Quotes by American Authors - Page 11

I work with a great deal of discipline, although I usually take on more than I can handle and often have to extend due dates. I have always been appalled by bohemianism because of its laziness, disorder, and moral weakness. I understand that this way of living is a response to the fact of human frailty, but it leans too far in one direction. Being a little more buttoned up doesn’t mean that you’ll get so brittle that you’ll break. Nor does it mean that you don’t understand tragedy, loss, and, most of all, human limitation.I am more than well aware of those things and I feel very strongly, but on the other hand I like to run ten miles and return to a spotless well-ordered room, and I like my shirts heavily starched. When I used to go on a long run on Sunday morning when I lived on the Upper West Side, I would pass thousands and thousands of people in restaurants eating . . . (I won’t say this word, because I hate it so much, but it rhymes with hunch, and it’s a disgusting meal that is supposed to be both breakfast and lunch). There they were—having slept for five hours while I was doing calisthenics and running—unshaven (the women too), bleary eyed, surrounded by newspapers scattered as if in a hamster cage, smoking noxious French cigarettes, and drinking Bloody Marys while they ate huge quantities of fat. They looked to me like a movie version of South American bandits. I would never want to be like that. I prefer to live like a British soldier.
Mark Helprin
What? Don't you want a girl who can talk dirty to you?"His look only hardens. "No, Lucy. I'm serious. I won't tolerate that from you." He doesn't look away and I feel that heat in the pit of my stomach, spreading down again. "Well...I've heard you curse before..." I swallow loudly, but keep his gaze."I'm a man.
Willow Madison
Good units walk a thin line between indiscipline and ineffectiveness. Ignore the rules too often and you’ve got a mob, but enforce the rules too strictly and you’ve got a herd.
Henry V. O'Neil
Self-discipline is the cornerstone of any endeavor.
Bohdi Sanders
You’re smarter than you look,’ I say to Raffe.‘But not as smart as he thinks,’ says Howler.‘I can see discipline has broken down during your vacation,’ says Raffe.‘Yeah, it’s all that lounging on the beach with nothing to do but drink and watch women.
Susan Ee
A brick can be used to represent the zero probability of this book being any good.
Amy Sommers
Topology is destiny,' he said, and put the drawers on. One leg at a time.
Neal Stephenson
Programmers are not mathematicians, no matter how much we wish and wish for it.
Richard P. Gabriel
On Mars, the joke went, a man’s hole was his castle where values of castle approached dorm room.
James S.A. Corey
Today was about chasing sun-rays, beach waves, & sunsets. All things beautiful that give you peace are worth chasing. Everything else isn't.
April Mae Monterrosa
He had a voice you couldn't miss: strong and penetrating with strange vowels that sounded different from the accents of other English speakers even to me. I later discovered that he was Canadian.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Even Dionysus's welcome-home speech wasn't enough to dampen my spirits. "Yes, yes, so the little brat didn't get himself killed and now he'll have an even bigger head. Well, huzzah for that. In other announcements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday....
Rick Riordan
Your 'let's remain calm and stay put' speech would be a lot more convincing if you weren't giving it in front of a pile of burning skeletons.
David Wong
I ended my statement to the colored soldiers by saying: "Now, I shall be very sorry to hurt you, and you don't know whether or not I will keep my word, but my men can tell you that I always do;" whereupon my cow-punchers, hunters, and miners solemnly nodded their heads and commented in chorus, exactly as if in a comic opera, "He always does; he always does!
Theodore Roosevelt
Servers moved among the guests with trays of hors d'oeuvres and the signature cocktail, champagne with a honey infused liqueur and a delicate spiral twist of lemon.The banquet was bursting with color and flavor- flower-sprinkled salads, savory chili roasted salmon, honey glazed ribs, just-harvested sweet corn, lush tomatoes and berries, artisan cheeses. Everything had been harvested within a fifty-mile radius of Bella Vista.The cake was exactly what Tess had requested, a gorgeous tower of sweetness. Tess offered a gracious speech as she and Dominic cut the first slices. "I've come a long way from the city girl who subsisted on Red Bull and microwave burritos," she said. "There's quite a list of people to thank for that- my wonderful mother, my grandfather and my beautiful sister who created this place of celebration. Most of all, I'm grateful to Dominic." She turned to him, offering the first piece on a yellow china plate. "You're my heart, and there is no sweeter feeling than the love we share. Not even this cake. Wait, that might be overstating it. Everyone, be sure you taste this cake. It's one of Isabel's best recipes.
Susan Wiggs
To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.
Barack Obama
It’s the bonds forged over baijiu, more than anything else, that keep me coming back for another ganbei despite the hiccups, figurative and literal. You can learn more about someone after three shots of baijiu than in years of sober tea sipping.
Derek Sandhaus
All political movements are basically anti-creative — since a political movement is a form of war. “There’s no place for impractical dreamers around here,” that’s what they always say. “Your writing activities will be directed, kindly stop horsing around.” “As for the smoking of marijuana, it is the exploitation for the workers.” Both favor alcohol and are against pot.
William S Burroughs
Like anybody can tell you, I am not a very nice man. I don't know the word. I have always admired the villain, the outlaw, the son of a bitch. I don't like the clean-shaven boy with the necktie and the good job. I like desperate men, men with broken teeth and broken minds and broken ways. They interest me. They are full of surprises and explosions. I also like vile women, drunk cursing bitches with loose stockings and sloppy mascara faces. I'm more interested in perverts than saints. I can relax with bums because I am a bum. I don't like laws, morals, religions, rules. I don't like to be shaped by society.
Charles Bukowski
Sophara scrawled orders on a slate and handed it to one of the libationarians, whose encyclopedic knowledge of the contents and locations of all the bottles kept the bar running.
Scott Lynch
What’s your poison or should I just waste my money by guessing something you probably won’t even drink? I’d much rather get you something you like.
Jason Medina
Whoever said that a drunk mind speaks sober thoughts...was clearly still drunk off their ass. -Jackson 'Blame It on the Pain
Ashley Jade
Not giving him booze, are you? He's a little young for it.
Cassandra Clare
Oh, I'm not saying that alcohol is perfect. It has caused its share of problems. Russia is only one example.
Dave Barry
I'm Irish yet I don't drink as I refuse to be a stereotype and live down to the expectations of others.
Stewart Stafford
Need 'nether whiskey. Whiskey chaser. Gotta get two men drunk.'Mr. Cohan placed both hands on the bar. 'Mr. Walsh,' he said severely, 'in Gavagan's we will serve a man a drink to wet his whistle, or even because his old woman has pasted him with a dornick, but a drink to get drunk with I do not sell. Now I'm telling you you've had enough for tonight, and in the morning you'll be thanking me...' ("My Brother's Keeper")
Fletcher Pratt
You know that movie, where the little boy says 'I see dead people'?The Sixth Sense.Well, I see them all the time, and I'm getting tired of it. That's what's ruined my mood. Here it is, almost Christmas, and I didn't even think about putting up a tree, because I'm still seeing the autopsy lab in my head. I'm still smelling it on my hands. I come home on a day like this, after two postmortems, and I can't think about cooking dinner. I can't even look at a piece of meat without thinking of muscle fibers. All I can deal with is a cocktail. And then I pour the drink and smell the alcohol, and suddenly there I am, back in the lab. Alcohol, formalin, they both have that same sharp smell.
Tess Gerritsen
The stains could be seen only in the sunlight, so Ruth was never really aware of them until later, when she would stop at an outdoor cafe for a cup of coffee, and look down at her skirt and see the dark traces of spilled vodka or whiskey. The alcohol had the effect of making the black cloth blacker. This amused her; she had noted in her journal: 'booze affects material as it does people'.
Alice Sebold
One more drink and I'll be under the host.
Mae West
To blithely discard the spent kernels of something that has ended is to discard the very resources that have painstakingly been harvested from that ending from which a spirited new beginning will be cultivated.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Sure, things die. Yet hard on the heels of every death there comes a birth. And if the life around me is being perpetually refreshed in such a relentless manner, why would I think that the life within me can’t have the same experience.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
We are sentenced to die the day we are born.
Gary Mark Gilmore
Down close to certain flowersall excesses are sufficiencies
David Giannini
One character all messages had in common was vague generality. "Fly away with me," a tussie-mussie might suggest, but never "Meet me at the railway depot at six-thirty.
Geraldine Adamich Laufer
The estate looked vast and prosperous- on the surface, at least. Bella Vista was stunningly lovely, the orchards well tended and clearly productive. If there was a place in the world that was closer to heaven, she wasn't aware of it. Bella Vista- Beautiful View. A panorama view of the orchards, herb and flower fields radiated outward from the patio. The scents of ripe apples, lavender and roses rode the breeze, mingling with the mind-melting aroma of Isabel's fresh-baked croissants.
Susan Wiggs
Raff,' Katsa said, 'your problem is that your heart's not in it. We need to find something to strengthen your defensive resolve. What if you pretended he's trying to smash your favorite medicinal plant?''The rare blue safflower,' Bann suggested.'Yes,' Katsa said gamely, 'pretend he's after your snaf
Kristin Cashore
Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody.
J.D. Salinger
That's the world out there, little green apples and infectious disease.
Don DeLillo
Light and dark ain't supposed to mix. They're like broccoli and chocolate - just nasty when you put them together - but that appears to be what's happening with you
H.M. Ward
It is better to have ten skeletons in your closet, than walk with no bones.
Anthony Liccione
King Drowden has given his men instructions to infiltrate the town, bribe townspeople for the secrets of their neighbors, steal the neighbors’ hidden treasures. Much more subtle than Drowden’s usual smash and burn technique. We do hope Drowden isn’t growing a brain.
Kristin Cashore
I’m bored to death. Perhaps I should pillage one of my neighbors for my own amusement. It seems to work for Drowden.
Kristin Cashore
Would you please do me the honor of telling me WHAT THE BLAZES IS GOING ON?
Kristin Cashore
Our analyses of the FDA data showed relatively little difference between the effects of antidepressants and the effects of placebos. Indeed, the effects were so small that they did not qualify as clinically significant. The drug companies knew how small the effect of their medications were compared to placebos, and so did the FDA and other regulatory agencies. The companies found various ways to make the data seem more favorable to their products, and the FDA helped them keep their negative data secret. In fact, in some instances, the FDA urged the companies to keep negative data hidden, even when the companies wanted to reveal them. My colleagues and I hadn't really discovered anything new. We had merely revealed their 'dirty little secret'.
Irving Kirsch
There's always another secret.' -Kelsier
Brandon Sanderson
Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it as it is to its victims—the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates.
Paul Hoffman
Because you see, when you’re a strong person, people often look to you to take care of them. People look to you for help. People look to you for strength.And when your life spins out of control, it’s as if their lives are tied to your own and will come crashing down with yours.
Nessie Q.
You can be strong as any boy if you'll work hard and train yourself in athletics, the way boys do.
Jill Lepore
I think everyone is strong and weak in different ways.
Cassandra Clare
Who you are should not be defined by your achievements.
Bill Courtney
As you search for a person, place, or thing, be prepared to continue your quest, should the end result not yield your desired outcome. Enjoy the process and you’ll avoid disappointment…!
James A. Murphy
Because if you don't know someone all that well, you react to their surface qualities, the superficial stereotypes they throw off like sparks... But once you fight through the sparks and get to the person, you find just that, a person, a big jumble of likes, dislikes, fears, and desires.
Dorothy West
Whenever a homeless person speaks to me in the USA, I always assume that I am speaking to a police officer and play along with the suspected charade.
Steven Magee
Even in that difficult hour when he knew death was imminent, he never indulged in self-pity. He knew intuitively that a person is only a victim if he accepts himself as one.
James C. Dobson
Individuation is an attainment of spiritual maturity frighteningly seldom attained in today's mono-cultures.
Bryant McGill
All creatures must learn that there exist predators. Without this knowing, a woman will be unable to negotiate safely within her own forest without being devoured. To understand the predator is to become a mature animal who is not vulnerable out of naivete, inexperience, or foolishness.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Maturity doesn't mean you stop fighting, you just change the things you fight for.
Carlos Wallace
All my life I have placed great store in civility and good manners, practices I find scarce among the often hard-edged, badly socialized scientists with whom I associate. Tone of voice means a great deal to me in the course of debate. I despise the arrogance and doting self-regard so frequently found among the very bright.
Edward O. Wilson
There's nothing more narcissistic than being sure that you are built in the image of an all-powerful Creator-God, and that same God answers your prayers, knows your name, and has a personal relationship with you.
David G. McAfee
He seemed like the type that kept people at arm's length, maybe out of arrogance or maybe from personal choice- either way, I wanted to know him so that those eyes were narrowed and focused solely on me.
R.S Grey