Quotes by American Authors - Page 73

The most we can hope for when we write anything is dazzling imperfection. The least we can hope for is accolades from one or two people who don't know us. Spending all afternoon on "the right word" is probably foolish (though I've done it many times), but then again, it may not be. There may be people out there who'll read that nearly-perfect sentence (or paragraph), with its "right word," and they'll nod and smile and say to themselves, "Hey, that's not too bad.
T.M. Wright
I'm not always sincere. One can't be in this world, you know.
Greta Garbo
And then I laugh, because it's so ridiculous and so gorgeous and it's all I an do to not melt into a fit of giggles. So what if I'm ninety-three? So what if I'm ancient and cranky and my body's a wreck? If they're willing to accept me and my guilty conscience, why the hell shouldn't I run away with the circus? It's like Charlie told the cop. For this old man, this IS home.
Sara Gruen
Even though I didn't think I'd like empathy it kind of creeps up on you and makes you feel all warm and glowy inside. I don't think I want to go back to life without empathy.
Kathryn Erskine
The real plague is willful ignorance and education can't cure that.
Marty Rubin
Those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world usually do.
Steve Jobs
God, don't laugh!" Jamie said, alarmed. "I didna mean to make ye laugh! Christ, Jenny will kill me if ye cough up a lung and die out here!
Diana Gabaldon
Lies aren't just the things we tell -- they're the lives we lead.
Ally Carter
The silence wasn't like the ones I'd known lately, though; it wasn't empty so much as chosen. There's an entirely different feel to quiet when you're with someone else, and at any moment it could be broken. Like the difference between a pause and an ending.
Sarah Dessen
I know that when I read the Bible, my life is transformed. I think differently. I act differently. I talk differently.
Jim George
The monkey liked most humans. They left food cans outside their homes for his family to rummage through in the morningsun. Some yelled and threw sticks, but were slow and didn’t bite. Humans were mostly harmless.
Cole Alpaugh
People who made their dreams come true didn’t simply go after it. They changed the person they were, in order to fit the type of person that would live that type of dream.
Shannon L. Alder
It is believed by many that the military life is one of adventure and excitement. In truth, that life more often consists of long periods of routine, even boredom, with only brief intervals of challenge and danger. Enemies seldom seek out their opponents. The warrior must become a hunter, searching and stalking with craft and patience. Successes are often achieved by a confluence of small things: stray facts, unwary or overheard conversations, logistical vectors. If the hunter is persistent, the pattern will become visible, and the enemy will be found. Only then will the routine be broken by combat.It's not supervising, therefore, that those seeking sometimes weary of long and arduous pursuits. They are relieved when the enemy appears of his own accord, standing firm and issuing a challenge.
Timothy Zahn
Because we are always growing, life compounds and magnifies what is already in us. If you are miserable you grow in misery and if you are joyful you grow in joy. This makes self-love is the perfect soil from which to grow love.
Bryant McGill
If you are stealing people's thunder just by being around and standing there; you really can't expect people to like you. People want their own thunder to be heard loud and wide, not yours! Swans should never despair over ducks not liking them.
C. JoyBell C.
Wish not for treasure you can hold, No gleaming jewels, bright and cold, For finer still than pearl or gold, The treasure of a tale well told...
Brian Holguin
If God give you strength and courage, don't use it to intimidate people or overpower them, rather use your gift to help others find their own way to strength.
Anthony Liccione
The real winners in life are the people who look at every situation with an expectation that they can make it work ot make it better.
Barbra Pletcher
How do you calculate upon the unforeseen? It seems to be an art of recognizing the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance amid surprises, of collaborating with chance, of recognizing that there are some essential mysteries in the world and thereby a limit to calculation, to plan, to control.
Rebecca Solnit
It took me years to figure out that upset was upset, and tumultuousness was not the same thing as passion. Love isn't drama.
Deb Caletti
What happened to us? It was a question that interested her. Most people seemed to believe that they were experts of their own life story. They had a set of memories that they strung like beads, and this necklace told a sensible tale. But she suspected that most of these stories would fall apart under strict examination--that, in fact, we were only peeping through a keyhole of our lives, and the majority of the truth, the reality of what happened to us, was hidden. Memories were no more solid than dreams...What happened to us? She drew smoke, considering the question. Was it possible that we would never really know? What if we were not, actually, the curators of our own lives?
Dan Chaon
If possible, try to avoid pushing each other over the edge, as that would cause me extra paperwork.
Rick Riordan
I’m convinced we have each been endowed with a beautiful heart. We may not always see it. We may not even believe it. But it’s a gift that came with birth and, every time we act selflessly, it grows a little.
Steve Goodier
I'm tired of being responsible for other people's misery. I can't even put up with my own.
Katja Millay
Been under treatment for PTSD and bipolar since 1992. I’m not ashamed of my illness. I’ve been shunned by many and I feel for those shunned, too.
Stanley Victor Paskavich
The best kind of day is a writing day
Buffy Andrews
Tracy had never been so conscious of the sky above the earth, the dangerous clouds that gathered there, the way humans lived beneath such grandeur and threat every moment of their lives.
Paul Russell
I, too, like yourself was a good party man: my party was that of the Church; I was ultramontane. Your party system is one of your thefts from our Church; your National Convention is our Ecunemic Council; you abdicate reason, as we do, before its decisions; and you yourself Mr. Ratcliffe, you are a Cardinal.
Henry Adams
Humanity needs heroic leadership from those who see all life as precious.
Bryant McGill
All is good. Don't worry, the pain will help you. You'll get into some trouble, but it will work out in the end.
James Franco
Mens videt astra.(The soul sees the stars.)
Merrie Haskell
I've lived all these years among those who create nothing and change nothing,' I said. 'Actors and musicians-they're saints to me.
Anne Rice
We are partners with our children because we are just like them, dearly loved sinners.
Elyse M. Fitzpatrick
She wore red lipstick the next time that I saw her, though her hair was more voluminous with dirt than before. Owing, like everything else about these girls, to the fertility of rats.
Kathy Acker
Memory is essential to who we are, and memories can be both implicit and explicit - unconscious and conscious.
Siri Hustvedt
We cannot honor those we have lost if we lose our minds. - Charmainism
Charmaine Smith Ladd
Painful experiences are like scars in our minds. Some have healed and been forgotten. Others are there as a reminder of what we have been through…
James A. Murphy
When Isaiah predicted that spears would become pruning hooks, that's a reference to cultivating. Pruning and trimming and growing and paying close attention to the plants and whether they're getting enough water and if their roots are deep enough. Soil under the fingernails, grapes being trampled under bare feet, fingers sticky from handling fresh fruit. It's that green stripe you get around the sole of your shoes when you mow the lawn. Life in the age to come. Earthy.
Rob Bell
We can throw stones, complain about them, stumble on them, climb over them, or build with them.
William Arthur Ward
What to make of this man? He was proper. He was passionate. He had the public demeanor of an iceberg, but he kissed her as if she were his oasis in a vast, arid d
Tessa Dare
Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The seeds of happiness can grow from one thought, one idea, one simple change in focus.
Charles F. Glassman
And she was well-enough acquainted with loneliness to understand that the worst part wasn't having nobody caring for you - it was having nobody to care for.
Tessa Dare
A hand in mine.. hot. Breath on my neck... sweet. The feel of lips on my own... forbidden.
Christine Fonseca
You could fill a catalog with all you long for - for him to come back, for a do-over, for a different ending in which not only were you strong and said good-bye but he lived and made a success of his life and decades later you could look back together on your twenties and laugh at all your follies, for his voice on the other end of the phone call, for one more of those Albuquerque nights when it was easy to fall asleep knowing he was just in the next room.
Leigh Stein
Red, orange and green geometric designs painted its body as well as the flimsy collar around its neck. The creature flicked its tail and blinked its deep-set eyes, apparently oblivious to their presence."That's a yraglian lizard," Deven whispered. "We need to stay back. They smell really bad if you upset them. I mean, really, really bad."Dirck nodded, unsurprised that the first native creature he encountered on Cyraria represented it so well.
Marcha A. Fox
You have to do something. If you do something, you become somebody. Even a daffodil does something, has a profession. It gives off scent, professionally.
Stella Adler
The idea is to spin the wheel of metaphors and images until sparks of associations begin to fly for the reader.
Charles Simic
He wanted to show her how to live, even after he was gone.
Kass Morgan
If I can give you all of these real answers to the questions you assumed were big unanswerable ones, imagine the depth of the new set of questions awaiting on the other side of resolution.
Jeremy Vaeni
But the lie had to be a good one, because if your lie is badly done it makes everyone feel wretched, liar and lied-to alike plunged into the deepest lackadaisy, and everyone just feels like going into the other room and drinking a glass of water, or whatever is available there, whereas if you can lie really well then get dynamite results, 35 percent report increased intellectual understanding, awareness, insight, 40 percent report more tolerance, acceptance of others, liking for self, 29 percent report they receive more personal and more confidential information from people and that others become more warm and supportive toward them--all in consequence of a finely orchestrated, carefully developed untruth.
Donald Barthelme
When the mind imagines its own lack of power, it is saddened by it.
Aleksandar Hemon
He was a peculiar sight. Tears rolling down his face, shouting to drown the sound of the singing rabbit; he said he needed help, pointed to a chicken, handed over some money, grabbed his parcel and bolted out the door in panic.Boys, thought the butcher.Drugs, thought the woman.Justin Case, thought Dorothea.
Meg Rosoff
She groaned and rolled her eyes. “Do you ever not get your way?”He stepped closer to her, his chest an inch from hers until her back pressed against the modular wall of the fitting room. “Rarely.” His dark gaze held hers, and the deep rumble of his voice sent heat through her body. “But some things are worth the extra effort.
Lisa Kessler
Why are we bringing him along, again?" Will inquired, of the world in general as well as his sister.Cecily put her hands on her hips. "Why are you bringing Tessa?""Because Tessa and I are going to be married," Will said, and Tessa smiled; the way that Will's little sister could ruffle his feathers like no one else was still amusing to her."Well, Gabriel and I might well be married," Cecily said. "Someday."Gabriel made a choking noise, and turned an alarming shade of purple. Will threw up his hands. "You can't be married Cecily! You're only fifteen! When I get married, I'll be eighteen! An adult!"Cecily did not look impressed. "We may have a long engagement," she said. "But I cannot see why you are counseling me to marry a man my parents have never met."Will sputtered. "I am not counseling you to marry a man your parents have never met!""Then we are in agreement. Gabriel must meet Mam and Dad.
Cassandra Clare
Dignity is a gracious pride without narcissistic projection. It portrays a calm confidence and awareness regardless of the environment or circumstances.
Susan C.Young
Knowledge is like money: To be of value it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and, hopefully, in value.
Louis L'Amour
Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.
Robert A. Heinlein
The self is not something that one finds. It is something one creates.
Thomas Szasz
If the existence of Nuclear weapons has taught us anything it would simply be that just because we possess powerful technologies, it does not necessarily mean that we should use them. Unfortunately, we are currently on course to learn similarly grave lessons from other devastating technologies such Genetically Modified Foods, Chemtrails and HAARP.
Gary Hopkins