Quotes by American Authors - Page 823

In a true you-and-I relationship, we are present mindfully, nonintrusively, the way we are present with things in nature.We do not tell a birch tree it should be more like an elm. We face it with no agenda, only an appreciation that becomes participation: 'I love looking at this birch' becomes 'I am this birch' and then 'I and this birch are opening to a mystery that transcends and holds us both.
David Richo
Loss is a part of life, that doesn't make it easy... that makes it inevitable...
Marcus Harrison Green
Hey, I write fiction. I just make this stuff up, unless I get my hands on some good juicy truth. You know the kind I'm talking about ... that stranger-than variety.
Dick Peterson
Now, you listen, Alyssa Victoria Gardner. Normal is subjective. Don't ever let anyone tell you you're not normal. Because you are to me. And my opinion is all that matters. Got it?
A.G. Howard
Aim and hit the target of excellence, with constant practice. Make success happen, by working to be the best at what you do.
Mark F. LaMoure
The god of wine looked around at the assembled crowd. “Miss me?”The satyrs fell over themselves nodding and bowing. “Oh, yes, very much, sire!”“Well, I did not miss this place!” Dionysus snapped. “I bear bad news, my friends. Evil news. The minor gods are changing sides. Morpheus has gone over to the enemy. Hecate, Janus, and Nemesis, as well. Zeus knows how many more.”Thunder rumbled in the dis
Rick Riordan
Compared to bipolar's magic, reality seems a raw deal. It's not just the boredom that makes recovery so difficult, it's the slow dawning pain that comes with sanity - the realization of illnesss, the humiliating scenes, the blown money and friendships and confidence. Depression seems almost inevitable. The pendulum swings back from transcendence in shards, a bloody, dangerous mess. Crazy high is better than crazy low. So we gamble, dump the pills, and stick it to the control freaks and doctors. They don't understand, we say. They just don't get it. They'll never be artists.
David Lovelace
Resurrection does not come without crucifixion, and you cannot celebrate Easter without living Good Friday.
Shannon Huffman Polson
Sometimes I tend to worry too much and at the end of all the preoccupation nothing goes wrong.
Ana Monnar
A huge part of losing weight is believing you have the power to do it.
Debasish Mridha
There are only two ways that God’s justice can be satisfied with respect to your sin. Either you satisfy it or Christ satisfies it. You can satisfy it by being banished from God’s presence forever. Or you can accept the satisfaction that Jesus Christ has made.
R.C. Sproul
Actually, I think it's the opposite. We know each other so well there isn't anything left to say. Sometimes it's nice just sitting here with you all, thinking. It's only best friends who can be comfortable with silence, wouldn't you say?
Benjamin Wood
One of my pet peeves was when an adult imagined they had to encapsulate Life for you, hand you Life in a jar, in an eyedropper, in a penguin paperweight full of snow-A Collector's Dream.
Marisha Pessl
My gad," one of them, warrant officer pilot, captain and M. C. in turn said to me once; "if you can treat a crate that way, why do you want to fly at all?
William Faulkner
To be able to see and study undisturbed the processes of nature--I like better the old Biblical phrase "mighty works"--is an opportunity for which any man might feel reverent gratitude, and here at last, in this silence and isolation of winter, a whole region was mine whose innermost natural life might shape itself to its ancient courses without the hindrance and interferences of man. No one came to kill, no one came to explore, no one even came to see. Earth, ocean, and sky, the triune unity of this coast, pursued each one their vast and mingled purposes as untroubled by man as a planet on its course about the sun.
Henry Beston
Wherever you are, however you got there, if it's good, you're meant to be there either because you earned it or life led you there and you were smart enough to hold on.
Kristen Ashley
Was it possible that perhaps the most plausible explanation was being offered by someone who anyone with an ounce of sanity would have long ago consigned to the realm of the insane?
Tim Horvath
Maybe they’re not as mindless as we thought, or so dedicated to turning every last human into one of them. Like Kalyn says, they were just bored, waiting for something better to happen.And that better thing is us.
Scott Westerfeld
The only thing more difficult than persuading someone else to start having sex with you is persuading yourself to stop.
Jacob M. Appel
You're flattered because he wants to sleep with you? Who doesn't he want to sleep with?
Donna Lynn Hope
Polly Esther Doe was born at 8:03 a.m. on August 14.
Adam Rex
I love getting lost on purpose
Lisa Desrochers
While I do not in any way mean to say that a woman should throw herself into a torturous or abusive situation, I do mean she must set for herself something in life that she is willing to reach for and therefore take risks for.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
There is nothing humble about this woman.
Libbie Hawker
He was supposed to be the one I loved forever. But he never saw the tears stream down my face. Never knew the hurt and humiliation and anguish. He just disappeared into the night,
Cristin Harber
Get used to gaps in your comprehension,” said Sabetha. “The rest of us certainly have.
Scott Lynch
Love yourself. Forgive yourself. Be true to yourself. How you treat yourself sets the standard for how others will treat you.
Steve Maraboli
I thought everything in the world was already discovered. Already in my books. A lot of dead stuff that put me to sleep. That was the day I understood the world is still living.
Barbara Kingsolver
I have many wonderful memories of those days we had together. It would make me happy to know that at least a few of your memories of me are good ones. I wonder if you ever think about sitting under that oak tree, with the cicadas buzzing, and, at night, the crickets. Or how the ice used to cover the blueberry bushes in the winter, giving them that dreamy look. Or how we used to sell the pies for your mother at the roadside stand.I still think of you whenever I see blueberries.
Mary Simses
Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.
Theodore Roosevelt
You can't run away from trouble. There ain't no place that far.
Joel Chandler Harris
Science and religion both make claims about the fundamental workings of the universe. Although these claims are not a priori incompatible (we could imagine being brought to religious belief through scientific investigation), I will argue that in practice they diverge. If we believe that the methods of science can be used to discriminate between fundamental pictures of reality, we are led to a strictly materialist conception of the universe. While the details of modern cosmology are not a necessary part of this argument, they provide interesting clues as to how an ultimate picture may be constructed.
Sean Carroll
If I had to choose a moment in time when I knew my life would be different going forward—when I knew I would be different—this would be it.
T.M. Frazier
It could be a work of art among vendettas
Frank Herbert
Let your words be your voice. And let your voice be heard within the hearts of others.
Anasia Nicole Hixon
The greater a child’s terror, and the earlier it is experienced, the harder it becomes to develop a strong and healthy sense of self.
Nathaniel Branden
Sometimes God gits familiar wid us womenfolks too and talks His inside business. He told me.how surprised y'all is goin' tuh be if you ever find out you don't know half as much 'bout us as you think yo do. It's so easy to make yo'self out God Almighty when you ain't got nothin' tuh strain against but women and chickens.
Zora Neale Hurston
In three months Ron read more than he had in his entire previous life. He felt his mind widen, his perceptions become more acute, for each book was a prism refracting the infinitely varied truths of experience. Some were telescopes; some microscopes.
Edward Bunker
I remembered what it was like to die-the pain, the fear, the doubt, and the unknown. Somehow I had cheated death once. Now I was about to try again.
Rick Chiantaretto
Trying to live up to yourself is the most trying thing.
Ren Garcia
Every man is his own ancestor and every man his own heir. He devises his own future and he inherits his own past.
H. F. Hedge
Fear slams the door on belief, hope, and faith.
Charles F. Glassman
Oh, honey,” she said, her tone echoing Wattie’s. “I’m not sick. I’m only dying.
Joshilyn Jackson
Oh, why had the Labyrinth brought me here?As soon as I thought this, I chided myself: Of course it would bring me where I least wanted to be. Austin had been wrong about the maze. It was still evil, designed to kill. It was just a little subtler about its homicides now.
Rick Riordan
My professional life had started and here I was at a professional dinner full of uninhibited drinking.
Gerry Abbey
The multicolored kitten snuggled between her breasts.Lucky cat."I thought maybe something like....Sweetums.""What? That's a wussy name. She'd totally get her ass kicked by all the other neighborhood cats. You can't call her...that. See I can't even say it. It's too ridiculous."Abby chuckled, and the sound drifted over him like a warm breeze."I suppose you want me to call her Rowdy, or Bullet or Chainsaw," she said."Those aren't bad." He liked it when she teased him. "Maybe you could name her something like Flash, or Blaze, or Storm."Or maybe I could call her pooty pie.""Oh my God." He slapped his forehead. "You're killing me. You'd be better off sticking with Sweetums.""Ha!" She pointed her finger at him. "You said it." Before he could wrap his hand around that finger and pull her against him, he gave the kitten-who purred contentedly between Abby's breasts-a rub between the ears.Lucky damn cat.
Candis Terry
Most kinds of power require a substantial sacrifice by whoever wants the power. There is an apprenticeship, a discipline lasting many years. Whatever kind of power you want. President of the company. Black belt in karate. Spiritual guru. Whatever it is you seek, you have to put in the time, the practice, the effort. You must give up a lot to get it. It has to be very important to you. And once you have attained it, it is your power. It can't be given away; it resides in you. It is literally the result of your discipline."Now, what is interesting about this process is that, by the time someone has acquired the ability to kill with his bare hands, he has also matured to the point where he won't use it unwisely. So that kind of power has a built-in control. The discipline of getting the power changes you so that you won't abuse it.
Michael Critchton
The challenge for each of us is to find out who we are and to live our way into our own calling.we do this by paying close attention to all aspects of life as they unfold in the present moment.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Reading, writing, and personal introspection will not protect us from hardship and suffering, but they might introduce us to critical thinking and expose us to what is good in humankind and beautiful in the world that we share with all of nature. Contemplative thought, especially that supplemented with reading literature and attempting to write our own replies to the echoing voices of writers whom preceded us provide us with the potentiality for change, the possibility of personal illumination that enables us to experience a heighted quality of life.
Kilroy J. Oldster
If at first you don't succeed then skydiving definitely isn't for you.
Steven Wright
Today, I choose not to take my life for granted.I choose not to look upon the fact that I am healthy, have food in my refrigerator and have clean water to drink as givens. They are not givens for so many people in our world. The fact that I am safe and (relatively) sane are not givens. That I was born into a family who loves me and into a country not ravaged by war are not givens. It is impossible to name all of the circumstances in my life I've taken for granted. All of the basic needs I've had met, all of the friendships and job opportunities and financial blessings and the list, truly, is endless. The fact that I am breathing is a miracle, one I too rarely stop to appreciate.I'm stopping, right now, to be grateful for everything I am and everything I've been given. I'm stopping, right now, to be grateful for every pleasure and every pain that has contributed to the me who sits here and writes these words.I am thankful for my life. This moment is a blessing. Each breath a gift. That I've been able to take so much for granted is a gift, too. But it's not how I want to live—not when gratitude is an option, not when wonder and awe are choices.I choose gratitude. I choose wonder. I choose awe. I choose everything that suggests I'm opening myself to the miraculous reality of simply being alive for one moment more.
Scott Stabile
A hero stands up to the villain in themselves.
Ricky Maye
A short story is a different thing altogether – a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger.
Stephen King
Lena wished that love were something you could flip on and off. You could turn it on when you felt good about yourself and worthy of it and generous enough to return it. You could flip it off when you needed to hide or self-destruct ad had nothing at all to give.
Ann Brashares
Sometimes life seems like a poorly designed cage within which man has been sentenced to be free.
Sheldon B. Kopp
Think about the word destroy. Do you know what it is? De-story. Destroy. Destory. You see. And restore. That's re-story. Do you know that only two things have been proven to help survivors of the Holocaust? Massage is one. Telling their story is another. Being touched and touching. Telling your story is touching. It sets you free.
Francesca Lia Block
If a string is in a knot,Patience will untie it.Patience can do many things—Did you ever try it?If it was sold at any shopI should like to buy it.But you and I must find our own—No other can supply it.
Anna M. Pratt
It's odd that you can get so anesthetized by your own pain or your own problem that you don't quite fully share the hell of someone close to you.
Lady Bird Johnson
Faith is about what we know, not what we feel. Yet, what we know will influence and direct what we feel. A strong knowledge of God will yield feelings of confidence in Him.
James Castleton
Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds.
Ralph Waldo Emerson