Quotes by American Authors - Page 703

And my seven-year-old world humpty-dumptied, never to be put back together again.
Maya Angelou
They’re like sharks. Circling. Cute, single guy, good job, nice car. It’s all they know about me.”His tone was light but his expression serious.Maybe that’s because it’s all you show them.”Maybe it’s all they want to see.
Megan Hart
Humans are capable of so much more. Power mongers like you have stripped away what is most valuable to us, the importance of our heritage and family values. We have been robbed of this, blinded by your authority, while you encourage us to burry ourselves in debt and rely on our corrupt governments. Men and women around the world have been forced to work long hours to keep up with inflated debts, all the while abandoning the families they struggle to support. History repeats, and repeats. It’s time to break the cycle and start anew.
Aaron B. Powell
People say, 'I'm going to sleep now,' as if it were nothing. But it's really a bizarre activity. 'For the next several hours, while the sun is gone, I'm going to become unconscious, temporarily losing command over everything I know and understand. When the sun returns, I will resume my life.'If you didn't know what sleep was, and you had only seen it in a science fiction movie, you would think it was weird and tell all your friends about the movie you'd seen.They had these people, you know? And they would walk around all day and be OK? And then, once a day, usually after dark, they would lie down on these special platforms and become unconscious. They would stop functioning almost completely, except deep in their minds they would have adventures and experiences that were completely impossible in real life. As they lay there, completely vulnerable to their enemies, their only movements were to occasionally shift from one position to another; or, if one of the 'mind adventures' got too real, they would sit up and scream and be glad they weren't unconscious anymore. Then they would drink a lot of coffee.'So, next time you see someone sleeping, make believe you're in a science fiction movie. And whisper, 'The creature is regenerating itself.
George Carlin
Life is a fight from the minute you take your first breath to the moment you exhale your last. You have to fight the people who say it can never be done. You have to fight the institutions that put up the glass ceilings that must be shattered. You have to fight your body when it tells you it is tired. You have to fight your mind when doubt begins to creep in. You have to fight systems that are put in place to disrupt you and obstacles that are put in place to discourage you. You have to fight because you can't count on anyone else fighting for you. And you have to fight for people who can't fight for themselves. To get anything of real value, you have to fight for it.
Ronda Rousey
A woman steps out of the back door after an hour of him sitting. Younger than either of us, blonde with a tinge of gray at her temples, the light creases of age in the corners of her eyes, beautiful in the untouchable way of mothers who are our exemplars for what we will admire in women when we come of age.
Thomm Quackenbush
An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.
J.D. Salinger
We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.
Thomas Jefferson
When the corpses of [Sir John] Franklin's officers and crew were later discovered, miles from their ships, the men were found to have left behind their guns but to have lugged such essentials as monogrammed silver cutlery, a backgammon board, a cigar case, a clothes brush, a tin of button polish, and a copy of "The Vicar of Wakefield." These men may have been incompetent bunglers, but, by God, they were gentlemen.
Anne Fadiman
Against the claims of a violent "human nature" there is enormous historical evidence that people, when free of a manufactured nationalist or religious hysteria, are more inclined to be compassionate than cruel. When citizens have an opportunity to learn of vicious acts committed by their own governments, they react with indignation and protest.So long as atrocities remain remote, abstract, they will be tolerated, even by decent people.
Howard Zinn
Unfortunately, that still leaves plenty of Americans who don't read much or think much -- who will still be extremely useful in unjust wars. We are sick about that. We did the best we could.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Later I would come to believe that erotic ties were all a spell, a temporary psychosis, even a kind of violence, or at least they coexisted with these states. I noted that criminals as well as the insane tended to give off a palpable, vibrating allure, a kind of animal magnetism that kept them loved by someone. How else could they survive at all? Someone had to hide them from the authorities! Hence the necessity and prevalence of sex appeal for people who were wild and on the edge.
Lorrie Moore
When he stood before her naked, he couldn't believe this beautiful woman, with the pale skin, flaming auburn hair, and eyes the color of spring hay, lay waiting for him.tPhoebe's cheeks flushed a pretty pink. "You look like you're hungry and ready to eat the proffered offering."t"I am, and I will.
Elle James
Families come into therapy with their own structure, and tone, and rules. Their organization, their pattern, has been established over years of living, and it is extremely meaningful and very painful for them. They would not be in therapy if they were happy with it. But however faulty, the family counts on the familiarity and predictability of their world. If they are going to turn loose this painful predictability and attempt to reorganize themselves, they need firm external support. The family crucible must has a shape, a form, a discipline of sorts, and the therapist has to provide it. The family has to know whether we can provide it, and so they test us.
Augustus Y. Napier
The division is based on knowledge, based on qualifications - but as I learned from the factionless, a system that relies on a group of uneducated people to do its dirty work without giving them a way to rise is hardly fair.
Veronica Roth
Peace won by compromise is usually a short-lived achievement.
Winfield Scott
Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding.
Bill Watterson
I wondered how my heart could be both light with happiness and heavy with love at the same time.
R.K. Lilley
It took less than an hour to make the atoms, a few hundred million years to make the stars and planets, but five billion years to make man!
George Gamow
Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.
Mark Twain
Dreams, if they're any good, are always a little bit crazy.
Ray Charles
Let your soul be washed by the waves of love to feel the joy of life.
Debasish Mridha
Mastery of impulse is achieved through taking pauses during life’s contrasting situations. Mastery of impulse is about developing strong willpower that can be used to redirect the flow of energy in any situation. Mastery of impulse is about responding to the world with a sense of reason and peace.
Alaric Hutchinson
One can't step into the river twice
Ann Howard Creel
I wish I had another chance to write that school composition, 'What I Did Last Summer.' When I wrote it in fifth grade, I was scared and just recorded: 'It was interesting. It was nice. My summer was fun.' I snuck through with a B grade. But I still wondered, How do you really do that? Now it is obvious. You tell the truth and you depict it in detail: 'My mother dyed her hair red and polished her toenails silver. I was mad for Parcheesi and running the sprinkler catching beetles in a mason jar and feeding them grass. My father sat at the kitchen table a lot staring straight ahead, never talking, a Budweiser in his hand.
Natalie Goldberg
The problem with social media is that it's great for your ego, but terrible for your sanity.
Andrena Sawyer
As I lay there watching Robin sleep beside me, I realized that she was right all along. I didn’t need to live in a castle — a shack in the woods with her would do just fine. And for that matter, I didn’t need to be prince of the ocean either, because with her by my side… I was king of the pond.
Sebastian Cole
A good church is a Bible-centered church. Nothing is as important as this--not a large congregation, a witty pastor, or tangible experiences of the Holy Spirit.
Alistair Begg
Down there between our legs, it's like an entertainment complex in the middle of a sewage system. Who designed that?
Neil deGrasse Tyson
In politics, if you're explaining, you're loosing.
Rick Perlstein
Sandwich outdoors isn’t a sandwich anymore. Tastes different than indoors, notice? Got more spice. Tastes like mint and pinesap. Does wonders for the appetite.
Ray Bradbury
Fewer and fewer families can afford a roof over their head. This is among the most urgent and pressing issues facing America today, and acknowledging the breadth and depth of the problem changes the way we look at poverty. For decades, we’ve focused mainly on jobs, public assistance, parenting, and mass incarceration. No one can deny the importance of these issues, but something fundamental is missing. We have failed to fully appreciate how deeply housing is implicated in the creation of poverty. Not everyone living in a distressed neighborhood is associated with gang members, parole officers, employers, social workers, or pastors. But nearly all of them have a landlord.
Matthew Desmond
Try to remember it always," he said once Gogol had reached him, leading him slowly back across the breakwater, to where his mother and Sonia stood waiting. "Remember that you and I made this journey together to a place where there was nowhere left to go.
Jhumpa Lahiri
I would self-medicate with fat, carbohydrates, and Jane Austen, my number one drug of choice, my constant companion through every breakup, every disappointment, every crisis. Men might come and go, but Jane Austen was always there in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, till death do us part.
Laurie Viera Rigler
Real love feels less like a throbbing, pulsing animal begging for its freedom and beating against the inside of my chest and more like, 'Hey, that place you like had fish tacos today and i got you some while i was out', as it sets a bag spotted with grease on the dining room table. It's not a game you don't understand the rules of, or a test you never got the materials to study for. It never leaves you wondering who could possibly be texting at 3 am. Or what you could possibly do to make it come home and stay there. It's fucking boring, dude. I don't walk around mired in uneasiness, waiting for the other shoe to drop. No parsing through spun tales about why it took her so long to come back from the store. No checking her emails or calling her job to make sure she's actually there. No sitting in my car outside her house at dawn, to make sure she's alone when she leaves. This feels safe, and steadfast, and predictable. And secure. It's boring as shit. And it's easily the best thing I've ever felt.
Samantha Irby
A few fly bites cannot stop a spirited horse.
Mark Twain
Don’t spoil Christmas Day by anticipating how it will be. Let is unfold as it does, and be grateful for whatever comes.
Toni Sorenson
And now Nineteen persons having been hang'd, and one prest to death, and Eight more condemned, in all Twenty and Eight, of which above a third part were Members of some of the Churches of N. England, and more than half of them of a good Conversation in general, and not one clear'd; about Fifty having confest themselves to be Witches, of which not one Executed; above an Hundred and Fifty in Prison, and Two Hundred more accused; the Special Commision of Oyer and Terminer comes to a period.—Robert Calef 1692
Robert Calef
I have learned, that the person I have to ask for forgiveness from the most is: myself. You must love yourself. You have to forgive yourself, everyday, whenever you remember a shortcoming, a flaw, you have to tell yourself "That's just fine". You have to forgive yourself so much, until you don't even see those things anymore. Because that's what love is like.
C. JoyBell C.
That there is a Devil, is a thing doubted by none but such as are under the influences of the Devil.
Cotton Mather
There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader.
Stephen E. Ambrose
I bet you've seen the fundamentalist bumper sticker that says, "God said it! I believe it! That settles it!" It must be a typo because what the driver really means is, "I said it! God believes it! That settles it!
Robert M. Price
Cultivating daily calm, even for a few minutes, yields a core of centered wellness.
Amy Leigh Mercree
To avoid the pain of loss, give up attachment.
Debasish Mridha
Good. Coffee is good for you. It's the caffeine in it. Caffeine, we are here. Caffeine puts a man on her horse and a woman in his grave.
Ernest Hemingway
Sorgan tried his very best not to think about how long it must have taken for a stream that small to eat its way down through solid rock to form its current bed. Sorgan knew exactly what the word “hundred” meant, but when numbers wandered off toward “thousand”—or even “million”—and the people who used those terms were talking about years, Sorgan’s mind shied back in horror.
David Eddings
He had never thought in his wildest imagination of marriage as an opti
Nia Forrester
A camera is a save button for the minds eye.
Roger Kingston
If you talk to God you are praying if God talks to you you have schizophrenia.
Thomas Szasz
Our vision is often more abstracted by what we think we know than by our lack of knowledge.
Krister Stendahl
Desire is easy to fight. Especially when the only weapon desire possesses is attraction. It's not so easy when you're trying to win a war against the heart.
Colleen Hoover
I keep turning over new leaves, and spoiling them, as I used to spoil my copybooks; and I make so many beginnings there never will be an end. (Jo March)
Louisa May Alcott
When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.
Billy Graham
Who we are is not a question we can ask without seeking to understand the context in which we live. Biblical counselors seek to understand the influences that shape the responses of the human heart.
James MacDonald
...the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.""...a ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is.
George R.R. Martin
Actions speak louder than words. Words cost nothing. Actions can cost everything.
Aleksandra Layland
I was getting what I had always wanted, him wanting me.
C.J. English
There are thousands of ways to get rich, but there is only one way to reach the island of happiness. You need unconditional love to reach that island.
Debasish Mridha
If I grew up in the simple-minded belief that women were as strong and intelligent as men, it was because I came from a society that had once believed it.
Shirley Abbott
The feel of her skin as she struggled beneath, the life inside, the death without. The breaching of life and death, of survival uncaged inside him: a dark beast with violence and sex in its soul. In his soul.
Mav Skye