Quotes by American Authors - Page 3227

Their happiness was the kind which is fashioned of the comfortable disorder of sauvignon bottles and coffee cups in the sink, paperback thrillers with split spines on the nightstand, bathrobes hung haphazard on high-backed, brocade-seated chairs, shutters left open all night, and the hallway ever in need of new paint.
Catherynne M. Valente
Tell her happiness is just practice," he said. "If only she acted happy, she would be happy.
Nancy Horan
There is no greater thing than to be oneself, and it is never too late to do so.
James Rozoff
There's a belief that to take care of someone else, or to let someone else take care of you - that both are inherently unfeminist. i don't agree. There's no shame in devoting yourself to another person, as long as he devotes himself to you in return
Curtis Sittenfeld
If I am a puzzle, this is the moment in which I find the first corner piece. There is still a lot of work to do; I still have a thousand pieces of myself to fit into place. But everyone knows you're supposed to find the corners first. They are the beginning.
Claire Legrand
Happiness is a frame of mind. It is a state of thinking. It is an attitude, a headset, a mentality. Happiness is a disposition and demeanor. It is a mood and sensibility. It is a philosophy, a notion, a tone, an outlook and perspective. Happiness is all of these things, none of which exist separate from me. They cannot be extracted or stolen because they constitute my very being. Therefore, happiness must be the natural essence of me.
Richelle E. Goodrich
Was it happiness I'd found in my long marriage? Or capitulation? Or is that all happiness is, capitulation?
Maria Semple
Ha ha ha ha! Tee-hee-hee!Mwa-ha mwa-ha!Kee kee kee!Ho ho ho ho! Haw-hee-haw! Heh heh heh heh!Gah guffaw! Hoo hoo hoo hoo!Hoi hoi-eee!Ba ha ha ha! Tsee tsee tsee!Giggle, titter,snicker, crow,laughter makesmy 'happy' grow!
Richelle E. Goodrich
Walking across campus made me feel sad, and I thought to myself, I wasn't happy there. Then, after reading, we walked past Butler Library. It was dark, but the light inside illuminated the windows. Students were reading and working, and those lit windows gave me a wonderful, weightless feeling. I understood for the first time how happy I had been there - in the library.
Siri Hustvedt
It is true that I suffered in a difficult and stupid love affair and that I worked at one bad job after another to try to keep myself going. Nevertheless, I remember that time as extraordinary, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I don't even wish now that I had more money. And had I been asked if I was suffering at the time, I would have said a defiant no.
Siri Hustvedt
Constant thoughts of money, possession, and control are a personal prison. Thoughts of God, family, and happiness are freedom.
Ron Baratono
May today find you happiness and a calm in your heart from God you can’t explain.
Ron Baratono
There's a lesson here, and that is I have to find happiness inside myself before I try to partner again.
Ellen Hopkins
Life is fundamentally a mental state. We live in a dream world that we create. Whose life is truer, the rational man of action pursuing practical goals of personal happiness and wealth or the philosophic man who lives in a world of theoretical and metaphysical ideas? We ascribe the value quotient to our lives by making decisions that we score as either valid or invalid based upon our personal ethics and how we think and behave.
Kilroy J. Oldster
I had no friends. Was I happy? I was wildly happy. Sitting on my bed, which took up most of the space in that narrow room, I whispered prayers of thanks that I was really and truly here in New York, beginning another life. I worshipped the place. I feasted on every beautiful inch of it - the crowds, the fruit and vegetable stands, the miles of pavement, the graffiti, even the garbage. All of it sent me into paroxysms of joy. Needless to say, my elevation had an irrational cast to it. Had I not arrived laden with ideas of urban paradise, I might have felt bad losing sleep, might have felt lonely and disoriented, but instead I walked around town like a love-struck idiot, inhaling the difference between there and here.
Siri Hustvedt
I was happy without having sought happiness.
Siri Hustvedt
The world seems to want us to be sad and angry because bad things frequently happen. But I say we should feel the opposite. We should be happy and cheerful because good things happen. We should be delighted to see the sun rise and stars glow and rainbows color stormy skies. We should savor every simple breath and eat each meal with gratitude. We should slumber in sweet dreams and relish moments of laughter and love. We should take more notice of the joys and kindnesses that do exist, still dictating the actions of millions of good people all over the world. Life is filled with pleasant moments, not just grief. We should be happy because this is true.
Richelle E. Goodrich
Today there could be laughter and freedom, but soon the magic would end and they would have to go back to the real world. However, there would still always be time to get under Dak's skin.
Alyson Serena Stone
If I can draw the slightest smile across a single face obliterated by pain, in that act I will have begun to understand the power of an ordinary human being to perform the seemingly impossible in the life of another human being. And how can that experience do anything less than drive me to try and make the world smile.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but everyday is a clean state and a fresh opportunity.
Gretchen Rubin
Liberals are more likely to see people as victims of circumstance and oppression, and doubt whether individuals can climb without governmental help. My own analysis using 2005 survey data from Syracuse University shows that about 90 percent of conservatives agree that “While people may begin with different opportunities, hard work and perseverance can usually overcome those disadvantages.” Liberals — even upper-income liberals — are a third less likely to say this.
Arthur C. Brooks
Having friends was weird . . . but in a good way.
Gwenda Bond
Into the promise of happiness, synchronizing the rhythm of our lives to the turning of the leaves and the rise and fall of the tides.
Jennifer Irwin
We must judge the tree by its fruit. The best fruits of the religious experience are the best things history has to offer. The highest flights of charity, devotion, trust, patience, and bravery to which the wings of human nature have spread themselves, have all been flown for religious ideals.
William James
The good ones put your character to the flame and burn away all the rest of the shit until you come out a better you.
Erin Watt
We cannot experience free joy and happiness without experiencing the depths of pain.
Natalie Brenner
Described in this way, utilitarianism has little in common with the prosaic, visionless notion of the 'merely utilitarian,' in the sense of a narrowly or mundanely functional or efficient option. No such limited horizon confined the thought and character of the great English-language utilitarian philosophers, whose influence ran its course from the period just before the French Revolution through the Victorian era. Happiness, for them, was more of a cosmic calling, the path to world progress, and whatever was deemed 'utilitarian' had to be useful for that larger and inspiring end, the global minimization of pointless suffering and the global maximization of positive well-being or happiness. It invokes, ultimately, the point of view of universal benevolence. And it is more accurately charged with being too demanding ethically than with being too accommodating of narrow practicality, material interests, self-interestedness, and the like.
Bart Schultz
Whoever said that money didn't buy happiness was a damn fool. A damn fool who'd never been poor.
Tom Cooper
Longfellow smiled. "A great part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles, my dear Lowell, but in avoiding them. A masterly retreat is in itself a victory.
Matthew Pearl
...they're here for a moment and then gone. At best they have "liftoff" power, or, to use a different analogy, they are like periodic flashes of lightning on a dark road, with no guiding power.
Ravi Zacharias
If I know that I can do something that makes me happy, why do I allow myself to get so depressed?
Kara Lee Corthron
She felt wild and unruly, determined and free.
Scott Stabile
Real love feels less like a throbbing, pulsing animal begging for its freedom and beating against the inside of my chest and more like, 'Hey, that place you like had fish tacos today and i got you some while i was out', as it sets a bag spotted with grease on the dining room table. It's not a game you don't understand the rules of, or a test you never got the materials to study for. It never leaves you wondering who could possibly be texting at 3 am. Or what you could possibly do to make it come home and stay there. It's fucking boring, dude. I don't walk around mired in uneasiness, waiting for the other shoe to drop. No parsing through spun tales about why it took her so long to come back from the store. No checking her emails or calling her job to make sure she's actually there. No sitting in my car outside her house at dawn, to make sure she's alone when she leaves. This feels safe, and steadfast, and predictable. And secure. It's boring as shit. And it's easily the best thing I've ever felt.
Samantha Irby
and then there was that time you sucked down your fear, breathed into it, faced it with a courage that moves mountains, and you stepped right into that thing, that situation, that experience moments and forever before had crippled and controlled you, and had you believing you could never rise up to meet it. but you did, because you could. and you will again, because you can. yes, you can.
Scott Stabile
We can't really know what relationships will last or not last in our lives, romantic and otherwise. What we can do is give the best we've got to the relationships we've chosen for ourselves. We can show up with an open heart and mind, be grateful for the exchange of love, and trust in however these relationships evolve. We can also be grateful for the relationships that have ended, trusting that we received from them something important that has helped to move us farther along our paths.
Scott Stabile
If you can’t forget about all the great pains you’ve endured, as many of us can’t, at least take some time to celebrate the fact that you’ve somehow kept going, in spite of it all. And you’ve certainly kept growing, because of it all.
Scott Stabile
Persevering through something that is drudgery to you in the name of perseverance alone isn’t commendable; it’s senseless stubbornness. Even if you stick with it long enough to make good money, you won’t be truly happy.
Tony Robbins
I laugh as an unfamiliar feeling envelops me. I think it might be happiness.
Paula Stokes
I can’t tell you anything about yourself you don’t already know…WAIT…unless you don’t know you’re an incredibly freaking amazing person with boundless gifts to share…then I can tell you that.
Scott Stabile
Everywhere I look I see people doing their best to make sense of this overwhelming reality, and to be kind, authentic human beings despite the many invitations we all receive to be phony, unkind assholes. Sometimes their best doesn’t look like much to me, and I remind myself that my best doesn’t look like much a lot of the time, too. I empathize. We’re all human, and we’re all struggling. Every single one of us, every single day. It’s not my job to police the paths of others, not when it takes so much effort to light my own.
Scott Stabile
Be free, my friend.Cry, scream, rage, collapse.Your pain is not too much for us.And though it’s hard to believe right now,your pain is not too much for you, either.Fall apart into a thousand frightened pieces,question everything you’ve always trusted,grieve however you need to grieve.We’ll still be here. So will you.Yes, you will survive this.Changed but stronger.Wounded but alive.Seen, and loved. So very loved.
Scott Stabile
Here's the thing about meditation, as I try once again to make it a habit... Even when I close my eyes to meditate for five minutes, body fidgeting, mind racing and worrying and busying itself with everything but the present moment, I still feel quieter, more relaxed when I open my eyes. Maybe it's just the simple act of giving myself five dedicated minutes of attention (no matter how they play out) to the calm, knowing soul that smiles from within at all of my mental nonsense. We are beings of peace after all. And of love. So much goodness, so much understanding and compassion lives inside each of us, like wide-eyed children, always ready to come out and play.
Scott Stabile
Today is the perfect day to do something daring. Like just be yourself, for instance.
Scott Stabile
Who are you not to be yourself?
Scott Stabile
I didn't hit other people or hit purposefully, I just hit. Some object would be at fault. My anger was at myself, every time, all vanity. As an adolescent I was a slammer of drawers and a packer of suitcases. I was responsible for scenes.Control came imperfectly to all of us: we reached it at different times of life, frustrated, shot into indignation, by different things - some that are grown out of, and others not.Of all my strong emotions, anger is the one least responsible for any of my work. I don't write out of anger. For one thing, simply as a fiction writer, I am minus an adversary - except, of course, that of time - and for another thing, the act of writing in itself brings me happiness.
Eudora Welty
If people aren't able to see your magnificence that's their loss, not yours.
Scott Stabile
Why is it that happiness remembered feels like despair?
Heather Chaplin
Just like anything, don't rush a good thing. Enjoy it. Just like in a game of chess, all of the pieces serve a different purpose . In conquering daily battles, we must remember to set our bars a little lower to discover the immediate joys existing right under our our nose.
Machel Shull
I’m super fucking sensitive. I love this about myself only slightly more than I can’t stand it. Sometimes I wish I were an unfeeling stone who didn’t take everything so personally and didn’t need so much space all the time. Feeling can get exhausting fast. Mostly, though, I know my sensitivity is a superpower, perhaps my greatest, and it’s the thing that keeps me loving our world in a profound way, when I’m not too busy hiding from it, that is.
Scott Stabile
Be a person who gives a shit about other people.
Scott Stabile
If only I could spend all my days surrounded by people brave enough to open their hearts for real.
Scott Stabile
You change our world for the better by changing our world for the better.
Scott Stabile
When you surround yourself with wonderful, productive people, you become enhanced. Your level of happiness increases, which is your success.
Ron Baratono
You just cannot have the same thing twice without being disappointed.
Vann Chow
Sweetheart, happily ever after does exist, it’s just not what you think,” he said. “Happily ever after isn’t a solution to life’s problems or a guarantee that life will be easy; it’s a promise we make ourselves to always live our best lives, despite whatever circumstance comes our way. When we focus on joy in times of heartbreak, when we choose to laugh on the days it’s hard to smile, and when we count our blessings over our losses—that’s what a true happily ever after is all about. You don’t get there by being perfect; on the contrary, it’s our humanity that guides us. And that’s what fairy tales have been trying to teach us all along.
Chris Colfer
The whole world would be much happier if everyone was just average.
Ron Baratono
Your smile is a messenger of your good will.
Dale Carnegie
Today, I choose not to take my life for granted. I choose not to look upon the fact that I am healthy, have food in my refrigerator and have clean water to drink as givens. They are not givens for so many people in our world. The fact that I am safe and (relatively) sane are not givens. That I was born into a family who loves me and into a country not ravaged by war are not givens. It is impossible to name all of the circumstances in my life I’ve taken for granted. All of the basic needs I’ve had met, all of the friendships and job opportunities and financial blessings and the list, truly, goes on and on. The fact that I am breathing is a miracle, one I too rarely stop to appreciate. I’m stopping, right now, to be grateful for everything I am and everything I’ve been given. I’m stopping, right now, to be grateful for every pleasure and every pain that has contributed to the me who sits here and writes these words. I am thankful for my life. This moment is a blessing. Each breath a gift. That I’ve been able to take so much for granted is a gift, too. But it’s not how I want to live—not when gratitude is an option, now when wonder and awe are choices. I choose gratitude. I choose wonder. I choose awe. I choose everything that suggest I’m opening myself to the miraculous reality of simply being alive for one moment more.
Scott Stabile
As much as I love to see the sun setting behind a city skyline,and to feel the pure majesty of a wild river or soaring mountain,and to fade, then disappear into a transcendent book, song or film,I am always most astounded, moved and transported by the warmthand kindness of a loving person. Always.
Scott Stabile
If you believe in God,then you’re a child of God.As such, you’re as worthy of loveas anyone who has ever lived. If you don’t believe in God,then you’re a child of Nature.As such, you’re as worthy of loveas anyone who has ever lived.Nothing you can do will make youany more or any less worthy of lovethan you already are, and always have been.You’re as worthy as they come, my friend.Please try not to forget that.
Scott Stabile