Quotes by American Authors - Page 2

At a lunchtime reception for the diplomatic corps in Washington, given the day before the inauguration of Barack Obama as president, I was approached by a good-looking man who extended his hand. 'We once met many years ago,' he said. 'And you knew and befriended my father.' My mind emptied, as so often happens on such occasions. I had to inform him that he had the advantage of me. 'My name is Hector Timerman. I am the ambassador of Argen
Christopher Hitchens
Love changes everything. I never suspected it would be so. Requited love, I should say ...
Barbara Kingsolver
You must live feverishly in a library. Colleges are not going to do any good unless you are raised and live in a library everyday of your life.
Ray Bradbury
But you have so much in common. You're both from strange little backwater planets. You both have odd powers. You're male and she's female. What more do you need? Believe me, buddy, if I were you, I'd go right up there and ask her if she wants to ride on my rancor.
Dave Wolverton
And then, on the final day, it was time for the faux Underground Railroad. This is the part that no one believes. "No adult would ever do that," they say. "You can't be remembering that right." I am, in fact, remembering it perfectly. The counselors "shackled" us together with jump ropes so we were "like slave families" and then released us into the woods. We were given a map with a route to "freedom" in "the North", which must have been only three or four hundred feet but felt like much more. Then a counselor on horseback followed ten minutes later, acting as a bounty hunter. Hearing hooves, I crouched being a rock with Jason Baujelais and Sari Brooker, begging them to be quiet so we weren't caught and "whipped." I was too young, self-involved, and dissociated to wonder what kind of impact this had on my black classmates. All I knew was that I was miserable. We heard the sound of hooves growing closer and Max Kitnick's light asthma wheezes from beind an oak tree. "Shut up," Jason hissed, and I knew we were cooked. When the counselor appeared, Sari started to cry.
Lena Dunham
Now and then I am asked as to ‘what books a statesman should read,’ and my answer is, poetry and novels – including short stories under the head of novels.
Theodore Roosevelt
You were like reading a good novel. The kind were you wanted to turn every page, & never put it down... And absorb every second. But for whatever reason, that novel isn't there for me to read, & so, it's endless chapters are gone from my reach. And I don't dare to pretend to be surprised. But I do dare to wonder why.And though it's gone, I smile because it was the best novel I ever read. In those brief moments the novel of you possessed me, mind, body, & soul alike. I felt joy & adoration in such a degree, that if I never do again it'll be okay. When you read a great novel, you never forget it. And you never let go of the feeling of it in your mind. The captivating nature of it. But greater than a novel, not mere words on a page, but a reality. Reality in a vivid form that can't begin to be put into words. That words, could not touch.You're the kind of novel one would desperately want to finish. To keep near at hand & close at heart. But it can't be. And though it's a mournful & somber thought, there's enjoyment in the knowledge that for a brief moment in time, it was there. The novel of her, was a novel of breathtaking wonder. And if I never get to read another page, I'll cherish those I had the privilege of reading. And you can only hope that whoever reads it next, values it in the way you so know is deserved.
Trevor Driggers
In our opinion, Coke is great from a can, still good from a bottle, yet hard to get just right from the fountain. But oh, when they do get it right, it tastes good enough to be an eighth wonder of the world.
Alecia Whitaker
It was the kind of conversation you could only hold in whispers.
Aimee Bender
An undergraduate researching the "witch hunt" cases asked for evidence that there had been more than one hundred cases, noting that the major lists of such cases added up to about fifty. There was no reply that provided documentation to support the claim.[34] The members of the list were generally strong proponents of the witch-hunt narrative. They knew the answer to the question “Is there a child sex abuse witch hunt?” These “witch hunters,” as those on this list soon came to describe themselves, were increasingly activists who used the internet to exchange information and ideas. Jonathan Harris may have done more than anyone else to disseminate the witch-hunt narrative in the mid 1990s and beyond.[35]
Ross Cheit
In the 1890s, when Freud was in the dawn of his career, he was struck by how many of his female patients were revealing childhood incest victimization to him. Freud concluded that child sexual abuse was one of the major causes of emotional disturbances in adult women and wrote a brilliant and humane paper called “The Aetiology of Hysteria.” However, rather than receiving acclaim from his colleagues for his ground-breaking insights, Freud met with scorn. He was ridiculed for believing that men of excellent reputation (most of his patients came from upstanding homes) could be perpetrators of incest.Within a few years, Freud buckled under this heavy pressure and recanted his conclusions. In their place he proposed the “Oedipus complex,” which became the foundation of modern psychology. According to this theory any young girl actually desires sexual contact with her father, because she wants to compete with her mother to be the most special person in his life. Freud used this construct to conclude that the episodes of incestuous abuse his clients had revealed to him had never taken place; they were simply fantasies of events the women had wished for when they were children and that the women had come to believe were real. This construct started a hundred-year history in the mental health field of blaming victims for the abuse perpetrated on them and outright discrediting of women’s and children’s reports of mistreatment by men.Once abuse was denied in this way, the stage was set for some psychologists to take the view that any violent or sexually exploitative behaviors that couldn’t be denied—because they were simply too obvious—should be considered mutually caused. Psychological literature is thus full of descriptions of young children who “seduce” adults into sexual encounters and of women whose “provocative” behavior causes men to become violent or sexually assaultive toward them.I wish I could say that these theories have long since lost their influence, but I can’t. A psychologist who is currently one of the most influential professionals nationally in the field of custody disputes writes that women provoke men’s violence by “resisting their control” or by “attempting to leave.” She promotes the Oedipus complex theory, including the claim that girls wish for sexual contact with their fathers. In her writing she makes the observation that young girls are often involved in “mutually seductive” relationships with their violent fathers, and it is on the basis of such “research” that some courts have set their protocols. The Freudian legacy thus remains strong.
Lundy Bancroft
For many people, the shock of sexual abuse pales before the shock of this mother’s statement, “I wish the fuck I never had her.” So thoroughly is motherhood sentimentalized that the mother who wishes to be rid of her child is considered a monster. In reality, women have always greeted the burden of motherhood ambivalently, even in the best of circumstances, and many women bear children involuntarily. But the approbrium which attaches to any woman who willing gives up her child is so great that some mothers will keep and mistreat their children rather than admit that they cannot care for them. Sometimes, the revelation of maternal neglect constitutes a plea for outside intervention, signaling the fact that a mother wants to be relieved of the duty to care for her child.
Judith Lewis Herman
Before the nineteen-seventies, most Republicans in Washington accepted the institutions of the welfare state, and most Democrats agreed with the logic of the Cold War. Despite the passions over various issues, government functioned pretty well. Legislators routinely crossed party lines when they voted, and when they drank; filibusters in the Senate were reserved for the biggest bills; think tanks produced independent research, not partisan talking points. The "D." or "R." after a politician's name did not tell you what he thought about everything, or everything you thought about him.
George Packer
I wish politicians the world over would stop claiming credit for economic growth that happens despite them, not because of them. Grow up...
Ziad K. Abdelnour
Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.
Gore Vidal
Ask him about the cemeteries, Dean!"In 1966 upon being told that President Charles DeGaulle had taken France out of NATO and that all U.S. troops must be evacuated off of French soil President Lyndon Johnson mentioned to Secretary of State Dean Rusk that he should ask DeGaulle about the Americans buried in France. Dean implied in his answer that that DeGaulle should not really be asked that in the meeting at which point President Johnson then told Secretary of State Dean Rusk:"Ask him about the cemeteries Dean!"That made it into a Presidential Order so he had to ask President DeGaulle.So at end of the meeting Dean did ask DeGaulle if his order to remove all U.S. troops from French soil also included the 60,000+ soldiers buried in France from World War I and World War II.DeGaulle, embarrassed, got up and left and never answered.
Lyndon B. Johnson
She'll kill me if she finds you in here. Can you climb trees? Tell me you can climb a tree!"Patch grinned, "I can fly.
Becca Fitzpatrick
So, I believe that what you are looking for, really looking for, is that one person who is capable of recognizing you no matter what. You know, that one person who is going to be able to see past what everybody else sees and even past what you yourself see or want to show, then be able to look at you and really recognize you and say "That's not you! This is you right over here! You just forgot yourself, but I see you! I will help you remember yourself, because I remember you!" And that's what everyone wants. No, actually, I don't know if that's what everyone wants; but I know that's what I want! Because I can put up so many damn walls and faces just to see who really knows me, who really recognizes me, who really remembers me, even more than I recognize and remember myself! Because if I don't get that, then I don't get anything, because I don't want anything less than that.
C. JoyBell C.
I'm not going to let you go " He was silent for a moment. "Carly " he said gently. "Remember when we were first engaged
Amanda Stephan
We are bombarded on all sides by a vast number of messages we don't want or need. More information is generated in a single day than we can absorb in a lifetime. To fully enjoy life, all of us must find our own breathing space and peace of mind.--James E. Faust
Carolyn J. Rasmus
Eko brushed a tear from her eye, and Immo jeered at her, but father held up a hand. "Never mock a tender heart," he said.
Orson Scott Card
Glaring at the Gasman, ter Borcht said, “Your time is coming to an end, youpathetic failure of an experiment. Vhat you say now is how you vill beremembered.”Gazzy’s blue eyes flashed. “Then you can remember me telling you to kissmy-”“Enough!” ter Borcht said.
James Patterson
The great miraculous bell of translucent ice is suspended in mid-air.It rings to announce endings and beginnings. And it rings because there is fresh promise and wonder in the skies.Its clear tones resound in the placid silence of the winter day, and echo long into the silver-blue serenity of night.The bell can only be seen at the turning of the year, when the days wind down into nothing, and get ready to march out again.When you hear the bell, you feel a tug at your heart.It is your immortal inspiration.
Vera Nazarian
Over the years I have come to understand three things about the police: 1) They cover up virtually everything involving a police officer. 2) They will not enforce the laws for people that they do not like. 3) They will target people that they do not like for prosecution using various techniques that include unwarranted stops, drug testing, faked police reports, tickets, fines, blatantly mislead the judge at court, and removal of USA federal rights.
Steven Magee
Visualization: daydreaming with a purpose.
Pen
I don’t like boys.”I shook my head. “That’s no impediment to them. Madame raised gentlemen of both sexes.
Ada Palmer
I guess that’s the thing about riding on cloud nine—it can’t last forever. And that particular fall was hard and fast.
Hannah Harrington
Autumn. The grace in letting dead things fall.
Darnell Lamont Walker
Privilege" is something else."Privilege" is a judgment."Privilege" is an opinion."Privilege" is an accusation.
Joan Didion
Life's too short to live someone else's
Nathan W. Morris
You have the approval of yourself. That's quite enough for we who know true inner peace! - Charmainism
Charmaine Smith Ladd
in a crowd of roses, choose to be a sunflower.thornless. unwithering. abundant in seeds
JaTawny M. Chatmon
Don't waste your time being what someone wants you to become, in order to feed their list of rules, boundaries and insecurities. Find your tribe. They will allow you to be you, while you dance in the rain.
Shannon L. Alder
Not the “be yourself” line. I loathe that line. As if Myself and Tic have met before and gotten along, so all I have to do is make sure Myself is there this time. So illogical.
Kasie West
Shine with all you have. When someone tries to blow you out, just take their oxygen and burn brighter.
Katelyn S. Bolds
You are you. Now, isn't that pleasant?
Dr. Seuss
One of the anomalies of modern ecology is the creation of two groups, each of which seems barely aware of the existence of the other. The one studies the human community, almost as if it were a separate entity, and calls its findings sociology, economics and history. The other studies the plant and animal community and comfortably relegates the hodge-podge of politics to the liberal arts. The inevitable fusion of these two lines of thought will, perhaps, constitute the outstanding advance of this century.
Aldo Leopold
Only the ones who run are worth catching.
Josephine Angelini
Working on the summit of Mauna Kea was comparable to working on the hospital pulmonary ward with sick people sucking on oxygen cylinders.
Steven Magee
I have sometimes thought that the reason the trees are so quiet in the summer is that they are in a sort of ecstasy; it is in winter, when the biologists tell us they sleep, that they are most awake, because the sun is gone and they are addicts without their drug, sleeping restlessly and often waking, walking the dark corridors of forests searching for the sun.
Gene Wolfe
A stricken tree, a living thing, so beautiful, so dignified, so admirable in its potential longevity, is, next to man, perhaps the most touching of wounded objects.
Edna Ferber
Planting trees, I myself thought for a long time, was a feel-good thing, a nice but feeble response to our litany of modern-day environmental problems. In the last few years, though, as I have read many dozens of articles and books and interviewed scientists here and abroad, my thinking on the issue has changed. Planting trees may be the single most important ecotechnology that we have to put the broken pieces of our planet back together.
Jim Robbins
(From the Q&A with the author at the end of the book.)Have any readers ever asked questions that shocked you?I have gotten one question repeatedly from young men. These are guys who liked the book, but they are honestly confused. They ask me why Melinda was so upset about being raped.The first dozen times I heard this, I was horrified. But I heard it over and over again. I realized that many young men are not being taught the impact that sexual assault has on a woman. They are inundated by sexual imagery in the media, and often come to the (incorrect) conclusion that having sex is not a big deal. This, no doubt, is why the number of sexual assaults is so high.I am also shocked by adults who feel that rape is an inappropriate topic to discuss with teenagers. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 44 percent of rape victims are under the age of 18 and 46 percent of those victims are between the ages of 12-15. It makes adults uncomfortable to acknowledge this, but our inability to speak clearly and openly about sexual issues endangers our children. It is immoral not to discuss this with them.
Laurie Halse Anderson
How can people trust social media over newspapers today?
Joel Landau
Computer hackers are the true journalists in the 21st Century. The old journalism is worse than dead. It is unreliable to the point that it is nothing more than a nuisance, an obstacle in the pursuit of truth.
A.E. Samaan
Journalism delivers news, but not necessarily relevance.
Khang Kijarro Nguyen
I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.
Christopher Hitchens
Never' is an unquantifiable and unrealistic amount of time.
Ruth Cardello
No one, in the end, made it out of this life alive.
Garth Risk Hallberg
If your personal brand were at a trade show alongside several thousand others, how would you fare? Now scale that to the global economy.
Ryan Lilly
But I knew something that Elena hadn't. That the measure of a true queen didn't lie in her magic. It had more to do with who she was, and what she was willing to give of herself, than it did with the powers she possessed- Charlaina di Heyse
Kimberly Derting
Obligation is a more effective weapon against the Will than any penalty, threat or act of force.
Ashim Shanker
Who is watching the Watchers?
James Hauenstein
I can't name just one example. Then there's only one.
Brian Spellman
I needed a moment to understand that I'd been dreaming, that I had come awake, and another moment to remember where I had gone to bed.
Dean Koontz
Love changes you, grows you, and reveals all the places where your heart is small. SoulMate love is transformative. Not everyone is ready for that.
Annette Vaillancourt
Love is beautiful, shattering, moving, haunting. Love is everything.
Claire Contreras
No, it’s because you’re fucking pathetic. You’re no better than a human and to top it off you’re nothing but a whore.
R.L. Mathewson
I said that i would try to win, but to win for her.
Suzanne Collins
In a world with amazing amounts of statistics and demographics available, If you don't utilize foresight, statistics, demographics, projections and predictions the competition will.
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