Quotes by American Authors - Page 509

Heroes didn't win. The heroes were whoever happened to win. History told their story -- the dead didn't say a word. All of it was bullshit.
Hugh Howey
Gratitude transforms our mindset from enough to abundance and opens the window of limitless potentials.
Debasish Mridha
We are our stories.
Barry Veret
You make me lovely, and it's so lovely to be lovely to the one I love...
Jennifer Niven
There is a moment in our healing journey when our denial crumbles; we realize our experience and it's continued effects on us won't "just go away". That's our breakthrough moment. It's the sun coming out to warm the seeds of hope so they can grow our personal garden of empowerment.
Jeanne McElvaney
The novel should tell the truth, as I see the truth, or as the novelist persuades me to see it. And one more demand: I expect the novelist to aspire to improve the world. ... As a novelist, I want to be more than one more dog barking at the other dogs barking at me. Not out of any foolish hope that one novelist, or all virtuous novelists in chorus, can make much of a difference for good, except in the long run, but out of the need to prevent the human world from relaxing into something worse. To maintain the tension between truth and falsity, beauty and ugliness, good and evil. ... I believe the highest duty of the serious novelist is, whatever the means or technique, to be a critic of his society, to hold society to its own ideals, or if these ideals are unworthy, to suggest better ideals.
Edward Abbey
We were created to live a life of prayer.
Billy Graham
It’s getting more difficult to be wise,” he says, laughing into my ear.I smile at him. “I think that’s how it’ssupposed to be.
Veronica Roth
We don't need a destination or a way of navigating, because we'll go wherever it takes us
Lemony Snicket
Intentionality fuels the master's journey. Every master is a master of vision.
George Leonard
Is this lifetime supposed to be only about duty?
Elizabeth Gilbert
We can start all the organic farms we want, but we can't stop congress from declaring pizza sauce a vegetable.
William Deresiewicz
I'm not a fool, I knew from the beginningwhat couldn't happen. What couldn't
Frank Bidart
What you don’t know going in is that when you come out, you will be scarred for life. Whether you were in for a week, a month, or a year—even if you come home without a scratch—you are never, ever going to be the same.When I went in, I was eighteen. I thought it was all glory and you win lots of medals. You think you’re going to be the guy. Then you find out the cost is very great. Especially when you don’t see the kids you were with when you went in. Living with it can be hell. It’s like the devil presides in you. I knew what I sighed up for, yes, and I would do it again. But the reality of war—words can’t begin to describe it.
William Guarnere
Success is not what I've done compared with what others have done. Success is what I've done compared with what God has called me to do.
Lecrae Moore
I believed in immaculate conception and spontaneous combustion. I believed in aliens from outer space and vampires, prophecy, and the resurrection of the dead. I had deja vu many times each day. I was thirteen.
Kate Braverman
Don't assume, because you are intelligent, able, and well-motivated, that you are open to communication, that you know how to listen.
Robert K. Greenleaf
Prayer crowns God with the honor and glory due to His name and God crowns prayer with assurance and comfort. The most praying souls are the most assured souls.
Thomas B. Brooks
The Hawaiian creation myth relates that the present cosmos is only the last of a series, having arisen in stages from the wreck of the previous universe. In this account, the octopus is the lone survivor of the previous, alien universe.
Roland Burrage Dixon
Revolution starts in the mind. Question Everything!
Bryant McGill
All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. That is the talisman, the formula, the command of right-about-face which turns us from failure towards success.
Dorothea Brande
All things found their ends.
Justin Cronin
The same thing that makes friendship so valuable is what makes it so tenuous: it is purely voluntary. You enter into it freely, without the imperatives of biology or the agenda of desire. Officially, you owe each other nothing.
Tim Kreider
Our values call upon us to care about people we'll never meet.
Barack Obama
What a most unreasonably stubborn man," he said. "One must be more open to opposing views in this world.""You don't say.""Oh, indeed! As our late father often said, 'Toleration is good for all or it is good for non.
Daniel Stashower
You're worth so much more than anything I can give you. If you can't believe that right now, believe in me.
C.J. Redwine
It takes a little crazy to make a difference.
Dafna Michaelson Jenet
The world we know is dwarfed by the worlds we don't. Why not explore them all? Being out there in the wilderness, you have no idea what'll happen, really. It could be just you and this gorgeous night sky, or maybe you are surfing and some big ass wave comes at you, and if you don't ride that sucker, it'll put you under and have you for lunch, or you might turn a corner on a hike and there's some beautiful deer and her little fawn-- now that has meaning, all of those things, and I need more of that and less of trying to make money so I can pay bills to live in a way I just don't care about anymore.
Erica Ferencik
Being smart and rich are lucky, but being curious and compassionate will save your ass. Being curious and compassionate can take you out of your ego and edge your soul towards wonder.
Mary Karr
Just as we can’t fully explain what is beautiful, so we can’t fully explain why we are friends with someone in a way that will make the grounds of our attraction obvious to another — and even to ourselves. Our efforts always leave something out. And it is what is always left out that we try to gesture toward when we say that it is not something ABOUT our friends that we love but our friends THEMSELVES. But the self that we love is always just one one step behind whatever we can actually articulate. And so we are faced with a choice between saying something that seems informative but is never enough of an explanation ('loyal, practical, unworldly and so on') and saying something else that seems like an explanation but is completely uninformative ('the individual, in the uniqueness and integrity of his or her individuality').
Alexander Nehamas
It is a great paradox and a great injustice that writers write because we fear death and want to leave something indestructible in our wake and, at the same time, are drawn to all the things that kill: whiskey and cigarettes, unprotected sex, and deep-fried burritos.
Ariel Gore
Imagine America as one house on a suburban lane. Years before he became a Jehovah's Witness, Prince knocked on America's door through his music. He came to the door holding a guitar and an umbrella while concealing a Bible. He flirted his way inside the door and told us he had a dirty mind and was controversial, and then he sat down in the living room on the good couch. And, when America's guard was down, because we thought we were having a conversation about sex, Prince eased out his Bible and said, "Let me also tell you about my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Touré
It is better to be alone then to be in a relationship, while you are trying to figure out what love means to you.
Shannon L. Alder
You have no concept of fairness, apart from your desire to have your own way. I suggest you put that notion from your head, because despite what you believe, the realms will not cater to your whims, and neither will I.
Dawn Jayne
Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black. She has a knife, knife, knife, stuck in her back, back, back. She cannot breathe, breathe, breathe. She cannot cry, cry, cry. Thats why she begs, begs, begs. She begs to die, die ,die..
Laurie Faria Stolarz
Anyone who hates anyone, only hates themselves.
Bryant McGill
It is commonly said to my little friend Legion: Read the great writers for style. But I say to him: Read the great dead masters for ideas. Devour them, Fletcherize them, digest, assimilate, make them part of your blood; let the enriched blood visit your brain. The resultant activities will be fairly your own, and the little kinks and convolutions of your brain, which are entirely different from the kinks of any other brain, will furnish you all the style you will ever get.There are no really fresh ideas; just as there is not any fresh air. Air and ideas are refreshed and refreshing, vitalized and vitalizing; but the thoughts have been thought before and the air has been breathed before.
Eugene Manlove Rhodes
I guess I would say: above anything else, stay true to yourself. Whether that means for you that you like to have blue hair, or you don’t like to drink, or you are attracted to the same sex, or you want to remove yourself from Facebook, or you’ve got 3 different kids from 3 different dads but you know you’re a really good mom, or you cry for a week because your turtle died. Whatever your truth is, stay true to yourself. But be a good person while you’re at it.
Gillian Anderson
My innocence is not lost—it has been converted into wisdom. The sensation we call "breaking" is the pain that comes from resisting the truth. Life broke parts of me that needed to fall away for me to live an open and truthful life.
Jewel
Deep experience is never peaceful.
Henry James
There are other ways of knowing than just through reason.
Gerald Morris
We've got an unbeatable team."- Sauron
Robert Lynn Asprin
Have you ever been torn between two impossibilities and knew in your heart that no matter which way you went or which path you chose that you were doomed to unhappiness?
Maya Banks
What great leaders have in common is that each truly knows his or her strengths - and can call on the right strength at the right time.
Tom Rath
You benefit at a different time, from when you planted seeds for success. Learn patience. But be persistent. It’s important for success. Use perseverance and dedicate yourself to your top goals.
Mark F. LaMoure
We are all cursed. We live in the era of the curse. A world that cannot be fixed. The best thing would be an alien ship. Another planet. One with three moons. But you, I saw you in my dreams. I saw you coming. You came to heal my broken heart. That's why I named you Ahlam.
Hannah Lillith Assadi
Am I crazy?" she asked. "I feel like I am sometimes." "Maybe," he said, rubbing her forehead. "But don't worry about it. You need to be a little bit crazy. Crazy is the price you pay for having an imagination. It's your superpower. Tapping into the dream. It's a good thing not a bad thing.
Ruth Ozeki
If there is anything certain in life, it is this. Time doesn't always heal. Not really. I know they say it does, but that is not true. What time does is to trick you into believing that you have healed, that the hurt of a great loss has lessened. But a single word, a note of a song, a fragrance, a knife point of dawn light across an empty room, any one of these things will take you back to that one moment you have never truly forgotten. These small things are the agents of memory. They are the sharp needle points piercing the living fabric of your life.Life, my children, isn't linear where the heart is concerned. It is filled with invisible threads that reach out from your past and into your future. These threads connect every second we have lived and breathed. As your own lives move forward and as the decades pass, the more of these threads are cast. Your task is to weave them into a tapestry, one that tells the story of the time we shared.
Stephen Lee
Writing is the dancing of words, sometimes it is beautiful and meaningful, sometimes it is not.
Debasish Mridha
I’ve always thought you should be able to freeze time. This way you could hit the Pause button at a really good point in your life so that nothing changes
Jennifer Niven
We only have babies when we’re young enough not to know how grim life turns out.
Gregory Maguire
This life is yours. Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well. Take the power to love what you want in life and love it honestly. Take the power to walk in the forest and be a part of nature. Take the power to control your own life. No one else can do it for you. Take the power to make your life happy.
Susan Polis Schutz
Peggy is a sovereign nation. She governs herself and those around her by her own laws.
Katlyn Charlesworth
I didn’t yet know that romantic heroes—famous and not—are usually aimless nomads in disguise.
Sherman Alexie
Tis the unexpected that makes life interesting.
Ashlyn Chase
In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.
Fred Rogers
Think I have made a terrible mistake going to college. Have decided to become a shepherd and spend my days tending to flocks of goats
Scott Frost
Parenthood makes such sweet hypocrites of us all.
Jess Walter
It may be that no religious reconciliation with the absolute totality of things is possible. Some evils, indeed, are ministerial to higher forms of good; but it may be that there are forms of evil so extreme as to enter into no good system whatsoever…
William James
Han Solo.A legend of the Rebellion against the Empire. Trader, pirate, con man, and fighter extraordinaire. It was hard to believe he was real, Finn thought. Solo was history come to life.
Alan Dean Foster