Quotes by American Authors - Page 506

New nursery rhymes for new times. HIckory dickery dock my daddy's nuts from shelshock. Humpty dumpty thought he was wise till gas came along and hurned out his eyes. A dillar a dollar a ten o-clock schollar blow off his legs and then watch him holler...
Dalton Trumbo
You are your own worst enemy. If you can learn to stop expecting impossible perfection, in yourself and others, you may find the happiness that has always eluded you.
Lisa Kleypas
Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another.
Emma Goldman
If you want to do something—you can do it! You just have to be focused and persistent.
Debasish Mridha
It was amazing what I could remember about myself when I retraced my own steps.
Cecil Castellucci
its like you said? i lead my people-"forth!" zifnab carried on enthusiastically! " out of eygpt! out of bondage! across the desert! pillar of fire-"desert?" lenthan looked anxious again. "fire? i thought we were going to the stars!"sorry. wrong script" zifnab said
Margaret Weis
Christ never told his disciples that they would get an Academy Award for their performances, but He did tell them to expect to have troubles.
Billy Graham
I had wanted to disappear, if only so the cancer could disappear with me. But the stars whispered that there was no such thing. You don’t ever disappear. You just change. You leave. You move on. But you never disappear. Even when you think you want to.
Amy Harmon
Ain't all buttons and charts, little albatross. Know what the first rule of flying is? Well I s'pose you do, since you already know what I'm 'bout to say.I do. But I like to hear you say it.Love. Can know all the math in the 'verse but take a boat in the air that you don't love? She'll shake you off just as sure as a turn in the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down...tell you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens...makes her a home.
Joss Whedon
I grieved three thousand times. Then I grieved for myself, a lonely woman without the honor given to the wives of the fallen. The reverence for their loss, for their children's loss. It was eloquent and grand. So moving and charged with solidarity...On September eleventh, I faced the last moments of your father's life. I saw him in every person who tried to jump and every body they pulled from the rubble. And I saw myself as I was never allowed to be, consoled, understood, and loved.
Susan Abulhawa
Bad habits were all a matter of perspective, and as long as the present was viewed through the lens of the past, anyone would say he was doing a spectacular job.
Ann Patchett
Some legends say that Hera's breast milk sprayed across the sky and created the Milky Way. I don't know. That seems like a whole lot of solar systems from just one squirt
Rick Riordan
They used to tell me if you’re depressed anyway, why not be depressed and take a walk instead of being depressed and staying in bed? If it makes no difference, why not get up and go out?
Rebecca Rogers Maher
When you win and the other fellow loses, what do you see? A losing face. There is great joy in losing and making the other person win and have a happy face. Who will be the happiest person? The one who brings happiness to others.
Swami Satchidananda
The secret is,” I say, whispering right into his ear, “that yours was the best kiss I’ve ever had in my life.”“But I’ve never kissed you,” he whispers back. Around us the rain sounds like falling glass. “Not since third grade, anyway.” I smile, but I’m not sure if he can see it.“Better get started, then,” I say, “because I don’t have much time.
Lauren Oliver
If you can tolerate the humiliation and helplessness and admit that you're an out-of-control fuckup, it frees you from expectations that you can't possibly meet, promises you can't keep, and appearances you can't maintain; it liberates you from the ensuring cycle of endless failure.
Michael Bennett
One man's deviance is other man's lunch break.
Jenn Bennett
I write to raise the curtain on life's endless possibilities. Because you asked, "Pourquoi?
Peggy Kopman-Owens
Really, there was only one problem with Mr. Davis, as far as Gregory was concerned; He taught math.
Greg Pincus
When other little girls wanted to be ballet dancers, I kind of wanted to be a vampire.
Angelina Jolie
It is now, at Advent, that I am given the chance to suspend all expectation...and instead to revel in the mystery.
Jerusalem Jackson Greer
Our lives were just beginning, our favorite moment was right now, our favorite songs were unwritten.
Rob Sheffield
Well into adulthood, writing has never gotten easier. It still only ever begins badly, and there are no guarantees that this is not the day when the jig is finally up.
David Rakoff
But that's not quite right either.I miss Paris, but it's not home. It's more like... I miss this. This warmth over the telephone. Is it possible for home to be a person and not a place? Bridgette used to be home to me. Maybe St. Clair is my new home.I mull this over as our voices grow tired and we stop talking. We just keep each other company. My breath. His breath. My breath. His breath.I could never tell him, but it's true.This is home. The two of us.
Stephanie Perkins
The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking spaces.
Will Rogers
Maybe I’ll leave you hard and aching for days, months, years. That’s how long I’ve been hard for you. Turn about’s fair play, dontcha think, Paul Guy?” (from Finding Eden Excerpt)
Kele Moon
Kindness is not a fixed trait that we either have or lack, but more like a muscle that can be developed and strengthened.
Sharon Salzberg
His fists clenched at his sides. 'Damn it! Where's your pride?' 'Pride? It's in my heart, of course.' 'You're letting me demean you!' She smiled. 'You can't do that. I can only demean myself.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips
When does he ever think?" Richard straddled a chair and accepted a wind cup from Raoul. "If he were to sell his brain, he could claim it had never been used.", Chapter 7
Sharon Kay Penman
An acquaintanceship with the literature of the world may be won by any person who will devote half an hour a day to the careful reading of the best books. The habit of reading good books is one that gives great comfort in all the stages and among all the vicissitudes of life. The man who has learned to love good reading is never alone. His friends are the great ones of human history, and to them he may always go for stimulating and helpful communion. --GQ 71 (GQ is A Guide for Quorums of the Melchizedek Priesthood, 3rd Edition, 1930)
John A. Widtsoe
Seenu rang the gong, and the eyes shut themselves in silence, and the brahmin heart and the weaver heart and pariah heart seemed to beat the one beat of Siva dancing
Raja Rao
So damn pigheaded. I’ve studied you, not to report you, Caspar, but because I want a relationship with you.
Rie Warren
Like gravity, karma is so basic we often don't even notice it.
Sakyong Mipham
Because when you cared about people, you handed them a little piece of your heart, and with those hands, they had the power to cause pain.
Shelley Coriell
All the same,' said the Scarecrow,'I shall ask for brains instead of a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one.''I shall take the heart,' returned the Tin Woodman,'for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.
L. Frank Baum
God has given you two ears--that should tell you something about the importance of listening.
Jim George
Health care and education are too important NOT to be left to the free market.
Kevin D. Williamson
At the time of the liberation of the camps, I remember, we were convinced that after Auschwitz there would be no more wars, no more racism, no more hatred, no more anti-Semitism. We were wrong. This produced a feeling close to despair. For if Auschwitz could not cure mankind of racism, was there any chance of success ever? The fact is, the world has learned nothing. Otherwise, how is one to comprehend the atrocities committed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia…
Elie Wiesel
What is this thing called life? I believeThat the earth and the stars too, and the whole glittering universe, and rocks on the mountains have life,Only we do not call it so--I speak of the lifeThat oxidizes fats and proteins and carbo-Hydrates to live on, and from that chemical energyMakes pleasure and pain, wonder, love, adoration, hatred and terror: how do these things growFrom a chemical reaction?I think they were here already, I think the rocksAnd the earth and the other planets, and the stars and the galaxieshave their various consciousness, all things are conscious;But the nerves of an animal, the nerves and brainBring it to focus; the nerves and brain are like a burning-glassTo concentrate the heat and make it catch fire:It seems to us martyrs hotter than the blazing hearthFrom which it came. So we scream and laugh, clamorous animalsBorn howling to die groaning: the old stones in the dooryardPrefer silence; but those and all things have their own awareness,As the cells of a man have; they feel and feed and influence each other, each unto all,Like the cells of a man's body making one being,They make one being, one consciousness, one life, one God.
Robinson Jeffers
I gave you the best of me.
Nicholas Sparks
Teachers knew every one of the students, their secrets, their grades, their home situations. And all the students knew the teachers. It was like teachers were people who finally were the most popular at school.
Victoria Kahler
It’s great to spend time at a networking event with someone you know and like. But that’s not what you’re there for. Your goal is to expand your network by meeting new people.
Beth Ramsay
When we heed God's Word, we are rejecting how the world tries to disciple us.
Matt Chandler
Wishes of one's old life wither and shrivel like old leaves if they are not replaced with new wishes when the world changes. And the world always changes. Wishes get slimy, and their colors fade, and soon they are just mud, like all the rest of the mud, and not wishes at all, but regrets. The trouble is, not everyone can tell when they ought to launder their wishes. Even when one finds oneself in Fairyland and not at home at all, it is not always so easy to remember to catch the world in it's changing and change with it.
Catherynne M. Valente
Shakespeare is to me the purest voice of nature, and he does no meddle with nature. His plays provide us with the greatest variety of erotic expression, and with Shakespeare eros is the proper term to use.
Allan Bloom
They camped that night on the foreplain at the foot of a talus slope and the murder that had been reckoned upon took place.
Cormac McCarthy
And yet when I wish to explore how faith works, I usually sneak in by the back door of doubt, for I best learn about my own need for faith during its absence. God's invisibility guarantees I will experience times of doubt. Everyone dangles on a pendulum that swings from belief to unbelief, back to belief, and ends - where?
Philip Yancey
God be thanked for books! they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages.
w.e. channing
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
Will Rogers
THE VOICE YOU HEAR WHEN YOU READ SILENTLYis not silent, it is a speaking-out-loud voice in your head; it is *spoken*,a voice is *saying* itas you read. It's the writer's words,of course, in a literary sensehis or her "voice" but the soundof that voice is the sound of *your* voice.Not the sound your friends knowor the sound of a tape played backbut your voicecaught in the dark cathedralof your skull, your voice heardby an internal ear informed by internal abstractsand what you know by feeling,having felt. It is your voicesaying, for example, the word "barn"that the writer wrotebut the "barn" you sayis a barn you know or knew. The voicein your head, speaking as you read,never says anything neutrally- some peoplehated the barn they knew,some people love the barn they knowso you hear the word loadedand a sensory constellationis lit: horse-gnawed stalls,hayloft, black heat tape wrappinga water pipe, a slipperyspilled *chirr* of oats from a split sack,the bony, filthy haunches of cows...And "barn" is only a noun- no verbor subject has entered into the sentence yet!The voice you hear when you read to yourselfis the clearest voice: you speak itspeaking to you. ~~-Thomas Lux
Thomas Lux
Adversity has the remarkable ability of introducing the real you to yourself.
M.B. Dallocchio
Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full of harmony and his soul full of gratitude. He felt much as an astronomer feels who has discovered a new planet—no doubt, as far as strong, deep, unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with the boy, not the astronomer.
Mark Twain
… It was the knowing that there had been a happier time, a place of joy and peace and security, that made the sudden absence of it all so agonizing… Not the agony of what was, but the agony of what was no longer; this was the source of all life’s pain--not the fear of a hell to come, but rather the knowledge of an Eden that is no more. Hell isn't the punishment… Eden was.
Shalom Auslander
I’m going to give you some advice: don’t be such a whiny asshole. It makes you look weak.
Mimi Jean Pamfiloff
I will not allow my mistakes of the past compromise my hope for the future.
Charles F. Glassman
Government scientists are commonly as corrupt as the corporate government that employs them.
Steven Magee
Creating an ideal customer profile helps you understand who are you talking to through your marketing, and it helps you carry that message and vibe through to your customerexperience.
Amber Hurdle
...this is life. Right here in this room, with you, is life.
Scott Westerfeld
Grace means suddenly you’re in a different universe from the one where you were stuck, and there was absolutely no way for you to get there on your own.
Anne Lamott
I stare at my freakish eyeball, gaze into the distorted pupil until it expands and fills the mirror, fills my brain and I’m rushing through vacuum. Wide awake and so far at such speed I flatten into a subatomic contrail. That grand cosmic maw, that eater of galaxies, possesses sufficient gravitational force to rend the fabric of space and time, to obliterate reality, and in I go, bursting into trillions of minute particles, quadrillions of whining fleas, consumed. Nanoseconds later, I understand everything there is to understand. Reduced to my “essential saltes” as it were, I’m the prime mover seed that gets sown after the heat death of the universe when the Ouroboros swallows itself and the cycle begins anew with a big bang.
Laird Barron