Quotes by American Authors - Page 3

He spins us both, wrapping us in his wings until I’m dazed and gig
A.G. Howard
You’re saying you don’t want me?”Aw hell. “No, I’m saying this is a bad idea.”“You’re the king of bad ideas,” he reminds me. “At least this one ends with both of us feeling good.
Sarina Bowen
You’re right.” A wicked little grin tugged at his lips. “I think we should celebrate.” Pausing, he waggled his brows at me. “We have fifty minutes now. I only need, like, five of them.”“Oh my God,” I laughed, shoving at his shoulders. “You’re terrible.”“I’m not terrible.” His eyes met mine, and the flutter was back, deeper and more dizzying. “I’m in love.”Oh, gosh. My heart swelled like a balloon, and all I could do was stare at him for several seconds before I managed to whisper, “I love you, too.”“I know.” Rider lowered his mouth to mine, and the kiss scattered my thoughts.
Jennifer L. Armentrout
An algorithm must be seen to be believed.
Donald Ervin Knuth
If Amazon’s dream of a world without gatekeepers becomes reality, then the company itself will become a powerful gatekeeper.
Evgeny Morozov
Technology allows more people to tell more stories in more ways. Storytelling knows no boundaries. I believe print and web can work beautifully together.
Donna Talarico
...you missed the chance to explore the equally interesting Buddhist belief in being present for every facet of your daily life, of being truly present. Be present in this class. And then, when it's over be present out there,
John Green
The man smiled. "Harry is unique, for he was born with a special gift of sight, with eyes able to see things that are unseen. He has talents to move matter by the sound of his voice.
Mark Andrew Poe
I wrote that certain things were leaving me nauseated. I said that judges made me feel that way. Not most of them but all of them. I said that you for example, the judge I'm writing this to, made me feel nauseated. The nausea came from understanding that people produced by every conceivable advantage got to decide whether someone like Jalen lived or died and what was worse was they never fucking seemed to decide that the person should live, that a person's life, any person, was more important than whether some fat fuck at a country club thought you were hard enough on crime or whether you continue to get sufficient reelection campaign contributions you worthless retarded piece of shit. Why should you be allowed to decide anything beyond what you have for lunch you mental infant?
Sergio de la Pava
No more self-defeating device could be discovered than the one society has developed in dealing with the criminal. It proclaims his career in such loud and dramatic forms that both he and the community accept the judgment as a fixed description. He becomes conscious of himself as a criminal, and the community expects him to live up to his reputation, and will not credit him if he does not live up to it.
Frank Tannenbaum
To be strong does not mean to sprout muscles and flex. It means meeting one's own numinosity without fleeing, actively living with the wild nature in one's own way. It means to be able to learn, to be able to stand what we know. It means to stand and live.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
These times are too progressive. Everything has changed too fast. Railroads and telegraphs and kerosene and coal stoves -- they're good to have but the trouble is, folks get to depend on 'em.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
It’s like, how did Columbus discover America when the Indians were already here? What kind of shit is that, but white people’s shit?
Miles Davis
My feelings for Drew couldn't just disappear. They were ingrained within every fiber of my being, and I needed them just the same as I needed air to breathe.
Michelle Madow
My Love wakes in a puddle of sunlight.Her hands asleep beside her.Her hair draped on the lawnlike a mantle of cloth.I give her my lifefor our love is wholeI sing her beauty in my soul.
Roman Payne
The "right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" begins with "life", and "life" begins at conception.
A.E. Samaan
The older I get the more I enjoy my childhood…! ~James A. Murphy
James A. Murphy
This is a feeling that you had, Quentin, she said. Once, a very long time ago. A rare one. This is how you felt when you were eight years old, and you opened one of the Fillory books for the first time, and you felt awe and joy and hope and longing all at once. You felt them very strongly, Quentin. You dreamed of Fillory then, with a power and an innocence that not many people ever experience. That's where all this began for you. You wanted the world to be better than it was.
Lev Grossman
Last night I danced. My body rose from its slump for the first time since the beginning of sorrows—my fingers beckoning to the stars at arm's length, back arching as tingles bubbled up my spine, hips caught in a silent tempo while on tiptoe I twirled in endless euphoric circles. It didn't matter that you loved me or that you didn't. For I was wanted by the gods last night, their seraphs and muses descending on moonbeams into my midst, caressing my face and gliding their spirited arms about my waist, lifting my toes from the soil that I might feel what it is to fly without heaviness of heart. I danced with them under the glow of a loyal moon. For one brief, visceral dance I joyed as Heaven joys—in endless bliss.And the universe cherished me.
Richelle E. Goodrich
America’s education system has become less a ladder of opportunity than a structure to transmit inequity from one generation to the next.
Nicholas Kristof
This was home. This was perfection. This was everything he'd never known he wanted. (Griff)
Jami Gold
Centuries have passed since the wars of religion ceased in Europe, and since men stopped dying in large numbers because of arcane theological disputes. Hence, perhaps, the incredulity and denial with which Westerners have greeted news of the theology and practices of the Islamic State. Many refuse to believe that this group is as devout as it claims to be, or as backward-looking or apocalyptic as its actions and statements suggest."Their skepticism is comprehensible. In the past, Westerners who accused Muslims of blindly following ancient scriptures came to deserved grief from academics—notably the late Edward Said—who pointed out that calling Muslims 'ancient' was usually just another way to denigrate them. Look instead, these scholars urged, to the conditions in which these ideologies arose—the bad governance, the shifting social mores, the humiliation of living in lands valued only for their oil."Without acknowledgment of these factors, no explanation of the rise of the Islamic State could be complete. But focusing on them to the exclusion of ideology reflects another kind of Western bias: that if religious ideology doesn’t matter much in Washington or Berlin, surely it must be equally irrelevant in Raqqa or Mosul. When a masked executioner says Allahu akbar while beheading an apostate, sometimes he’s doing so for religious reasons.
Graeme Wood
...Learn to concentrate, to give all your attention to the thing at hand, and then to be able to put it aside and go on to the next thing without confusion. My husband said that being President of the United States meant that you saw more kinds of people, took up more subjects, and learn more about a variety of things than anyone else. But it required complete concentration on the person you were with and on what he was saying. When that person left the room, you pulled down a shade in your mind, and you were ready, with your attention free, for what the next person had to say. You might have to shift from banking to forestry, but each subject had the attention and concentration it required and each, in turn, was put in the back of the mind, ready to be called upon when needed.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Jovan: "I'll pass any test you present me. I assure you."Eviona: "I wonder what the best test of pride would be." :)
Eve S. Nicholson
Jennifer Merrick had stored all her tears inside her, and her pride and courage would never permit her to break down and shed them.
Judith McNaught
Most ardent reformers are accompanied by but equal portion of dullness . John Quincy Adams
Paul C. Nagel
I don't want Sydney ever to feel like my second choice, when I know in my heart that she's the right choice. The only choice.
Colleen Hoover
What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do? What a waste, what a senseless waste! But what of those things which you actually didn't like, not because you were not supposed to like them, not because to dislike them was considered a mark of refinement and education - but because you actually found them distasteful? The very idea annoyed me. How could you know? It involved a problem of choice. I would have to weigh many things carefully before deciding and there would be some things that would cause quite a bit of trouble, simply because I had never formed a personal attitude toward so much. I had accepted the accepted attitudes and it had made life seem simple ...
Ralph Ellison
It would be easy to become a victim of our circumstances and continue feeling sad, scared or angry; or instead, we could choose to deal with injustice humanely and break the chains of negative thoughts and energies, and not let ourselves sink into it.
Erin Gruwell
As the soil of a garden is richer and as the harvest of the garden bears healthier nourishment from the decay of leaf matter and banana peel and egg shell and human hair and chicken bone and fireplace ash, so the accumulation of death in teh ground of a city implants therein energies and powers.
Tim Gilmore
They’d never scared him, really.  When he was younger, he hadn’t known that there was anything different about them.  By the time he was old enough to figure out that no one else could see them, he was also old enough to realize that being dead didn’t turn people into monsters.  It just meant that most of them were lonely. 
Jacqueline E. Smith
Ultimately, I hoped the tiny-house guy was similar to me: a sane person without a big agenda, who simply wanted a way to make sense of the world, to create a new map with a big X in the middle labeled "Home," even if that meant shrinking his world down to the size of an area rug.
Dee-Williams
Stars ink your fingerswith a lexicon of flameblazing rare knowledge.
Aberjhani
Great sex and awesome food is what conquered the beast, not beauty. The key to happiness is to fuck like a porn star and cook like a five star chef.
Travis Luedke
No wonder I stopped keeping a journal. It was like keeping a record of my own stupidity. Why would I want to do that? Why would I want to remind myself what an asshole I was?
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
We must live a genuine life in order to discover personal happiness and self-fulfillment. Understanding that a person is living a lie is the first step into realizing what is possible. No matter how frightful such a proposition is, we must dare to be an original self.
Kilroy J. Oldster
Lewis was studying literary history with the present and future in mind.
Philip Zaleski
We read about you to be with you, to walk in someone else's shoes, to experience another life. Some of those lives are hard, and others are easy, but we're with you every step of the way. We read about people in impossible situations because we're dealing with horrible things ourselves, in our lives. And you going through your story helps us with ours, no matter how yours ends.
James Riley
The nutcracker sits under the holiday tree, a guardian of childhood stories. Feed him walnuts and he will crack open a tale...
Vera Nazarian
Every fairy tale had a bloody lining. Every one had teeth and claws.
Alice Hoffman
Living your life through Gratitude, is not one of comparing how you are better than someone else; or Gratitude only for what you own or obtain or achieve. Living your life through Gratitude, is seeing that the world would be missing something very valuable if you were not in it.
Sumner Davenport
Oh what marvels fill me with thanksgiving!The deep mahogany of a leaf once green. The feathered fronds of tiny icicles coating every twig and branch in a wintry landscape. The feel of goosebumps thawing after endured frozen temperatures. Both hands clamped around a hot mug of herbal tea. The aromatic whiff of mint under my nose. The stir of emotion from a child's cry for mommy. A gift of love detached of strings. Spotted lilies collecting raindrops in a cupped clump of petals. The vibrant mélange of colors on butterfly wings. The milky luster of a single pearl. Rainbows reflecting off iridescence bubbles. Awe-struck silence evoked by any form of beauty.Avocado flecks in your eyes.Warm hands on my face.Sweetness on the tongue.The harmony of voices.An answered prayer.A pink balloon.A caress.A smile.More.These have become my treasures by virtue of thanksgiving.
Richelle E. Goodrich
It takes more than just awareness for us to change. It takes courage and humility and the willingness to occasionally feel like fools and laugh at ourselves.
Bud Harris
While McMurphy laughs. Rocking farther and farther backward against the cabin top,spreading his laugh across the water. Laughing at the girl,at the guys, at George,at me sucking my bleeding thumb, at the captain back at the pier and the bicycle rider and the service station guys and the five thousand houses and the Big Nurse and all of it. Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He know's there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girl friend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain.
Ken Kesey
There's nothing like a printed book; the weight, the woody scent, the feel, the look.
E.A. Bucchianeri
I've never seen such a bunch of apple-eaters.
J.D. Salinger
It's easy to be a saint when all you've known is the good.
Donna Lynn Hope
I sat up in the strange bed fearing it had been a dream, afraid I would never see her again. Not because I wanted anything from her, only her presence. The disappearance of the presence of beauty is the most despairing of events on this time-wheel of ours that rolls onward towards death.
Roman Payne
Unconsciously, I had doubts about everything around me, and all I had to do is to act selfish, and to walk through everything like a wise lady. So I attracted their eyes and I haunted their thoughts.
Sara Keddar
When people query whether Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS) is real or not, my answer is always: Sweden has recognized the condition for a decade and has approximately 300,000 EHS people.
Steven Magee
Our power comes from the earth
Luis Alberto Urrea
Walter made me understand why we have to reform a system of criminal justice that continues to treat people better if they are rich and guilty than if they are poor and innocent. A system that denies the poor the legal help they need, that makes wealth and status more important than culpability, must be changed. Walter's case taught me that fear and anger are a threat to justice; they can infect a community, a state, or a nation and make us blind, irrational, and dangerous. I reflected on how mass imprisonment has littered the national landscape with carceral monuments of reckless and excessive punishment and ravaged communities with our hopeless willingness to condemn and discard the most vulnerable among us.
Bryan Stevenson
There is one key area in which Zuma has made no attempt at reconciliation whatsoever: criminal justice and security. The ministers of justice, defence, intelligence (now called 'state security' in a throwback to both apartheid and the ANC's old Stalinist past), police and communications are all die-hard Zuma loyalists. Whatever their line functions, they will also play the role they have played so ably to date: keeping Zuma out of court—and making sure the state serves Zuma as it once did Mbeki.
Mark Gevisser
Public and civic value require commitment and hard work among the core group of participants. It also requires that these groups be self-governing and submit to constraints that help them ignore distracting and entertaining material and stay focused instead of some sophisticated task.
Clay Shirky
Personal value is the kind of value we receive from being active instead of passive, creative instead of consumptive.
Clay Shirky
Whether we like it or not, we all come from someplace. And at some point in our lives, we have to make peace with that place.
Jeffrey Stepakoff
[T]here are some human rights that are so deep that we can't negotiate them away. I mean people do heinous, terrible things. But there are basic human rights I believe that every human being has. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the United Nations says it for me. And it says there are two basic rights that can't be negotiated that government doesn't give for good behavior and doesn't take away for bad behavior. And it's the right not to be tortured and not to be killed. Because the flip side of this is that then when you say OK we're gonna turn over -- they truly have done heinous things, so now we will turn over to the government now the right to take their life. It involves other people in doing essentially the same kind of
Helen Prejean
Close your eyes, real tight, and then count to three hundred. That’s all you have to do. You just count to three hundred, and when you open your eyes, five minutes will have passed. And even if it hurts or things are shitty or you don’t know what to do, you just made it through five whole minutes. And when it feels like you can’t go on, you just close your eyes and do it again. That’s all you need. Just five minutes at a time.
Emma Mills
Now come the whispersbearing bouquets of moonbeamsand sunlight tremblings.
Aberjhani
Fine Structure Constant: Fundamental numerical constant of atomic physics and quantum electrodynamics, defined as the square of the charge of the electron divided by the product of Planck's constant and the speed of light.
Steven Weinberg