Quotes by American Authors - Page 278

Give freely, love fully, and play with fervor! Don’t put so many conditioned rules on your happiness. Life can be a beautiful experience if we allow it.
Steve Maraboli
Just because it's a world of thieves out there don't mean there ain't no rules to it.
James Carlos Blake
There are rules and laws to help ensure our physical safety. Likewise, the Lord has provided guidelines and commandments to help ensure our spiritual safety so that we might successfully navigate this often-treacherous mortal existence and return eventually to our Heavenly Father" ("Obedience Brings Blessings," April 2013 General Conference).
Thomas S. Monson
Only two guys to a fight. One fight at a time. They fight without shirts or shoes. The fights go on as long as they have to. Those are the other rules of fight club.
Chuck Palahniuk
What few rules appear to be in place are all made up.
Patti Digh
Sebastian grinned into his drink. Rules. He loved rules. They were so much fun to break.
Tyffani Clark Kemp
As for logic and internal consistency, these mundane rules do not apply to sacred writings and never have...
Robert A. Heinlein
For those of us who can, there are certain precautions we must take in order to protect ourselves and those around us. The first and most important is this-never acknowledge the dead. Don't look at them, don't speak to them don't let them sense your fear. Even when they touch you"..."The second thing you must remember is this," Papa said. "Never stray too far from hallowed ground."..."Rule Number Three," he said. "Keep your distance from those who are haunted. If they seek you out, turn away from them, for they constitute a terrible threat and cannot be trusted." ..."Rule Number Four," he said sternly. "Never, ever tempt fate.
Amanda Stevens
RULES OF FAIRYLAND-BELOWBEWARE OF DOGANYTHING IMPORTANT COMES IN THREES AND SIXESDO NOT STEAL QUEENSA GIRL IN THE WILD IS WORTH TWO IN CHAINSNECESSITY IS THE MOTHER OF TEMPTATIONEVERYTHING MUST BE PAID FOR SOONER OR LATERWHAT GOES DOWN MUST COME UP
Catherynne M. Valente
The trouble with rules, though, is that you'll always be tempted to break one- for the right reasons, due to unavoidable circumstances, because it feels as if there's no other choice. And once you break one, the rest seem like so much broken glass. The damage is already done.
Stacey Kade
I'm not sure what a good person is, exactly. On the one hand, it could be someone who always play by the rules. But someone can follow the rules and still be a real jerk, you know? In fact, some of the biggest idiots I know are people who follow the rules, usually because they make you feel like crap when you don't.
Michael Thomas Ford
One of my father's RULES FOR LIFE was to marry a woman who was smarter than you. "I did this," he would say to me, "and you should do it, too. I say, why do all the thinking?
Nicholas Sparks
Who says I have rules?" She waves off my question. "Oh, please. You have so many rules, your rules have rules.
Lisa Renee Jones
I can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative.
Elmore Leonard
The rules of scientific investigation always require us, when we enter the domains of conjecture, to adopt that hypothesis by which the greatest number of known facts and phenomena may be reconciled.
Matthew Fontaine Maury
Sometimes I just want to burn down all the rules and start over.
Libba Bray
The rules of Panic are simple. Anyone can enter. But only one person will win.
Lauren Oliver
Not listening is a good way to get yourself killed here, which is exactly what would have happened if I hadn't come downstairs to see what trouble out resident dipshits had dragged in. You have yet to be ripped to pieces or to be removed of your ability to speak. If you want to keep it that way, I suggest that you learn to obey simple commands. Shut up.
Skye Callahan
Institutions or products of culture. But they formalize a set of norms.
Niall Ferguson
Fanatics are those who, when following a doctrine becomes inconvenient, make up rules of their own.
Cathryn Louis
There's an exception to every rule, Nora. And you've never failed at being the exception before.
Marilyn Grey
The process of discovering your greatest self is of refinement, not adding. The best way to reconnect with your freedom is to look at the rules you have that govern and hinder it.
Steve Maraboli
Rules are not proof of our spirituality. If anything, they are proof of our sinfulness, a reminder that we have a tendency toward wrongdoing and that we need help.
Judah Smith
I don't pay no mind to rules. Seems to me, rules are things made up by scared people too afraid to die, so they can't live. Or too lazy to make their own decisions. Rules are for breakin', as far as I'm concerned.
Suzanne Palmieri
There’s no such thing as an unbreakable scientific rule, because, sooner or later, they all seem to get broken. Or to change.
Madeleine L'Engle
[Will Turner] "You didn't beat me. You ignored the rules of engagement."[Captain Jack Sparrow] "...that's not much incentive for me to fight fair then is it?
Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio
Where is the fun of living if you are going to make yourself a slave to all sorts of petty rules?" asked Patty wearily.
Jean Webster
Rules do not determine outcomes - the players still have to make choices - but they make some outcomes more likely than others, by defining what it means to "win", and by creating incentives for and imposing constraints on the players.
Frances McCall Rosenbluth
There are no rules. That is how art is born.
Helen Frankenthaler
Once the state starts providing, it feels free to hand out the rules, too!" Larch blurted hastily. ..."In a better world..." she began patiently."No, not in a better world!" he cried. "In this one--in this world. I take this world as a given. Talk to me about this world!" ..."Oh, I can't always be right," Larch said tiredly."Yes, I know," Nurse Caroline said sympathetically. "It's because even a good man can't always be right that we need a society, that we need certain rules--call them priorities, if you prefer," she said. ...Always in the background of his mind, there was a newborn baby crying... And they were not crying to be born, he knew; they were crying because they were born.
John Irving
He was responsible for administering an army that lacked time-tested procedures and routinized policies, so every decision became an improvisational act.
Joseph J. Ellis
Weber also saw that a bureaucratic world contained risks. It produced increasingly powerful and autonomous bureaucrats who could be spiritless, driven only by impersonal rules and procedures, and with little regard for the people they were expected to serve. Weber famously warned that those who allow themselves to be guided by rules will soon find that those rules have defined their identities and commitments.
Michael Barnett
Larine had a bright future ahead of her, but she had to learn to obey the rules before she could begin learning which could be broken and when.
Robert Jordan
Law will take over because law always carries with it a sense of security and manipulative power.
Richard J. Foster
Sometimes breaking the rules is just extending the rules
Mary Oliver
In the world of mulesThere are no rules.
Ogden Nash
You will fall to ruin because you believe that exceptions to the rule make new rules.
Pierce Brown
There are no rules, because life is made up of too many rules as it is.
Jennifer Niven
Morality often involves tension within the group motivated by competition between different groups.
Jonathan Haidt
My parents raised me to get things done, no matter what. They don’t care about rules, just appearances. This whole time I’ve been telling myself that I’m going to be different from my parents, different from my sister, be the one who stuck to the straight and narrow. But I think I had it all wrong, Call. I don’t care about rules or appearances. I don’t want to be the person who just gets things done. I want to do the right thing. I don’t care if we have to lie or cheat or cut corners or break rules to do it.
Cassandra Clare
Maybe I'll obey the rules. Some of them, anyway, who knows? What are you going to do if I don't, by the way, and haven't I asked you this before?
Anne Rice
We do not propose any rules; we offer observations. "No right on red" is a rule. "Driving at high speed toward a brick wall usually ends badly" is an observation.
Howard Mittelmark
In Truth,” I said, “there are no rules other than you have to tell the truth.”“How do you win?” he asked.“That,” I said, “is such a boy question.”“What, girls don’t like to win?” He snorted. “Please. You’re the one who got all rule driven on me claiming Instant Breakfast isn’t a food.”“It’s not,” I told him. “It’s a beverage.” He rolled his eyes. I can’t believe this, I thought. A week or two ago putting a full sentence together in front of Wes was a challenge. Now we were arguing about liquids.“Okay,” he said, “back to Truth. You were saying?”I took in a breath. “To win, one person has to refuse to answer a question,” I said. “So, for example, let’s say I ask you a question and you don’t answer it. Then you get to ask me a question, and if I answer it, I win.”“But that’s too simple,” he said. “What if I ask you something easy?”“You wouldn’t,” I told him. “It has to be a really hard question, because you don’t want me to win.”“Ahhh,” he said, nodding. Then, after mulling it for a second he said, “Man. This is diabolical.” “It’s a girl’s game,” I explained, tilting my head back and looking at the stars. “Always good for a little drama at the slumber party. I told you, you don’t want to play.”“No. I do,” he squared his shoulders. “I can handle it.
Sarah Dessen
You can’t cheat if there are no rules
Lauren Oliver
Why does anyone have a lot of rules? So they can boss people around, I guess.
Lemony Snicket
Lightsong had never bothered to learn the rules.He found it more amusing to play when he had no idea what he was doing.
Brandon Sanderson
The greatest managers in the world do not have much in common. But despite their differences, these great managers do share one thing: Before they do anything else, they first break all the rules of conventional wisdom.
Marcus Buckingham
Sometimes you have to break a rule to save the system.
Dean Koontz
Don’t you understand? It’s forbidden, Aladdin! We jinn must abide by many rules, but first among them, most important of all, we must never fall in love with a human!”He catches his breath, swallowing hard. “And do you always follow the rules?”“I—” Casting my gaze skyward, I draw a deep breath, searching for words among the stars. “It’s not about that. Do you know what kind of destruction we would cause? Have you not heard the story of your own people, how their city was destroyed, how thousands died? It was not hate that sparked the war between your people and mine, Aladdin. It was love. I held hands with Roshana the Wise and called her sister, and those words set our world on fire!”There it is. My greatest shame, laid bare. The truth lies between us like broken glass. Surely now he sees what I truly am: a betrayer, a monster, an enemy. Aladdin stares at me, his face softening.“That wasn’t your fault,” he says. “Loving someone is never wrong. And like you said, it’s not a choice. It just happens, and we’re all helpless in its power.”“That doesn’t change the fact that the consequences are disastrous. As the poets say, shake hands with a jinni, and you shake hands with death.
Jessica Khoury
The well-defined principles last when time moves on. However, a progressive organization or society will love to break the old or hidden rules in order to move forward.
Pearl Zhu
nothing is impossible. you just need to learn how to bend the rules.
Douglas Preston
I hate when I break my own rules. What’s the point of me being rational if I flail around like a clown?
Jesse Ball
If there are to be rules, they must be articulable and defensible, like etiquette. I do not do anything simply because my family did it. I do things because they make sense, and because they are elegant.
Kathleen Rooney
That’s the problem with following all the rules—somebody else is eventually going to get ahead by breaking them, and then where will you be?
Delilah S. Dawson
Rules will break you as often as you break them. But I guess that’s okay.Maybe I’m done with rules.For now, anyway.I think I will just be. I will exist. And see what happens.
Natalie C. Anderson
- The first rule of Fight Club is: you don't talk about Fight Club. - The second rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club- Third rule of Fight Club, if someone yells “stop!”, goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over- Fourth rule: only two guys to a fight- Fifth rule: one fight at a time- Sixth rule: the fights are bare knuckle. No shirt, no shoes, no weapons- Seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to- The eighth : if this is your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight
Chuck Palahniuk
Unfortunately, in many cases, the rule book goes way too far - it tries to tell people how to be instead of explaining what we're trying to do.. We need recipes, not rules.
Howard Behar
But I was beginning to intuit that full-blown maturity was not so very different from childhood. Both states in their extreme were all about following the rules.
Lionel Shriver
If you follow the rules, it's your own fault.
Marty Rubin
Normally, he liked boundaries. Boundaries were the safety net. Boundaries kept people on the right path. But right now, he felt like rules were made to be broken and consequences were miles and miles away.
Heather Burch