Quotes by American Authors - Page 632

Taking a life, is not worth getting life in prison.
Anthony Liccione
If you treat your characters like people, they'll reward you by being fully developed individuals.
Don Roff
Writing- the profession in which you stare at a computer screen, stare out the window, type a few words, then curse repeatedly.
Drew Goodman
I peek up at his features, at the crooked grin i want to savor, at the color in his eyes i'd use to paint a million pictures.
Tahereh Mafi
From his cradle to the grave a man never does a single thing which has any first and foremost object save one-to secure peace of mind spiritual comfort for himself.
Mark Twain
Rights can be considered wrongs, depending on who is judging.
Suzy Kassem
We speak in (rich) monotones. Our poetry is haunted by the music it has left behind. Orpheus shrinks to a poet when he looks back, with the impatience of reason, on a music stronger than death.
George Steiner
But they can rule by fraud, and by fraud eventually acquire access to the tools they need to finish the job of killing off the Constitution.''What sort of tools?''More stringent security measures. Universal electronic surveillance. No-knock laws. Stop and frisk laws. Government inspection of first-class mail. Automatic fingerprinting, photographing, blood tests, and urinalysis of any person arrested before he is charged with a crime. A law making it unlawful to resist even unlawful arrest. Laws establishing detention camps for potential subversives. Gun control laws. Restrictions on travel. The assassinations, you see, establish the need for such laws in the public mind. Instead of realizing that there is a conspiracy, conducted by a handful of men, the people reason—or are manipulated into reasoning—that the entire population must have its freedom restricted in order to protect the leaders. The people agree that they themselves can't be trusted.
Robert Anton Wilson
But we were talking about me and my problems."Sophronia looked Monique up and down gravely."I don't think we're going to solve those in the space of one carriage ride.
Gail Carriger
Moscow appeared to her as an Asiatic sprawl of twisting streets, wooden shanties, and horse cabs. But already another Moscow was rising up through the chaos of the first. Streets built to accommodate donkey tracks have been torn open and replaced with boulevards broader than two or three Park Avenues. On the sidewalks, pedestrians were being detoured onto planks around enormous construction pits. A smell of sawdust and metal filings hung in the air
Sana Krasikov
To set yourself up for success, you need to be real about what you can commit to consistently.
Amber Hurdle
My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say "You're tearing up the grass." "We're not raising grass " Dad would reply. "We're raising boys."
Harmon Killebrew
Because there are hundreds of different ways to say one thing, I, being a writer, songwriter, and poet, speak childishly and incoherently. In speech there is so much to decide in so little time.
Criss Jami
Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.
Erich Fromm
A broken heart is something even I can’t protect you from. I’ve been alone for so long, and believe me, all that does is provide a false sense of security. Being alone doesn’t erase the deep yearning that exists in all of us. We are not solitary creatures. You have to love and open your heart. If not, what is it we are trying to save? When it swallows you whole, remember it means you’ve lived.
Carol Oates
Exercise not only tones the muscles, but also refines the brain and revives the soul.
Michael Treanor
Isn't it funny how ignorance is the source of strength of so many?
Lionel Suggs
Shame and suffering, as St. Bernard says, are the two ladder-uprights which are set up to heaven, and between those two uprights are the rungs of all virtues fixed, by which one climbs to the joy of heaven… In these two things, in which is all penance, rejoice and be glad, for in return for these, twofold blisses are prepared: in return for shame honour; in return for suffering, delight and rest without end.
Philip Zaleski
No matter how offensive she's been to me, she continues to act as if she has some sort of God-given right to keep coming back for more favors.
Diane Capri
Trust no one, I scold myself. Even if they smell good.
Lydia Kang
There is something called positive thinking that people often confuse with hope. But it is different. Positive thinking is a state of mind, while hope is a useless state of the heart. Positive thinking is about doing and hope is about feeling. So, positive thinking is what you need.
Stevan V. Nikolic
If stupidity got us into this, why can't stupidity get us out?
Will Rogers
You want to …?” His other eye popped open as I started to slide down his body, intent on exploring that part of him which had given me so much pleasure. He grabbed me before I was able to move four inches. I looked up, worried that I had done something wrong. A familiar strained, tense look was on his face, his eyes screwed up tight. I looked down at his penis. It was no longer in a resting state. “I thought you were sated?”I was. Until you went and mentioned doing that to me. No! Don’t touch me there, woman! For the love of – grk!”A half hour later, Gabriel, his arm wrapped around me because my legs were unusually weak, hustled me toward the house with a grim look on his
Katie MacAlister
The boy knew that escaping school was the surest sign of his election.
Flannery O'Connor
Serendipity was my tour guide, assisted by caprice
Pico Iyer
When I lost my sight, Werner, people said I was brave. When my father left, people said I was brave. But it is not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don't you do the same?
Anthony Doerr
One of Lincoln's intimates as a presidential candidate urged him to make no promises and not to part with those kind words which could be interpreted as promises.
Harold Holzer
Christianity, true Christianity, is experienced when we crucify the anger, pride, vanity and lust that dwells within ourselves and consciously replace it with the sacrificial love, humility, modesty and chasteness of the One who so many profess to believe in and follow. -Jason Neville Versey
Jason Neville Versey
This is a court of law young man not a court of justice.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
The world is on fire! Why am I sitting in front of my computer? It is because I don’t have a fire extinguisher for the world, and there isn’t a global 911 to call.
Charles Eisenstein
Remember this, for it is as true and true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth well as aardvarks, lions, rhinoceri, elephants, moose, and water buffalo. Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body.
Ina May Gaskin
Fears are nothing more than a state of mind
Napoleon Hill
The worst kind of poison for despots: truth.
Kay Kenyon
A couple you do not recognize - visitors, strangers - come to the door. How are you to view these people and what is your responsibility towards them? ... To assume that these visitors are really like you, that there are no real difference between you and them, and that the highest goal possible is that you and the other members of your congregation will become intimate friends with them and invite them into the private spaces of your life.
Thomas G. Long
We may speak about a place where there are no tears, no death, no fear, no night; but those are just the benefits of heaven. The beauty of heaven is seeing God.
Max Lucado
Who are we without our memories?
Marta Acosta
I think that must be a lot like how God has it--not to sound as if I think I'm anything like God, mind you. But the whole idea--sitting up there behind glass you can't be seen through. The person down below looks up and it's just a reflection of themselves, a mirror is what they see. But behind the glass, somebody who loves you more than anything is watching, and is hoping for the best for you, and cheering you on, and is loving you even when you are doing something you shouldn't be.
Suzanne Strempek Shea
Its remarkable the logic we build around a misapprehension.
Sloane Crosley
Tolerance of intolerance enables oppression.
DaShanne Stokes
Mom was the midwife who delivered stories to me.
Rachael Hanel
Terrific. A bisexual dominant vampire with kidnapping expertise.
J.R. Ward
It was all right to be who he was, but others would probably think it was terrible. A couple of times in the past he'd reached this absolute zero of the truth, and without fear or bitterness he realized now that somewhere inside it there was a move he could make to change his life, to become another person, but he'd never be able to guess what it was.
Denis Johnson
Memories are simply moments that refuse to be ordinary
Diane Keaton
Have you ever noticed,” he said, stirred now by this vision of domestic bliss that was beyond his reach, and shocked earlier that evening to find himself crying in the subway on his way home from a client, “that gay people secrete everything in each other’s presence but tears?
Andrew Holleran
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could some blunders and absurdities have crept in forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
What's that?""The laundry basket?""No, next to it.""I don't see anything next to it.""It's my last shred of dignity. It's very small.
John Green
I meditate; therefore, you live.
Neo Shamon
On Wall Street, the lawyers play the same role as medics in war: They come in after the shooting is over to clean up the mess.
Michael Lewis
You can never hurt anyone without hurting yourself. Never hurt an innocent, loving, and kind animal.
Debasish Mridha
I think that real friendship always makes us feel such sweet gratitude, because the world almost always seems like a very hard desert, and the flowers that grow there seem to grow against such high odds.
Stephen King
You will never feel truly satisfied by work until you are satisfied by life.
Heather Schuck
To look deep into your child's eyes and see in him both yourself and something utterly strange, and then to develop a zealous attachment to every aspect of him, is to achieve parenthood's self-regarding, yet unselfish, abandon. It is astonishing how often such mutuality had been realized - how frequently parents who had supposed that they couldn't care for an exceptional child discover that they can. The parental predisposition to love prevails in the most harrowing of circumstances. There is more imagination in the world than one might think.
Andrew Solomon
Words can be honed to crafted perfection by the finest wordsmiths. Yet, if we trust solely in the expanse of them to explain this God of ours or articulate our experience of Him, we will have brutally destroyed the very things we are attempting to explain. And if I should do that, no words can describe how badly I wish I had no words.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Of course I don’t want to get knocked down. But the single and sole solution to that fear is to not go anywhere where I can be knocked down. And is that not already being knocked down?
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Take out the garbage...true happiness comes from within not from without!
Ken Poirot
Choose to be a love-finder rather than a faultfinder.
Gerald Jampolsky
If you want to discover the true character of a person, you have only to observe what they are passionate about.
Shannon L. Alder
If we are serious about loving God, we must begin with people, all people. And especially we must learn to love those that the world generally discards.
John Ortberg
The rise of feminist underpants is a weird twist on Karl Marx's theory of commodity fetishism, wherein consumer products once divorced from inherent use value are imbued with all sorts of meaning. To brand something as feminist doesn't involve ideology, or labor, or policy, or specific actions or processes. It's just a matter of saying, 'This is feminist because we say it is.
Andi Zeisler
I don't understand how the pain of losing him can be a pale shadow in comparison to the pain of finding him again.
Amy Engel