Quotes by American Authors - Page 3030

I hated that the soldier doll had my name. I mean, please. I didn't play with him much. He was another Christmas present from my clueless grandparents. One time when they were visiting, my grandpa asked me if G.I. Joe had been in any wars lately. I said, "No, but he and Ken got married last week." Every Christmas since then, my grandparents have sent me a check.
James Howe
There is a husband who requires mileage receipts, another who wants sex at three a.m One who forbids short haircuts, another who refuses to feed the pets. I would never put up with that, the other wives think. Never.
Jenny Offill
When something goes wrong, what's the best course of action? To change your direction. The word repentance means to stop going one direction (your own way) and turn toward the right direction (God's way). Your past may be a part of who you are, but it certainly doesn't have to define your future. Or if you feel stuck and unable to change directions and move toward God, think of this transformation another way. The Bible says that God is the Potter and we are his clay (Jer. 18:2-6).
Craig Groeschel
It is everything that makes a man. It is everything that makes this man. And that is who I am alive, and that is who I am dead.
Carew Papritz
In countries where all the crooked politicians wear pin-striped suits, the best people are bare-assed.
Paul Theroux
I imagined the lies the valedictorian was telling them right now. About the exciting future that lies ahead. I wish she'd tell them the truth: Half of you have gone as far in life as you're ever going to. Look around. It's all downhill from here. The rest of us will go a bit further, a steady job, a trip to Hawaii, or a move to Phoenix, Arizona, but out of fifteen hundred how many will do anything truly worthwhile, write a play, paint a painting that will hang in a gallery, find a cure for herpes? Two of us, maybe three? And how many will find true love? About the same. And enlightenment? Maybe one. The rest of us will make compromises, find excuses, someone or something to blame, and hold that over our hearts like a pendant on a chain.
Janet Fitch
You can't ever be your heroes, but you can love their gifts.
John Piper
When I Find Myself in A Depressed State, I Try and Write to Feel Better. However, If Writing Doesn't Work, Then You Can Almost Always Catch Me Watching Cartoons on Television, Like Scooby-Dooby-Do or The Munster’s. Unfortunately, I Am Watching These Programs Nearly Every Day.
Chris Mentillo
My husband and I have never considered divorce... murder sometimes, but never divorce.
Joyce Brothers
It was so stupid, and random, but at that second, with the morning sun hitting her auburn hair, and her huge brown eyes fixed on him, the lock flew off the “do-not-allow-yourself-to-even-think-about-it” portion of his brain, and every feeling he ever had for her—feelings he never even realized he had for her—flooded over him like a tidal wave. Love, tenderness, desire—it hit him so hard he had to excuse himself, go to the men’s room, rest his forehead against the cool metal of the bathroom stall, breathing heavily, wondering what the hell had just happened. It left him exhausted and spent, as if he’d just run a hundred miles.And almost a year later, he was still exhausted, spent, frustrated … and madly in love.
Claire Matthews
The Alchemical world view, in stark contrast to the scientific world view, where rational deterministic man is completely separated from both Nature and the Self, in fact the Self does not even exist. In the alchemical world view, all three are inextricably woven together and in "synchronistic" or "archetypal" events & occurrences in one's life, all distinctions between them blur and almost disappear.
Craig Nelson
They were two ruined souls doomed to wander their minds, if not the earth, trying to remember from whence they came.
Tania James
When you trip over love, it is easy to get up. But when you fall in love, it is impossible to stand again.
Albert Einstein
I love revisions…We can’t go back and revise our lives, but being allowed to go back and revise what we have written comes closest.
Katherine Paterson
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?
David Foster Wallace
Every achievement worth remembering is stained with the blood of diligence and scarred by the wounds of disappointment
Charles Swindoll
I told you once I would never let you fall, Aesa ... And you're falling. You just don't se
Amber Lynn Natusch
God does Love Us and does meet the needs of each and every one of us through Attending Angels. Those Angelic deeds are most often accomplished through the Human Connection. The Human Connection being other Persons who Kindly journey closely with us acting as God's Hands: many for just moments and some for decades. We each have a multitude of opportunities in this Life to literally act as God's Hands (as His Angels) in the Lifting Up of our Fellow Beings. I find myself most Grateful in this Knowledge.
Raymond D. Longoria Jr.
It's one of those unforgettable moments that happen as a child, when you discover that all along the world has been betraying you.
Nicole Krauss
What an odd thing it is to see an entire species -- billions of people -- playing with, listening to meaningless tonal patterns, occupied and preoccupied for much of their time by what they call 'music.' (-- The Overlords, from Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End)
Oliver Sacks
The man who has no imagination,has no wing
Muhammad Ali
Human beings across every culture I know about require such stories, stories with cool winds and wood smoke. They speak to something deep within us, the capacity to conceptualize, objectify and find patterns, thereby to create the flow of events and perceptions that find perfect expression in fiction. We are built this way, we create stories by reflex, unstoppably. But this elegant system really works best when the elements of the emerging story, whether is is being written or being read, are taken as literal fact. Almost always, to respond to the particulars of the fantastic as if they were metaphorical or allegorical is to drain them of vitality.
Peter Straub
In the end, after kingdoms and armies had fallen, the religions were still fighting, weren't they?
Brandon Sanderson
Perfection is insignificant. Is boring.
Robert Reed
She wakes in a puddle of sunlight.Her hands asleep beside her.Her hair draped on the lawnlike a mantle of cloth.I give her my trothfor our love is whole;her breath is my wine,her scent is my soul.
Roman Payne
Although one curious thing that might sooner or later cross the woman's mind would be that she had paradoxically been practically as alone before all of this had happened as she was now, incidentally. Well, this being an autobiographical novel I can categorically verify that such a thing would sooner or later cross her mind, in fact. One manner of being alone simply being different from another manner of being alone, being all that she would finally decide that this came down to, as well. Which is to say that even when one's telephone still does function one can be as alone as when it does not.
David Markson
Do you like a good ghost story?”-Jonah
Dana Michelle Burnett
All I could think as he was speaking was that, if he touched me at all, all the miles I’d walked, the pain I’d felt, the beauty I’d drunken like milk, like good wine making me happy, the four million steps I’d taken, would all add up to nothing. They’d be stolen.
Aspen Matis
Blood always excites me.
Jonathan Latimer
The design of a book is the pattern of a reality controlled and shaped by the mind of a writer.
John Steinbeck
Love is not found, love finds.
Colleen Hoover
I've never thought there was anything I could hope to get by praying for it.
Julianna Baggott
Silencing women silences justice.
DaShanne Stokes
Lie naked on the table, and let them cut. Criticism is surgery, and humility is the anesthetic that allows you to tolerate it. In the end, the process will make you a stronger, more flexible, and truly creative writer. It will replace attitude with genuine confidence, and empty arrogance with artistry.
Molly Cochran
(Rigg) had often complained that all these languages were useless, and Father had only said, "A man who speaks but one language understands none.
Orson Scott Card
There never was a throne yet built so high that it could not be rocked by laughter from below.
Gordon R. Dickson
The only true dead are those who have been forgotten.
Jason S. Hornsby
Are we not witnessing a strange tableau of survival whenever a bird alights on the head of a crocodile, bringing together the evolutionary offspring of Triassic and Jurassic?
Annalee Newitz
Even now, I believe that to know how is useless if we do not know why. And there are too many who forbid us to ask.
Robin Wasserman
She felt the intimate loss of who was meant to become.
Rabih Alameddine
The purpose of that apple tree is to grow a little new wood each year. That is what I plan to do.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
By making yourself a life-long leaner you’ll keep discovering new and exciting things about yourself and others.
Rachel Robins
Wherever people go to find peace - that's what I find in the ocean.
Willow Aster
They were partners. She would always make impulsive decisions and he would make slow, reasoned ones. He would always be a little terrified that she would look at him with the scorn he saw in his mother's eyes. And she would always be a little terrified that he would look at her and not love her enough.In short, they were made for each other.
Eloisa James
It is soon to be springThe Christmas toys barely played with I have a glass soldier whose head can turn The epaulettes interchangeable Soon flowers will bloom Lawrence from the garden shed will give us each a cup of seeds I am to wait I said
George Saunders
I think women are closer to God than we are. They walk right out there like they know what they're doing.
Barry Hannah
A common mistake people make is assuming compassion requires some kind of action they’re not ready to take. In other words, if I feel compassion for this dangerous, havoc-wreaking person (or for my tedious co-workers, the guy who cut me off in traffic, my abusive parents, that politician, etc.) then I’ll have to drop everything I’m into and go hug and try to heal or help...or...do something I don’t know how to do. Not so. Compassion begins within; the compassion you have for yourself will guide you to act or detach with regard for your own well-being.
Laurie Perez
When we let go of our pride, we give ourselves permission to be human. We give ourselves permission to slip up and hurt and to grow without ridiculous standards of perfection constantly looming over our heads. We give ourselves a chance to face conflicts, to face ourselves, and to heal. And, in this healing process, we give others a chance to follow our lead.
Liz Newman
So much of life is invisible, inscrutable: layers of thoughts, feelings, outward events entwined with secrecies, ambiguities, ambivalences, obscurities, darknesses strongly present even to the one who's lived it- maybe especially to the one who's lived it. I didn't seek to find her, wandered instead within and among her fragments of language-notebooks, drafts, journals, fictions, letters, essays, and found there whole worlds like spinning planets, lived in their cold light and burning light, wondering where I was, where they might take me. Curious, I heard a monster's voice and followed-
Laurie Sheck
Not just in America. When I left my primary school, my father said, 'Son, you are now a man,' then he gave me a scented candle and told me how babies are made." Vik fought to keep his lips from twitching.
S.J. Kincaid
Kind of like CSI investigating a social error—Here’s the corpse of the situation, what do you think killed it?—with the hope of preventing further fatalities. Often as not, it boiled down to missed cues.
Dani Harper
What's so magical about solitude? In many fields, it's only when you're alone that you can engage in deliberate practice. This is the key to exceptional achievement.
Susan Cain
I mean, I can understand not being as pricey as Percy or Jason, maybe... but am I worth, like, two Franks, or three Franks?
Rick Riordan
For a moment, I almost felt sorry for her. Then the bitch blasted me with her water magic, and I got over it.
Jennifer Estep
She held her finger to his lips. “We have a lifetime to reveal our secrets.”tIn a bold move, she took his hand and led him to the bed.tEver so eager to follow, Hugh’s mouth suddenly went dry. Hell, he couldn’t even manage a swallow. “Are you ready, my love?” he croaked.tLicking those delectable lips, she nodded. “I want you more than the air I breathe.
Amy Jarecki
No matter how good you are at planning, the pressure never goes away. So I don't fight it. I feed off it. I turn pressure into motivation to do my best.
Benjamin Carson
If you don't make a total commitment to whatever you're doing then you start looking to bail out the first time the boat starts leaking. It's tough enough getting that boat to shore with everybody rowing let alone when a guy stands up and starts putting his life jacket on.
Lou Holtz
We must grant the artist his subject his idea his donnee: Our criticisms apply only to what he makes of it.
Henry James
Teachers are often rightly praised for all they do for our children. But there are others out there who are working to make the youth of today a happy and productive generation of tomorrow. And I'm proud to say I'm one of these "others" providing a positive environment for many wonderful children who are full of promise.
Jack Canfield
Stay upbeat and keep your head held high. There is no end to the power of positive thinking. I AM looking forward to all the wealth, success, and abundance speeding my way!
Ron Barrow