Quotes by American Authors - Page 3339

War sounds romantic, heroic even, until everyone you know starts dying.
Amy A. Bartol
He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.
Abraham Lincoln
We have come to a point in time where using common sense, speaking factual truths and asking honest questions have been deemed radical behavior. While in turn, manipulation, thoughtlessness and dishonesty is often rewarded and rules the day.
Gary Hopkins
The Smile won Matthew extra time before bed, extra Christmas pudding, extra anything he wanted. Adults were helpless to resist The Smile.Matthew gave his all to this particular smile. Butter melted. Birds sang. People slipped about dazed amid the butter and birdsong.
Cassandra Clare
Apparently it'd been too long since her last social orgasm...
Jill Shalvis
What we fail to realize is we often become like Pharisees in our ruthless attempts to identify Pharisees (and impostors). While indeed some people use the old laws of religious pride to tear down men of God, others use the new laws of anti-religious anger to tear down men of God.
Criss Jami
Jason rose from his deathbed so he could drown with the rest of the crew.
Rick Riordan
What's the plan for today?" I asked him. "Same thing we do every day. Try and take over the world." I stared at him for a second. "Was that a 'Pinky and the Brain' reference?" "Sure was." "I'm the Brain." He laughed and took another sip of coffee. "I wouldn't have it any other way." I nodded triumphantly and nibbled at my bagel. -Lacey & Camden
B.B. Hamel
Basically, that's why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself.
Charles Bukowski
To enter the past is like poking a baseball bat into a spiderweb: it can't be done subtly or delicately.
Robert Silverberg
Jesus was a pacifist.
Chris Hedges
People enjoy inventing slogans which violate basic arithmetic but which illustrate “deeper” truths, such as “1 and 1 make 1” (for lovers), or “1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 1” (the Trinity). You can easily pick holes in those slogans, showing why, for instance, using the plus-sign is inappropriate in both cases. But such cases proliferate. Two raindrops running down a window-pane merge; does one plus one make one? A cloud breaks up into two clouds -more evidence of the same? It is not at all easy to draw a sharp line between cases where what is happening could be called “addition”, and where some other word is wanted. If you think about the question, you will probably come up with some criterion involving separation of the objects in space, and making sure each one is clearly distinguishable from all the others. But then how could one count ideas? Or the number of gases comprising the atmosphere? Somewhere, if you try to look it up, you can probably fin a statement such as, “There are 17 languages in India, and 462 dialects.” There is something strange about the precise statements like that, when the concepts “language” and “dialect” are themselves fuzzy.
Douglas R. Hofstadter
we must remember that the end of personal mastery is service to others.
Chris Matakas
Sometimes people who look different from you are scary. Maybe they are ugly. Maybe they are loud. Maybe theyare big. Maybe they are green. Maybe they are all those things. But you should not be afraid of them just because of how they look. You may find they are nice to you if you arenice to them.
Jeff Hutchins
Expectations make people miserable, so whatever yours are, lower them. You'll definitely be happier.
Simone Elkeles
Studies show that the IQ range of most creative people is surprisingly narrow, around 120 to 130. Higher IQs can perform certain kinds of tasks better--logic, feats of memory, and so on. But if the IQ is much higher or lower than that, the window of creativity closes. Nonetheless, for some reason we believe more is better, so people yearn for tip-top IQs, and that calls for bigger memories. A fast, retentive memory is handy, but no skeleton key for survival.
Diane Ackerman
When you don't have something anymore, you learn to live without it." That's what my dad told me that first night after he found me sleeping inside a closet underneath a pile of my mom's clothes. All the different smells of her were still there and the memories were alive even if she wasn't. I looked up into his face and wondered why would I ever want to learn to live without her? That felt like she really would be gone forever, and I wanted to limp on the broken piece of me so I could feel her there all the time.
Alan Silberberg
If your parents died suddenly, Sandro understood, your home was wherever you were, and now you were from nowhere. Your parents were your provenance. Dead, you had no provenance.
Rachel Kushner
It might not be about perfection. Rather, it may be that that which is imperfect is that which has the most character.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
admitted I was powerless over food,that my life had become uninhabitable.Sure, there are folks who speak of livesunmanageable, but my life was always that!It took more to push me to the admission.I had a Hell Year when I turned 50and it took me another ten to reach the crevice,to fall off the edge, to give up and gowhere a counselor had directed me for years,to the rooms of recovery. I knew she was rightbut I wasn’t broken enough to go. Unmanageable,I could life in. Uninhabitable I couldn’t.I fought it for nigh on sixty yearsbut when I finally couldn’t keep on pretending,continue making do, I found what I needed,what I could finally accept, and soar out of thereto recovery.
Barbara B. Rollins
Go ahead, and fear not. You will have a full library at your service.
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Hold on with a bulldog grip and chew and choke as much as possible.
Abraham Lincoln
I am the greatest obstacle to my greatest dreams.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Grief reunites you with what you've lost. It's a merging; you go with the loved thing or person that's going away. You follow it a far as you can go.But finally,the grief goes away and you phase back into the world. Without him.And you can accept that. What the hell choice is there? You cry, you continue to cry, because you don't ever completely come back from where you went with him -- a fragment broken off your pulsing, pumping heart is there still. A cut that never heals.And if, when it happens to you over and over again in life, too much of your heart does finally go away, then you can't feel grief any more. And then you yourself are ready to die. You'll walk up the inclined ladder and someone else will remain behind grieving for you.
Philip K Dick
Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything; it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through anyone that suits you.
Jim Morrison
A few names were known in full, some in part, some not at all. No one cared. Except in clearly unreasonable cases, a soldier was generally called by the name he preferred, or by what he called himself, and no great effort was made to disentangle Christian names from surnames from nicknames.
Tim O'Brien
The first ring glowed in the distance, lit up by consumerism that was brought to Jakarta courtesy of western cultures and Christian nations, and it influenced impoverished Muslims in the third ring, who wore Manchester United tee shirts with 'Rooney' on the back, twisting further the attitudes and perceptions of those who were bent already toward radicalism.
Tucker Elliot
She hadn't realized she was lonely until she began to understand that other people were not.
Rebecca Scherm
I confess [Election] is a hard doctrine, running contrary to our earthly ideas of fair play, but I can see no way around it. Read I Corinthians 6:13 and II Timothy 1:9,10. Also I Peter 1:2,19,20 and Romans 11:7. There you have it. It was good for Paul and Silas and it is good enough for me. It is good enough for you too.
Charles Portis
Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they're yours.
Richard Bach
The heart's seasons seldom coincide with the calendar. Who among us has not been made desolate beyond all words upon some golden day when the little creatures of the air and meadow were life incarnate, from sheer joy of living? Who among us has not come home, singing, when the streets were almost impassable with snow, or met a friend with a happy, smiling face, in the midst of a pouring rain?
Myrtle Reed
That was how I met her, in a bar in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, she was drinking and watching, and that was why I liked her, I thought she would be fun to have fun with.
James Baldwin
Normal day let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you love you bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.
Mary Jean Iron
It's not about being liberal or conservative, it's about being human.It's not about being rich or poor, it's about being alive and happy.It's not about being right, it's about being considerate and compassionate.
Karen L. Syed
There will be danger; some of you may not live to complete your lessons. It's a risk you take. This world is bigger than you and it will go on, regardless.
Nnedi Okorafor
Even now, he is every blue blazer getting into cab, every runner along the river,every motorcycle coming and going.
Melissa Bank
Peace—[the ability] to sleep in the storm!
Billy Graham
All of the the books, the readings, the workshops, the ah-ha moments won't change your life unless you put actions behind them.
Eileen Anglin
Everyone might think Lizzie's an angel, but I knew better. She was selfish, and she was going to pay.
Michelle Madow
I would like to outsmart the role that is destined for me. But I can't. I have failed to destroy my category.
Ben Marcus
You can’t ask authentically and gracefully without truly being able to accept “No” for an answer. Because if you’re not truly willing to accept “No” for an answer, you’re not really asking, you’re demanding — you’re begging. At least, that’s how I’ve come to understand asking.
Amanda Palmer
I can see how James or Greene might agree with this point of view: the former finds that the ugly old lamp no longer produces a genie when rubbed and the latter realizes he has nothing left to wish for.
Laura Miller
A good-enough novel violently written now is better than a perfect novel meticulously written never.
Elizabeth Gilbert
Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.
George Washington
The more you choose to focus on the positive, the more positive will come into focus. The choice is yours.
Charles F. Glassman
I understood that I was being shown the future: shards of what would come to be. Often, I cried out for the pain of it. But other times, I was comforted, because I saw, for an instant, the pattern of the whole.
Geraldine Brooks
She [88yo Mrs Fitzgerald] crossed herself and patted my arm. "And you're after coming all the way from England to find out who done it? Aren't you great? God bless you, young fella." "The old heretic," I said, when we got outside. Mrs. Fitzgerald had cheered up my day immensely. "I hope I have that much zip when I'm eighty-eight
Tana French
He didn't blame James for falling in love with her, she was a radiant, deserving woman. He knew, however, that love only did one thing. It got in the way.
Erin M. Truesdale
A fan club is a group of people who tell an actor he is not alone in the way he feels about himself.
Jack Carson
The key in letting go is practice. Each time we let go, we disentangle ourselves from our expectations and begin to experience things as they are.
Sharon Salzberg
It might be said of Miss [Djuna] Barnes,” [T.S. Eliot] wrote, “who is incontestably one of the most original writers of our time, that never has so much genius been combined with so little talent.
Ross Wetzsteon
A tear slipped from eye, as I stood helpless beside Kiran. “They have done nothing wrong, except fight for the freedom you have stolen from them, from all of us!” I shouted back, unable to stay silent when my friends stood at his mercy.“I give you freedom, the freedom to live your life as you please,” Lucan challenged, tilting his chin with pride and sincerity. “I ask nothing of you, except for your loyalty. I am the king, it is the least of what I deserve,” Lucan turned to address the kingdom, his argument ringing through the air.“Then why is it only your bloodline that is allowed immortality?” I argued, taking a step forward. “Why do the rest of our people suffer from the separation of races? Why are the Shape-shifters exiled by penalty of death? What have they done? What is their crime? Are you afraid to share true immortality? Are you so scared of a people that realize they don’t need a king?” I turned to face the crowd too, hoping to empower them with my words.
Rachel Higginson
Having to fight for the thing you want doesn't mean you deserve it any less.
Anna Kendrick
Words matter, but what matters more than words is forgiveness and compassion.
Shannon L. Alder
You can take and nail two sticks together like they've never been nailed together before and some fool will buy it.
George Carlin
Oh how I had underestimated tender kisses.
Cora Carmack
When your safety is in question follow your intuition. It will help you balance along the precipice between vulnerability and adventure.
Gina Greenlee
You know how it is when you're reading a book and falling asleep, you're reading, reading... and all of a sudden you notice your eyes are closed? I'm like that all the time.
Steven Wright
Why do you suppose I’m here?” I asked him. Angel. A thirteen-year-old departed gangbanger. “Just ’cause you’re supposed to be, I guess.
Darynda Jones
LOVE is measured in GAUGE TWENTY- specifically, love pressure in the surrounding area. If it drops below four percent, though, you may have trouble-the VW might get sad, slow down, or even stop altogether. If this occurs, you have to immediately find/write a story that somehow convinces him that there is more love, caring or compassion in the area than he thinks there is. I can’t tell you how many times this has been a problem for us- how many trips were interrupted because I had to head into the nearest populated town to see if we could find examples of kindness.
Christopher Boucher