Quotes by Authors - Page 2354

Sometimes I wonder if novel writers aren’t completely f**ked in the head. ~ Drew Stirling

Human lives are not pieces of string that can be separated out from a knot of others and laid out straight. Familes are webs. Impossible to touch one part of it without setting the rest vibrating. Impossible to understand one part without having a sense of the whole.

Of course, it’s now obvious why he was so angry that day. People don’t move into hospice to live but to die. And that half an egg sandwich I ended up making him–that sandwich was the last meal he ate in our Haight-Ashbury apartment, our one true home.

Political leaders are a reflection of our society.

I want a world where men live free from fear and coercion.

I see how you look at me,” spits the hateful man. He thinks we look upon him with the evil eye when we are not looking at him that way at all. We are just looking at him. It’s because he can’t accept the hate inside of himself that he projects it onto us.

All we need to release our inner God is a pulpit and an audience, both of which the Internet supplies in great abundance. Too bad that the corollaly to being in God mode in cyberspace is an explosion of narcissism and self-centeredness.

The first step to solving your problem is admitting that you have one.

We get together with people because they’re the same or because they’re different, and in the end we split with them for exactly the same reasons.

Luca had many strengths and powers; as a rare blood born, conceived and born to a vampire mother and father, he was much stronger than those who'd been turned to the life.

This is home, it's the only place I want to be, but at the same time everything familiar feels strange. It's the same as it ever was except without the people who most belong here.

Hope is the privilege of the weak.

Intent not followed by action is an insult to your design. Decide what you want, create a plan, and get your ass out there!

You would think it best to save your breath for running, but I often find screaming helps.

God didn't tell us to suspend our minds he rather challenged us to come and reason, to use our reasoning faculties.

Although often perceived as one disease, cancer is a number of diseases subsumed within one diagnostic label.

Is there any success, without the soundness of mind?

Although distortion of the past is widespread, the most common travesty is one of omission, wherein populist leaders neglect to mention the crimes committed by their own side or recollect them in such a way that evades accepting full responsibility. That politicians are so able to evoke historical arguments in these ways results from a prior failure of the society to engage in a full and frank encounter with past wrongdoings.

We've got to work to save our children and do it with full respect for the fact that if we do not no one else is going to do it.

Only in stillness does the imperceivable become discernible

Since Paul wasn’t a big conversationalist—he was the anti-Mac, in other words, and today had been the longest she’d ever heard him speak in consecutive sentences—Jena watched the scenery for a while. Then she decided to study the inside of Paul’s truck to see what she could learn about him.Technically, it was exactly like hers and Gentry’s. It had a black exterior with a blue light bar across the top and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Enforcement Division logo on the doors.It was tech heavy on the front dash, just like theirs, with LDWF, Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office, and Louisiana State Police Troop C radios, a laptop, a GPS unit, and a weather unit.In her truck and in Gentry’s, the cords and wires were a colorful tangle of plastic and metal, usually with extra plugs dangling around like vines. Paul’s cords were all black, and he had them woven in pairs and tucked underneath the dash, where they neatly disappeared.She leaned over to see how he’d achieved such a thing, and noticed identical zip ties holding them in place.“Sinclair, I hate to ask, but what are you doing?”He sounded more bemused than annoyed, so she said, “I’m psychoanalyzing you based on the interior of your truck.”He almost ran off the road. “Why?”“Your scintillating conversation was putting me to sleep.”His dark brows knit together but he seemed to have no answer to that.She turned around in her seat, as much as the seat belt allowed, and continued her study. Paul had a 12-gauge shotgun and a .223 carbine mounted right behind the driver’s seat, same as in her own truck. The mounts had hidden release buttons so the agents could get the guns out one-handed and quickly.But where her truck had a catch-all supply of stuff, from paper towels to zip ties to evidence bags to fast-food wrappers thrown in the back, Paul’s backseat was empty but for a zippered storage container normal people used for shoes. Each space held different things, all neatly arranged. Jena spotted evidence bags in one. Zip ties in another. Notebooks. Citation books. Paperwork. A spare uniform hung over one window, with a dry-cleaner’s tag dangling from the shirt’s top button.Good Lord. She turned back around.“What did you learn?” Paul finally asked.“You’re an obsessive-compulsive neat freak,” she said. “Accent on freak.

A tree’s nature does not change because the wind blew off a few of its leaves.

No one should be able to tail me unnoticed, no matter how good they are.I'm supposed to be better.

Desires kept within the mind are simply unrealised dreams.

I think too often we forget that girls can like sport; we are not biologically programmed to detest it, we are - in the main - conditioned against it. But shouldn’t we try to change that?

Because I am, just as you are you. We don’t always get to pick who we are, Shelly Wynn, but we can choose to celebrate it.

To what end, he wondered, had the Divine created the stars in heaven to fill a man with feelings of inspiration one day and insignificance the next?

There is no future without a past, because what is to be cannot be imagined except as a form of repetition.

Who's going to take care of it? You?. . . Son, you came in the house yesterday with sh*t on your hands. Humansh*t. I don't know how that happened, but if someone has shit on their hands, it's an indicator that maybe the whole responsibility thing isn't for them. -Dad

Don't only dream it, live in it.

It doesn’t matter what you’ve got in your pants if there is nothing in your brain to connect it to.

Who I am is not the same minute to minute or day to day. There are far too many variables for that to ever be true, for me, or for anyone.

Words lie. Actions can lie too. Consistency speaks the truth.

The human touch is that little snippet of physical affection that brings a bit of comfort, support, and kindness. It doesn’t take much from the one who gives it, but can make a huge difference in the one who receives it.

Real love allows for failure and suffering.

Thus, death begets death; evil begets evil.

There are times when your body takes control. Times when the gazelle says, ‘Fuck you, lioness,’ and delivers the biggest kick of its whole gazelley life.

Moral beauty existed as clearly as any other form of beauty and perhaps that was where we could find the God who was so vividly, and sometimes bizarrely, described in our noisy religious explanations. It was an intriguing thought, as it meant that a concert could be a spiritual experience, a secular painting a religious icon, a beguiling face a passing angel.

The police frequently do not enforce the rule of law.

I don't think a female running a house is a problem, a broken family. It's perceived as one because of the notion that a head is a man.

There are those who like things just they are and will stop at nothing to keep them that way, and those who understand that change is the natural order of the universe, and one must change with it.

If a responsible, mentally sound American wants to own and AR-15, that’s their right. Besides, when the zombies come…okay, you don’t like the zombie thing. When the Chinese invade our country, who do you want to depend on? The over-extended police force and the National Guard? Or the next door neighbor who’s a former Marine and has enough guns and ammunition for your entire block?

You may or may not make a million dollars in life, a song may not be sung in praise of you, monuments may not be erected in your name but promise me this: to live life fully, to give wholeheartedly, to do your best with what you have, to impact souls, to use your gifts and talents to serve humanity, to live, love and leave a legacy in your own way.

But what reality was ever made by realists?

Trust me, Bea, you are on your way. It’s about acknowledging where you are and knowing that you are okay. The universe has your back and so do I.

I loved the zebras, the cheetahs, the fruit flies, the octopi and the rest. But The Nature of Sex “climaxed” with a species I’d never heard of before, “bonobos,” which the narrator also called by their Latin/scientific name Pan paniscus. I knew “Pan” as classical Greek mythology’s horned and horny god of the wild, so maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. But when the bonobos started swinging onto my screen, well… what can I say? Today, I’ve got a whole book’s worth of stuff to say, but back then, I couldn’t utter a word. Imagine looking into an evolutionary funhouse mirror and seeing a side of yourself you’ve never seen before, shocking yet deeply familiar. “Who are these vibrant, joyful creatures that look so much like me, only hairier?” I wondered. “And what’s with all the sex?” They weren’t just going at it for procreation. They were engaging in sex for recreation and interpersonal communication, very much like humans, but without the pretense, hypocrisy and shame. I got very excited, but no, I still didn’t want to have sex with them. I wanted to have sex like them (at least occasionally), in that playful yet deeply meaningful way of theirs I started calling the Bonobo Way. But would it keep our sex life out of the dreaded sinkhole? Only time would tell.

Each step I take toward him is one more step closer to home.

...you do violence with your words if you force them - art is given - the words received, moment by moment from unseen hands - call it a Muse ...

Why not other elements besides fire, air, earth and water? There are four of them, just four, those foster parents of beings! What a pity! Why aren't there forty elements instead, or four hundred, or four thousand? How paltry everything is, how miserly, how wretched! Stingily given, aridly invented, heavily made!Why not other elements besides fire, air, earth and water? There are four of them, just four, those foster parents of beings! What a pity! Why aren't there forty elements instead, or four hundred, or four thousand? How paltry everything is, how miserly, how wretched! Stingily given, aridly invented, heavily made!

No one will improve his health significantly without accurately perceiving priorities, knowing clearly what is at stake if those are not attended to and what is to be gained if acted on correctly. That’s the basic homework before any change can come about. Then that knowledge has to be transformed into a sustainable motivation.

Hard work has made it easy. That is my secret. That is why I win.

ANXIETY i will transform you into something useful and productive. I will not bow down to you. ~THE END

we ask for too much salvation by legislation. All we need to do is empower individuals with the right philosophy and the right information to opt out en masse. (quoting Joel Salatin)

We never grow closer to God when we just live life. It takes deliberate pursuit and attentiveness.

Couples in distress too often turn to solutions that can be summed up by "You do your thing and I'll do my thing" or "You take care of yourself and I'll take care of myself." We hear pop psychology pronouncements such as "I'm not ready to be in a relationship" and "You have to love yourself before anyone can love you."Is any of this true? Is it really possible to love yourself before someone ever loves you?Think about it. How could this be true? If it were true, babies would come into this world already self-loving or self-hating. And we know they don't. In fact, human beings don't start by thinking anything about themselves, good or bad. We learn to love ourselves precisely because we have experienced being loved by someone. We learn to take care of ourselves because somebody has taken care of us.

We glorify God only as we celebrate people

There is no beauty equal to the beauty of your soul.

Always guarding one's real, precious self in a cocoon of tranquility within a thousand masks.Life itself had become a secret affair.

Bad books on writing tell you to "WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW", a solemn and totally false adage that is the reason there exist so many mediocre novels about English professors contemplating adultery.

And then, with a shock like high-voltage coursing through me, the phone beside me started pealing thinly.I just stood there and stared at it, blood draining from my face. A call to a tollbooth? It must, it must be a wrong number, somebody wanted the Information Booth or-! It must have been audible outside, with all I had the slide partly closed. One of the redcaps passing by turned, looked over, then started coming across toward where I was. To get rid of him I picked up the receiver, put it to my ear.'You'd better come out now, time's up,' a flat, deadly voice said. 'They're calling your train, but you're not getting on that one - or any other.''Wh-where are talking from?''The next booth to yours,' the voice jeered. 'You forgot the glass inserts only reach halfway down.'The connection broke and a man's looming figure was shadowing the glass in front of my eyes, before I could even get the receiver back on the hook. I dropped it full-length, tensed my right arm to pound it through his face as soon as I shoved the glass aside. He had a revolver-bore for a top vest-button, trained on me. Two more had shown up behind him, from which direction I hadn't noticed. It was very dark in the booth now, their collective silhouettes shut out all the daylight. The station and all its friendly bustle was blotted out, had receded into the far background, a thousand miles away for all the help it could give me. I slapped the glass wearily aside, came slowly out.One of them flashed a badge - maybe Crow had loaned him his for the occasion. 'You're being arrested for putting slugs in that phone. It won't do any good to raise your voice and shriek for help, try to tell people different. But suit yourself.'I knew that as well as he; heads turned to stare after us by the dozens as they started with me in their midst through the station's main-level. But not one in all that crowd would have dared interfere with what they mistook for a legitimate arrest in the line of duty. The one with the badge kept it conspicuously tilted in his upturned palm, at sight of which the frozen onlookers slowly parted, made way for us through their midst. I was being led to my doom in full view of scores of people. ("Graves For The Living")