..
Nanette L. Avery
I like Saturdays. They are my best thinking days. It is my day to try to find that one special thought that turns into an idea that I remember forever and becomes a part of who I am, like a freckle or a finger or an ear. Even before I open my eyes I take a deep breath and try to picture something, anything, as if my brain were a keyhole where I can spy on my future. So each Saturday morning I try to find a little piece of a thought, and then I keep turning it over in my mind until it turns into a complete idea and at the end of the day when I'm lying in bed I put the whole thought into a little room in my head so I can remember it.
Jack Gantos
To be a revolutionary you have to be a human being. You have to care about people who have no power.
Jane Fonda
There's never any telling what you'll say or do next, except that it's bound to be something astonishing. By God, sir, you are a character.
John Huston
It is a smile of a baby that makes life worth living.
Debasish Mridha
Well,” she finally said, “he’s coming back shortly, so you are absolved of your responsibilities.” “No.” The word came from him like an oath, emerging from the very core of his being. She looked at him in impatient confusion. “What do you mean?” He stepped forward. He wasn’t sure what he was doing. He knew only that he couldn’t stop. “I mean no. I don’t want to be absolved.” Her lips parted. He took another step. His heart was pounding, and something within him had gone hot, and greedy, and if there was anything in the world besides her, besides him—he did not know it. “I want you,” he said, the words blunt, and almost harsh, but absolutely, indelibly true. “I want you,” he said again, and he reached out and took her hand. “I want you.” “Marcus, I—” “I want to kiss you,” he said, and he touched one finger to her lips. “I want to hold you.” And then, because he couldn’t have kept it inside for one second longer, he said, “I burn for you.” He took her face in his hands and he kissed her. He kissed her with everything that had been building within him, every last aching, hungry burst of desire. Since the moment he had realized he loved her, this passion had been growing within him. It had probably been there all along, just waiting for him to realize it. He loved her.
Julia Quinn
I don’t think that teenagers are the way they are because of their age. It’s because they have nothing to lose. They simultaneously have a lot of time on their hands and yet are very impatient to get on with their lives.
Neal Stephenson
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility never an opportunity.
Kahlil Gibran
In 1912, a man named Franz Reichelt jumped off the Eiffel Tower wearing a parachute suit he designed himself. He jumped to test his invention--he expected to fly--but instead he fell straight down, hitting the ground like a meteor and leaving a 5.9-inch-deep crater from the impact. Did he mean to kill himself? Doubtful. I think he was just cocky, and also stupid.
Jennifer Niven
Celebrate the people in your life who are there because they love you for no other reason than because you are YOU.
Mandy Hale
To sit down so often with nothing to say,-to say something so often, almost without consciousness of saying and without any remembrance or having said,-is a power of which I will not violate my modesty by boasting; but I do not believe everyone has it.
Michael Kelahan
When I put on makeup, I'm not doing it to pander to antiquated patriarchal ideals of feminine beauty. I'm doing it because it makes mr feel good.
Sophia Amoruso
I've seen the way you've been looking at me. Don't bullshit me, Pat. I live in the addition around back, which is completely separate from the house, so there's no chance of my parents walking in on us. I hate the fact that you wore a football jersey to dinner, but you can fuck me as long as we turn the lights out first. Okay?
Matthew Quick
I believe that anytime someone messes with the mind, they mess with the soul. Historically they go hand-in-hand, for a long time ago, the word "mind" was another word for "soul". Contextually, people might not see the relationship between the mind and such events from the past and present, but there is a connection. They all involved tampering of the value of the mind.
Lauren Lola
she committed suicide by putting her extremities down the garbage disposal-first one arm and then, kind of miraculously if you think about it, the other arm.
David Foster Wallace
A sweet fate oft hides a sinner's heart.
George R.R. Martin
When one may pay out over two million dollars to presidential and Congressional campaigns, the U.S. government is virtually up for sale.
John W. Gardner
Indiscriminate use among unintelligent leads to chaos.
Robert Ludlum
Motivation is Power, Power is Motivation
Montice L. Harmon
Small thinking and big dreams is an oxymoron
John Paul Warren
If outside forces and culture were the reasons behind declining and non-influential churches, we would likely have no churches today. The greatest periods of growth, particularly the first-century growth, took place in adversarial cultures. We are not hindered by external forces; we are hindered by our own lack of commitment and selflessness.
Thom S. Rainer
When we observe trials and tribulations in our world, there's even more reason to lighten the heavy load. Sometimes life gets tough and it's disheartening. Never mind happiness; what we genuinely need is joy! God didn't intend for us to be sad or serious all of the time. His word in Proverbs 17:22 (ESV) says, “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
Dana Arcuri
The apparent wall between your body and the world is more like a picket fence. And between your mind and the world, it's like a line painted on the sidewalk.
Rick Hanson
I personally believe we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.
Jane Wagner
Cattle did not have to be led to water. They came eagerly to the trough and drank while Almanzo pumped, then they hurried back to the warm barns, and each went to its own place. Each cow turned into her own stall and put her head between her own stanchions. They never made a mistake.Whether this was because they had more sense than horses, or because they had so little sense that they did everything by habit, Father did not know.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
In a variation on James's recipe for interesting experience--the familiar leavened by the novel--Hobbs's "art of choosing difficulties" requires selecting projects that are "just manageable." If an activity is too easy, you lose focus and get bored. If it's too hard, you become anxious, overwhelmed, and unable to concentrate. Tellingly, one group is distinguished by its zeal for the kind of work that requires you to give it all you've got: high achievers particularly relish taking on risky projects that have only a 50/50 chance of success.
Winifred Gallagher
I stared back at him with something that, I realize now, was close to cellular recognition. In one glance, he recalled my father, my first boyfriend, my college love, my future.
Alison Singh Gee
Two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.
Madalyn Murray O'Hair
Our children need to see that faith matters, that it's relevant to our daily situations, that it's real.
Michelle Anthony
You are, and always have been, my dream.
Nicholas Sparks
Good writing, and this is especially important in a subject such as economics, must also involve the reader in the matter at hand. It is not enough to explain. The images that are in the mind of the writer must be made to reappear in the mind of the reader, and it is the absence of this ability that causes much economic writing to be condemned, quite properly, as abstract.
John Kenneth Galbraith
It is such a terrifying thing to see a man cry.
Elizabeth Berg
He didn't want to puff her up. Puffed-up women are one of the original sources of trouble in the world. If anyone knew that, it was he. He counted it as one of his duties to mankind to keep women from puffing themselves up, though it had been a most monumental duty in his own marriage. A job requiring a hero. It was one of those things that God, being male, questioned you about before you were let into heaven, and he was proud to say that he hadn't neglected it.
Judith Merkle Riley
You're a wrestler, right, Jake?" Dad asked, passing Jake more saag. My parents were in an Indian food phase. The evening's entree consisted of limp spinach. God forbid we'd throw a few burgers on the grill and just have a barbecue when guests came over.Jake gave the bright green, mushy contents a wary glance but accepted the bowl. "Yeah. I wrestle. I'm captain this year.""How Greco-Roman of you," Lucius said dryly, lifting a glob of spinach and letting it drip, slowly, from his fork. "Grappling about on mats.
Beth Fantaskey
My head is in a world of hurt. My apartment is trashed. At the end of today, I could either be dating the girl who saves my family’s future or is going to be the ending of it. When did life get so damn complicated?
Pella Grace
Sir Thomas More was a victim of injustice and irony. Generously and meekly, just as he was about to be martyred, he said: Paul . . . was present, and consented to the death of St. Stephen, and kept their clothes that stoned him to death, and yet be they [Stephen and Paul] now both twain Holy Saints in heaven, and shall continue there friends for ever, so I verily trust and . . . pray, that though your lordships have now here in earth been judges to my condemnation, we may yet hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together, to our everlasting salvation.
Neal A Maxwell
Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
Mark Twain
I am loving.I am caring.I am inspiring.I am daring.I am always kind.I have peace of mind.I am worthy of trust.I am true and just.I am compassionate. I am passionate.I am a seeker.I am a giver.I am very simple.I am an example.
Debasish Mridha
Happiness is a state of mind, not the condition we find.
Debasish Mridha
Only Christianity dares to make God's love unconditional.
Philip Yancey
I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader's mind. No matter how many times we reopen 'King Lear,' never shall we find the good king banging his tankard in high revelry, all woes forgotten, at a jolly reunion with all three daughters and their lapdogs. Never will Emma rally, revived by the sympathetic salts in Flaubert's father's timely tear. Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them.
Vladimir Nabokov
Caw! Caw, Hartley, caw!"Chase narrowed his eyes again."Sam?"I nodded. Then crossed to the window again and called down to Sam. "You can quit squawking. He caught me.
Gemma Halliday
Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.
Tom Robbins
I kiss him to get him to stop talking. If he keeps talking I will love him, and I don't want to love him. I really don't. As strategies go, it's not my finest. Kissing is just another way of talking except without the words.
Nicola Yoon
Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Memory offers up its gifts only when jogged by something in the present. It isn't a storehouse of fixed images and words, but a dynamic associative network in the brain that is never quiet and is subject to revision each time we retrieve an old picture or old words.
Siri Hustvedt
I don't know about your true form, but the weight of your ego sure is pushing the crust of the earth toward the breaking point.
Jim Butcher