Quotes by American Authors - Page 254

Life itself is the axiom of the empty set. It begins in zero and ends in zero.
Hanya Yanagihara
Mortality was never designed to torture you. It was designed to test you.
Toni Sorenson
The question was not death; living things die. It was love. Not that we died, but what we cared wildly, then deeply, for one person out of billions. We bound ourselves to the fickle, changing, and dying as if they were rock.
Annie Dillard
No one, in the end, made it out of this life alive.
Garth Risk Hallberg
The question was not death; living things die. It was love. Not that we died, but that we cared wildly, then deeply, for one person out of billions. We bound ourselves to the fickle, changing, and dying as if they were rock.
Annie Dillard
In the end, the body betrayed everyone.
Gail Tsukiyama
Me, I'm living under a sword too, as Jack may have told you. An old wino's disease, which could lay me in the grave most anytime. Not that I mind too much; I've done everything I ever wanted to do. But ... as you know, one would like to continue doing the good things over and over again, so long as there's pleasure in it.
Edward Abbey
I had to ride my bike to and from their god damn plant way up north in the high-chemical crime district, and reachable only by riding on the shoulder of some major freeways. I could feel the years ticking off my life expectancy as the mile markers struggled by.
Neal Stephenson
And if I were to open you up - would you see anything less remarkable? Less intricately dazzling, in its squelching, spongy way? Lungs and heart and spleen, and all the rest - ticking away, as it were? Yet you walk down the boulevard, and pass any number of such wonderful devices, all ticking away as they walk, and think it no great marvel.
K.W. Jeter
Even if their supplies of love are finite, they've figured out that life is, too, and they're no longer rationing.
Julianna Baggott
The hospital room was as cold as dead skin, the hallway crowded with lost souls and reeking of illness.
Raquel Cepeda
Then I could not help wondering what the watching gods thought of us, with our clever masks and our jokes. What we think of crickets, perhaps, whose singing we hear with pleasure, though some of us smash them with our heels when they venture into sight.
Gene Wolfe
What could a child know of the darkness of God's plan? Or how flesh is so frail it is hardly more than a dream
Cormac McCarthy
All the mortal world is a lethal enemy during those hours between dawn and dusk.
Anne Rice
Love was generous precisely because it could never be immortal.
Peter S Beagle
We know summer is the height of of being alive. We don't believe in God or the prospect of an afterlife mostly, so we know that we're only given eighty summers or so per lifetime, and each one has to be better then the last, has to encompass a trip to that arts center up at Bard, a seemingly mellow game of badminton over at some yahoo's Vermont cottage, and a cool, wet, slightly dangerous kayak trip down an unforgiving river. Otherwise, how would you know that you have lived your summertime best? What is you missed out on some morsel of shaded nirvana?
Gary Shteyngart
I am simply looking for a companion with whom to spend my days, a companion who will cherish as much as I the stupidity of living in the moment, and spend every dull, amazing second with me.
Heidi Julavits
As for oblivion, well, we can wait a little while for that.
Anne Rice
There is something miraculous in the way the years wash away your evidence, first you, then your friends and family, then the descendants who remember your face, until you aren’t even a memory, you’re only carbon, no greater than your atoms, and time will divide them as well.
Anthony Marra
On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Chuck Palahniuk
Life is only precious because it ends, kid.
Rick Riordan
If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
Ernest Hemingway
Man is born to dream, to be enlightened, to connect and to be fulfilled. Managers are too.
Stan Slap
Bury My Heart is "a life-altering approach to turning managers into unconditionally committed leaders.
Stan Slap
Your brand is the unique persona and identity of you, your company, product or service that sets it apart from others in the same market space. It is the image you or your business present to the world. A brand is composed of many different pieces which, together, capture the attention of your buyers. Some of the pieces are physical, but much of branding is intangible; ideas and thoughts put into words, pictures and videos. When small business owners ask themselves “What is branding?” the answer is, “the essence of the business, products or services.” Your personal brand conveys the way you are perceived; and how you want people to see and feel about you, your business and your products or services. You may want to sound very dignified and reinforce your ‘expert status’ and credibility depending on your products or services. Or you may want to sound approachable, edgy and smart. Whatever voice you choose, carry it into all your messaging, marketing materials, and web presence (your platform).
Kytka Hilmar-Jezek
Book authors are in high demand for speaking engagements and appearances; they are the new ‘celebrity’ and celebrities gain access. Authors not only make money from royalties or book advances but from their keynotes, presentations and strategically branded product lines. This includes entrepreneurial ideas for you to extend yourself beyond just writing and prepares you to add speaking and consulting to your revenue stream. You have to begin to look outside book sales and towards the speaking market. There are radio, interviews, news, television, small channel television keynotes, lectures, seminars and workshops. These types of events have the possibility to be much more lucrative than just selling books. In essence, the book builds and brands you in the public eye. It gives you credibility and the opportunity to be more than you are. It enables you to now be a voice, a teacher, a leader, an expert - after all, you wrote the book on it!
Kytka Hilmar-Jezek
The question is not how to get managers’ emotional commitment but why manager’s don’t give it even if they like their company.
Stan Slap
The personal values managers reported being the most under pressure to compromise to do their jobs successfully: 1. Family 2. Integrity.
Stan Slap
The decision to create a book trailer is entirely up to you. I can remember when "video killed the radio star" on MTV and how excited I was with some music videos (the ones that lived up to or exceeded my imagined vision of the song) and the ones I disliked so much, I even stopped listening to the song (the imagery just ruined it for me!) Some people argue that in a visual landscape, a book trailer is a must, while others stand firm that books should be read and not seen; unless of course it gets made into a screenplay and then a film. The most practical advice is to trust your instinct. You know what you want to say with your book and if it aligns congruently with your brand, then for a non-fiction book it may be a strategic move. On the other hand, it may come off as too "salesy" and go in the opposite direction. As you can see, I still have a love / hate relationship with matching someone else's images to my own imagination. No matter what you decide, remember to keep it aligned with your brand.
Kytka Hilmar-Jezek
So sure, start with a slogan. But don't bother wasting any time on it if you're merely going for catchy. Aim for true instead.
Seth Godin
Branding is about everything.
Tom Peters
There comes a point when you realize that these things, these brands, aren't "enough." Having more or better or best doesn't provide you with a lasting sense of having more or being better or being best. It's a rather fleeting experience, this romantic attachment to brands, and I find that if I'm not careful, the search for having more or better or best is a precarious journey into the infinite. When you depend on finite objects-or brands-to provide you with a long-term sense of self or love or pride or achievement, you start yourself out on a path with no end. No object, no product, and no brand can provide you with ultimate, infinite satisfaction.
Debbie Millman
Contributors and distributors tend to do better at personal branding than takers and fakers.
Ryan Lilly
Sensible brands lend themselves to all of the senses.
Ryan Lilly
For a case study in personal branding. Google “Jarod Kintz.” He’s kind of a big deal.
Ryan Lilly
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
Carve-out a niche, craft a personal pitch, push-out content and your brand is enriched.
Ryan Lilly
How do you want the world to see you professionally? What kinds of work do you enjoy doing? Why are you on LinkedIn? Those are the questions you should think about when creating your LinkedIn profile, so it’s aligned with your personal brand. While marketing-speak like 'personal brand' feels fake to many of us, we’re really just talking about setting the right tone for your profile and positioning yourself for the kinds of opportunities you’re interested in.
Melanie Pinola
If building a disruptive, dynamic brand is not in your plans, neither is profit.
Laura Busche
A brand is the unique story that consumers recall when they think of you. This story associates your product with their personal stories, a particular personality, what you promise to solve, and your position relative to your competitors. Your brand is represented by your visual symbols and feeds from multiple conversations where you must participate strategically.
Laura Busche
Which is what it all comes down to, I suppose—how you’re selling. Welcome to the twenty-first century, where the only opinion of you that matters is the one that isn’t your own. Rate My Tits. Rate My Ass. Rate My Children. Rate My Essential Being. 1 Star: Awful. This Being left me feeling like I wanted more.
Shalom Auslander
Be intentionally infectious. Make your brand contagiously buzz worthy.
Catrice M. Jackson
A company has integrity when its words and actions consistently match the branding effort.
Maggie Macnab
Optimal design delivers information in ways that are useful, beautiful and improve the experience of all involved: audience, client and designer.
Maggie Macnab
Branding is simply pattern recognition, established across multiple tiers of application and fueled by the energy of money.
Maggie Macnab
In geometry, as in nature, the circle is the archetypal shape of wholeness and inclusion. It is an effective shape for nonprofits or community-focused efforts.
Maggie Macnab
Basic geometric shapes communicate universal qualities common to all cultures. Practical design integrates them appropriately.
Maggie Macnab
To reimagine IT, IT branding needs to be part of IT transformation effort.
Pearl Zhu
If you are ready to face the fears, take the steps, do the work, be more than you thought you ever could, and attack the dream, what is keeping you? Lose all the excuses and replace them with all the reasons for success. Be the change for yourself. Commit to the dream or quit. There really is no middle ground.
Loren Weisman
There is no better way to find out the true heart, honor, and professionalism of a person, than seeing how they handle themselves and others when facing a crisis, disaster or intense level of pressure.
Loren Weisman
We are … the un-proud non-possessors of objects whose chief substance is that of the transient symbol. Our Puritan fear of the love of things turns out to have been groundless after all, for we do not love things or even possess them: they pass through our lives as barium passes through the digestive tract, unassimilated, their function merely to flash signals along the way.
Ralph Caplan
We have already seen that when positive authority suggests a change in behavior, the recipient will accept it provided he is capable of doing so and provided it does not require drastic modification of belief or frustrate important needs. By carrying out the suggestion, one can simultaneously reduce dissonance and preserve intact one's relation to positive authority. But what can reasonably be expected when the suggestion to change is beyond the recipient's capability or frustrates his deep needs or predispositions? In such a situation, a conflict arises between his desire to comply with authority and the abilities or needs which make compliance impossible.One way to resolve such a conflict situation (or to reduce the dissonance) is to change one's conception of authority. If a suggestion emanating from positive authority is unacceptable, the conflict may be removed by becoming disaffected with the authority and transforming it either into a negative authority or into a nonexistent one. This is exactly what Leon and Joseph did.
Milton Rokeach
Her mind moved around and around the subject, moving with a kind of fuzzy firmness. With no coherent thought process, she arrived at a conviction - a habit with the basically insecure; an insecurity whose seeds are invariably planted earlier, in under or over-protectiveness, in a distrust in parental authority which becomes all authority. It can later, with maturity - a flexible concept - be laughed away, dispelled by determined clear thinking. Or it can be encouraged by self-abusive resentment and brooding self-pity. It can grow ever greater until the original authority becomes intolerable, and a change becomes imperative. Not to a radical one in thinking; that would be too troublesome, too painful. The change is simply to authority in another guise which, in time, and under any great stress, must be distrusted and resented even more than the first.
Jim Thompson
My grandmother simply shook her head and said, "You know what you saw. The bird doesn't need to be counted, and neither do you.
Terry Tempest Williams
When your family is twice as weird as normal, you have to be twice as polite to authority, because authority hates weird.
Rosemary Clement-Moore
It has often been suggested to me that the Constitution of the United States is a sufficient safeguard for the freedom of its citizens. It is obvious that even the freedom it pretends to guarantee is very limited. I have not been impressed with the adequacy of the safeguard. The nations of the world, with centuries of international law behind them, have never hesitated to engage in mass destruction when solemnly pledged to keep the peace; and the legal documents in America have not prevented the United States from doing the same. Those in authority have and always will abuse their power. And the instances when they do not do so are as rare as roses growing on icebergs. Far from the Constitution playing any liberating part in the lives of the American people, it has robbed them of the capacity to rely on their own resources or do their own thinking. Americans are so easily hoodwinked by the sanctity of law and authority. In fact, the pattern of life has become standardized, routinized, and mechanized like canned food and Sunday sermons. The hundred-percenter easily swallows syndicated information and factory-made ideas and beliefs. He thrives on the wisdom given him over the radio and cheap magazines by corporations whose philanthropic aim is selling America out. He accepts the standards of conduct and art in the same breath with the advertising of chewing gum, toothpaste, and shoe polish. Even songs are turned out like buttons or automobile tires--all cast from the same mold.
Emma Goldman
How can a good God appoint cruel people to positions of authority? The answer is simple: God is the originator of the authority, but He is not the author of the cruelty. Man is responsible for his cruel actions, not God. All authority is of God, but not all authority is godly.
John Bevere
I believe in a lively disrespect for most forms of authority.
Rita Mae Brown
But the fact that judges follow precedent regularly even though not invariably does not support the legalistic theory as strongly as one might expect. The original precedent in a line of precedents could not have been based on precedent.
Richard A. Posner
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