Quotes by American Authors - Page 905

I think it is good that books still exist, but they do make me sleepy.
Frank Zappa
A poem is never a put-up job, so to speak. It begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is never a thought to begin with.
Robert Frost
Practice giving things away, not just things you don't care about, but things you do like. Remember, it is not the size of a gift, it is its quality and the amount of mental attachment you overcome that count. So don't bankrupt yourself on a momentary positive impulse, only to regret it later. Give thought to giving. Give small things, carefully, and observe the mental processes going along with the act of releasing the little thing you liked. (53)(Quote is actually Robert A F Thurman but Huston Smith, who only wrote the introduction to my edition, seems to be given full credit for this text.)
Huston Smith
Pliny suggested that the ostrich, then newly discovered, was the result of a cross between a giraffe and a gnat. (It would, I suppose, have to be a female giraffe and a male gnat.) In practice there must be many such crosses which have not beenattempted because of a certain understandable lack of motivation.
Carl Sagan
I'd seen entire constellations of possibility I'd never previously been aware of, so blinded had I been by the bright, glaring stars of expectation. Freedom, I was beginning to think, had less to do with where you were, and was more about who you were trying to be.
Nenia Campbell
...Her boyfriend gives her a Mercedes, [her friends] say, 'Oh, that's nice.' But her boyfriend gives her a diamond, they say, 'Oh, he's serious.' It's not just the gift of love-it's the gift of commitment. She's not jumping up and down because she got a diamond ring but because she got a guy! There are those who say you don't need diamonds. I say they're right. Just like you don't need sex.
Tom Zoellner
God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with Himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them in the world of spirits. (King Follett Discourse)
Joseph Smith Jr.
Since there are thousands of fairy tales, one may safely guess that there are probably equal numbers where the courage and determination of females rescue males, and vice versa.
Bruno Bettelheim
A man's whole life / may be a metaphor - but a woman's lot / is symbol.
Lorna Dee Cervantes
You can have regret from yesterday, fear tomorrow, but peace today by sharing your heart’s deepest feelings. A life spent being fearful of showing your soul is a life not worth living.
Shannon L. Alder
The stars, he said, were actually souls, all the souls that were too restless to be locked up in heaven. They were so restless that God let them stay outside at night to play.
R.J. Keller
Humans recognize the duality, autonomy, and latitude range of the mind and the body, and all humans comprehend their impending mortality. Unlike other animals, humankind knows despair brought about by understanding the inevitability of death of all living creatures. The radius of human thought touching upon the longitude of our transient existence causes infinite pain. Seeking to ameliorate existential anguish incites us to ponder spiritual matters, and this sphere of mental activity spurs us to contemplate the perimeter of unknown frontiers. Our ability to understand the compass of life and death allows us to view the circumference of the world as consisting of a past, a present, and a future in relation to our own lives. How a person views the range of their earthly life and how a person rationalizes their march towards a deathly outback creates a system of beliefs that separate people into classes, and the variations amongst class members’ belief systems supplements who we think we are.
Kilroy J. Oldster
What kind of knife is this?” Locke held a rounded buttering utensil up for Chains’ inspection. “It’s all wrong. You couldn’t kill anyone with this.”“Well, not very easily, I’ll grant you that, my boy.” Chains guided Locke in the placement of the butter knife and assorted small dishes and bowls. “But when the quality get together to dine, it’s impolite to knock anybody off with anything but poison. That thing is for scooping butter, not slicing windpipes.”“This is a lot of trouble to go to just to eat.”“Well, in Shades’ Hill you may be able to eat cold bacon and dirt pies off one another’s asses for all your old master cares. But now you’re a Gentleman Bastard, emphasis on the Gentleman. You’re going to learn how to eat like this, and how to serve people whoeat like this.
Scott Lynch
Love it the way it is.
Thaddeus Golas
What keeps you confident in a healthy way is knowing that everyone else around you is going to support you and teach you and you're going to learn from them. I just feel open to learning from people.
Elizabeth Olsen
Really, the only people you should be comparing yourself to would be people who make you feel better by comparison. For instance, people who are in comas, because those people have no spoons at all and you don't see anyone judging them. Personally, I always compare myself to Galileo because everyone knows he's fantastic, but he has no spoons at all because he's dead. So technically I'm better than Galileo because all I've done is take a shower and already I've accomplished more than him today.
Jenny Lawson
Everything in contemporary society discourages interiority. More and more of our exchanges take place via circuits, and in their very nature those interactions are such as to keep us hovering in the virtual now, a place away from ourselves.
Sven Birkerts
I have come to the conclusion that there are three aspects of life that can give our existence the joy, purpose and meaning that we may seek.1) To find a work that gives us such pleasure that it does not feel like work2) To make a significant positive contribution to civilization3) To find true romantic love in ones lifeFinding ones purpose in life, making a contribution to mankind or findingtrue romantic love, would be the epitome of true happinessI. Alan Appt“The Strength in Knowing
I.Alan Appt
Claire scraped her chair back, walked over to the cordless phone lying on the counter, and dialed from the business card still stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. Four rings, and a cheerful voice answered on the other end and announced she’d reached Common Grounds. “Hi,’” Claire said. “Can I talk to Sam, please?’”“Sam? Hold on.’” The phone clattered, and Claire could hear the buzz of activity in the background—milk being steamed, people chatting, the usual excitement of a busy coffee shop. She waited, jittering one leg impatiently, until the voice came back on the line. “Sorry,’” it said. “He’s not here tonight. I think he went to the party.’”“The party?’”“You know, the zombie frat party? Epsilon Epsilon Kappa? The Dead Girls’ Dance?’”“Thanks,’” Claire said. She hung up and turned to face Michael and Eve, who were staring at her in outright surprise. She held up the phone. “The power of technology. Embrace it.
Rachel Caine
Surprise yourself everyday with the power of your love. Love endlessly and care profoundly to feel the joy of life deeply.
Debasish Mridha
Hip-hop is a reflection of your surroundings and an instrument of change. - Esme from Sister Mischief
Laura Goode
Beer bottles, whiskey bottles, brown glass, green. They fell to the lawn and I'd feel serene. Adam was king to my stilted queen.
Kate Bernheimer
I do not feel like an alien in this universe. The more I examine the universe and study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the universe is some sense must have known that we were coming
Freeman Dyson
A series of howls and war cries echoed through the camp....The werewolves and Japanese had attacked."-pg.353 Forbidden Nights with a Vampire Kerrelyn Sparks
Kerrelyn Sparks
She watched him for a long moment, an adorably annoyed frown wrinkling her forehead. "You're obnoxious when you're right.
Katie Reus
Never be limited by others’ inability to think of you in terms big enough or dreams grand enough. Never allow yourself to define what is possible for you in your life by others’ limited vision of what they believe is possible for them in theirs.
Judy M. Ford
The word is only a representation of the meaning; even at its best, writing almost always falls short of full meaning. Given that, why in God's name would you want to make things words by choosing a word which is only cousin to the one you really wanted to use?
Stephen King
Grace sat down where the chair wasn't.
Ellen Raskin
Those that yield are not always weak
Jacqueline Carey
I talked a lot in my car. Thousands of words and songs and swears are absorbed in its fabric, just like the orange juice I spilled on my way to the dentist. It knows what happened, when Allie went to Puerto Rico, understands the difference between the way I look at Nick and the way I look at Adam, and remembers the first time I experimented with talking to myself.
Marina Keegan
The level of the room keeps changing. All of the surfaces swell and recede with oceanic rhytm. You are not quite all right. You are somewhat wrong.
Jay McInerney
Paint your life with the colors of kindness so that you may find the true bliss of happiness.
Debasish Mridha
I see you, Khya. I've always seen you. And except for you tendency to pretend you hate me most days, I like what I see.
Erica Cameron
The skies give no warning when they fall.
Marty Rubin
Once she had thought that she might discover some key to her mother if only she could get her likeness right, but she has since learned that the mysteries of another person only deepen, the longer one looks.
Debra Dean
In the end, it's only a story of having had her words and secrets, her confidences, turned against her by someone she once believed entirely beyond any acts of betrayal. A story of pettiness and cruelty and of the lies friends will tell when a friendship has ceased to be profitable or convenient. It is a very simple and inexpressibly complex story of cowardice...
Caitlín R. Kiernan
When you do fall in love with me, Eena, I don’t want it to be because I gave into your demands, but because your heart gave into its desire to truly be loved.” With an injured frown he uttered goodnight and left the room.tShe stood alone, chastised and bruised. It seemed right to apologize for her insensitive words, but not now. Not while a room full of people remained out there.
Richelle E. Goodrich
I'd like to shower and change clothes," she said. "Would you mind waiting for me a half hour?" The question seemed to amuse him. "Not at all," he said with exaggerated formality. "Please take all the time you need." Michael watched her walk away. Did he mind waiting a half hour for her? Not at all. He'd been waiting years for her.
Judith McNaught
It is easy to time-travel, the physicist says—we do it every day. Travelling backward is the problem.
Rebecca Curtis
Our future experiences will be colored by the choices we make in the present.
Noah Levine
A happy birthday is measured not in the amount of gifts one gets, but in the amount love one receives.
Todd Stocker
Oh we'll know each other for forever' Bix said. 'The days of losing touch are almost gone.' 'What does that mean? ' Drew asks.'We're going to meet again in a different place,' Bix said. 'Everyone we've lost, we'll find. Or they'll find us.
Jennifer Egan
All of the emotions that hit people at times like these, all of them, were coursing through us both like a secret we couldn’t tell. Because if we said everything we were thinking and feeling right then…if we laid it all out for one another…we might not like the way the words strung together. Or the way fear and hope and bitterness and love mashed up into one big mess in the pits of our stomachs.
Laura Anderson Kurk
I began to realize that I could go wherever and whenever I dreamed.
Chess Desalls
Nobody believes that the man who says, 'Look, lady, you wanted equality,' to explain why he won't give up his seat to a pregnant woman carrying three grocery bags, a briefcase, and a toddler is seized with the symbolism of idealism.
Judith Martin
All you need to know, boy," Finan growled, "is that Lord Uhtred's side is the one that wins.
Bernard Cornwell
He had spoken with such absolute confidence that I knew he had to be blowing this out of his rectal orifice.
Neal Stephenson
Pain held no terror for him. Pain was, if not friend, then family, something he had grown up with in his crèche, learning to respect but never yield to. Pain was simply a message, telling him which limbs he could still use to slaughter his enemies, how far he could still run, and what his chances were in the next battle.
Paolo Bacigalupi
The sexual license prevalent among {the} Sixties generation was deplorable, but no more so than predatory Capitalism, with cruel slums alongsideabsurd affluence: affluence which paid for...depictions of the Holy Family as a form of expiation. Love was the basis for what he believed. Promiscuity certainly violated that polestar, yet caring for others, even in "fooling around"--which was not to justify it--topped dog-eat-dog Capitalism.
Edward Hoagland
People talk to old people like they're children.'Oh you're very old aren't you?' Yeah I'm old. I'm not stupid.
Craig Ferguson
Music not only saved my life, it gave me a life
Nick Carter
We live in a blatantly corrupt world and smart people engage in the wise practice of risk management.
Steven Magee
I've never known someone to become more at home in his or her own body, in all of its flaws and its grace, without becoming more compassionate to all of life.
Matthew W. Sanford
We all think when we’re young that we want excitement and highs and passion. To hell with ordinary.”I smiled and she chuckled. “But when we find ourselves in these adult bodies,” she said. “When we wise up a little, or get slapped in the face by life, we realize we just want all things to be equal.” She put the heels of her hands together near her heart like the Yoga prayer position. “And we want to understand them better.
Laura Anderson Kurk
Africa PRODUCES what it does NOT CONSUME and CONSUMES what it does NOT PRODUCE.
Ali A. Mazrui
After that, the book will fade, the way all books fade in your mind. But I hope you will remember this:A man walking fast down a dark lonely street. Quick steps and hard breathing, all wonder and need. A bell above a door and the tinkle it makes. A clerk and a ladder and warm golden light, and then: the right book exactly, at exactly the right time.
Robin Sloan
I want it to stop," he said. "Sophie says everyone is still searching for a cure for me. I know I gave Will my permission, but I want everyone to cease looking now, Charlotte. It is over.
Cassandra Clare
When it comes to death, we know that laughter and tears are pretty much the same thing.And so, laughing and crying, we said good-bye to my grandmother. And when we said goodbye to one grandmother, we said good-bye to all of them.Each funeral was a funeral for all of us.We lived and died together.All of us laughed when they lowered my grandmother into the ground.And all of us laughed when they covered her with dirt.And all of us laughed as we walked and drove and rode our way back to our lonely, lonely houses.
Sherman Alexie
No man is sane who does not know how to be insane on the proper occasions."Henry Ward Beecher
Henry Ward Beecher
Your violin has only two strings,” I say. “You’re missing the other two.” Yes, he says. He’s well aware. “All I want to do is play music, and the crisis I’m having is right here. This one’s gone,” he says of the missing top string, “that one’s gone, and this little guy’s almost out of commission.” His goal in life, Nathaniel tells me, is to figure out how to replace the strings. But he got used to playing imperfect instruments while taking music classes in Cleveland’s public schools, and there’s a lot you can do, he assures me, with just two strings
Steve López