Quotes by American Authors - Page 3337

First we eat, then we do everything else.
M.F.K. Fisher
Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. As if one were to wear any sort of coat which the tailor might cut out for him, or gradually leaving off palm-leaf hat or cap of woodchuck skin, complain of hard times because he could not afford to buy him a crown! It is possible to invent a house still more convenient and luxurious than we have, which yet all would admit that man could not afford to pay for. Shall we always study to obtain more of these things, and not sometimes be content with less?
Henry David Thoreau
There is no way to suppress change…not even in heaven; there is only a choice between a way of living which allows constant, if gradual alterations and a way of living that combines great control and cataclysmic upheavals. Those who panic and bind the trickster choose the latter path. It would be better to learn to play with him, better especially to develop skills (cultural, spiritual, artistic) that allow some commerce with accident, and some acceptance of the changes that contingency will always engender.
Lewis Hyde
Deception is mostly a game we play with ourselves.
Terry Brooks
At some point, you gotta let go, and sit still, and allow contentment to come to you.
Elizabeth Gilbert
If you play "I Don't Want To Know" by Fleetwood Mac loud enough -- you can hear Lindsey Buckingham's fingers sliding down the strings of his acoustic guitar. ...And we were convinced that this was the definitive illustration of what we both loved about music; we loved hearing the INSIDE of a song.
Chuck Klosterman
Art is the child of nature in whom we trace the features of the mothers face.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Women are conditioned to give themselves away.
Sherry Argov
Detroit is big enough to matter in the world and small enough for you to matter in it.
Jeanette Pierce
We are one. Man, horse, lance, we are one beast of blood and wood and iron.
George R.R. Martin
For that matter, all this, is there a God? Corlis -- I don't care!""Huh," I considered. "I guess I don't either"."Most people don't! All they care about," he added grimly, "is being right".
Lionel Shriver
Most of us carry at least a weak sense of a correlation between poetry and human possibility that cannot be realized by poems. The poet, by his very claim to be a maker of poems, is therefore both an embarrassment and accusation.
Ben Lerner
The words sounded like a mournful incantation.
Dan Simmons
Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and through the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people.
Albert Einstein
How you accept a situation, is your choice and depends on your power of perception.
Debasish Mridha
I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.
Booker T. Washington
Good habits which bring our lower passions and appetites under automatic control leave our natures free to explore the larger experiences of life.
Ralph W Sockman
Nothing builds up your attitude like gratitude. You cannot be depressed, negative, and grateful at the same time.
John Patrick Hickey
It's really important that you feel good. Because this feeling good is what goes out as a signal into the universe and starts to attract more of itself to you. So the more you can feel good, the more you will attract the things that help you feel good and that will keep bringing you up higher and higher.
Joe Vitale
There was a small glass vase between us, three gladioli in a few ounces of water. One of the gladioli had dropped a petal- brushstroke of purple on fine white cloth. Rinpoche drank the last sip of his tea, then set the cup aside, took the petal with his thumb and second finger, placed it on the middle of the saucer in front of him, and turned the cup upside down to cover it."I feel a lesson coming on," I said..."The flower is the good inside every person," he said. "The cup is like a wall, to protect. Many people have that wall.""Armor" I said. He nodded. "Why?""Because to live without the cup means you must feel the world as the world really is.
Roland Merullo
...much of modern military tactics is geared toward maneuvering the enemy into a position where they can essentially be massacred from safety. (pg. 140)
Sebastian Junger
The marine underworld stretched below the ship and embodied many secrets. The disappearance of Olga had become one of the mysteries that would remain with Stefania and her family. The disappearance of her baby sister and sudden departure from her home had taught the ten-year-old that life was filled with uncertainties. But she was willing to forget that for a little while.She jumped down from the barrel and headed toward Liam, Felix, and the other shipmates. They would sing shanties and talk of the constellations, the sea, its creatures, and the legends. It would get her through another night.La Suerte was the only stability for her passengers with the infinite unknown all around them. The waters of the sea, the world below the surface, and the sky that stretched beyond the horizon was a representation of the limitless possibilites and dangers awaiting those aboard.
Tiffany Apan
Life was wonderful, so filled with people and activities, with love and laughter.
Judith McNaught
There is, however, a far more common ailment among us—and that is pride from the bottom looking up. It is manifest in so many ways, such as faultfinding, gossiping, backbiting, and murmuring, living beyond our means, envying, coveting, withholding gratitude and praise that might lift another, and being unforgiving and jealous.
Ezra Taft Benson
I know who you are,” Jack whispers. “I’ve always known you.” His hands glide up my arms, from the angles of my wrists to the creases of my elbows. He presses his mouth to my left ear—I shiver from his breath. “You’re a force to be reckoned with.
Caroline George
In my perception, the world wasn't a graph or formula or an equation. It was a story.
Cheryl Strayed
Malus: 'You look like a person with doubts.'Zoe: 'I wonder sometimes if any of this is real - or is it just a business, selling hope to people who can't afford it?'Malus: 'Clever people have been asking that question since the iron age, Zoe. The answer remains the same.'Zoe: 'And... ?'Malus: 'Business is good.'(A dialogue regarding the Church between a demon and a human.)
Terry Moore
Your body is the house you grew up in. How dare you try to burn it to the ground.
Sierra DeMulder
My mother was like sand. The kind that warms you on a beach when you come shivering out of the cold water. The kind that clings to your body, leaving its impression on your skin to remind you where you’ve been and where you’ve come from. The kind you keep finding in your shoes and your pockets long after you’ve left the beach. She was also like the sand that archaeologists dig through. Layers and layers of sand that have kept dinosaur bones together for millions of years. And as hot and dusty and plain as that sand might be, those archaeologists are grateful for it, because without it to keep the bones in place, everything would scatter. Everything would fall apart.
Clare Vanderpool
Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.
Helen Keller
You are the eyes of the universe and the sunlight of the dawn. Universe exists because of you.
Debasish Mridha
Theatre takes place all the time wherever one is and art simply facilitates persuading one this is the case.
John Cage
Imagination is the dynamic catalyst for every breakthrough.
Amy Leigh Mercree
I can't be a cream puff.
Buddy Valastro
You look about as trapped as a piglet at a baby back ribs cookoff.
Colleen Houck
How simple it could be! The answer to the problem of being anything was being it. How admirable Teddy was! From the ashes of his broken childhood he had formed a decision to be a cheerful person, a do-gooding scientific type with knowledge of English literature. That he had undercurrents of sadness as long and deep as a river was not the point. He had claimed a territory for himself and did not think too much about the complications.
Laurie Colwin
Vehicular Darwinism based on survival of the quickest.
Raymond L. Atkins
Foisting an identity on people rather than allowing them the freedom and space to create their own is shady.
Raquel Cepeda
It’s fascinating, really, when you think about it. How a person can slip into a new life as one would a new pair of shoes. At first there’s a keen awareness of the fit: a stiffness at the heel, the binding of the width, the curve pressed to the arch. But with time and enough steps, the feel becomes so natural you almost forget you’re wearing them at all.
Kristina McMorris
Science is a kind of worship to find the truth.
Debasish Mridha
My life is on loan, like money borrowed from a bank. God is the lender, and He retains the right to call in the loan any time. Though I am responsible for taking care of it, I do not own this life; it is borrowed. Why should I fear its loss or the loss of anything else in this world when I must surrender it all anyway?
James Dillehay
God dwells within you, as you.
Elizabeth Gilbert
Honey will wipe the floor with you." His eyes went half-mast, and his voice dropped in evident pleasure. "I know.
Patricia Briggs
The fact is, I love to feed other people. I love their pleasure, their comfort, their delight in being cared for. Cooking gives me the means to make other people feel better, which in a very simple equation makes me feel better. I believe that food can be a profound means of communication, allowing me to express myself in a way that seems much deeper and more sincere than words. My Gruyere cheese puffs straight from the oven say 'I'm glad you're here. Sit down, relax. I'll look after everything.'- Ann Patchett, "Dinner For One, Please, James
Jenni Ferrari-Adler
As I see it, dating is a product of our entertainment-driven, disposable-everything American culture...Love and romance became things people could solely enjoy for their recreational value.
Joshua Harris
Sharing a burdened heart with another who has the wisdom, strength, and knowledge to carry it, frees us from its weight long enough to focus on solutions
Gayathri Ramprasad
Show your children God’s love by loving them and others as Christ loves you. Be quick to forgive, don’t hold a grudge, look for what’s best, and speak gently into areas of their lives that need growth.
Genny Monchamp
Art distills sensation and embodies it with enhanced meaning in memorable form - or else it is not art.
Jacques Barzun
It was a tragic end to a heroic life.
Chris Kyle
She closed her eyes, and as had been her habit over these past couple of days, she began to imagine possible past histories and what she might have done to change them into the new one in which she lived, either inadvertently, or out of a misguided attempt to play God and make the world a better place, or, worse, with malice aforethought. Any time she spent in the past would have been clipped out of history, as neatly as if it had never happened, because it hadn't happened.
Dexter Palmer
If I marry: He must be so tall that when he is on his knees, as one has said he reaches all the way to heaven. His shoulders must be broad enough to bear the burden of a family. His lips must be strong enough to smile, firm enough to say no, and tender enough to kiss. Love must be so deep that it takes its stand in Christ and so wide that it takes the whole lost world in. He must be active enough to save souls. He must be big enough to be gentle and great enough to be thoughtful. His arms must be strong enough to carry a little child.
Ruth Bell
Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. (quoting the Bhagavad-Gita after witnessing the first Nuclear explosion.)
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Two farewell gifts," Sadie muttered, "from two gorgeous guys. I hate my life.
Rick Riordan
Remembering, in Spanish, means to pass something through the heart again, and now all the years are going through his heart again as he tries to turn away from the ocean. But he hears it and he knows it is out there. Some sleepless nights he goes out. But this night in his sleep he says, "Oh, look at all those beautiful life rafts.
Linda Hogan
When I was a child in Scotland, I was fond of everything that was wild, and all my life I've been growing fonder and fonder of wild places and wild creatures. Fortunately, around my native town of Dunbar, by the stormy North Sea, there was no lack of wildness...
John Muir
The people knew what had made them human. It was not their shortcomings, but their hearts.
Vanna Bonta
This was the face that Ga had shown the world, that of a boy who had swallowed the things that had happened to him, but who wouldn’t understand what they meant for a long, long time.
Adam Johnson
Our practice rather than being about killing the ego is about simply discovering our true nature.
Sharon Salzberg
Listen, whatever you see and love—that’s where you are.
Mary Oliver
Think about it. Every time you fail at a task you've actually learned something new. The question is "what?
Iimani David