Quotes by American Authors - Page 98

The opacity of the mind, its inability to project itself into the realm of another's personality, goes a long way to explain the friction of life. If we would set down other people's errors to this rather than to malice prepense we should not only get more good out of life and feel more kindly toward our fellows, but doubtless the rectitude of our intellects would increase, and the justice of our judgments...we are so shut away from one another that none tells those about him what he considers ideal treatment on their part toward him...nothing will probe to the core of this greatest disadvantage under which we labor--that is, mutual noncomprehension--except a basis of society and government which would make it easy for each to put himself in another's place because his place is so much like another's...we [would] need less imagination in order to do that which is just and kind to every one about us.
Frances E. Willard
I will never not be poor, so what does it matter if I don't pay a thing and a half this week instead of just one thing? It's not like the sacrifice will result in improved circumstances; the thing holding me back isn't that I blow five bucks at Wendy's. It's that now that I have proven that I am a Poor Person that is all that I am or ever will be. It is not worth it to me to live a bleak life devoid of small pleasures so that one day I can make a single large purchase. I will never have large pleasures to hold on to. There's a certain pull to live what bits of life you can while there's money in your pocket, because no matter how responsible you are you will be broke in three days anyway. When you never have enough money it ceases to have meaning. I imagine having a lot of it is the same thing.
Linda Tirado
...all of us are somewhere on a journey to God, and the gap between least and most advanced is infinitely smaller than the gap between the most advanced and God himself.
John Ortberg
Hades, Hera, and Hestia!" Flynn curses, pointing up."What in the Underworld is that?""A She-Dragon." Everyone turns to me, and as much as I love having four handsome men gape at me in stupefaction, right now, I could do without.
Amanda Bouchet
Some roses grow through concrete. Remember that.
Brandi L. Bates
It is extremely important to be able to make negative assertions. We must be able to say what is ‘not me’ in order to have a ‘me’. What we like has no meaning unless we know what we don’t like. Our yes has no meaning if we never say no. My chosen profession has no passion if ‘just anyone would do’. Our opinions and thoughts mean very little if there is nothing we disagree with.
Henry Cloud
Thoughts can follow you anywhere.
David Levithan
here's the thing about friends, I mean REAL friends: You can't just put up a poster at school and advertise for somebody and then hope you find the perfect one. It might work, I guess, but you'd look so pathetic and desperate that no one would want to be your friend, and so it would be kind of pointless
Laura Preble
The Lord commands us to learn and discover all we can in this life. There's nothing wrong with wanting to know the mysteries of outer space or the latent powers of the mind. The problem comes when we desire to use that knowledge for our own gratification, rather than to build the kingdom of God.
Chris Heimerdinger
Nothing in life is as important as you think it is when you are thinking of it.
Daniel Kahneman
Granma's name was Bonnie Bee. I knew that when I heard him late at night say, 'I kin ye, Bonnie Bee,' he was saying, 'I love ye,' for the feeling was in the words.
Forrest Carter
If you are rude, cynical, habitually-sarcastic or pessimistic, your life options are going to be very limited.
Bryant McGill
You don’t have to worry about getting the attention of others when you’re good at what you do.
Adam Kirk Smith
We cannot measure a person’s value to the human race by tabulating the size of his estate. We must judge each person by his or her final contribution to humanity and nature.
Kilroy J. Oldster
Mom often said to me, "I know if you look good, you get special treatment." And then she went a step further: "I don't care what the world says or does. You have to remember that every person is valuable.
Ashley Graham
Often, when I am able to check out a book, I read it a dozen times before returning it, desperate to remain lost in the magic of someone else's story.
Amy Engel
Going to bed with a woman never hurt a ball player. It's staying up all night looking for them that does you in.
Casey Stengel
Stories worked much the same way…A false note at the beginning was much more costly than one nearer the end because early errors were part of the foundation.
Richard Russo
Always be positive, enjoy the music of rain on a rainy day.
Debasish Mridha
Every moment offers a great opportunity to write.
Rob Bignell
Every woman knows what I'm talking about when I say girls grow up with a desire to please, to cede their power to other people. . . everyone knows about the sometimes aggressive and manipulative ways men often exert power in the world, and how by using the word empowered to describe women, men are simply maintaining their own power and control.
Kim Gordon
This woman is so didactic I think I may scream. If it's bleeding, bandage it. If it's crying, hug it. If it's hopeless, pray for it. If it's dead, resurrect it.
Rachel Allord
Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn.
Robert T. Kiyosaki
The Queen is controlling, the Witch is sadistic, the Hermit is fearful, and the Waif is helpless.And each requires a different approach. Don't let the Queen get the upper hand; be wary even of accepting gifts because it engenders expectations. Don't internalize the Hermit's fears or become limited by them. Don't allow yourself to be alone with the Witch; maintain distance for your own emotional and physical safety. And with the Waif, don't get pulled into her crises and sense of victimization. Pay attention to your own tendencies to want to rescue her, which just feeds the dynamic.
Christine Ann Lawson
The burden of sin leads you to the need of a savior
John Paul Warren
Domestic violence is frequently excused when alcohol and other substances are involved.
Asa Don Brown
Many of my colleagues operate from a mistaken notion that rational thought can come from only objective discourse, devoid of emotions. To me, speaking from the heart and with passion is not antagonistic to reason.
David Sue
Control is an illusion. No one has it. I don't even have it. You can't wish for control you can only learn to play your part in a world where nothing is truly certain. And you do have a part to play.
Susan Meissner
When I was ten years old, one of my friends brought a Shaleenian kangaroo-cat to school one day. I remember the way it hopped around with quick, nervous leaps, peering at everything with its large, almost circular golden eyes. One of the girls asked if it was a boy cat or a girl cat. Our instructor didn't know; neither did the boy who had brought it; but the teacher made the mistake of asking, 'How can we find out?' Someone piped up, 'We can vote on it!' The rest of the class chimed in with instant agreement and before I could voice my objection that some things can't be voted on, the election was held. It was decided that the Shaleenian kangaroo-cat was a boy, and forthwith, it was named Davy Crockett. Three months later, Davy Crockett had kittens. So much for democracy. It seems to me that if the electoral process can be so wrong about such a simple thing, isn't it possible for it to be very, very wrong on much more complex matters? We have this sacred cow in our society that what the majority of people want is right—but is it? Our populace can't really be informed, not the majority of them—most people vote the way they have been manipulated and by the way they have responded to that manipulation—they are working out their own patterns of wishful thinking on the social environment in which they live. It is most disturbing to me to realize that though a majority may choose a specific course of action or direction for itself, through the workings of a 'representative government,' they may be as mistaken about the correctness of such a choice as my classmates were about the sex of that Shaleenian kangaroo-cat. I'm not so sure than an electoral government is necessarily the best.
David Gerrold
In a perfectly designed world —one with no history— we would not have to suffer everything from hemorrhoids to cancer.
Neil Shubin
Over time, your actions betray your heart - for good or for evil.
Todd Stocker
Live your life with the will, to understand life.
Jonathan Anthony Burkett
Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family but to a solitary and an exile his friends are everything.
Willa Cather
Be deliberate in your choices. We are created to do what we are called to do and what we are born to experience, not what we believe other people expect us to do. Your time is precious.
Julie Connor
Our work calls on us to confront, with our patients and within ourselves, extraordinary human experiences. This confrontation is profoundly humbling in that at all times these experiences challenge the limits of our humanity and our view of the world...
John P. Wilson
Is not it interesting that you had everything you needed in the first nine months, why is not that true for the next ninety years, because we interfere.
Wayne W. Dyer
We are unraveling our navels so that we may ingest the sun. We are not afraid of the darkness. We trust that the moon shall guide us. We are determining the future at this very moment. We know that the heart is the philosopher's stone. Our music is our alchemy.
Saul Williams
A few names have survived oblivion. In time, oblivion will have them all.
Marty Rubin
Kiril glanced around the darkened room. He walked to a leather chair and sat, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing his ankles. “Did you know that during the Fae Wars the Dark took two Dragon Kings? At different times, of course.”“I suppose they escaped as well? Are you telling me we don’t know how to hold a Dragon King?”“The Dark did . . . things to my brethren. One completely lost his mind and attacked us, which is what the Dark wanted. He had to be killed. The other King knew what was happening to him, but he couldna stop it. He came to us and begged to be killed before he could harm one of us.”Shara sipped her whisky before she said, “You lost two Kings and I lost seven siblings.”“And the Light the Dark took?”“The Dark take the Light and the Light take the Dark.”Kiril let his gaze drift down her body. How he itched to have her long legs wrapped around him. Things would be so much easier if he didn’t desire her as he did, but there wasn’t a switch he could flip and turn off his body’s reaction. The more he tried to ignore the growing desire, the more it raged uncontrollably within him.He gave himself a mental shake and returned to their conversation. “What’s the plan, then? Will the Dark storm in here and try to capture me?”Shara walked around the room, her hand skimming along the backs of the chairs. “No.”“No?” Kiril set aside his glass on the table next to him and silently rose to his feet. He followed her as if a string tied them together. “What then?”“You don’t really want to know.”Kiril spun her around so hard that her glass flew from her hand and landed upon a rug, spilling the whisky but not breaking the crystal. “Tell me,” he demanded in a soft, deadly voice.“My job is to seduce you.” She held her stance for a heartbeat before she retreated, taking two steps back.He tracked her until she was once more in the entryway. The shadows darkened everything, and yet the smallest sliver of moonlight found her, illuminating her in a pale blue glow.No longer could he deny what he wanted. Perhaps it was her confession. Maybe it was because he hadn’t taken to the skies in weeks. Whatever it was, all he knew was that he had to have her or go up in flames.“Then seduce me.
Donna Grant
How bad could things be if my hair was neat?
Jeff Lindsay
Forget yourself. Live for others. You will find your bliss.
Debasish Mridha
The world is larger and more beautiful than my little struggle.
Ravi Zacharias
Frankly though, bud, your criteria for what constitutes a good date is kinda skewed, if you ask me. Homemade cookies are overrated man -- trust me on this. You can find a decent bakery just about anywhere you go.
Susan Andersen
Wherever you are, for sure, you are everywhere.
Debasish Mridha
On our way back to her house, I didn’t look at the city lights any longer. I looked into the sky and felt as if the moon was following us.When I was a child, my grandmother told me that the sky speaks to those who look and listen to it. She said, “In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy, and confusion.” That night I wanted the sky to talk to me.
Ishmael Beah
Not one of the orthodox ministers dare preach what he thinks if he knows a majority of his congregation think otherwise. He knows that every member of his church stands guard over his brain with a creed, like a club, in his hand. He knows that he is not expected to search after the truth, but that he is employed to defend the creed. Every pulpit is a pillory, in which stands a hired culprit, defending the justice of his own imprisonment.
Robert G. Ingersoll
Lucifer sharpened his gaze and focused on Ajax. “Yes… I want you to drive over to New Jersey, load those two corpses into your car and take them back to the Italians… personally”“In my car?”“They haven’t been in the water more than a week, Ajax.”“But actually… inside?”“Well,” Lucifer’s patience was fading, “If you tie them to the fenders like you’re coming back from Deer Camp, the Italians might not find you quite as endearing…”--Lucifer and Ajax from The Ragtime Coven
Bruce Jenvey
There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it, and will not attack you in good clothes.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am the collector of the past.
Ashley Newell
Linnie. And this Winnie.” They wore identical smiles, their bright black eyes sparked with curiosity. “Are you the doctor?”t“No, I’m just volunteering.”t“I knowed that, too.” Winnie gave her an exaggerated shake of the head. “Girls is never the doctor. They’s the nurses.”t“Oh no, what about Dr. Clare? Huh? The lady doctor who took care of Grammy in the hospital when she broke her hip bone?” Linnie asked.t“Yeah, but she was a white lady. They can be doctors.” Winnie looked at Lucy. “Right? There are white lady doctors. I seen ‘em.”tLucy felt her eyes go wide. Were there children who still believed your gender or color dictated your career? “There are white lady doctors, black lady doctors, white man doctors, black man doctors.”tThey stared at her. tShe thought for a moment. “And there are white man nurses and black man nurses, too.”t“Now you’re just bein’ silly,” Linnie said and let out a laugh.
Mary Jane Hathaway
...being in a bad mood with your friends beats being in a bad mood without them.
John Green
Whether David believed in her affliction or not didn’t change the fact that it existed, and some day it would catch up with her.
Tamara Hughes
Love … It’s a nice little trick if you can find it.We had found it.But now I knew finding love and holding on to it were not the same thing.
Mary E. Pearson
Instead of the country agreeing with her community on the natural rightness of heterosexual marriage as the center of family life, she was now obliged to defend herself against the idea that these views were sexist, homophobic, old-fashioned, and backward.
Arlie Russell Hochschild
Breckin, this is Holder. Holder is not my boyfriend, but if I catch him trying to break the record for best first kiss with another girl, then he'll soon be my not breathing non-boyfriend.
Colleen Hoover
But apparently you don't need dot-com wealth to ruin an area for its low-income residents. The Pioneer Press quotes Secretary of HUD Andrew Cuomo ruing the "cruel irony" that prosperity is shrinking the stock of affordable housing nationwide: "The stronger the economy, the stronger the upward pressure on rents.
Barbara Ehrenreich
Morality is totally God’s standard, and his standards and conditions are revealed to us through his written word, the Scriptures (The Bible).
Reid A. Ashbaucher
We are both great men but I have succeeded better in keeping it a profound secret than he has.
Bill Nye
What's this one, Mum? There's no return address, and there's like, five stamps on it. Who's it from?"Leaning forward to get a closer look at the stamps, I didn't notice the fleeting look of immense sadness pass over her face."Oh it's nothing, darling."I raised my eyebrow at her. She sighed."An overseas friend. You wouldn't know her."And before I could ask what 'her' name was, Mum had left the room.
Kelly Batten
Suffering, though, can be nothing more than a sad and sorry thing without the presence on the part of the sufferer of a graceful heart, an accepting and open heart, a heart that holds no malice toward the inflictors of his or suffering This is a difficult concept to understand, and it is even more difficult to internalize, but it has everything to do with the way of nonviolence. We are talking about love here....This is a broader, deeper, more all-encompassing love. It is a love that acepts and embraces the hateful and the hurtful. It is a love that recognizes the spark of the divine in each of us, even in those who would raise their hand against us, those we might call our enemy.
John Lewis