Quotes by American Authors - Page 186

You're more mean-spirited than I remember you being.""It's this organic body. Hologram fur wasn't itchy.
Howard Tayler
Maxim 6: If violence wasn't your last resort, you failed to resort to enough of it.-The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries
Howard Tayler
...trying to predict whether global warming will moderate the next ice age is not only impossible but irrelevant. It doesn't help us get through the next few centuries. And one can only imagine our future, shivering, ice age descendants cursing us for leaving them no fossil fuel to create a global warming "greenhouse" effect when one is really needed.
John Harte
You think I can't get it up anymore, maybe? Lemme tell you, you eat enough garlic and it stands up every time.
Alberto Vitale
Elsie eyed him puzzledly, and then offered, "Would you like to see my plate?
Naomi Novik
While the archetype of the tinker is generally the whipping person in classical bedtimes stories, this particular individual was a tinker by trade and just happened to be economically disadvantaged.
James Finn Garner
The Tausennigan Ob'enn warlords look like cuddly teddy-bears?""Yes, they do, and they'd cheerfully exterminate your entire race for making that observation!""I guess that explains their rich military history, then.
Howard Tayler
I know stealing a foot is weird. But, hello, living in a house where a foot is available to be stolen is weird.
Lauren Ambrose as Claire Fisher
If you want to find out if someone is a true bookworm or not, give them a thousand page novel and see what happens.
E.A. Bucchianeri
How dense and literal it is. I thought it had a much more sophisticated brain." "Your mother is dense," Alif said wearily. "My mother was an errant crest of sea foam. But that is neither here nor there.
G. Willow Wilson
Me? I like wearing a condom. It means I'm having sex. I already spend most of my time NOT wearing one. It's like a tuxedo - I enjoy putting one on for special occasions.
David Mazzucchelli
I was coming down off the last painkiller left in my dresser drawer after Autumn tossed my stash. In that moment I was so groggy and happy I would have accepted a date with Oscar the Grouch - and planned to do some serious feeling up on the green furry beast too. Yeah, stooping to pharmaceutical-inspired sex fantasies about garbage can Sesame Street characters - that had to be the best Just Say No drug lecture a girl in a leg cast could ever receive to make her go cold turkey off the meds.
Rachel Cohn
Oh, come on Em." He stopped walking and looked me in the eyes. His own were dark and shiny. "You know how I feel about you," he muttered."I do?"He stepped closer and whispered, "When you're around, music plays in my head."My eyes welled. "Music," I repeated softly."Well, you know." He grinned. "It's the Jaws theme. Da dum. Da dum.
Jennifer Jabaley
Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin.
Edward Gorey
He once told me that an August evening was "as hot as three toads in a Cuisinart," a comparison that left me blinking two days later.
Dean Koontz
An old joke has an Oxford professor meeting an American former graduate student and asking him what he's working on these days. 'My thesis is on the survival of the class system in the United States.' 'Oh really, that's interesting: one didn't think there was a class system in the United States.' 'Nobody does. That's how it survives.
Christopher Hitchens
Back in my day, which was about a week and a half ago, we took our lumps and we got back up and we cried like babies and quit and then put on weight.
Joss Whedon
My aunt and overprivileged cousin only recognize two states of being: glitter and grunge. And if you weren’t glitter, well, that only left one other option.
Rachel Vincent
Accentuaute the positives - medicate the negatives.
Amy Sedaris
Hey, Carrots," he says.
Cynthia Hand
Censorship is alive and well in America.
Suzy Kassem
When picking a leader, choose a peacemaker. One who unites, not divides. A cultured leader who supports the arts and true freedom of speech, not censorship.
Suzy Kassem
The United States, almost alone today, offers the liberties and the privileges and the tools of freedom. In this land the citizens are still invited to write their plays and books, to paint their pictures, to meet for discussion, to dissent as well as to agree, to mount soapboxes in the public square, to enjoy education in all subjects without censorship, to hold court and judge one another, to compose music, to talk politics with their neighbors without wondering whether the secret police are listening, to exchange ideas as well as goods, to kid the government when it needs kidding, and to read real news of real events instead of phony news manufactured by a paid agent of the state. This is a fact and should give every person pause.
E B White
The anti-life of [Jerry Falwell] proves only one thing: that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and truth in this country if you'll just get yourself called Reverend. People like that should be out in the street, shouting and hollering with a cardboard sign and selling pencils from a cup.
Christopher Hitchens
In the natural sciences, some checks exist on the prolonged acceptance of nutty ideas, which do not hold up well under experimental and observational tests and cannot readily be shown to give rise to useful working technologies. But in economics and the other social studies, nutty ideas may hang around for centuries. Today, leading presidential candidates and tens of millions of voters in the USA embrace ideas that might have been drawn from a 17th-century book on the theory and practice of mercantilism, and multitudes of politicians and ordinary people espouse notions that Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and others exploded more than two centuries ago. In these realms, nearly everyone simply believes whatever he feels good about believing.
Robert Higgs
Is it possible that my walls are specifically erected and intentionally reinforced out of the fear that God calls me to an existence without walls? And if this is so, do I realize that I am the warden of prison that I created in which I myself am the prisoner?
Craig D. Lounsbrough
The world brazenly touts freedom as both the inalienable right and morally liberating justification to mindlessly play in the filth that lies all around me. And the slight bit of sanity that yet remains within me asks, ‘what raging madness would prompt me to incessantly wallow in the very things that will eventually swallow me?
Craig D. Lounsbrough
When we allow ourselves to be authentically free, it raises our vibration.
Alaric Hutchinson
I am wealth, prosperity, and abundance. God multiplies this and I give thanks I AM receiving more and more money everyday.
Ron Barrow
Humility is by far the most spiritual virtue of the lot. The only way by which one may cease obsessing over himself is to wholly step outside his flesh. But who could do this by himself? And who would really want to under his natural pretense? And even if somehow he could and he succeeded, would not it be artificial? Would not he seem far too aware of his own talents of achieving humility for it to be such? Alternatively, he would need a distraction, something else to love; it is not that the Humbleman thinks poorly of himself, nor highly for that matter, but rather he does not think of himself at all - and this is because he is too busy loving something or someone else to do it. For the humility of this kind 'rears its head' as the most love-driven and free, spiritual of virtues; whereas its opposite, pride, the most self-imprisoning human vice.
Criss Jami
It's WW2 and there are wage controls in place. Instead of health care, companies decide to offer employees shoes. Having absorbed those costs, they later lobby for every company to be required to offer shoes. That calls forth regulation and monopolization of the shoe industry. Shoes are heavily subsidized. Every shoe must be approved. Producers must be domestic. They must adhere to a certain quality. They can't discriminate based on foot size or individual need. Prices rise, and some people lack shoes, so the Affordable Shoe Act forces everyone to buy into an official shoe plan or pay a fee. Here we have a perfect plan for making shoes egregiously expensive. The entire country would be consumed with the fear of being shoeless if they lose their job. The left wing calls for a single shoe provider to offer universal shoes and the right wing meekly suggests that shoe makers be permitted to sell across state lines.Meanwhile, libertarians suggest that we just forget the whole thing and let the market make and deliver shoes of every quality to anyone from anyone. Everyone screams that this is an insane and dangerous idea.
Jeffrey Tucker
Democratic Socialism is simply Totalitarianism that allows you the illusion of a voice in the matter.
A.E. Samaan
There is no more precious currency than the unfettered liberty to explore while engaged in an "Idea Economy". You cannot centrally plan the "Idea Economy" any more than you can plan fun or spontaneity. Regulations are restraints in an "Idea Economy". The entrepreneur is either free to experiment or not.
A.E. Samaan
Legislating morality grows big government immensely, and helps fashion the noose the government will use to ultimately hang you by.
A.E. Samaan
Funny, I don't particularly care for either "laws" or "order". Liberty is messy. Freedom yields imperfect results.
A.E. Samaan
Playing the victim role: Manipulator portrays him- or herself as a victim of circumstance or of someone else's behavior in order to gain pity, sympathy or evoke compassion and thereby get something from another. Caring and conscientious people cannot stand to see anyone suffering and the manipulator often finds it easy to play on sympathy to get cooperation.
George K. Simon Jr.
Regulations in an "Idea Economy" are restraints on innovation.
A.E. Samaan
Socialism is not really an option in the material world. There can be no collective ownership of anything materially scarce. One or another faction will assert control in the name of society. Inevitably, the faction will be the most powerful in society -- that is, the state. This is why all attempts to create socialism in scarce goods or services devolve into totalitarian systems of top-down planning.
Jeffrey Tucker
Socialists seem to think George Orwell’s 1984 is a suggestion, or at least are unashamed of mimicking the methods of the totalitarian state Orwell depicted. Libertarians know it to be a warning, and a government that micro-manages all aspects of humanity an intolerable reality.
A.E. Samaan
Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.
H.L. Mencken
As long as government has the power to regulate business, business will control government by funding the candidate that legislates in their favor. A free-market thwarts lobbying by taking the power that corporations seek away from government! The only sure way to prevent the rich from buying unfair government influence is to stop allowing government to use physical force against peaceful people. Whenever government is allowed to favor one group over another, the rich will always win, since they can "buy" more favors, overtly or covertly, than the poor.
Mary J. Ruwart
If you have lived your life in such a way that no one has ever found you obnoxious then you have my condolences for you have never really lived.
Rock Cowles
Liberty and Freedom are complex concepts. They go back to religious ideas of Free Will and are related to the Ruler Mystique implicit in absolute monarchs. Without absolute monarchs patterned after the Old Gods and ruling by the grace of a belief in religious indulgence, Liberty and Freedom would never have gained their present meaning. These ideals owe their very existence to past examples of oppression. And the forces that maintain such ideas will erode unless renewed by dramatic teaching or new oppressions. This is the most basic key to my life.
Frank Herbert
A little black child fighting in her sleep against an opponent she couldn't name come morning because in the light that opponent just looked like the world around her. Intangible evil. Unspeakable unfairness. Beulah ran in her sleep, ran like she'd stolen something, when really she had done nothing other than expect the peace, the clarity, that came with dreaming. Yes, Jo thought, this was where it started, but when, where, did it end?
Yaa Gyasi
Independence that has declared its ‘independence’ from the sure and certain compass of sound morals is nothing more than rogue greed having scantily dressed itself in the garb of independence while running off the cliff of anarchy.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
What good's a black face if it means I'm just someone else's property? Why give me these arms and legs just to carry someone else's load, not my own?
Stacey Lee
True revolutionary change begins by first challenging yourself -- not the world. Until you own your story and the complexities of your experience, no matter how much you may strain against it, you will still be enslaved -- if not by your oppressor, by your past.
Sil Lai Abrams
Given these differences between the sexes, the sexual revolution was the biggest joke men ever played on women. By convincing them that the old rules didn’t apply and that two could play the predator game, men enticed women to do what men have always wanted women to do. But what a price was paid for the new “freedom.” And predictably, women were the ones who got stuck with the bill.
James C. Dobson
One of the greatest lies is to believe that we don’t have value. One of the greatest mistakes is to act on that belief. And the greatest liberation is found in looking at the cross of Christ and realizing the enormity of the lie.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
White ain't nothing.'Mama's grip did not lessen. 'It is something, Cassie. White is something just like black is something. Everybody born on this Earth is something, and nobody, no matter what color is better than anybody else.''Then how come Mr. Simms don't know that.''Because he's one of those people who has to believe that white people are better than black people to make himself feel big.' I stared questionably at Mama, not really understanding.Mama squeezed my hadn't and explained further, 'You see, Cassie, many years ago, when our people were fist brought from Africa in chains to work as slaves in this country--''Like Big Ma's Papa and Mama?'Mama nodded. "Yes, baby. Like Papa Luke and Mama Rachel. Except they were born right here is Mississippi, but their grandparents were born in Africa. And when they came, there was some white people who thought that is was wrong for any people to be slaves. So the people who needed slaves to work in their fields and the people who were making money bringing slaves from Africa preached that black people weren't really people like white people were, so slavery was all right. They also said that slavery was good for us because it thought us to be good Christians, like the white people.' She sighed deeply, her voice fading into a distant whisper, 'But they didn't teach us Christianity to save our souls, but to teach us obedience. They were afraid of slave revolts and they wanted us to learn the Bible's teachings about slaves being loyal to their masters. But even teaching Christianity didn't make us stop wanting to be free, and many slaves ran away.”...She was silent for a moment, then went on. 'Well, after a while, slavery became so profitable to people who had slaves and even to those who didn't that most people started to believe that black people weren't really people like everybody else. And when the Civil War was fought, and Mama Rachel and Papa Luke and all the other slaves were freed, people continued to think that way. Even the Northeners who fought the war didn't really see us equal to white people.'So, now, even though seventy years have passed since slavery, most white people still think of us as they did then, that we're not as good as they are. And people like Mr. Simms hold onto that belief harder than some other folks because they have little else to hold onto. For him to believe that he is better than we are makes him think that he's important, simply because he's white.
Mildred D. Taylor
For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga- a belief that we're all connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me- even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for their prescription drugs and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer- even if it's not my grandparent. If there's an Arab-American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that that threatens my civil liberties. It is that fundamental belief- I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper- that makes this country work.
Barack Obama
We work hard to believe that our actions really don’t affect others all that much because we want the license to act without thinking all that much.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
While not as common as they used to be, entire groups of people with what seems like an infinite amount of time on their hands to be angry about something that doesn't even affect them in the slightest, still exist.
Lindsey Ouimet
In accordance with the prevailing conceptions in the U.S., there is no infringement on democracy if a few corporations control the information system: in fact, that is the essence of democracy. In the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, the leading figure of the public relations industry, Edward Bernays, explains that “the very essence of the democratic process” is “the freedom to persuade and suggest,” what he calls “the engineering of consent.” “A leader,” he continues, “frequently cannot wait for the people to arrive at even general understanding … Democratic leaders must play their part in … engineering … consent to socially constructive goals and values,” applying “scientific principles and tried practices to the task of getting people to support ideas and programs”; and although it remains unsaid, it is evident enough that those who control resources will be in a position to judge what is “socially constructive,” to engineer consent through the media, and to implement policy through the mechanisms of the state. If the freedom to persuade happens to be concentrated in a few hands, we must recognize that such is the nature of a free society.
Noam Chomsky
The assumption of ‘rights’ is the cancer of privilege.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
An institution rooted in slavery can never set us free.
DaShanne Stokes
No freedom till we're equal. Damn right I support it.
Macklemore
Free elections don't always result in fair elections.
DaShanne Stokes
Free people were not ruled. Freedom had first to be valued before its existence could be demanded.
Terry Goodkind
If you have strength of character, you can use that as fuel to not only be a survivor but to transcend simply being a survivor, use an internal alchemy to turn something rotten and horrible into gold.
Zeena Schreck