Quotes by American Authors - Page 756

Distraction wastes our energy, concentration restores it.
Sharon Salzberg
Sometimes the worst beatings we endure are never the physical kind.
Dannika Dark
It keeps him happy, Dahlaine, and happy people are nicer than gloomy ones. Haven't you noticed that before?
David Eddings
If they were going to kill you, would they knock?
Jeffrey Eugenides
Religions are often state-protected nurseries of pseudoscience, although there's no reason why religions have to play that role. In a way, it's an artefact from times long gone.
Carl Sagan
Despite all their faults, campaigns are based on the fact that every vote counts, and therefore every person counts. As freestanding societies, they are more open than academia, more idealistic than corporations, more unifying than religions, and more accessible than government itself.
Gloria Steinem
At the lip of a cliff, I look out over Lake Superior, through the bare branches of birches and the snow-covered branches of aspens and pines. A hard wind blows snow up out of a cavern and over my face. I know this place, I know its seasons - I have hiked these mountains in the summer and walked these winding pathways in the explosion of colour that is a northern fall. And now, the temperature drops well below zero and the deadly cold lake rages below, I feel the stirrings of faith that here, in this place, in my heart, spring will come again.But first the winter must be waited out. And that waiting has worth.
Marya Hornbacher
Instead of focusing on how much you can accomplish, focus on how much you can absolutely love what you’re doing.
Leo Babauta
There are three people one can never reason with: a drunk, a crazy person, and a fool.
R. Alan Woods
Nowadays, ads don't just sell a product. They sell an attitude! Look at this one! Here's a cool guy saying nobody tells him what to do. He does whatever he wants and he buys this product as a reflection of that independence. So basically, this maverick is urging everyone to express his individuality through conformity in brand-name selection?
Bill Watterson
I mean how do you know what you're going to do till you do it?
J.D. Salinger
If you really have talent, you know, you'll go on writing - whatever people say to you.
Christopher Isherwood
The world is a clock winding down.I hear it in the wind’s icy fingers scratching against the window. I smell it in the mildewed carpeting and the rotting wallpaper of the old hotel. And I feel it in Teacup’s chest as she sleeps. The hammering of her heart, the rhythm of her breath, warm in the freezing air, the clock winding down.
Rick Yancey
Whatever you is, Onion," he said, "be it full.
James McBride
Nothing is impossible, nothing is risky, when you take the action with love, something better will happen.
Debasish Mridha
She had very much looked forward to a word in private with him. But she forgot, as she usually did, the silence that always came between them in these latter years, whenever they found themselves alone.The queer sensation in her chest, however, was all too familiar, that mix of pleasure and pain, never one without the other.She could have done without those feelings. She would have happily gone her entire life never experiencing the pangs of longing and the futility of regret. He made her human—or as human as she was capable of being. And being human was possibly her least favorite aspect of life.
Sherry Thomas
Everything's about my personal entertainment. The world is my stage. Keep it up- you're becoming a star performer in the show.
Richelle Mead
Your love is the essence of divine artistry. Use prismatic hues to express it and shower it everywhere!
Amy Leigh Mercree
Perhaps it was the approach of death that had opened his eyes wide and made him see so clearly.
Francine Rivers
Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.
Dean Karnazes
People must understand that science is inherently neither a potential for good nor for evil. It is a potential to be harnessed by man to do his bidding.
Glenn T. Seaborg
Today's marriages become toxic, with resentments, after only a few years. It's one thing to say, 'I forgive,' but most lack the enterprise to do the necessary work that follows. It was the day after that proved who had the wisdom of God and who didn't.pg 46
Michael Ben Zehabe
Power of softness and kindness are the greatest.
Debasish Mridha
The only one that believes in you, is you. Don't lean on how others see you to find belief in yourself.
Anthony Liccione
If it were true love, he would never make you sacrifice your dignity to be with him. He would respect you and treat you as if you were sacred to his heart. If he loved you as dearly as he professes to love Christ, then he would never let anyone that loved him suffer or lower their self worth to be with him. True love is compassion, respect and honorable acts that prove love.
Shannon L. Alder
Becoming sensitive to the background causes of one's thoughts and feelings can—paradoxically—allow for greater creative control over one's life. It is one thing to bicker with your wife because you are in a bad mood; it is another to realize that your mood and behavior have been caused by low blood sugar. This understanding reveals you to be a biochemical puppet, of course, but it also allows you to grab hold of one of your strings: A bit of food may be all that your personality requires. Getting behind our concious thoughts and feelings can allow us to steer a more intelligent course through our lives (while knowing, of course, that we are ultimately being steered).
Sam Harris
But the shock wears off, more quickly for some, but eventually for most. Fast food and alcohol are seductive, and I didn’t fight too hard. Your old routine is easy to fall back into, preferences and tastes return. It’s not hard to be a fussy, overstuffed American. After a couple of months, home is no longer foreign, and you are free to resume your old life. I thought I did. Resume my old life, that is. I was wrong.
Brian Castner
Don't fuck with an English major. They keep lots of useless crap trapped in their heads. Once in a while they let some of it out and it bites you square on the ass.
P.C. Cast
Empathy seems to have been replaced with judgement in today's world. NO ONE has arrived. I repeat, NO ONE has arrived. We all experience joy, happiness, sadness, anger, disappointment, fear, etc... Some of the most successful people have said things in interviews that give you a peek into their vulnerable areas. The differences are found in how we manage our own issues so if you are beating yourself up, comparing yourself or on the other end of the spectrum looking down on others...please stop! We are all searching for significance in one way or another...some have found it within while it takes others a little more time searching the outside. Be true to yourself and allow others to do the same. Remember, no one has it all together all the time. NO ONE HAS ARRIVED...WE ARE ALL BE-COMING. HUMANS BE-ING. So let folks BE.
Sanjo Jendayi
You undo me, Merit. Wholly and completely. You don't take me at my word. You challenge me at every opportunity. And that means when I'm with you, I am less than the head of this House...and I am more than the head of this House. I am a man." He stroked my cheeks with his thumbs. "In my very, very long life, I need you more than I have ever needed anything.
Chloe Neill
This place is like the Army: the shark ethic prevails--eat the wounded. In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.
Hunter S. Thompson
One person can make a difference, and every person should try.
Thomas E. Cronin
I know of no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.
Ulysses S. Grant
Creativity is improvisation
Simón Silva
Who did she know in Raleigh who took time off to fix a house? Or read Whitman or Eliot, finding images in the mind, thoughts of the spirit? Or hunted dawn from the bow of a canoe? These weren't the things that drove society, but she felt they shouldn't be treated as unimportant. They made living worthwhile.
Nicholas Sparks
Insanity on top of insanity. Even the voices in his head were hearing voices. Nice.
Michael Wallace
The most dangerous thing in the world is to make a friend of an Englishman because he'll come sleep in your closet rather than spend 10 shillings on a hotel.
Truman Capote
Sin and the effects of sin are similar to the laws of inertia: a person (or object) in motion will continue on that trajectory until acted upon by an outside force.
Lindsey A. Holcomb
Fingers you, claws me, crossed hoping Dad sees it that way.
Jazz Feylynn
A coward's gun is emptied when fear pulls the trigger, and hate is the ammunition of choice.
T.F. Hodge
The morning felt like a mixing bowl just waiting for its ingredients; there was a sense of possibility to it, a promise of something more to come.
Jennifer E. Smith
It is the very essence of art,' she [Hallie Flanagan:] told a group gathered in Washington . . ., 'that it exceed bounds, often including those of tradition, decorum, and that mysterious thing called taste. It is the essence of art that it shatter accepted patterns, advance into unknown territory, challenge the existing order. Art is highly explosive. To be worth its salt it must have in that salt a fair sprinkling of gunpowder.
Susan Quinn
...it does not matter if we are forgotten; what matters is the effect we have on those around us and those who come after us. What matters is how our own lives affect the larger, perpetual community of the living.
Lynn Schooler
All the things that you said when you thought I wasn't there,I just tell them to my corner, 'cause no one else would care.That way, when I'm with you, I can keep a cheerful face,But for the moment, I really just need some space.
Margo T. Rose
Here's the thing: this eel spends its entire life trying to find a home, and what do you think women have inside them? Caves, where the eels like to live...when they find a cave they like, the wriggle around inside it for a while to be sure that...well, to be sure it's a nice cave, I suppose. And when they've made up their minds that it's comfortable, they mark the cave as their territory...by spitting.
Arthur Golden
My squad is my family, my gun is my provider, and protector, and my rule is to kill or be killed.
Ishmael Beah
Fortune's fool! How we humans lie upon beauty like lizards upon a sun-baked rock.
Roman Payne
Too much of anything is bad, but too much Champagne is just right.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
While you're taking your minute to think, consider the possible outcomes. Immediately discard any that involve making the Bully back down and admit that you're right. You cannot be right and effective at the same time.
Albert J. Bernstein
If we fail to provide boys with pro-social models of the transition to adulthood, they may construct their own. In some cases, gang initiation rituals, street racing, and random violence may be the result.
Leonard Sax
Granted, I'd waited a long time to hear those words. Would've sold a kidney-maybe two-to have heard them at one point. Now, though...they didn't have the same impact. They were, in fact, an overcooked noodle in the pasta salad of love.
Kristan Higgins
When we feel joyful euphoric happy we are more open to life more capable of seeing things clearly and handling daily tensions.
Leo Buscaglia
This wolf-woman Self must have freedom to move, to speak, to be angry, and to create.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
The problems in every country are the same. Bureaucracy is strangling innovation. Overgrown political sectors are sucking away resources that could otherwise lead to growth. Regulations and taxes are punishing innovation. Public sector services are breaking down and no longer serving people's needs. Laws and prevailing legislation control a world that no longer exists. People who go into politics to change the system end up getting co-opted by it. Workers feel trapped and fear a lack out options outside the status quo. In every case, it comes down to the great evil of our time and all times: government itself. There is no place on earth in which more liberty and less or no government would not be welcome and bring about real progress.
Jeffrey Tucker
He talked about her in a way that only the obsessed do. It was always a pressured monologue, and it was always the same. He had to relate every detail, interpreting and seeking meaning in her every utterance or action, like a fundamentalist minutely analyzing a biblical text.
Jeanne Safer
In your diary, you quoted old Jiko saying something about not-knowing, how not-knowing is the most intimate way, or did I just dream that?Anyway, I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think maybe it's true, even though I don't really like uncertainty. I'd much rather 'know', but then again, not-knowing keeps all the possibilities open. It keeps all the worlds alive.
Ruth Ozeki
A kiss is a course of procedure cunningly devised, for the mutual stopage of speech at a moment when words are superfluous.
Oliver Herford
Anarcho-capitalism is not by definition libertarian. It is rather a prediction, not a definition.
David D. Friedman
The emphasis in Scripture is not the amount we give, but the attitude with which we give.
Dillon Burroughs
We nurture the candle flames that show the way ahead. We are guerrillas of the word, unsung heroes breathing softly on the embers of the human mind, so that they might re-ignite the hearths around which we once found safe haven. The book is the Light and the Life.
Mark Cantrell