Quotes by American Authors - Page 3363

My young sisters, we have such hope for you. We have such great expectations for you. Don't settle for less than what the Lord wants you to be...Give me a young woman who loves home and family, who reads and ponders the scriptures daily, who has a burning testimony of the Book of Mormon... Give me a young woman who is virtuous and who has maintained her personal purity, who will not settle for less than a temple marriage, and I will give you a young woman who will perform miracles for the Lord now and throughout eternity.
Ezra Taft Benson
A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed at some indefinite time in the future.
George S. Patton Jr.
We are what we are, neither a good or as bad as others paint us. And what we are doesn't change how truly we feel, only how free we are to follow those feelings.
Melissa Marr
[T]he race is long - to finish first, first you must finish.
Garth Stein
A daydreamer is prepared for most things.
Joyce Carol Oates
A great tree develops over time and can tell stories not only those of happiness, but also those that contain pain from what it has seen over the years, and as a result is the wise ancient tree that it is today. As the seasons change, the tree naturally goes through changes as well: where the leaves turn yellow and orange in the fall, falling by the Winter, returning in the Spring, and with full set of new leafs by the Summer. Love is no different in that there will be times when we are fully naked in the Winter, and left to wonder about Spring when it seemed so easy to love, yet the wise tree knows that no winter will last forever no matter how cold it may be.
Forrest Curran
Failing sucks. But it's better than the alternative.""Which is?""Not even trying." Now he did look at me, straight on. "Life's short, you know?
Sarah Dessen
Your mother won a special reward," she told me, "because everyone had a head in her pictures. We all applauded.
Sarah Dessen
Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.
Bruce Lee
You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore...But let there be spaces in your togetherness...Love one another, but make not a bond of love. Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not of the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Kahlil Gibran
The greatest thing about dreams is they don’t expire. They can lay dormant for years and when you pull them out and dust them off, they shine like new.
Casi McLean
I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.
Sylvia Plath
If you feel far from God, guess who moved?
Robin Jones Gunn
We're miserable because we think that we are mere individuals, alone with our fears and flaws and resentment and mortality.
Elizabeth Gilbert
Pressure makes diamonds
George S. Patton Jr.
Love has no limitations. It cannot be measured. It has no boundaries. Although many have tried, love is indefinable.
Steve Maraboli
Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
John F Kennedy
Make voyages. Attempt them. There's nothing else.
Tennessee Williams
A woman can't do anything about her appearance. Either she's pretty or she isn't. But her character is quite another matter.
Julie Garwood
She was broken from moment to moment, watching her world collide she felt lost inside herself. She fell apart for a passion that flamed beneath her. She waited and died a hundred times, it dripped from her pores. The moment she let go, she soared over the stillness like the star she was born to be.
Robert M. Drake
Never apologize for burning too brightly or collapsing into yourself every night. That is how galaxies are made.
Tyler Kent White
I change the world, the world changes me.
Libba Bray
The pressures on gay teens can be overwhelming--to keep secrets, tell lies, deny who you are, and try to be who you're not. Remember: you are special and worth being cared about, loved, and accepted just as you are. Never, ever let anyone convince you otherwise.
Alex Sanchez
If you are her man, she will talk to you until there justaren’t any more words left to say, encourage you when you’reat rock bottom and think there just isn’t any way out, hold youin her arms when you’re sick, and laugh with you when you’reup. And if you’re her man and that woman loves you—I meanreally loves you?—she will shine you up when you’re dusty,encourage you when you’re down, defend you even when she’snot so sure you were right, and hang on your every word, evenwhen you’re not saying anything worth listening to.
Steve Harvey
The More we value things, the less we value ourselves
Bruce Lee
Only when we give joyfully, without hesitation or thought of gain, can we truly know what love means.
Leo Buscaglia
When you get up in the morning, you have two choices - either to be happy or to be unhappy. Just choose to be happy
Norman Vincent Peale
I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead.
Jimmy Buffett
Maybe it just means that love can be stronger than fear.
L.J. Smith
No name-calling truly bites deep unless, in some dark part of us, we believe it. If we are confident enough then it is just noise.
Laurell K. Hamilton
Jesus said several times, “Come, follow me.” His was a program of “do what I do,” rather than “do what I say.” His innate brilliance would have permitted him to put on a dazzling display, but that would have left his followers far behind. He walked and worked with those he was to serve. His was not a long-distance leadership. He was not afraid of close friendships; he was not afraid that proximity to him would disappoint his followers. The leaven of true leadership cannot lift others unless we are with and serve those to be led.
Spencer W. Kimball
Unhappy memories are persistent. They're specific, and it's the details that refuse to leave us alone. Though a happy memory may stay with you just as long as one that makes you miserable, what you remember softens over time. What you recall is simply that you were happy, not necessarily the individual moments that brought about your joy.But the memory of something painful does just the opposite. It retains its original shape, all bony fingers and pointy elbows. Every time it returns, you get a quick poke in the eye or jab in the stomach. The memory of being unhappy has the power to hurt us long after the fact. We feel the injury anew each and every time we think of it.
Cameron Dokey
We pencil-sketch our previous life so we can contrast it to the technicolor of the moment.
David Levithan
I used to have a sign pinned up on my wall that read: Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us...It was all about letting go of everything.
Pema Chödrön
There are moments in every relationship that define when two people start to fall in love.A first glanceA first smileA first kissA first fall…(I remove the Darth Vader house shoes from my satchel and look down at them.)You were wearing these during one of those moments.One of the moments I first started to fall in love with you.The way you gave me butterflies that morningHad absolutely nothing to do with anyone else,and everything to do with you.I was falling in love with you that morningbecause of you.(I take the next item out of the satchel. When I pull it out and look up, she brings her hands to her mouth in shock.)This ugly little gnomeWith his smug little grin…He's the reason I had an excuse to invite you into my house.Into my life.You took a lot of aggression out on him over those next few months.I would watch from my window as you would kick him over every time you walked by him.Poor little guy.You were so tenacious.That feisty, aggressive, strong-willed side of you….The side of you that refused to take crap from this concrete gnome?The side of you that refused to take crap from me?I fell in love with that side of youbecause of you.(I set the gnome down on the stage and grab the CD)This is your favorite CD‘Layken’s shit.’Although now I know you intended for shit to be possessive, rather than descriptive.The banjo started playing through the speakers of your carand I immediately recognized my favorite band.Then when I realized it was your favorite band, too?The fact that these same lyrics inspired both of us?I fell in love with that about you.That had absolutely nothing to do with anyone else.I fell in love with that about youbecause of you.(I take a slip of paper out of the satchel and hold it up. When I look at her, I see Eddie slide her a napkin. I can’t tell from up here, but that can only mean she’s crying.)This is a receipt I kept.Only because the item I purchased that night was on the verge of ridiculous.Chocolate milk on the rocks? Who orders that?You were different, and you didn’t care.You were being you.A piece of me fell in love with you at that moment,because of you.This? (I hold up another sheet of paper.)This I didn’t really like so much.It’s the poem you wrote about me.The one you titled 'mean?'I don’t think I ever told you…but you made a zero.And then I kept itto remind myself of all the things I never want to be to you.(I pull her shirt from my bag. When I hold it into the light, I sigh into the microphone.)This is that ugly shirt you wear.It doesn’t really have anything to do with why I fell in love with you.I just saw it at your house and thought I’d steal it.
Colleen Hoover
The night before brain surgery, I thought about death. I searched out my larger values, and I asked myself, if I was going to die, did I want to do it fighting and clawing or in peaceful surrender? What sort of character did I hope to show? Was I content with myself and what I had done with my life so far? I decided that I was essentially a good person, although I could have been better--but at the same time I understood that the cancer didn't care.I asked myself what I believed. I had never prayed a lot. I hoped hard, I wished hard, but I didn't pray. I had developed a certain distrust of organized religion growing up, but I felt I had the capacity to be a spiritual person, and to hold some fervent beliefs. Quite simply, I believed I had a responsibility to be a good person, and that meant fair, honest, hardworking, and honorable. If I did that, if I was good to my family, true to my friends, if I gave back to my community or to some cause, if I wasn't a liar, a cheat, or a thief, then I believed that should be enough. At the end of the day, if there was indeed some Body or presence standing there to judge me, I hoped I would be judged on whether I had lived a true life, not on whether I believed in a certain book, or whether I'd been baptized. If there was indeed a God at the end of my days, I hoped he didn't say, 'But you were never a Christian, so you're going the other way from heaven.' If so, I was going to reply, 'You know what? You're right. Fine.'I believed, too, in the doctors and the medicine and the surgeries--I believed in that. I believed in them. A person like Dr. Einhorn [his oncologist], that's someone to believe in, I thought, a person with the mind to develop an experimental treatment 20 years ago that now could save my life. I believed in the hard currency of his intelligence and his research.Beyond that, I had no idea where to draw the line between spiritual belief and science. But I knew this much: I believed in belief, for its own shining sake. To believe in the face of utter hopelessness, every article of evidence to the contrary, to ignore apparent catastrophe--what other choice was there? We do it every day, I realized. We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics. To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can cure the briefness of this life, that there is no remedy for our basic mortality, that is a form of bravery.To continue believing in yourself, believing in the doctors, believing in the treatment, believing in whatever I chose to believe in, that was the most important thing, I decided. It had to be.Without belief, we would be left with nothing but an overwhelming doom, every single day. And it will beat you. I didn't fully see, until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism. Dispiritedness and disappointment, these were the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millennium doomsday. I knew now why people fear cancer: because it is a slow and inevitable death, it is the very definition of cynicism and loss of spirit.So, I believed.
Lance Armstrong
Tragedy and adversary are the stones we sharpen our swords against so we can fight new battles.
Sherrilyn Kenyon
Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent.
Marilyn Vos Savant
Stop blaming outside circumstances for your inside chaos.
Steve Maraboli
I belive I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky.
R. Kelly
Everyones greatest fantasy is to walk away from the life (they think)you lead
Pete Wentz
To be deeply loved, means a willingness to cut yourself wide open, exposing your vulnerabilities... hopes, hurts, fears and flaws. Hiding behind the highlight reel of who you are, is the real you and that person is just as worthy of love. There is nothing more terrifying or fulfilling, than complete love, it's worth the risk... reach for it.
Jaeda DeWalt
... what you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.
Norton Juster
Everything ends, and Everything matters. Everything matters not in spite of the end of you and all that you love, but because of it. Everything is all you’ve got…and after Everything is nothing. So you were wise to welcome Everything, the good and the bad alike, and cling to it all. Gather it in. Seek the meaning in sorrow and don’t ever turn away, not once, from here until the end. Because it is all the same, it is all unfathomable, and it is all infinitely preferable to the one dreadful alternative.
Ron Currie Jr.
Now don't you understand man universal lawWhat you throw out comes back to you, starNever underestimate those who you scarCause karma, karma, karma comes back to you hard
Lauryn Hill
Consider non your superior, whatever their rank or station in life. Treat all fairly or they will seek revenge. Be careful with your money. Hold fast to your belief and others will listen." he continued at a slower pace, " of the affairs of love ... my only advice is to be honest. thats your most powerfull too to unlock a heart or gain forgiveness. that is all i have to say"Garrow to Roran p 64
Christopher Paolini
God will answer you prayers better than you think. Of course, one will not always get exactly what he has asked for....We all have sorrows and disappointments, but one must never forget that, if commended to God, they will issue in good....His own solution is far better than any we could conceive.
Fanny J. Crosby
A tiny change today brings a dramatically different tomorrow.
Richard Bach
My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered.
Alice Sebold
When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.
Alexander Graham Bell
It is better for the heart to break, than not to break.
Mary Oliver
For all those that have to fight for the respect that everyone else is given without question.
N K Jemisin
Last nightthe rainspoke to meslowly, saying, what joyto come fallingout of the brisk cloud, to be happy againin a new wayon the earth! That’s what it saidas it dropped, smelling of iron, and vanishedlike a dream of the oceaninto the branchesand the grass below.Then it was over.The sky cleared.I was standingunder a tree.The tree was a treewith happy leaves, and I was myself, and there were stars in the skythat were also themselvesat the momentat which momentmy right handwas holding my left handwhich was holding the treewhich was filled with starsand the soft rain –imagine! imagine! the long and wondrous journeysstill to be ours.
Mary Oliver
Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.
George E. Woodberry
Books didn’t make me wallow in darkness, darkness made me wallow in books.
Jackson Pearce
Stories are like genies...They can carry us into and though our sorrows. Sometimes they burn, sometimes they dance, sometimes they weep, sometimes they sing. Like genies, everyone has one. Like genies, sometimes we forget that we do.Our stories can set us free...When we set them free.
Francesca Lia Block
I'm not going to die, I'm going home like a shooting star.
Sojourner Truth
Sometimes you just have to jump out the window and grow wings on the way down.
Ray Bradbury
Total paranoia is just total awareness.
Charles Manson
The future doesn't belong to the light-hearted. It belongs to the brave.
Ronald Reagan