Quotes by American Authors - Page 121

But tonight I'll go alone. You're about as stealthy as a lame elephant. See you later." She patted me on the shoulder and took off down the path, leaving me behind, both charmed and insulted. The side effects of hanging around Charlotte Holmes.
Brittany Cavallaro
Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this conventional world of ours - watery or otherwise; that when a person placed in command over his fellow-men finds one of them to be very significantly his superior in general pride of manhood, straightway against that man he conceives an unconquerable dislike and bitterness; and if he have a chance he will pull down and pulverize that subaltern's tower, and make a little heap of dust of it.
Herman Melville
Loving relationships, though necessary for life, health, and growth, are among the most complicated skills. Before we can be successful at achieving relationships, it is necessary that we broaden our understanding of how they work, what they mean and how what we do and believe can enhance or destroy them. We can accomplish this only if we are willing to put in the energy and take the time to study failed relationships as well as examine successful ones. Loving relationships cannot be taken lightly. Unless we are looking for pain, they must not be forever approached in a trial and error fashion. Too many of us have experienced the cost of these lackadaisical approaches in terms of tears, confusion and guilt.
Leo Buscaglia
if somebody doesn't have any talent, get off the stage! you're wasting my time.
Elaine Stritch
Only once in the historical record has a jump on the San Andreas exceeded the jump of 1906. In 1857, near Tejon Pass outside Los Angeles, the two sides shifted thirty feet.
John McPhee
We are each, then, a sentence within the boundless book of humanity. The question is… What will our sentence read, how eloquently will it read, and who will read it?
Kayla Severson
As they grew sloppier and less alert, the twins argued too loudly about whether Tiger Lily was ugly or beautiful, and finally agreed that she was "ugly beautiful".Tiger Lily pretended she hadn't heard, but her heart slowed to absorb the blow.
Jodi Lynn Anderson
Only the Holy Spirit can open our eyes. Only He can convict us of the depth of our sin, and only He can convince us of the truth of the Gospel.
Billy Graham
Your words to yourself and to others should uplift, never tear down.
Eileen Anglin
I think if you don't really like a girl, you shouldn't horse around with her at all, and if you do like her, then you're supposed to like her face, and if you like her face, you ought to be careful about doing crumby stuff to it, like squirting water all over it. It's really too bad that so much crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes.
J.D. Salinger
What begins at the water shall end there, and what ends there shall once more begin.
Doug Dorst
Material things may satisfy your temporal desires, but none can be taken with you when you're gone. Build your hopes on things eternal !
Amaka Imani Nkosazana
Time is, in fact, a cross to bear, it passes on inexorably and remorselessly, destroying everything in its wake, save art and works of the intellect.
Jack Schmitt
Because the chief commodity a writer has to sell is his courage. And if he has none, he is more than a coward. He is a sellout and a fink and a heretic, because writing is a holy chore.
Harlan Ellison
All of us, have our antenna up for people who might harm us in one way or another, not just people who might hurt us physically, but also for people who might treat us unfairly, take advantage of us, cheat us or fail to do their share. And we react very strongly to be misleading by other people, is part of human nature, to guard against being hurt and exploited.
Mark Leary
... fantasy is not practice for what is real—fantasy is the opiate of women.
Shannon Hale
When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot think of the wine we will become.
Henri J.M. Nouwen
How desperately we wish to maintain our trust in those we love! In the face of everything we try to find reasons to trust. Because losing faith is worse than falling out of love.
Sonia Johnson
It is a greater triumph for the fearful soul who tries and fails than for the fearless who succeed.
Richelle E. Goodrich
A BILL OF ASSERTIVE RIGHTSI: You have the right to judge your own behavior, thoughts, and emotions, and to take the responsibility for their initiation and consequences upon yourself.II: You have the right to offer no reasons or excuses for justifying your behavior.III: You have the right to judge if you are responsible for finding solutions to other people’s problems.IV: You have the right to change your mind.V: You have the right to make mistakes—and be responsible for them.VI: You have the right to say, “I don’t know.”VII: You have the right to be independent of the goodwill of others before coping with them.VIII: You have the right to be illogical in making decisions. IX: You have the right to say, “I don’t understand.”X: You have the right to say, “I don’t care.”YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO SAY NO, WITHOUT FEELING GUILTY
Manuel J. Smith
My mom doesn't say anything. I don't say anything. Neither of us knows yet what you should say when rape victims blame themselves: 'It was not your fault.' It was not your fault, even if you were drunk, even if you were wearing a low-cut minidress, even if you were out walking alone at night, even if you were on a date with the rapist and kind of liked him but didn't want to have sex with him.
Joanna Connors
Violet learned then what she had forgotten until this moment: that laughter is serious. More complicated, more serious than tears.
Toni Morrison
And when the veil lifts, we can see the world as it really is, just for those few seconds before it settles down again. We see all the beauty, and cruelty, and sadness, and love.
Rebecca Stead
Before I disappear behind the door, I stop and turn around to look at him.
Nancy B. Brewer
He hated having to look for a new girl, a new spy to add to his band of fallen women. Yes, it was an opportunity to spare her before her ruin could be known, but a deep part of him hurt for the women in his employ and what they’d all endured.
Madeline Martin
Like me wanting to get nailed made me less of a man than him? That was bullshit. He seemed kind of sexist. I bet he was a fucking Republican.
Megan Erickson
Deep in each man is the knowledge that something knows of his existence. Something knows, and cannot be fled nor hid from.
Cormac McCarthy
Information wants to be free.
Stewart Brand
A hero is a matter of perspective. The only sure thing in war is casualties. Ideology, patriotism and religious zeal all fuel heroic notions.
Matt Hawkins
Tears of grief are unique. They contain chemicals that aren't found in the more mundane droplets of moisture that bathe the eyes, as if our tears wash us free of some noxious cause of sorrow. And tonight, after crying until I am empty, I have a rare glimpse of my own interior landscape - wounds piled like tiny skeletons into the reef of conscious adult life. I am aground amid my conquered traumas, stranded as a consequence of my achievements.
Carol Cassella
We've got to have mind-collecting weeks in our zendos where your mind tries to fly off like a Tinker Toy and like a good soldier you put it back together with your eyes closed except of course the whole thing is wrong.
Jack Kerouac
[She] had heard it said that there was only one emotion which, in recollection, was capable of resurrecting the full immediacy and power of the original—one emotion that time could never fade, and that would drag you back any number of years into the pure, undiluted feeling, as if you were living it anew. It wasn’t love… and it wasn’t hate, or anger, or happiness, or even grief. Memories of those were but echoes of the true feeling.It was shame. Shame never faded.
Laini Taylor
Audubon considered it a bad day if he didn’t shoot a hundred birds. “It’s amazing that his name has become synonymous with conservation.
Meryl Sawyer
So Beckendorf was pretty popular?" Leo asked. "I mean-before he blew up?
Rick Riordan
Honesty is not always the bestpolicy when it hurts theperson you care about themost and pushes them away.
Alison G. Bailey
I am not pretty; I am not ugly. I am not true, and I am not false. I am just me—a reality, a conception, and not a misinterpretation.
Debasish Mridha
Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.
Langston Hughes
You can grieve for me the week before I die, if I’m scared and hurting, but when I gasp that last fleeting breath and my immortal soul flees to heaven, I’m going to be jumping over fire hydrants down the golden streets, and my biggest concern, if I have any, will be my wife back here grieving. When I die, I will be identified with Christ’s exaltation. But right now, I’m identified with His affliction.
R.C. Sproul
Very few of us relate to what it's like to be a hero. But everyone understands what it's like to fail.
Kathleen Tessaro
She shook her head, and we parted, kissing, as the first beams from the sun burst forth behind us. When I returned to my bedroom, the scent of her hair remained on my pillow. For the first time in my life, at the age of twenty-five, I was in love.
James Russell Lingerfelt
Mother love has been much maligned. An over mothered boy may go through life expecting each new woman to love him the way his mother did. Her love may make any other love seem inadequate. But an unloved boy would be even more likely to idealize love. I don't think it's possible for a mother or father to love a child too much.
Frank Pittman
Reach high for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep for every dream precedes the goal.
Pamela Vaull Starr
People don’t like to think, if one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.
Helen Keller
To crank up a noisy bad stance out in a place like San Francisco and start yelling about “getting things done in Washington” is like sitting far back in the end zone seats at the Super Bowl and screaming at the Miami linebackers “Stop Duane Thomas!
Hunter S. Thompson
Trust yourself first then everybody will follow.
Debasish Mridha
It is as if my life were magically run by two electric currents: joyous positive and despairing negative--which ever is running at the moment dominates my life, floods it.
Sylvia Plath
I’ll give you what you want, Sloane,” he said. “What we both want. But think long and hard before you come to me. There are things that I like. Things that I want and expect from the woman in my bed. And I don’t play by anyone’s rules but my own.
J. Kenner
How you feel about marrying me?" he asked in my ear.
Kristen Ashley
Well, why would you create something that had the power to hurt You? Or any of Your creatures? Why don't You help us? Do You have any idea how much we hurt? How much we suffer?I know all things, daughter.Well, okay, then know this. We human beings are unhappy all the time. We hate ourselves and we hate each other and sometimes we wish You of Whoever had never created us or this shit-ass world or any other shit-ass world. Do You realize that? So next time You might think about not doing such a half-assed job.
Lev Grossman
We appreciate most that which we have lived without.
Brian Rathbone
My past has shaped me, that's true of anyone.
R.K. Lilley
What did she do that made her happy? The question implied action, a conscious purpose. She did many things in a day, and many things made her happy, but that, Claire could tell, wasn’t the issue. Nor the only one, Claire realized. Because in order to consciously do something that made you happy, you’d have to know who you were. Trying to figure that out these days was like fishing on a lake on a moonless night—you had no idea what you would get.
Erica Bauermeister
We come to a corner where there are a few people protesting the festivities. I don't understand this at all. It's like protesting the fact that some people are red-haired. In my experience, desire is desire, love is love.
David Levithan
To remember friendship is to recall those conversations that it seemed a sin to break off
Christopher Hitchens
I mostly want to remind her of the recipes of healing, and give her my own made-on-the spot remedy for the easing of her pain. I tell her, “Get a pen. Stop crying so you can write this down and start working on it tonight.” My remedy is long. But the last item on the list says: “When you wake up and find yourself living someplace where there is nobody you love and trust, no community, it is time to leave town – to pack up and go (you can even go tonight). And where you need to go is any place where there are arms that can hold you, that will not let you go.
Bell Hooks
Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good. 'Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every thought we think is creating our future.
Louise L. Hay
The purpose of life is to be purposeful.
Debasish Mridha
I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding, they learn by some other way — by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!
Richard Feynman
Don’t talk to people you don’t want to talk to, and don’t talk about stuff you don’t want to talk about.
Austin Kleon