Quotes by American Authors - Page 2893

The average sendentary man of our time who is at all suggestible must emerge from this chapter believing that his chances of surviving a combination of instinct, complexes, reflexes, glands, sex, and present-day traffic conditions are about equal to those of a one-legged man trying to get out of a labyrinth.
James Thurber
Then I could not help wondering what the watching gods thought of us, with our clever masks and our jokes. What we think of crickets, perhaps, whose singing we hear with pleasure, though some of us smash them with our heels when they venture into sight.
Gene Wolfe
There's a certain language, a dying language, and I can't remember who speaks it or where in the world they are, but in that language the future is referred to as being behind us. It must be behind us, since we can see the past. We walk backwards, blind, into the future, only knowing where we've already been.
Andra Brynn
If you truly have faith in your convictions, then your convictions should be able to stand criticism and testing.
DaShanne Stokes
It ain't the blows we're dealt that matter, but the ones we survive.
Stephen King
I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you, None has understood you, but I understand you, None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself, None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you, None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you, I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.
Walt Whitman
Or we'll go that way. Or we'll walk on the highways now, and we'll have time to putthings into ourselves. And some day, after it sets in us a long time, it'll come out ofour hands and our mouths. And a lot of it will be wrong, but just enough of it will beright. We'll just start walking today and see the world and the way the world walksaround and talks, the way it really looks. I want to see everything now. And whilenone of it will be me when it goes in, after a while it'll all gather together inside and it'llbe me. Look at the world out there, my God, my God, look at it out there, outside me,out there beyond my face and the only way to really touch it is to put it where it'sfinally me, where it's in the blood, where it pumps around a thousand times tenthousand a day. I get hold of it so it'll never run off. I'll hold on to the world tight someday. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning.
Ray Bradbury
Life loves to reveal herself to the raw, courageous doubters; to those who are willing to live inside the question.
Jacob Nordby
Sophie was a walking truth serum. If she was touching bare skin, she could yank the truth out of you like a loose tooth. I’d spent several unpleasant hours in her company during the Council’s screening process for humans who planned to work with vampires. That’s when I learned that you don’t refer to Buffy, the Winchesters, or even the Frog Brothers from The Lost Boys in front of Council officials. They do not have a sense of humor about that sort of entertainment.
Molly Harper
A fear of weakness only strengthens weakness.
Criss Jami
We write about ourselves because we know about ourselves.
Layne Staley
DO you think it hurts to die?" Not as much as it hurts to live, Trixie thought.
Jodi Picoult
Tiny acts of kindness can have BIG results.
Elizabeth Bourgeret
When you come into the presence of a leader of men you know that you have come into the presence of fire - that it is best not uncautiously to touch that man - that there is something that makes it dangerous to cross him.
Woodrow Wilson
Those who believe their suffering has been valuable love more readily than those who see no meaning in their pain. Suffering does not necessarily imply love, but love implies suffering
Andrew Solomon
[I]t is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or of any number of men, at the entering into society to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights, when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are life, liberty, and property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up an essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right of freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.
Samuel Adams
I'll keep my lips to myself, if that's what you want.
Cassie Mae
A poet is simply an artist whose medium is human emotions.  A poet chisels away at our own sensibilities, shaping our vision while molding our hearts.  A poet wraps words around our own feelings and presents them as fresh gifts to humanity.
Richelle E. Goodrich
When others sit, a #StaticJedi is found standing—even standing along, with a message not in hand but secure in heart!
Eric Samuel Timm
Eyes blinded by the fog of thingscannot see truth.Ears deafened by the din of thingscannot hear truth.Brains bewildered by the whirl of thingscannot think truth.Hearts deadened by the weight of thingscannot feel truth.Throats choked by the dust of thingscannot speak truth.
Harold Bell Wright
Forever did not mean what it once had. Forever was what changed inevitably over time.
Amy Tan
I am more than my measurements. The cycle of body-shaming needs to end. I’m over it… My body is MY body. I’ll call the shots.
Ashley Graham
It takes a female to have a baby,It takes a woman to raise a child,It takes a mother to raise them correctly,It takes a warrior to show them how to change the world.
Shannon L. Alder
I missed the moonlight, the stars. There were times I forgot that there was an entire universe above the clouds. It was as if a shroud had been pulled around the Earth. Over time, we would forget everything that we had once struggled so hard to observe and learn and prove. We would forget about Jupiter and its churning storms. We would forget about the Big Dipper, about Halley's comet. We would stumble across telescopes in old department stores and never give them a second look, never wonder about the things they once made large.
Jason Gurley
Have no fear in the devil and acknowledge the insecurities, mistakes of the past, and disappointments that you have long failed to accept as new beginnings and see the child within you begin to heal.
Forrest Curran
Atheism isn’t a growth model any more than “I don’t like rollerblading” is a workout strategy.
Tim Urban
In Hawaii, family showed itself in the way that my siblings never dared to call one another "half" anything. We were fully brothers and sisters. Family appeared in the pile of rubber slippers and sandals that crowded the entrance to everyone's home; in the kisses we gave when we greeted one another and said good-bye; in the graceful choreography of Grandma hanging the laundry on the clothesline; in the inclusiveness of calling anyone older auntie or uncle whether or not they were relatives.
Janet Mock
Just once" Blay said softly. "Do it just once. So I'll know what it's like."Qhuinn started to shake his head. "No...I don't think–""Yes"After a moment, Qhuinn slid both his hands up Blay's thick neck and captured the male's sturdy jaw in his palms. "You sure?"When Blay nodded, Qhuinn titled his friend's head back and to the side and held it in place as he slowly closed the distance. Just before their mouths touched, Blay's eyelashes fluttered down and he trembled
J.R. Ward
I will be making my own choices in life. I know you say you want the best for us, but the best isn't whether or not we are able to afford clothing that suits our position. The best is when you find someone you love, who loves you back, and you decide you want to spend your lives together.
Megan Frampton
Programming your mind with positive thoughts each day will go a long way to keep you from allowing external criticism to derail your dreams.
Ken Poirot
Well-behaved women seldom make history.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Liberty isn't everything. I just allows everything to happen.
A.E. Samaan
Nothing shows our hearts like sacrifice. When we are willing not only to give from our excess, but to embrace some personal loss or disadvantage for the sake of showing generosity toward others, we say loudly and clearly…that we have a greater love than ourselves and our comforts.
David Mathis
Like night dreams, stores often use symbolic language, therefore bypassing the ego and persona, and traveling straight to the spirit and soul who listen for the ancient and universal instructions embedded there. Because of this process, stories can teach, correct errors, lighten the heart and the darkness, provide psychic shelter, assist transformation and heal wounds.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Christ's version of kindness: I know you are hurt. I contributed to that. Maybe, I should have said more. Done more. Listened. I am sorry for my part in the situation. I am sorry if I caused you any pain or confused you with my actions or words. How can I help you move on? I want you to have peace in your life. Let's end this by communicating.The world's perverted version of kindness: You caused your own pain. You get what you get. Get over it and move on. Maybe, one day you will figure out what happiness really means. By the way, I am not responsible for giving it to you. Nor, do I have to put up with people that don't bring me joy or who I can't trust. I am only responsible for myself. I will pray for you because I am a good Christian.
Shannon L. Alder
My biggest mistake is in believing there are limits to how bad it can get.
Laura Wiess
...We'll exchange rings, we'll throw rice. We'll put down roots.'We don't have roots. We're network people. We have aerials.
Bruce Sterling
The name we give to something shapes our attitude toward it.
Katherine Paterson
The way to control circumstances is to control the forces within yourself to make a greater man of yourself, and as you become greater and more competent, you will naturally gravitate into better circumstances. In this connection, we should remember that like attracts like. If you want that which is better, make yourself better. If you want to realize the ideal, make yourself more ideal. If you want better friends, make yourself a better friend. If you want to associate with people of worth, make yourself more worthy. If you want to meet that which is agreeable, make yourself more agreeable. If you want to enter conditions and circumstances that are more pleasing, make yourself more pleasing. In brief, whatever you want, produce that something in yourself, and you will positively gravitate towards the corresponding conditions in the external world.
Christian D. Larson
Her shoes were comfortable. They reflected her hope for the evening.
William Peter Blatty
When all the trees have been cut down and all the animals have been hunted to extinction, when all the waters are polluted and the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.
Sherrilyn Kenyon
Life is a romantic business but you have to make the romance.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Only those Americans who are willing to die for their country are fit to live.
Douglas MacArthur
In the end when God does speak, it is not the pious friends who are commended. God tells then they have been guilty of misrepresenting God. Only Job – only angry, defiant, doubting Job has been faithful.The story of Job reminds us that God is not offended when we question. Indeed, if anything God is offended when we speak too glibly. Make room in your heart for the angry, defiant and doubting questions. You may find God there as well.
Peggy Haymes
...then we went skinny dippin' and did things that frighten the fish...Character, Shelby Eatonton, from the movie, Steel Magnolias.
Robert Harling
If this is really it...if you're really done with me...will you let me hold you tonight? - Travis
Jamie McGuire
Within and within. Dreaming. How we gentle our losses into paler ghosts.
Peter Heller
Loving is like any other art-craft where the masters have carefully practiced and where the novices have languished in their carelessness.
Bryant McGill
Confident Assured Posture: Foundation of Powerful Style
Cindy Ann Peterson
Fire, ice, asteroids and pole shifts are bogeymen with which we distract ourselves from the real threat of our time. In an age when everyone invents his own truth, there is no community, only factions. Without community, there can be no consensus to resist the greedy, the envious, the power-mad narcissists who seize control and turn the institutions of civilization into a series of doom machines.
Dean Koontz
Fifty years of isolating Cuba has failed to promote democracy" Barack Obama, 44th and current President of the USA. "Let's move ahead!" Captain Hank Bracker
Hank Bracker
I said to Lucien, low and quiet and as vicious as the talons that formed at the tips of my fingers, as vicious as the wondrous weight between my shoulder blades, "When you spend so long trapped in darkness, Lucien, you find that the darkness starts to stare back
Sarah J Maas
The kind of society we live in can contribute to loneliness. Mobility and constant change tend to make some individuals feel rootless and disconnected.
Billy Graham
Our job as Christians is to stick so close to Jesus that when people are around us, they sense him.
Jefferson Bethke
Desi has loved me ever since the lie, I know he pictures making love to me, how gentle and reassuring he would be as he plunged into me, stroking my hair. I know he pictures me crying softly as I give myself to him.
Gillian Flynn
But writing is a queer business. If one does anything that is sharp and keep enough to go over the line, to get itself with the work that is taken seriously, one has to have had either an unusual knowledge of or a peculiar sympathy with the characters one handles. One can’t write about what one most admires always—you must, by some accident, have seen into your character very deeply, and it is this accident of intense realization of him that give your writing about him tone and distinction, that lifts it above the commonplace, in other words
Willa Cather
Love is a flower that grows in the garden of mind if we treat it with kindness, compassion, and joy.
Debasish Mridha
To feel the joy of life, smile with love.
Debasish Mridha
–We are all dying– she told me. –Even something of the immortal will die–“What?”–Meaning–
Heather Heffner
At that moment a very good thing was happening to her. Four good things had happened to her, in fact, since she came to Misselthwaite Manor. She had felt as if she had understood a robin and that he had understood her; she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm; she had been healthily hungry for the first time in her life; and she had found out what it was to be sorry for someone.
Frances Hodgson Burnett