Quotes by American Authors - Page 3237

I was on the path of the warrior, when I realized I was the warrior.
Neetal Parekh
You can't be spontaneous within reason.
Brittany DeLaBarrera
Freedom is the realization that it is sufficient to simply be a human being.
Bryant McGill
On January 18, 1915, six months into the First World War, as all Europe was convulsed by killing and dying, Virginia Woolf wrote in her journal, 'The future is dark, which is on the whole, the best thing the future can be, I think.' Dark, she seems to be saying, as in inscrutable, not as in terrible. We often mistake the one for the other. Or we transform the future's unknowability into something certain, the fulfillment of all our dread, the place beyond which there is no way forward. Be again and again, far stranger things happen than the end of the world.
Rebecca Solnit
My childhood dream came true, but now I have a new one. I dream that some of these young people, while they're out there clicking around, maybe they'll find out about this book and find a way to get their hands on it - and when they do, they'll know that even if you're a skinny kid from Long Island who's scared of heights, if you dream of walking among the stars you can do it. They'll know that finding a purpose, being dedicated to the service of others and to a calling higher than yourself, that is what's truly important in life. They'll be able to close their eyes and imagine what it's like in space, and when they open them again, they'll look up at the sun and the moon and the Milky Way and see them with the sense of awe and wonder that they deserve.And those young boys and girls, whatever their space dream is, they'll go for it. Whatever hurdles are in their way, they'll get past them. When they fall down, they'll get back up. They'll keep going and going, working harder and harder and running faster and faster until one day, before they know it, they'll find themselves flying through the air. The hand of a giant science fiction monster will reach down and grab them by the chest and hurl them up and up and up, out to the furthest limits of the human imagination, where they'll take the next giant leap of the greatest adventure mankind has ever known.
Mike Massimino
He looks at me and then, reverting to the voice he'd used with Kendra, says, 'If homegirls wanna see me as ghetto trash'--he stops and switches to his lispy, sassy voice--'or big-ass queer'--now he switches to his deepest Shakespeare voice--'I shall not take it upon myself to disabuse them.
Gayle Forman
Madelyne, we're married now. 'Tis a usual occurrence to bed one's wife on the wedding night.
Julie Garwood
I have never battled a gargoyle before.” Zacharel shook his head, a dark lock of hair tumbling into one emerald eye. Damp from the melting snow, the hair stuck to his skin. He didn’t seem to notice. “But I am certain these will murder Paris before willingly carrying him inside.”As if he were the only intelligent life form left in existence, William splayed his arms. “And the problem with that? He’ll still be inside, exactly where he wants to be. And by the way,” he added, blinking at Paris with lashes so long they should have belonged to a girl. “Your new permanent eyeliner is very pretty. You’ll make a good-looking corpse.”Do not react. He did, and the teasing about his ash/ambrosia tattoos would never end. “Thanks.”“I prefer the lip liner, though. A nice little feminine touch that really makes your eyes pop.”“Again, thanks,” he gritted.He wants us!Stupid demon.William grinned. “Maybe we can make out later. I know you want me.”Tell him yes!Not another word out of you, or—“Paris? Warrior?” Zacharel said. “Are youlistening to me?”“No.”Zach nodded, apparently not the least offended. “I enjoy your honesty, though I believe you suffer from what the humans call ADD.”“Oh, yeah. I definitely have attention deficient demon.
Gena Showalter
Nobody whispers it in your ear. It is like something you memorized once and forgot. Now it comes back and rips away your breath. You find and finger a phrase at a time; you lay it down cautiously, as if with tongs, and wait suspended until the next one finds you: Ah yes, then this; and yes, praise be, then this.
Annie Dillard
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
Walt Disney Company
Price and Cost. Sometimes we pay more. Sometimes we pay less. You've got to determine what you are willing to pay for success.
Bobby F. Kimbrough Jr.
If what he said was the truth, it broke her heart. If what he said was a lie, it was broken anyway.
Christine Feehan
The prophet engages in futuring fantasy. The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined. The imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing. The same royal consciousness that make it possible to implement anything and everything is the one that shrinks imagination because imagination is a danger. Thus every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist. It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.
Walter Brueggemann
I came to understand that belief is a preconception about the way reality should be; faith is the willingness to experience reality as it is, including the acceptance of the unknown. An interesting way to understand the difference is to use the words interchangeably in the same sentence: I believe in Santa Claus. I have faith in Santa Claus. Belief can impede spiritual unfoldment; faith is supremely necessary for it.
Judith Hanson Lasater
Oh, everything is gorgeous once it's gone.
Gregory Maguire
Charlie Wind once told me we must keep the animals on Earth, for they know everything: how to keep warm, predict the storms, live in darkness or blazing sun, how to navigate the skies, to organize societies, how to make chemicals and fireproof skins. The animals know the Earth as we do not.
Jean Craighead George
People called me, Lobo, which was Spanish for wolf.
Kenya Wright
We are not strangers. It’s a lack of trust that keeps us separated.
Michael R. French
The cure for our modern maladies is dirt under the fingernails and the feel of thick grass between the toes. The cure for our listlessness is to be out within the invigorating wind. The cure for our uselessness is to take back up our stewardship; for it is not that there has been no work to be done, we simply have not been attending to it.
L.M. Browning
Feelings came alive in Vicki for which the earth and sea had never taught her names.
Helen Wells
Emotional versatility is the art of making peace with the entire emotional spectrum by honing your capacity to channel various feelings along creative and constructive lines. It is not about controlling or condemning your feelings. It's about conducting your feelings in a self-edifying way.
T.K. Coleman
Imagine all the people you meet in your life. There are so many. They come in like waves, trickling in and out with the tide. Some waves are much bigger and make more of an impact than others. Sometimes the waves bring with them things from deep in the bottom of the sea and they leave those things tossed onto the shore. Imprints against the grains of sand that prove the waves had once been there, long after the tide recedes.That was what Atlas was telling me when he said “I love you.” He was letting me know that I was the biggest wave he’d ever come across. And I brought so much with me that my impressions would always be there, even when the tide rolled out.
Colleen Hoover
My mouth fell open in incredulity.“Ah, Maria. Are you trying to tell me you’ve taken up the sport of fly-catching with your mouth?”Ros reached over and lifted my chin.“And an assistant too. So that you don’t scare the little flies away. How wonderful; I didn’t realise it was a team sport. Interesting. Tell me, what do they taste like? I can’t imagine a fly filling any hole in your stomach. How many have you caught?”“That’s disgusting.” Ros screwed her face up.“My thoughts exactly.
Kelly Batten
Darkness moves like a pack of wild dogs.The wind moves like a wounded animal.The ground must be full of teeth by now.
Cecilia Llompart
Be the reason of peace.
Debasish Mridha
A genuine smile is your best fashion accessory and the most important thing you can wear.
Susan C.Young
I knew that a historian (or a journalist, or anyone telling a story) was forced to choose, out of an infinite number of facts, what to present, what to omit. And that decision inevitably would reflect, whether consciously or not, the interests of the historian.
Howard Zinn
Playing with fire Kitten?
Jeaniene Frost
You--cannot ever be certain of those you love--that they will not hurt you, even loving you. But to make me certain to love you, will be to take away any love I might give you freely.
Patricia A. McKillip
When you let go of past pain, believe in yourself, and follow your dreams—you can find true happiness!
Casi McLean
Forgive me. It was stupid of me to think you might need company, when clearly all you required was that decanter.”“It was not stupid. It was very kind. Quite soft, actually. A very warm, womanly gesture. I am touched.” He smiled softly. “However, if you truly want to help, if you really want to distract me, there are better ways. When I saw that dress, I dared hope you had realized that.
Madeline Hunter
For a time he read his Neil Diamond bible by the firelight. He paused, twisting nervously at his goatee, considering the law in Deuteronomy that forbade clothes with mixed fibers. A problematic bit of Scripture. A matter that required thought."Only the devil wants man to have a wide range of lightweight and comfortable styles to choose from," he murmured at last, trying out a new proverb. "Although there may be no forgiveness for polyester. On this matter, Satan and the Lord are in agreement.
Joe Hill
The book of Job does not set out to answer the problem of suffering, but to proclaim a God so great that no answer is needed.
Billy Graham
The typical atheist rebels against God as a teenager rebels against his parents. When his own desires or standards are not fulfilled in the way that he sees fit, he, in revolt, storms out of the house in denial of the Word of God and in scrutiny of a great deal of those who stand by the Word of God. The epithet 'Heavenly Father' is a grand reflection, a relation to that of human nature.
Criss Jami
I scared a little porcupineand caught a quill in my behind.It hurt so badly in my tail,but tugging on it made me yell.The porcupine was still around,so I complained. He simply frownedand said, "Stop whining! Look and seehow many quills are stuck on me!
Richelle E. Goodrich
That’s why we’re not doing it again. That kind of lust gets out of control and you’ll end up scorched.” Lying to yourself now? It wasn’t just Lyssie that would get singed. There was something about this woman that was slipping beneath his skin and stirring the embers of a part of him he’d thought long dead. He shoved that away and firmed his voice. “I’m going to be your friend and protector.
Jennifer Apodaca
There is no pressure to perform, to succeed, because we already have. If your family and community accepts you, who else must you impress? Just yourself and God, ja?
Sarah Price
So many people fail to realise that the greatest journey one can ever take is the journey to the very centre of one’s being.
Susan Howatch
We cannot achieve personal enlightenment – a clarification of our souls – until we cease deluding ourselves. We must accept that life includes witnessing and personally experiencing pain.
Kilroy J. Oldster
The pity of it was that this discovery, if such it was, now seemed so stale, so profitless to me. What good was it? What good did thinking ever do?
Jed Rubenfeld
The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.
Tom Waits
Solara: You know, you say you've been walking for thirty years, right?Eli: Right?Solara: Have you ever thought that maybe you were lost?Eli: Nope.Solara: Well, how do you know that you're walking in the right direction?Eli: I walk by faith, not by sight.Solara: [sighs] What does that mean?Eli: It means that you know something even if you don't know something.Solara: That doesn't make any sense.Eli: It doesn't have to make sense. It's faith, it's faith. It's the flower of light in the field of darkness that's giving me the strength to carry on. You understand?Solara: Is that from your book?Eli: No, it's, uh, Johnny Cash, Live at Folsom Prison.
Book of Eli Movie
God's M.O., he reflected, is to transmute evil into good. If He is active here, He is doing that now, although our eyes can't perceive it; the process lies hidden beneath the surface of reality, and emerges only later. To, perhaps, our waiting heirs. Paltry people who will not know the dreadful war we've gone through, and the losses we took, unless in some footnote in a minor history book they catch a notion. Some brief mention. With no list of the fallen.
Philip K Dick
I never asked my mother where babies came from but I remember clearly the day she volunteered the information....my mother called me to set the table for dinner. She sat me down in the kitchen, and under the classic caveat of 'loving each other very, very much,' explained that when a man and a woman hug tightly, the man plants a seed in the woman. The seed grows into a baby. Then she sent me to the pantry to get placemats. As a direct result of this conversation, I wouldn't hug my father for two months.
Sloane Crosley
You will not be alone, I say to them, spinning to see their faces. You don't need to be afraid anymore. We want to take back our world. We want to save the lives of our family members, our friends. We want your children to have a chance at a better future. And we want to fight. We want to win. I lock eyes with them. And we are asking for your help.
Tahereh Mafi
For the listener, who listens in the snow, / And, nothing himself, beholds /Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Wallace Stevens
If you have nothing in life but a good friend, you're rich.
Michelle Kwan
I long to look at my holiday season with eyes that see the Christ in Christmas.
Ann Marie Stewart
Millions are impressed by the victories of power and take it for the sign of strength. To be sure, power over people is an expression of superior strength in a purely material sense. If I have the power over another person to kill him, I am "stronger" than he is. But in a psychological sense, the lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness. It is the expression of inability of the individual self to stand alone and live. It is the desperate attempt to gain secondary strength where genuine strength is lacking.
Erich Fromm
Now let's make Virginia Heffernan a man. Can you imagine the same kind of spittle-flecked rage directed at a busy working father who admits to feeding his kids Annie's Organic Mac & Cheese?
Emily Matchar
Right on the other side of our fears resides hope and happiness. We get stuck in our lives afraid to walk over there when it’s a much kinder place.
Ron Baratono
At root, I think that any given technology (think nuclear power, gunpowder, the written word...) has the potential to improve our lives, wound it, and also to create unexpected accidents. It's not the technology that's the problem, it's us, the users. However angelic or demonic, or thoughtful or thoughtless we happen to be is then amplified by our technologies.
Paolo Bacigalupi
Power is to be used in the service of others and only secondarily, if at all, for the benefit of oneself.
Duane Elmer
They say when you take revenge against another you lose your innocence.
E.K. Blair
Old wives' tales have hurt cats. They're not true! Who are those Old Wives?
Darlene Arden
Millions call themselves by His name, it is true, and pay some token homage to Him, but a simple test will show how little He is really honored among them. Let the average man be put to the proof on the question of who or what is ABOVE, and his true position will be exposed. Let him be forced into making a choice between God and money, between God and men, between God and personal ambition, God and self, God and human love, and God will take second place every time. Those other things will be exalted above. However the man may protest, the proof is in the choice he makes day after day throughout his life.
A.W. Tozer
Let me simply state that it is wrong to regard any other human being, a priori, as an object, or an 'It.' This is so because each and every human being - you, every friend, every stranger, every foreigner - is precious.
M. Scott Peck
I mean, I hope you're happy,But the sky is still the sky without you,And I'm not surprised by that anymore.
Caitlyn Siehl
The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursing his own education. This will not be a widely shared pursuit until we get over our odd conviction that education is what goes on in school buildings and nowhere else.
John W. Gardner
Wisdom comes from the internalization and reflection of experience.
Debasish Mridha