Quotes by American Authors - Page 3

Persons of quality had devoted yester evening and much of the night to liquidating their holdings in the South Sea Company and gathering in clubs and coffeehouses to misinform one another.
Neal Stephenson
Mary Webster was on the blower. Her advance agents saw Hank and me swimming in the middle of the river last night with no clothes on.H'rm, said Atticus. He touched his glasses. I hope you weren't doing the backstroke.
Harper Lee
Did you know that the origin of the word gossip in English is "god-sibling"? It's the talk between people who are godparents to the same child, people who have a legitimate loving interest in the person they talk about. It's talk that weaves a net of support and connection beneath the people you want to protect.
Beth Gutcheon
Damned no matter what you do. Why do people think knowing secrets is fun?
Beth Gutcheon
Put the fire out? Hell no. What we need to do is stoke it.
Jess Walter
Gossip is a policeman and a teacher. Without it, there would be chaos and ignorance.
Jonathan Haidt
In that day an educated rich man was acceptable. He might send his sons to college without comment, might wear a vest and white shirt and tie in the daytime of a weekday, might wear gloves and keep his nails clean. And since the lives and practices of rich men were mysterious, who knows what they could use or not use? But a poor man––what need had he for poetry or for painting or for music not fit for singing or dancing?
John Steinbeck
You could never prove innocence, not in the match with the man who only had to imply guilt.
David Halberstam
Unfounded gossip can turn into sanctioned history if falls into the hands of the right storyteller.
Laila Lalami
Chumaka ended with a quotation from a play that Jiro favored. “ ‘Small acts partner small houses and small minds'.
Raymond E. Feist
You must learn to ignore what people say,” Sebastian murmured, coming to her. Standing behind her, he rested his fingers lightly on her shoulders, causing her to start a little. “You’ll be much happier that way.” Suddenly his voice was tipped with amusement. “I’ve learned that while gossip about others is often true, it’s never true when it is about oneself.
Lisa Kleypas
I hate missing everything. That's why I want to marry well and be a grand lady. Then I can host all the parties, all the time, and see everything that is going on always. How can you stand not knowing?
Gail Carriger
If only gossip weren't so titillating. Sweeney tried to control an avid desire to know more, to dig for all the dirty details.The temptation was great. Dirt was like fat; it made life more delicious.
Linda Howard
...but if that's all that they are, that's all that they should be, —rumors. Rumor & gossip will always be an unfortunate consequence of living life in accordance to the decisions we make. People talk, —everyone talks, but if it isn't the truth, or merely only a fraction of it, why let it bother you if has no direct effect on how we choose to carry out the rest of our day?
Michael Anthony Arnold
A man's biggest enemy is his mouth.
Greg Iles
Don't be fooled...If they gossip to you, they'll gossip about you.
Steve Maraboli
Men believe women are hopeless gossips, but women know men are. The poor creatures are worse than women in some ways, because they cannot admit to themselves that they are gossiping, or doubt the discretion of the individuals in whom they confide. 'Strictly in confidence, old boy, just between you and me...'.
Elizabeth Peters
Over the next few days, every knowing glance and furtive look reminded me how much small towns loved to gossip. My mother delighted me each day by telling me what she’d heard. I’d pushed Leo behind a snap pea display at the farmers’ market and wrestled him to the ground. I’d offered him my bagel repeatedly, refusing to take no for an answer. I’d been seen out behind the market, helping him load up his vegetables and been caught holding his cucumber. That was my favorite.
Alice Clayton
They made burning statements with questions, and killing tools out of laughs. It was mass cruelty. A mood come alive. Words walking without master...
Zora Neale Hurston
Mr. Pilates was a bully and a narcissist and a dirty old man; he and Christopher got along very well. When Christopher was doing his workout, Pilates would bring one of his assistants over to watch, rather as the house surgeon brings an intern to study a patient with a rare deformity. ‘Look at him!’ Pilates would exclaim to the assistant, ‘That could have been a beautiful body, and look what he’s done to it! Like a birdcage that somebody trod on!’ Pilates had grown tubby with age, but he would never admit it; he still thought himself a magnificent figure of a man. ‘That’s not fat,’ he declared, punching himself in the stomach, ‘that’s good healthy meat!’ He frankly lusted after some of his girl students. He used to make them lie back on an inclined board and climb on top of them, on the pretext that he was showing them an exercise. What he really was doing was rubbing off against them through his clothes; as was obvious from the violent jerking of his buttocks.
Christopher Isherwood
The expectation of intelligent gossip is a powerful motive for serious self-criticism, more powerful than New Year resolutions to improve one's decision making at work and at home.
Daniel Kahneman
She was the goddess of gossip and rumor, not the goddess of thoroughly fact-checked information. Some people, Principal Zeus included, didn't seem to realize that gossip wasn't, and never would be, an exact science. It was more of an art, really.
Joan Holub & Suzanne Williams
Gossip is passing on information when you are neither part of the problem nor part of the solution.
Rick Warren
Are you holding her?” Wrath asked. There was a pause. “As soon as I get this bow tied in the back—hold on, girlie. Okay, up you go. She’s in a pink dress that Cormia made her by hand. I hate pink. I like it on her, though—but keep that to yourself.” Wrath flexed his hands. “What’s it like?” “Not totally hating pink? Pretty fuck—ehrm, frickin’ emasculating.” “Yeah.” “Do not tell me Lassiter’s been metrosexualizing even you. I heard he talked Manello into going for a pedicure with him—but I’m praying that’s just gossip.”-Wrath & Zsadist
J.R. Ward
These are treacherous times, and I know how easily perceptions can be twisted by a single word spoken into the wrong ear. Impugn a man's character, and everything that man does is made to seem underhanded, suspect, fraught with double motives.
Paul Auster
When I write, I am gossiping. Writing to whisper the story, whether good or bad to my listener.
Sonia Rumzi
How she wished she had Elizabeth to herself for a little so they could discuss what Henry's real intentions were and also how high and mighty Penelope had acted at lunch and what a tremendous insult it was that she'd come at all and did anyone really think she was beautiful with those oversize features anyway.
Anna Godbersen
You know I don’t listen to market gossip,” she began,“but it is hard not to hear it when my daughter’s name is mentioned.
Tracy Chevalier
Gossip was usually a mindless distraction from a far too serious world.
Dianne Sylvan
Men and women walked casually about as they did on the main floor, every now and then stopping one another, exchanging pleasantries or scraps of relevantly irrelevant information. Gossip.
Robert Ludlum
I get accused all the time of having a bigmouth. But if you ask me, guys gossip way more than girls do.
Meg Cabot
The gossip mill runs on estrogen.
Kim Harrington
A boomerang returns back to the person who throws it.But first, while moving in a circle, it hits its target.So does gossip.
Vera Nazarian
It would have been funny if I had been an observer and not a participant, an idea that gave me a disconcerting insight into gossip. As I walked beside the silent Tamara, I realized that despite how entertaining certain stories were, at the bottom of every item of gossip there was someone getting hurt.
Sherwood Smith
Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It's gossip
Erma Bombeck
This is how The Jewel operates. Status is our sole occupation. Gossip is our currency.
Amy Ewing
It’s not technically gossip if you start your sentence with “I’m really concerned about __________________ ,” (fill in the name of the person you’re not gossiping about).
Brian P. Cleary
I give boring people something to discuss over corn.
Aimee Bender
It's only gossip if you repeat it. Until then, it's gathering information.
Mercedes Lackey
Gossip is never fatal until it is denied. Gossip goes on about every human being alive and about all the dead that are alive enough to be remembered, and yet almost never does any harm until some defender makes a controversy. Gossip's a nasty thing, but it's sickly, and if people of good intentions will let it entirely alone, it will die, ninety-nine times out of a hundred.
Booth Tarkington
Doesn't matter what you do, or how you do it, your neighbors are gonna talk about you ANYWAY.
Felder Rushing
There's a kind of radar that you get, after years of being talked about and made fun of by other people. You can almost smell it when it's about to happen, can recognize instantly the sound of a hushed voice, lowered just enough to make whatever is said okay. I had only been in Colby for a few weeks. But I had not forgotten.
Sarah Dessen
People always did like to talk, didn't they? That's why I call myself a witch now: the Wicked Witch of the West, if you want the full glory of it. As long as people are going to call you a lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention.
Gregory Maguire
I never gossip. I observe. And then relay my observations to practically everyone.
Gail Carriger
Rumor travels faster, but it don't stay put as long as truth.
Will Rogers
The key to good eavesdropping is not getting caught.
Lemony Snicket
You must value something highly to go to war to improve it
Deborah Laake
I couldn't think of anything I wanted to do or any place I wanted to be more than home. Where I can walk around the yard, sweeping leaves off the slate paths to my heart's content. Where I can spend all day in my pajamas puttering around the house, or curled up in my favorite chair in the family room next to the big stone fireplace. The walls are papered deep red, hung with Madison's paintings and lined with our favorite books. The furniture is comfortable and inviting. Our house is made to be lived in; we use every inch of it and don't mind the signs of wear and tear. There's a deep dent in the floor next to the hearth ... It's part of the story of this house, where a family has left its mark, and where it continues to grow and evolve.
Sissy Spacek
I did not realize at the time, as I have discovered since, that anyone who attempts any thing original in this world must expect a bit of ridicule." Clarence Birdseye
Mark Kurlansky
I'd rather be a pessimist because then I can only be pleasantly surprised.
Benjamin Franklin
I have had a lot of readers of my book tell me that they like it, but so far only two reviews have been listed. Could you help?
Rollis Fontenot Jr
My purpose in beginning the John Wimber biography project was to honor his rich legacy of teaching, his extraordinary character, and the positive & beneficial impact his life has had on my journey as a 'follower of Christ'. I esteem John Wimber's teachings, writing, and impact upon the Body of Christ to be equal with that of C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, John F. Banks, D.L. Moody, and Leanne Payne.
R. Alan Woods
There began to appear before my romantic eyes...a vast and complicated network of espionage, terror, sadism and hate, from which no one, official or private, could escape.
Erik Larson
Biographers rue the destruction or loss of letters; they might also curse the husband and wife who never leave each other’s side, and thus perform a kind of epistolary abortion.
Janet Malcolm
It seems to me that someone must surely take the hint and write the life of Miss McGeeney, the woman who wrote the biography of the man who wrote the biography of the man who wrote the biography of the man who wrote the biography of Boswell.
Nathanael West
The creative person should have no other biography than his works.
B. Traven
Nicky Cruz: You come near me and I'll kill you!David Wilkerson: Yeah, you could do that. You could cut me up into a thousand pieces and lay them in the street, and every piece will still love you.
David Wilkerson
The meat market itself was probably a greater influence on Spare than his first school. It offered a spectacle of thousands of animal carcasses, which arrived under the market by a specially built railway before being displayed and disposed of at ground level.
Phil Baker
Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one. -- Stella Adler
Sheana Ochoa
Perhaps once in a lifetime we meet someone who has the ability to inspire us in one brief meeting, who can confront not one but two life-threatening illnesses with remarkable courage – and instil hope in others in the face of the greatest adversity.Jennifer Roberts had all of those qualities – and so many more.
Paul Roberts