Quotes by American Authors - Page 462

All creation necessarily ends in this: Creators, powerless, fleeing from the things they have wrought.
David Eagleman
I’m helped by a gentle notion from Buddhist psychology, that there are “near enemies” to every great virtue—reactions that come from a place of care in us, and which feel right and good, but which subtly take us down an ineffectual path. Sorrow is a near enemy to compassion and to love. It is borne of sensitivity and feels like empathy. But it can paralyze and turn us back inside with a sense that we can’t possibly make a difference. The wise Buddhist anthropologist and teacher Roshi Joan Halifax calls this a “pathological empathy” of our age. In the face of magnitudes of pain in the world that come to us in pictures immediate and raw, many of us care too much and see no evident place for our care to go. But compassion goes about finding the work that can be done. Love can’t help but stay present
Krista Tippett
A blooming flower pleads, oh thee! Look at me, to see the beauty, Kiss me like a bee, To feel the bliss, To taste the nectar of life And just to feel and be. Kiss me like a wave kisses the shore In an endless dancing sea, again and again, just to be.
Debasish Mridha
It’s all about reprogramming our minds to focus more on what brings us joy.
Alaric Hutchinson
I don't ridicule religion, it ridicules itself.
Bill Maher
When father uses the word 'politics' he's talkingabout relations between nations. When I use the word, though, I'mtalking about the various subtle ways a woman can get men to dowhat she wants them to do.
David Eddings
[F]eminism wasn't supposed to make us feel guilty, or prod us into constant competition over who is raising children better, organizing more cooperative marriages, or getting less sleep. It was supposed to make us free -to give us not only choices but the ability to make these choices without constantly feeling that we'd somehow gotten it wrong.
Sheryl Sandberg
Flaming enthusiasm backed up by horse sense and persistence is the quality that most frequently makes for success.
Dale Carnegie
The best lies are seasoned with a bit of truth,
George R.R. Martin
Life-shaping institutions tend to start with an idea or revelation. They often become mostly about the preservation and expansion of authority, something they relinquish only with the greatest reluctance.
Ron Suskind
Deciding we won't drive to that chain grocery store and buy that imported pineapple is a path to liberation. Deciding to walk to the farmers' market and buy fresh, local peas is like spitting in the eye of the industries that control us. Every act of refusal is also an act of assent. Every time we way no to consumer culture, we say yes to something more beautiful and sustaining. Life is not something we go through or that happens to us; it's something we create by our own decisions.
Kathleen Dean Moore
There is often no line between perfection and evil.
Ken Liu
He flashed the warmest smile I'd ever seen, and my heart felt comforted. Maybe D.J. saw my insecurities, my fears. Maybe he knew God still had a lot of work to do in my life before I'd be good girlfriend material.Or maybe, just maybe, he saw beyond all that and simply wanted to flirt with the wedding coordinator instead of rehearse for the big night.I did my best to relax...and let him.
Janice Thompson
For whatever is truly wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.
Herman Melville
Once you kill all of us, and you're alone, you'll die! The hate will die. That hate is what moves you, nothing else! That envy moves you. Nothing else! You'll die, inevitably. You're not immortal. You're not even alive, you're nothing but moving hate.
Ray Bradbury
Tom Sawyer the Pirate looked around upon the envying juveniles about him and confessed in his heart that this was the proudest moment of his life.
Mark Twain
It's YOUR health. Don't leave up to someone else.
Lisa Barger
I finally figured out that not every crisis can be managed. As much as we want to keep ourselves safe, we can't protect ourselves from everything. If we want to embrace life, we also have to embrace chaos.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Skin color doesn't make you different," Melody said. "We're all the same on the inside."The only people who ever say that," Raymond replied, "are white.
Jodi Picoult
Unlike the majority of people, he did not hate or fear the wilderness; as harsh as the empty lands were, they possessed a grace and a beauty that no artifice could compete with and that he found restorative.
Christopher Paolini
As soon as a friendship passed a certain point - some obscure and secret boundary - a woman quite automatically became overwhelmed by a raging compulsion to complicate things.
David Eddings
Since then I’ve come to believe you don’t always have to use things you love, and it’s not always so practical to be so practical. Now that I’ve grown up, I realize that all that delicious dilettantism pays its way as much as any degree in medicine or engineering, by making me remember every day—whenever I pick up a book or watch the Science Channel or try to read a map of Asia for no particular reason—that life is amazing and there is no end to the wonder of it.
Barbara Sher
One does not have humor. It has you.
Larry Gelbart
Remember that when you think you are seeing giants, they may not be giants at all; perhaps it is you who is the dwarf.
C. JoyBell C.
The language of light can only be decoded by the heart.
Suzy Kassem
Almighty God, I am sorry I am now an atheist, but have You read Nietzsche?
John Fante
Rain makes me feel less alone. All rain is, is a cloud- falling apart, and pouring its shattered pieces down on top of you. It makes me feel good to know I'm not the only thing that falls apart . It makes me feel better to know other things in nature can shatter.
Lone Alaskan Gypsy
If you want him to do it, you've got to change the picture of the world inside his head.
Robert Penn Warren
A man can do a lot of damage in the church. When someone comes here, he's got his guard up. But in church a man's wide open.
John Steinbeck
Her failure was a useful preliminary to success.
Edith Wharton
I’ve never been on a bike,” I say. “I mean, I’ve been on a bike but not a motorcycle.”“And why is that?” he asks. “Bugs. They get in your mouth, right? That’s just gross.” Chris makes a face.“If you ride around with your mouth hanging open, I assume that could be a possibility.
Summer Lane
Russell commented that the development of such gifted individuals (referring to polymaths) required a childhood period in which there was little or no pressure for conformity, a time in which the child could develop and pursue his or her own interests no matter how unusual or bizarre.
Carl Sagan
The accidents of life separate us from our dearest friends but let us not despair. God is like a looking glass in which souls see each other. The more we are united to Him by love the nearer we are to those who belong to Him.
Elizabeth Ann Seton
Self-leadership always precedes team leadership.
Michael Hyatt
Life is problems. Living is solving problems.
Raymond E. Feist
Facing and embracing grief allows us to experience the shock, anger, disappointment, and other feelings that need to be processed before we can move through this transition.
Michael Thomas Sunnarborg
Veblen called it the price-system. Mills called it the Power Elite. It's probably no more than ninety-nine people who don't know what they are doing. They're involved in high finance. Fascinating form of gambling.
John Cage
A day dawns quite like other days in it a single hour comes quite like other hours but in that day and in that hour the chance of a lifetime faces us.
Maltbie D. Babcock
Men are mystifying creatures. For instance why do all men think their penis is a panacea for all the world’s problems?
Tyne O'Connell
Some topics seem to be nothing but philosophical circles designed to lure the unsuspecting ant to its death.
D.E. Navarro
The government enforces a monopoly over the production and distribution of its alleged 'services' and brings violence to bear against would-be competitors. In so doing, it reveals the fraud at the heart of its impudent claims and gives sufficient proof that it is not a genuine protector, but a mere protection racket.
Robert Higgs
Always be open to inspiration. You never know where it may come from. Begin with an open mind, end with an inspired heart.
Sheri Fink
Men have become the tools of their tools. Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul. Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
Henry David Thoreau
Turn your failure into a fairy tale of success and triumph.
Debasish Mridha
One of his eyes was swollen shut, and his nose was thick and purple. It made her want to cry. And to kiss him. (Because apparently everything made her want to kiss him. Park could tell her that he had lice and leprosy and parasitic worms living in his mouth and she would still put on fresh ChapStick. God.)
Rainbow Rowell
I could see it on the faces of people as they passed. I would smile to share my joy, but it was AS IF I upset them with my happiness. In Confusion they would reply with a negative remark. Hoping it would spark a new chain of negative thoughts in me bringing me down to their level misery.
Bethany Brookbank
You’re perfect,” he said, finishing his thought as if she hadn’t interrupted. “I don’t care if you see dead wolves and turn into a living ice sculpture when you’re having a bad day. I don’t care if I have an imprint of your teeth on my shoulder. I don’t care if you’re … fixed.” He spat the word like it tasted bad. “I want you to be safe and happy. That’s all.
Marissa Meyer
A good night's sleep counts healthy sheep.
Brian Spellman
The coolest guys aren't afraid to be feminists.
Jandy Nelson
But if it was always a point of speculation, where one person insisted it was a certain way and another denied it, how would anyone ever hold on to the truth?
Kiera Cass
Never talk to strangers. If someone ever tries to take you, fight with everything you have. Scream as loud as you can. (He'd never told her what to do if the man was too strong and there was no one to hear her screaming.)
Lisa Unger
Edward knew what it was like to say over and over again the names of those you had left behind. He knew what it was like to miss someone. And so he listened. And in his listening, his heart opened wide and then wider still. (page 103)
Kate DiCamillo
Love as if life is forever. Life without love has nothing to share.
Debasish Mridha
It was the responsibility of a senior fireman to teach as well as to do.
David Halberstam
I am ashamed of anyone who has eyes and still can't see.
Kathryn Lasky
If you have true gratitude, it will express itself automatically. It will be visible in your eyes, around your being, in your aura. It is like the fragrance of a flower. In most cases if there is a beautiful flower, the fragrance will be there naturally. The flower and its fragrance cannot be separated.
Sri Chinmoy
...the poor man, whom the law does not allow to take an ear of corn when starving, nor a pair of shoes for his freezing feet, is allowed to put his hand into the pocket of the rich, and say, You shall educate me, not as you will, but as I will...
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Your soul has a resiliency and a capacity to endure suffering that is beyond anything you can imagine.
Bryant McGill
I clap because I know what will happen when I stop. It's the same thing that happens when I turn off a really good movie - one that I've lost myself to - which is that I'll be thrown back to my own reality and something hollow will settle in my chest. Sometimes, I'll watch a movie all over again just to recapture that feeling of being inside something real. Which, I know, doesn't make any sense.
Gayle Forman
What a feat of transmission: the emotive powers of the book, with no local habitation, pass safely from writer to reader, unmangled by printing and binding and shipping, renewed and available whenever we open it.
Lynne Sharon Schwartz