Quotes by Authors - Page 3166

It would be very difficult to draw a line between holy wonder and real worship; for when the soul is overwhelmed with the majesty of God's glory, though it may not express itself in song, or even utter its voice with bowed head in humble prayer, yet it silently adores.

My mom said:‘Don’t put your finger in your brother’s ear! If you want to know how that quarter trick is done, go ask the magician.’ So I tugged on The Great Arturo's pant leg until he finally taught me how. That was my first magic trick! I was five years old.

Never start your gratitude moment with an unthankful heart or out of necessity. Gratitude must be sincere.

In any case where someone is hurt within himself because of a mere jealousy over your success expedition, that is none of your business.You don’t bring yourself low in order to please those who envy you.

Friends are like sugar. When you have them, you'll feel happiness. When you have too many of them, you will suffer.

Dr. Webber rolled her eyes, unimpressed with my timing, and probably a little irritated with my lack of materials. I winked, and the slightest smile touched her lips.

Since then I have searched for my heroes among small-t truths. I always find them among people learning the art of acceptance: not acceptance of defeat or acceptance of some inability to influence their own futures, but rather acceptance of life on the planet, acceptance of the grays rather than the black-and-whites, acceptance of the astonishing range of human emotion and human behavior.

Every person is the master of his or her own destiny. What we think about alters our character. Our character organizes our personality, and our personality scripts how successfully we interact with other people and respond to a changing environment.

May we love each other not only at Christmas but all year.

If the self-help books worked, it would be a shrinking industry not a growing one.

Any industrial product that comes in per capita quanta beyond a given intensity exercises a radical monopoly over the satisfaction of a need.

Well, that's it." I said after we had waited for another five minutes and found ourselves still in a state of pleasantly welcome existence. "The ChronoGuard has shut itself down and time travel is as it should be: technically, logically, and theoretically...impossible." "Good thing, too," reply Landon. "It always made my head ache. In fact, I was thinking of doing self help book for science-fiction novelists eager to write about time travel. It would consist of a single word: Don't.

According to this law [the law of Dharma], you have a unique talent and a unique way of expressing it. There is something that you can do better than anyone else in the whole world--and for every unique talent and unique expression of that talent, there are also unique needs. When these needs are matched with the creative expression of your talent, that is the spark that creates affluence. Expressing your talents to fulfill needs creates unlimited wealth and abundance.

I had reached a juncture in my reading life that is familiar to those who have been there: in the allotted time left to me on earth, should I read more and more new books, or should I cease with that vain consumption--vain because it is endless--and begin to reread those books that had given me the intensest pleasure in my past.

It wouldn't happen... There hasn't been one publication by a monkey

Open your eyes to what wonder exists in the world. You have within your the power to create the life you want.

The world is made of more than particles. It's made of things you can't hold in your hand, like fear, love, loss, hope, truth.

I have trouble respecting a woman who gives away for free what she could sell for good money. Whores are the only women who know their own worth. I mean that.

Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl - no superior alternative has yet been found.

The world's most sensible and the most idiotic person lies within us..the worst part is we can't say who is who

The only way to tell the truth is to speak with kindness. Only the words of a loving man can be heard

Matt hissed her name as she moved above him, sliding along the hardened length of him. “What is it you want, baby?” he asked, his voice gruff.t“You,” she replied honestly. “I want more of you.” t“You have me. All of me.

Nobody's innocent... but that doesn't reset the bar on guilt.

Don’t you think it’s a bad sign that your best argument for your beau is that nothing has been proved in court?

Faith is not a blind thing; for faith begins with knowledge. It is not a speculative thing; for faith believes facts of which it is sure. It is not an unpractical, dreamy thing; for faith trusts, and stakes its destiny upon the truth of revelation.

Reading is important, because if you can read, you can learn anything about everything and everything about anything.

Swords can’t solve every problem.

Swish and flick.

Every time someone tells me I can't do something the more I want to do it, not to prove them wrong but because I always knew I could do it.

Lust is the difference between loving someone and being in love with someone.

Because everybody lies. It's part of living in society. Don't get me wrong-I think it's necessary. The last thing anyone wants is to live in a society where total honesty prevails. Can you imagine the conversations? You're short and fat, one person might say, and the other might answer, I know. But you smell bad. It just wouldn't work. So people lie by omission all the time. People will tell you most of the story...and I've learned that the part they neglect to tell you is often the most important part. People hide the truth because they're afraid." -Jo

Failure is so important. We speak about success all the time. It is the ability to resist failure or use failure that often leads to greater success. I've met people who don't want to try for fear of failing.

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

The Bird of Paradise, it seemed, had beckoned us on and led us in, to stand here in this place high in the land of volcanoes. It was here in Bali, after returning from the Toraja Star Children, that I first recognized what they meant by us all being born half of heaven and half of earth. And after the mounted warsports of Sumba it was in Balinese ritual that I saw with new eyes the battle for balance between light and darkness. And after Borneo, returning to the sacred Banyan tree and its simian custodians, I had felt that all great trees, what’s left of them, do indeed link heaven and earth in a single forest of life.

We know something about billionaire consumption, but it is hard to measure some of it. Some billionaires are consuming politicians, others consume reporters, and some consume academics...

That would make it easy for Amara. Not having a choice was always easy. It was always safer. However bad things were, you kept your head down and did as you were told in order to avoid worse.The world always wanted people like her to believe those lies.You were never safe as long as you were at someone else’s whim.Amara’s eyes met Cilla’s, dark and beaten and haunted.Not having a choice was the worst thing in the world.Amara pushed the knife down. Nolan didn’t stop her. And in that moment, with her enemy’s knife in her own hand, a point pressing on Cilla’s arm, Cilla’s skin familiar against hers, relief sneaked up on her and refused to let go. Because what she’d told Cilla wasn’t true. It wasn’t that she couldn’t go back to her old life; she could. If she went back, she’d hate herself, but it meant survival. It might be worth it or it might not be, and she’d never have to find out because it would never happen. She wasn’t going back.It wasn’t because of what Maart wanted, or because of what Cilla asked, or because of what Jorn said. She’d made the choice. It was hers alone. This or nothing.Blood welled up from Cilla’s arm. Amara let the knife clatter to the ground. She reached for the cut. She was almost smiling now, a desperate smile that had her lips trembling, that came with tears burning her eyes.This or nothing.

While Kalila didn't quite know what she wanted, she knew what she didn't want. She didn't want to live a charade. She didn't want a marriage of convenience where you were together but alone.

I want to put my hand out and touch you. I want to do for you and care for you. I want to be there when you're sick and when you're lonesome.

We must stand so firmly for the truth so that we do not back down because every movement away from righteousness and God’s truth is similar to death

The most important legacy you will ever leave is your vision planted in the minds of your disciples and a passion as strong as a storm in their hearts.

It's daft, locking us up," said Nanny. "I'd have had us killed.""That's because you're basically good," said Magrat. "The good are innocent and create justice. The bad are guilty, which is why they invent mercy.

Chicago is not the most corrupt of cities. The state of New Jersey has a couple. Need we mention Nevada? Chicago, though, is the Big Daddy. Not more corrupt, just more theatrical, more colorful in its shadiness.

If you don't believe in the things you're doing, the answer isn't fooling yourself into thinking you believe it. If you don't believe in what you're doing, then you just shouldn't be doing it.

There is nothing will kill a man so soon as having nobody to find fault with but himself.

I can critique the bad; I can take the good, and I can add whatever I want.

Read good writing, and don’t live in the present. Live in the deep past, with the language of the Koran or the Mabinogion or Mother Goose or Dickens or Dickinson or Baldwin or whatever speaks to you deeply. Literature is not high school and it’s not actually necessary to know what everyone around you is wearing, in terms of style, and being influenced by people who are being published in this very moment is going to make you look just like them, which is probably not a good long-term goal for being yourself or making a meaningful contribution. At any point in history there is a great tide of writers of similar tone, they wash in, they wash out, the strange starfish stay behind, and the conches.

The steeper the climb, the more incentive to reach the top.Even in the midst of the darkness, there is always a shard of light if we will but search for it hard enough and believe in it strongly enough.A name portrays the nature of its wearer. The meaning of a name, however, portrays the trueness of its wearer in depths that very few ever come to comprehend.May God bless you and keep you and give you peace in all that you do, and may we rest assured of this: that though we travel far apart and in many different directions and for long periods of time, we will meet again, if not in this lifetime, then in eternity, and there we will never have to say ‘good-bye’ again.Courage is not found in lacking fear, courage is found in not allowing your fear to rule you.Courage is really just facing fear.Do not put too much stock in the stars my boy, they are fickle and distant and do not affect the lives of men by very great a margin.

Just as there are none good but God, and nothing good but goodness, so there are no loves but love its self, the very love; and that what I call the other unnatural loves, are not loves at all in their own right but become so only so far as they participate in the very love.

It is only by choice that our true nature is revealed.

The respect one gets in the forces by virtue of the ‘rank’ is not absolute. 'True respect’ is the one that is earned by virtue of actions, experience, knowledge and demeanor.

(...) I think your definition changes based on your experiences." (age twenty-two, bisexual)Six years later, this same woman noted:"I date both men and women, but i don't like the word "bisexual", because I think it implies polarity. I guess I started thinking about this around 4 1/2 years ago, when I was involved in a long-term committed relationship with a man, but a queer man. And it made me redefine things, because I didn't believe that a queer man and a queer woman together in a relationship like ours was conventionally heterosexual." (age twenty-eight, bisexual)

When our mind is in shambles and we dare to reflect on the story of our life, we may discover, in the stream of our thoughts, the fault line between what we have underfelt and what we have overthought on our way. (“Axel Red”)

When an extraordinary place meets with an extraordinary light, extraordinary shadows suddenly pop out from nowhere and create the most extraordinary moments of life!

I smiled sweetly at his embarressment, beginning to walk again, kicking up golden leaves. I heard him scuffling leaves behind me. "And what was the point of this again?" Forget it!" Sam said. "Do you you like this place or not?"I stoped in my tracks, spinning to face him. "Hey." I pointed at him; he raised his eyebrows and stopped in his tracks. "You didn't think Jack would be here at all, did you?"His thick black eyebrows went up even farther. Did you evan intend to look for him at all?"He held his hands up as if a surrender. "What do you want me to say?"You were trying to see if I would reconize it, wern't you?" I took anouther step, colsing the distance between us. I could feel the heat of his body, even without touching him, in the increasing cold of the day. "YOU told me about this wood somehow. How did you show it to me?"I keep trying to tell you. You wont listen. Because you're stubbon. It's how we speek- it's the only words we have. Just pictures. Just simple little picters. You HAVE changed Grace. Just not your skin. I want you to believe me." His hands were still raise, but he was starting to grin at me in the failing light.So you brought me here to see this." I stepped forward again, and he stepped back.Do you like it?"Under false pretence." Anouther step forward; anouther back. The grine widenedSo do you like it?"When you knew we wouldn't come across anybody else."His teeth flashed in his grin. "Do you like it?"I punched my hands into his chest. "You know I love it. You knew I would." I went to punch him, and he grabed my wrists. For a moment we stood there like that, him looking down at me with a grin half-caught on his face, and me lookingup at him: Still Life with Boy and Girl. It would've been the perfect moment to kiss me, but he didn't. He just looked at me and looked at me, and by the time I relizeed I could just as easily kiss him, I noticed that his grin was slipping away. Sam slowly lowered my wrists and relesed them. "I'm glad." he said very quietly.My arms still hung by my sides, right where Sam had put them. I frowned at him. "You were supposed to kiss me."I thought about it."I just kept looking at the soft, sad shape of his lips, looking just like his voice sounded. I was probably staring, but I couldn't stop thinking about how much I wanted him to kiss me and how stupide it was to want it so badly. "Why don't you?" He leaned over and gave mr the lightest of kisses. His lips, cool and dry, ever so polite and incredibly maddening. "I have to get inside soon," he whispered "It's getting cold

In a time like this, let us trust in God even more. To trust when life is easy is no trust.

Today I choose to be kind to all and to do all I can to make this world peaceful.

Dearest Jessamin,I have not had a letter from you in a month. (You are a terrible daughter.) I blame the slowness of the boats and hate the distance between us. (How could you leave me?)Your cousin Jacabo responded to my inquiries after your well-being with only the vaguest of terms. (I threatened Jacky Boy if he did not update me on your life.) I take this to mean you have seen him regularly and have also forbidden him from updating me on your life in the big city. (Why are you spending your time with him when he is clearly not running in the right circles?)How are your studies? Have you met anyone interesting? (Why have you not given me news of your father?)I suspect you do not write because you have found someone. (Please, please tell me you have found someone.) I know it. (I beg the spirits for it each night.) A mother can feel these things. (I will drag you back to the island and force you into marriage if you do not take care of it yourself.) Please tell me whether he is of a good family and when I can expect happy tidings to share with my friends. (Do not do anything I cannot crow about to the neighbors.) I knew you would not be on your own for long. (Give me grandchildren. Soon.) Dear Henry has asked after you, though, so if you are lonely you know you have many options here. (I pestered Henry until he finally asked after you and took it as a sign he still wishes to marry you.)Write me soon or I will perish for want of daughterly affection. (You are a terrible daughter.)All my love, (All my love,)Mama

When you attack a tyranny you must expect it to fight back.

Oftentimes I felt ridiculous giving my seal of approval to what was in reality such a natural thing to do, sort of like reinventing the wheel and extolling its virtues. Had parents' intuition sunk so low that some strange man had to tell modern women that it was okay to sleep with their babies?

When pointing out the flaws in others, people always end up talking about themselves.