Quotes by American Authors - Page 44

Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success.
Mark Skousen
V.S. Pritchett's definition of a short story is 'something glimpsed from the corner of the eye, in passing.' Notice the 'glimpse' part of this. First the glimpse. Then the glimpse gives life, turned into something that illuminates the moment and may, if we're lucky -- that word again -- have even further ranging consequences and meaning. The short story writer's task is to invest the glimpse with all that is in his power. He'll bring his intelligence and literary skill to bear (his talent), his sense of proportion and sense of the fitness of things: of how things out there really are and how he sees those things -- like no one else sees them. And this is done through the use of clear and specific language, language used so as to bring to life the details that will light up the story for the reader. For the details to be concrete and convey meaning, the language must be accurate and precisely given. The words can be so precise they may even sound flat, but they can still carry; if used right they can hit all the notes.
Raymond Carver
I think it's early. Early in our lives. Early in the night. Early in the new year. If you're counting, you'll notice the earlys outnumber the lates.
Jennifer Niven
The sustaining taste of victory can never be replaced by the cold metal of a trophy.
M.T. Bass
Words or fists, it didn't matter. The soul was still shattered.
Catherine Coulter
Chase had looked at the apartment—online—talked to the real estate agent—online—obtained references—online.Now, standing in the hallway, it was obvious he’d gotten fucked—online.
Adrienne Wilder
Never, even in his wildest dreams, had his imagination come close to the reality of her.
Marissa Clarke
Seriously, what is the purpose? Maybe I’d feel better about walking around speaking fluent jive if I knew there was a reason for it.
Elle Lothlorien
Time... is an essential requirement for effective research. An investigator may be given a palace to live in, a perfect laboratory to work in, he may be surrounded by all the conveniences money can provide; but if his time is taken from him he will remain sterile.
Walter Bradford Cannon
If the world appears abundant in smiles or overwhelmed by scowls, you might ask yourself if you're not to blame.
Richelle E. Goodrich
Play around. Dive into absurdity and write. Take chances. You will succeed if you are fearless of failure.
Natalie Goldberg
This democracy thing, or Demoxie, whatever it is, good god. Under the guise of having every voice heard, you create mob rule, a filterless society where secrets are crimes.
Dave Eggers
When you feel deep, paralyzing fear and you don't let it stop you, that is true courage. There's never bravery without fear. Just as there's no love without hate. (M'Adoc)
Sherrilyn Kenyon
You know you've done enoughWhen every bone is sore,You know you've prayed enoughWhen you don't ask any more,You know you're coming to some kind of understandingWhen every dream you've dreamed has passedAnd your still standing.
Patty Griffin
I resent when I go out to dinner and they try to sell me the healthy food for the same price as the good food.
Jim Gaffigan
Let us consider Elfland as a great national park, a vast and beautiful place where a person goes by himself, on foot, to get in touch with reality in a special, private, profound fashion. But what happens when it is considered merely as a place to "get away to"?Well, you know what has happened to Yosemite. Everybody comes, not with an ax and a box of matches, but in a trailer with a motorbike on the back and a motorboat on top and a butane stove, five aluminum folding chairs, and a transistor radio on the inside. They arrive totally encapsulated in a secondhand reality. And then they move on to Yellowstone, and it's just the same there, all trailers and transistors. They go from park to park, but they never really go anywhere; except when one of them who thinks that even the wildlife isn't real gets chewed up by a genuine, firsthand bear.The same sort of thing seems to be happening to Elfland, lately.
Ursula K Le Guin
Friendship among men is always part war, something learned from childhood.
Terry Kay
To be a great success get busy with what you like but don't forget to love.
Debasish Mridha
Wrong way to think about it. Don't try to figure it out all at once.
Jed Rubenfeld
Knowledge without love inflates the ego and deceives the mind.
Alexander Strauch
It wasn't an epidemic yet because no one knew about it.
Tom Clancy
Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
There were silences in my head. I could abandon myself completely to the pleasure of multiple relationships, to the beauty of the day, to the joys of the day. It was as if a cancer in me had ceased gnawing me. The cancer of introspection.
Anaïs Nin
If it’s going to be two against one, make sure you aren’t the one.
Jill Shalvis
Money doesn't change men, it merely unmasks them. If a man is naturally selfish or arrogant or greedy, the money brings that out, that's all.
Henry Ford
Marriage is what you make of it, and God has many versions of what that looks like based on what different souls need, in order to grow.
Shannon L. Alder
Blessings always come in the silence of learning at the hand of God
John M Sheehan
There's only one good reason to be a writer-we can't help it! We'd all like to be successful rich and famous but if those are our goals we're off on the wrong foot. ... I just wanted to earn enough money so I could work at home on my writing.
Phyllis Whitney
Drugs have destroyed many people. But wrong government policies have destroyed many more.
Ziad K. Abdelnour
When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask if I'm leaving.
Steven Wright
Courage has a ripple effect. Every time we choose courage, we make everyone around us a little better and the world a little braver. And our world could stand to be a little kinder and braver.
Brené Brown
The worst lies in life are the ones we tell ourselves.
Brad Meltzer
Success is more like a character than financial status
Debasish Mridha
For it is through the darkness of the evening that we are able to see the stars. Without this darkness, we would never get to experience the beauty of the cosmos, or understand the little bits of light in life that shine through the void.
Jennifer Sodini
When people begin to define the things that they believe in, based upon the exclusion of all the things that they hate, all that does is eat away at the soul. Define the things that you believe in based upon the pursuit of the the things that you love and then that love should be able to override all those things that you hate.
C. JoyBell C.
Can you admit on here that you have an affliction for millions of other people to see? Then that is great and a huge step towards your recovery.
Stanley Victor Paskavich
Never question the clouds, they're only bringing the life-giving rain.
Amber Schamel
Whatever our official pieties, deep down we all believe in lives. The sternest formalists are the loudest gossips, and if you ask a cultural-studies maven who believes in nothing but collective forces and class determinisms how she came to believe in this doctrine, she will begin to tell you, eagerly, the story of her life.
Adam Gopnik
You can obsess and obsess over how things ended—what you did wrong or could have done differently—but there's not much of a point. It's not like it'll change anything. So really, why worry?
Jess Rothenberg
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer.
Frank Herbert
Within moments she stood naked before him,aside from her garters and stockings."Why is it that ye always strip me bare but leave these things on?" she asked absently as he stepped back to work at his own clothing."To give you something to complain about?" he said with a big grin.
Lydia Dare
If we're happy, to be happy together. If we're are sad, to be sad together. To always know the other is there for us. The best of friends... and so much more.
Kasey Michaels
A symptom," Brendan said, as if love were a disease only humans could catch. But there was something like fondness or respect in his voice. "You're both fools.
Maggie Stiefvater
Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own.
James Cameron
Worlds of my own creation are erected with walls that are within but a few scant paces of each other. The world that God creates for me has no idea what walls are.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Let us never forget to pray. God lives. He is near. He is real. He is not only aware of us but cares for us. He is our Father. He is accessible to all who will seek Him.
Gordon B. Hinckley
Do you see a problem in every opportunity or an opportunity in every problem?
Orrin Woodward
I would urge us to be not too certain of our accustomed ways of looking at Genesis, and to open ourselves to the wisdom of the God-bearing men of the past who have devoted so much intellectual effort to understanding the text of Genesis as it was meant to be understood. These Holy Fathers are our key to understanding Genesis.
Seraphim Rose
First of all, although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself in fear and trembling. We can help one another to find the meaning of life no doubt. But in the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and for "finding himself." If he persists in shifting his responsibility to somebody else, he fails to find out the meaning of his own existence. You cannot tell me who I am and I cannot tell you who you are. If you do not know your own identity, who is going to identify you?
Thomas Merton
There's a great difficulty in makingchoices if you have any imagination at all. Faced with such a multitude of desireable choices, no one choiceseems satisfactory for very long by comparison with the aggregate desirability of all the rest, though compared to any *one* of the others it would not be found inferior. All equally attractive but none finally inviting.
John Barth
I even love the smell of books.
Adriana Trigiani
Did I ever tell you my pet peeve?'No,' I said.People who dress up their pets to look like Little Lord Fauntleroys or cowboys, clowns, ballerinas. As if it's not enough just to be a dog or cat or turtle.
Jerry Spinelli
Do you follow the wrestling? Most people think it's illegal, but you can watch it there. Ruby and Python are on display this evening.
Samuel R. Delany
Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?
Mary Manin Morrissey
Knowing even as I craved permanence in New York City, that would never come to pass. The pair of us would live for as long as we could. As well as well could. That was all. Then we'd blow away like wishes made on dandelion heads.
Lyndsay Faye
In a strange way, I had fallen in love with my depression. Dr. Sterling was right about that. I loved it because I thought it was all I had. I thought depression was the part of my character that made me worthwhile. I thought so little of myself, felt that I had such scant offerings to give to the world, that the one thing that justified my existence at all was my agony.
Elizabeth Wurtzel
The greatest act of courage is to be and to own all of who you are — without apology, without excuses, without masks to cover the truth of who you are.
Debbie Ford
Now, Simone, I'm a witch, remember? There's not much I don't know just by looking at you. And you know what I see when I look at you?'Simone walked out the door before she could finish, only hearing the steely hush of Millie's voice add, 'Nothing.
Suzanne Palmieri
Now she had to pretend not to love the man she was pretending to love while pretending she wasn't sleeping with him.
Shannon Stacey
We are always people that are in the making, constantly adapting to accommodate the roads we walk. As we learn, it changes us. As we go about our course, we grow, and prune everything around us; friends, beliefs, desires. Our past experiences plant the seeds needed for our future roads, with all its turns, speed, and treachery.
Kat Lahr