Quotes by American Authors - Page 3117

But to a Vietnamese peasant whose home means a lifetime of back-breaking labor, it will take more than presidential promises to convince him that we are on his side.
Morley Safer
In the recurring dream everything has already fallen down, and I’m underneath. I’m crawling, sometimes for days, under the rubble. And as I crawl I realize that this one was the Big One. It was the earthquake that shook the whole world, and every single thing was destroyed. But this isn’t the scary part. That part always comes right before I wake up. I am crawling and then suddenly I remember: the earthquake happened years ago. This pain, this dying, this is just normal. This is how life is. In fact, I realize, there never was an earthquake. Life is just this way, broken, and I am crazy for dreaming something else.
Miranda July
If you take a hard look at the people in your life, you may be blown away by how many explorers and survivalists surround you. Everyday, I'm amazed by the number of people I meet, who have climbed Mt. Everest, time and time again...without ever having been to the Himalayas.
José N Harris
Very little of what he learned of people’s actions began or ended with either the noble ideals or the fiendish wickedness he had been taught lay behind all great struggles. There was something comforting in this.
David Anthony Durham
Words have consequences.
Albert Marrin
Who wanted to make lemonade from lemons, when you could make perfectly good lemonade grenades?
Melissa de la Cruz
The burden of information often makes us blind wisdom opens our eyes.
Debasish Mridha
When the “evil day” comes, we do not have to be dependent upon the circumstances around us, but rather on the resources of God!
Billy Graham
She was a music I no longer heard, that rang in my mind, itself and nothing else, lost to all sense, but not perished, not perished.
Marilynne Robinson
Modern Romans insisted that there was only one god, a notion that struck Alobar as comically simplistic. Worse, this Semitic deity was reputed to be jealous (what was there to be jealous of if there were no other gods?), vindictive, and altogether foul-tempered. If you didn't serve the nasty fellow, the Romans would burn your house down. If you did serve him, you were called a Christian and got to burn other people's houses down.
Tom Robbins
On our wedding night," she said, "I will cut out your tongue and swallow it. Then both tongues that spoke our marriage vows will belong to me, and I will be wed only to myself. You will most likely choke to death on your own blood, which will be unfortunate, but I will be both husband and wife and therefore not a widow to be pitied.
Kiersten White
This other man he could never see in his entirety but he seemed an artisan and a worker in metal. The judge enshadowed him where he crouched at his trade but he was a coldforger who worked with hammer and die, perhaps under some indictment and an exile from men's fires, hammering out like his own conjectural destiny all through the night of his becoming some coinage for a dawn that would not be. It is this false moneyer with his gravers and burins who seeks favor with the judge and he is at contriving from cold slag brute in the crucible a face that will pass, an image that will render this residual specie current in the markets where men barter. Of this is the judge judge and the night does not end.
Cormac McCarthy
Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.
Og Mandino
Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States . . .
Katy Evans
Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.
Dr. Jonas Salk
The stars crossed and The Boy wished he could have hung himself on them.
Pete Wentz
In the very act of writing I felt pleased with what I did. There was the pleasure of having words come to me, and the pleasure of ordering them, re-ordering them, weighing one against another. Pleasure also in the imagination of the story, the feeling that it could mean something. Mostly I was glad to find out that I could write at all. In writing you work toward a result you won't see for years, and can't be sure you'll ever see. It takes stamina and self-mastery and faith. It demands those things of you, then gives them back with a little extra, a surprise to keep you coming. It toughens you and clears your head. I could feel it happening. I was saving my life with every word I wrote, and I knew it.
Tobias Wolff
In her glamorous quest for the darkest light and the lowest high, she now found herself wallowing on the bottom of a filthy garbage bin.
Terri Blackstock
I was somewhat drunk with what I had done. And I am always one to prefer being sober.
Gertrude Stein
She flipped through the pages of her apps, as if Apple made an app for "Escape from a deserted island.
Kimberly Kinrade
...as if the world had become a giant train station in which everything was delayed until further notice.
Ann Patchett
The past has been there all along, reminding us: This time--maybe, hopefully, against all odds, we will get it right.
Leslie T. Chang
…The wonders of life and the universe are mere reflections of microscopic particles engaged in a pointless dance fully choreographed by the laws of physics.
Brian Greene
We hurt one another. We go through life dressing up in new clothes and covering up our true motives. We meet up lightly, we drink rosé wine, and then we give each other pain. We don't want to! What we want to do, what one really wants to do is put out one's hands—like some dancer, in a trance, just put out one's hands—and touch all the people and tell them: I'm sorry. I love you. Thank you for your e-mail. Thank you for coming to see me. Thank you. But we can't. We can't. On the little life raft of Mark only one other person could fit. Just one! And so, thwarted, we inflict pain. That’s what we do. We do not keep each other company. We do not send each other cute text messages. Or, rather, when we do these things, we do them merely to postpone the moment when we'll push these people off, and beat forward, beat forward on our little raft, alone.
Keith Gessen
There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader.
Stephen E. Ambrose
Hawai'i is the only place in the fifty states where you can see the stars of the entire northern and southern hemispheres. Here, stars that can't be seen from the mainland are visible, along with stars that aren't visible from Australia.
John Richard Stephens
You are a bright light, Elli.’ His own breath hitches, a sound that I cannot quite grasp. His eyes are darkening, his lips tightening. His hands grasp me tighter and he moves closer, his mouth inches from mine, I can almost taste the sweetness and saltiness of his scent, the rich coffee beans and sugar, the vague spearmint. I say nothing, I’m not even sure I’m breathing.‘You shouldn’t have to see such pain, such blackness. You are too pure.’ His lips do not collide with mine, his skin does not brush against me, only his voice sends a shiver down every notch in my spine, trailing goose bumps over my skin. He tilts his head to the side, his lips gently brushing against my ear. And that is all. I’m not good enough for him. I’m not. That’s why… that’s why…‘Too pure…
Charlotte Munro
You don't realize - the great thing about change is how quickly we get used to it. So I'm not complaining. the more things change,the more they don't stay the same. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. They might not change everywhere all at once - but there are moments when the impossible becomes the inevitable, and the rest is just a matter of time.
David Levithan
Sometimes broken hearts are needed, that way you will appreciate the one that handles it with care.
Lilly Ghalichi
It is a myth that rape is an inevitable part of conflict . . . There is nothing inevitable about it. It is a weapon of war aimed at civilians. It has nothing to do with sex —everything to do with power. It is done to torture and humiliate innocent people and often very young children.
Angelina Jolie
Rejection. Rejection. You can't handle rejection!
Buffy Andrews
Love is one of those topics that plenty of people try to write about but not enough try to do.
Criss Jami
Sometimes that's what prayer is--simply inviting God to join us where we actually are, not because He isn't already here but because inviting Him reminds us it's true.
Emily P. Freeman
We are no longer under the 'Law', but rather the Grace of God in Christ."~R. Alan Woods [2013]
R. Alan Woods
The hardest part about walking away from someone is the part where you realize that, no matter how slowly you go, they will never run after you.
Genereux Philip
I realize that people still read books now and some people actually love them, but in 1946 in the Village our feelings about books--I’m talking about my friends and myself--went beyond love. It was as if we didn’t know where we ended and books began. Books were our weather, our environment, our clothing. We didn’t simply read books; we became them. We took them into ourselves and made them into our histories. While it would be easy to say that we escaped into books, it might be truer to say that books escaped into us. Books were to us what drugs were to young men in the sixties.They showed us what was possible. We had been living with whatever was close at hand, whatever was given, and books took us great distances. We had known only domestic emotions and they showed us what happens to emotions when they are homeless. Books gave us balance--the young are so unbalanced that anything can make them fall. Books steadied us; it was as if we carried a heavy bag of them in each hand and they kept us level. They gave us gravity.
Anatole Broyard
Remember that mentor leadership is all about serving. Jesus said, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).
Tony Dungy
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed (Albert Einstein)
Deborah Harkness
Perfection, in the form of a flawless stream of words delivered with cool composure, is never as persuasive as realness. An impassioned but imperfect speech, which shows you care too much to hide flaws, is far more compelling.
Charlotte Beers
To be happy, find the happiness inside you; there is no better thing that you can do.
Debasish Mridha
Look what we've done so far. We're pretty good at the impossible.
Richelle Mead
If you want a world ruled by law and not by force you must build up, from the very grassroots, a respect for law.
Eleanor Roosevelt
I thought, Dad.Could I go to Vietnam for you?Dad, I could do it. I could do it for you. I could go to the places you fought. I could find the bits and pieces of your heart and soul left behind. If I bring them back, would it heal your pain?Dad, you gave me life. You made possible every good thing in my life. Why do you insist on fighting your nightmares and memories and monsters alone?You don’t have to do it alone, Dad. I could help you fight.Dad, you know what?I’ll be back before you find out so you don’t have to be afraid. I’m going to Vietnam.
Tucker Elliot
When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.
Abraham Lincoln
When libertarian sentiments take a populist form, it looks like this: a mix of anger, fear, anti-intellectualism, and fierce government hostility. Welcome to the Tea Party movement.
David Niose
Anything can happen. But almost always, just normal things happen and people have happy lives.
David Wroblewski
...She remembered why he'd caught her eye the first time she'd seen him, at Ivy and Landon's wedding. He was absolutely gorgeous. Tall, with broad shoulders and well-muscled arms, he had dark-blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and a square jaw covered with just the perfect amount of stubble. Then there was his mouth... There were books written about lips that kissable.
Paige Tyler
I promised her that I would never kiss and tell, but I have to tell someone about my dreams and fairytales. So I’m telling you that I kissed her.
Delano Johnson
This generation seems to see children as a financial burden and responsibility to be avoided.
Francine Rivers
And if I consume another mortal’s flesh, will I like god before me, shit a million stars upon the naked, wretched sky?
A.P. Sweet
The aging Adams delightedly describes being surrounded by books on so many different subjects that interested him as "baits on fishhooks".
Paul C. Nagel
We will be judged by how well we love.
Toni Morrison
Tell her happiness is just practice," he said. "If only she acted happy, she would be happy.
Nancy Horan
well, sometimes to get what you want the most, you have to do what you want the least.
Jodi Picoult
The power of a thing is not based on the power it actually possesses. Rather, it is much more about the power that we permit it to possess.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Every poem is an infant labored into birth and I am drenched with sweating effort, tired from the pain and hurt of being a man, in the poem I transform myself into a woman.
Jimmy Santiago Baca
This is how women are trained to stay indoors, she thought, the idea echoing in her mind like a gravesong. This is how women are trained not to act.
Erika Johansen
All men are poets at heart.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
He died that day because his body had served its purpose. His soul had done what it came to do, learned what it came to learn, and then was free to leave.
Garth Stein
Let not him who accepts light in an instant despise him who gropes months in shadows.
Elisabeth Elliot