Quotes by American Authors - Page 231

At that moment I would have welcomed spider-rats nibbling on my toes about as much as the idea of chatting with a missionary priest.
Dan Simmons
Though we've talked and talked and talked, we've all agreed not to say a word.
J.D. Salinger
The trouble is that many people regard disagreement as unrelated to either teaching or being taught. They think that everything is just a matter of opinion. I have mine, and you have yours; and our right to our opinions is as inviolable as our right to private property. On such a view, communication cannot be profitable if the profit to be gained is an increase in knowledge. Conversation is hardly better than a ping-pong game of opposed opinions, a game in which no one keeps score, no one wins, and everyone is satisfied because he does not lose - that is, he ends up holding the same opinions he started with.
Mortimer J. Adler
I know my rights.""And I know you're wrong.
Scott Blagden
You don't talk much, do you?" she blurted out."I didn't think there was a need. You seem to be holding up both our ends of the conversation admirably.
Julia Quinn
I cherish genuine conversation, where people actually care what someone else has to say.
Charles F. Glassman
Four days, eight days, twelve days passed, and he was invited to teas, to suppers, to lunches. They sat talking through the long green afternoons - they talked of art, of literature, of life, of society and politics. They ate ice creams and squabs and drank good wines.
Ray Bradbury
Brock sighed. “Alright then, Spunky. I was thinking about life, I guess.”tSpunky grunted. “In other words, you were thinking about a woman.”t“I didn't say that—”t“No.” Spunky grinned knowingly. “But your face did.
Willowy Whisper
And there you go again, that tone in your voice, never a word out of place, but your tone says clearly, 'You are a fucking psycho bitch and I hate you.
Laurell K. Hamilton
[I retained] only the Habit of expressing my self in Terms of modest Diffidence, never using when I advance any thing that may possibly be disputed, the Words 'Certainly, 'undoubtedly', or any others that I give the Air of Positiveness to an Opinion; but rather say 'I conceive', or 'I apprehend a Thing to be so or so', 'It appears to me', or 'I should think it so or so for such & such Reasons', or 'I imagine' it to be so or so, or 'it is so' if I am not mistaken.—This Habit I believe has been of great Advantage to me, when I have had occasion to inculcate my Opinions and persuade Men into Measures that I have been from time to time engag'd in promoting.—And as the chief Ends of Conversation are to inform, or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well meaning sensible Men would not lessen their Power of doing Good by a Positive assuming Manner that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create Opposition, and to defeat every one of those purposes for which Speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving Information or Pleasure: For if you would inform, a positive dogmatical Manner in advancing your Sentiments, may provoke Contradiction & prevent a candid Attention.
Benjamin Franklin
Perfect the art of the pause for this is when the Holy Spirit speaks. Pausing creates white space in a conversation that enables the Holy Spirit to sort out our thoughts before we let out our words of life or death.
John M Sheehan
Talking to Rhett was comparable only to one thing, the feeling of ease and comfort afforded by a pair of old slippers after dancing in a pair too tight.
Margaret Mitchell
I sort of thought that maybe people had to talk that way, sort of saying the same things over and over because that way they can get along together without thinking." She stopped and thought. Why I was so worried,” she said, “was because if people didn't say those damn things over and over, then they wouldn't talk to each other at all.
Shirley Jackson
Talking to people is the most educational thing I know.
Marty Rubin
I love to talk to people who love to talk. The warmth, the energy, the humanity.
Marty Rubin
I love talking the way Trappists love silence.
Marty Rubin
In the best conversations, you don't even remember what you talked about, only how it felt. It felt like we were in some place your body can't visit, some place with no ceiling and no walls and no floor and no instruments
John Green
Conversation is the Best Content.
Ted Rubin
If they’re together long enough, every couple has one conversation over and over. This was ours.
Frederick Weisel
I've been talking to myself a lot lately. I don't know what that's about, but my mother was the same way. She hated to make small talk with other people, but get her into a conversation with herself and she was quite the raconteur. She would tell herself a joke and clap her hands together as she let out a laugh; she would murmur to the plants as she watered them, and offer encouragement to the food as she cooked it. Sometimes I would walk into a room and surprise her as she was regaling herself with some delightful story, and I remember how the sound would dry up in her mouth. She stood there, frozen in the headlights of my teenage scorn.
Dan Chaon
Can I get a lock for my tent?Bears can't unzip tents, Lana.Well, chainsaw psychos who wander the woods looking for young girls all alone to chop up into pieces can.There are no chainsaw psychos! I can't believe you've never been camping. It's safe, Lana. I promise.Easy for you to say. You'll be snuggled up safely in the arms of Beau Vincent. I'm more than positive he could take on a black bear.
Abbi Glines
She felt that her speech was voicing the incoherency her thoughts, and stopped abruptly.
Kate Chopin
Betsy liked to talk. Her father always said she got it from her mother, and her mother always said she got it from her father. But whomever she got it from she was certainly a talker.
Maud Hart Lovelace
Manners are the ability to put someone else at their ease...by turning any answer into another question.
Tina Brown
It was the kind of conversation you could only hold in whispers.
Aimee Bender
Bit by bit, I found myself relaxing into the conversation. Kitty had a natural talent for drawing people out of themselves, and it was easy to fall in with her, to feel comfortable in her presence. As Uncle Victor had once told me long ago, a conversation is like having a catch with someone. A good partner tosses the ball directly into your glove, making it almost impossible for you to miss it; when he is on the receiving end, he catches everything sent his way, even the most errant and incompetent throws. That’s what Kitty did. She kept lobbing the ball straight into the pocket of my glove, and when I threw the ball back to her, she hauled in everything that was even remotely in her area: jumping up to spear balls that soared above her head, diving nimbly to her left or right, charging in to make tumbling, shoestring catches. More than that, her skill was such that she always made me feel that I had made those bad throws on purpose, as if my only object had been to make the game more amusing. She made me seem better than I was, and that strengthened my confidence, which in turn helped to make my throws less difficult for her to handle. In other words, I started talking to her rather than to myself, and the pleasure of it was greater than anything I had experienced in a long time.
Paul Auster
Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation.
Mark Twain
A good conversation always involves a certain amount of complaining. I like to bond over mutual hatreds and petty grievances.
Lisa Kleypas
A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That's why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.
Truman Capote
Are you mad?" I ask."I was." He glances at the ceiling then back at me. "Or confused, anyway. The whole thing threw me through for a loop. I thought I'd finally met a guy at Underwood I could relate to, and it turns out he wasn't a guy at all."I swallow. "I can see how that would be weird." "In a way though, I was relieved.""Relieved?" I echo. "Why?"He looks around embarrased. "Let's just say you had me questioning my sexual orientation.
Jody Gehrman
That’s not the only reason I’m stayin’, chica. I can’t leave you any more than I could walkout that door right now while my leg is busted up. I was just thinkin’ . . . should we tell yourparents now or later?”“Tell them what?” I ask, eyes wide.He kisses me softly, then says proudly, “That we’re in a serious, monogamous, committedrelationship.”“We are?”“Sí. And when I get out of here, I’m gonna fix the door to your car.
Simone Elkeles
Just so you know, I’m goin’ to enlist.”“I’m proud of you. But why?”I groan against the pain but manage to give him a half smile. “I want to make sure Kiara’s got a boyfriend who has more to offer than a hot bod and a face that could make angels weep.
Simone Elkeles
Clearly she was expected to say something, but panic at having to speak stole the thoughts from her head.
Shannon Hale
Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
God is all about passion for the possible.
R. Alan Woods
You can only accomplish the impossible when the God of the possible is involved".~R. Alan Woods [2013]
R. Alan Woods
Would you really want to live in world where only the possible is possible?
Polly Shulman
Given enough time, the impossible becomes possible.
Suzanne Harper
In my way of thinking, anything is possible. Life is at the bottom of things and belief at the top, while the creative impulse, dwelling in the center, informs all.
Patti Smith
The possible is just the impossible that we've come to accept,
Stewart Stafford
Very possible! Possible, indeed. Maybe even probable, which, as you know if you study your arithmetic,can happen more often than possible. In other words, probable is more possible than possible. - Bubo
Kathryn Lasky
All things are possible until they are proved impossible and even the impossible may only be so, as of now.
Pearl S. Buck
When Henry Ford decided to produce his famous V-8 motor, he chose to build an engine with the entire eight cylinders cast in one block, and instructed his engineers to produce a design for the engine. The design was placed on paper, but the engineers agreed, to a man, that it was simply impossible to cast an eight-cylinder engine-block in one piece.Ford replied,''Produce it anyway.
Henry Ford
Ordinary people believe only in the possible. Extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probable, but rather what is impossible. And by visualizing the impossible, they begin to see it as possible
Cherie Carter-Scott
We aren't going to choose paths of wisdom if we don't trust the One who has marked out those paths for us. Fear of the Lord is trust in the Lord
Lydia Brownback
Let thy discontents be thy secrets
Benjamin Franklin
Feed a squirrel and he'll leave you alone every day.
Brian Spellman
Don't take any wooden Bitcoins.
Sandra Peterson Ramirez
A club hurts the flesh, but evil words hurt the bone. -Traditional Chinese Proverb
Matthew Polly
El hambre agudiza el ingenio,” said Raphael.Hunger sharpens the wit.“Good proverb,” said Magnus. “However, like most proverbs, it sounds wise and yet does not actually clarify anything.
Cassandra Clare
There’s a Russian proverb: To taste the ocean, all you need is one gulp.
Howard Norman
Where there's smoke around a conservative, there are journalists furiously rubbing two sticks together.
Ann Coulter
Out here, it's better safe than sorry, because generally speaking, too much of the time sorry means you're dead.
Patricia C. Wrede
You can succeed beyond the past, but not beyond your belief
Orrin Woodward
Passion + Persistence + Patience = Success.
Polly Letofsky
I have met so-called leaders who showed fear in a moment when strength was required, and they give leadership a bad name.
Jason Taylor
If you want to lead, study Moses; if you want to manage study Pharaoh.
Jason Taylor
The king should be the servant of his people, and seek to uplift them and their lives.
Aleksandra Layland
A true leader inspires by being among the people, not above them.
Lynda Cheldelin Fell
I hang around shepherds because I can't talk to sheep.
James Jean-Pierre