Quotes by American Authors - Page 3403

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.
Anne Lamott
There's nothing more embarrassing than to have earned the disfavor of a perceptive animal.
Michael Chabon
Bottom line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.
Joss Whedon
Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
One swing set, well worn but structurally sound, seeks new home. Make memories with your kid or kids so that someday he or she or they will look into the backyard and feel the ache of sentimentality as desperately as I did this afternoon. It's all fragile and fleeting, dear reader, but with this swing set, your child(ren) will be introduced to the ups and downs of human life gently and safely, and may also learn the most important lesson of all: No matter how hard you kick, no matter how high you get, you can't go all the way around.
John Green
My father had taught me to be nice first, because you can always be mean later, but once you've been mean to someone, they won't believe the nice anymore. So be nice, be nice, until it's time to stop being nice, then destroy them.
Laurell K. Hamilton
Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore.
Ray Bradbury
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.
Steve Jobs
I know it seems hard sometimes but remember one thing. Through every dark night, there's a bright day after that. So no matter how hard it get, stick your chest out, keep ya head up.... and handle it.
Tupac Shakur
The problem with people is they forget that most of the time it's the small things that count.
Jennifer Niven
But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defensless that I couldn't do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get.
Sylvia Plath
When you can live forever what do you live for?
Stephenie Meyer
I'm not in search of sanctity, sacredness, purity; these things are found after this life, not in this life; but in this life I search to be completely human: to feel, to give, to take, to laugh, to get lost, to be found, to dance, to love and to lust, to be so human.
C. JoyBell C.
I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible.
J.D. Salinger
You must learn to let go. Release the stress. You were never in control anyway.
Steve Maraboli
Whenever something bad happens, keep calm, take a few deep breaths and shift the focus to something positive.
Roy T. Bennett
Smile more. Smiling can make you and others happy.
Roy T. Bennett
When you do the right thing, you get the feeling of peace and serenity associated with it. Do it again and again.
Roy T. Bennett
Never lose hope. Storms make people stronger and never last forever.
Roy T. Bennett
I can't decide whether I'm a good girl wrapped up in a bad girl, or if I'm a bad girl wrapped up in a good girl. And that's how I know I'm a woman!
C. JoyBell C.
Never stop dreaming, never stop believing, never give up, never stop trying, and never stop learning.
Roy T. Bennett
If you have a strong purpose in life, you don't have to be pushed. Your passion will drive you there.
Roy T. Bennett
We'd start slow, the way we always did, because the run, and the game, could go on for awhile. Maybe even forever.That was the thing. You just never knew. Forever was so many different things. It was always changing, it was what everything was really all about. It was twenty minutes, or a hundred years, or just this instant, or any instant I wished would last and last. But there was only one truth about forever that really mattered, and that was this: it was happening. Right then, as I ran with Wes into that bright sun, and every moment afterwards. Look, there. Now. Now. Now.
Sarah Dessen
He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars.
Jack London
Nothing can disturb your peace of mind unless you allow it to.
Roy T. Bennett
Often, it’s not about becoming a new person, but becoming the person you were meant to be, and already are, but don’t know how to be.
Heath L. Buckmaster
Make a pact with yourself today to not be defined by your past. Sometimes the greatest thing to come out of all your hard work isn't what you get for it, but what you become for it. Shake things up today! Be You...Be Free...Share.
Steve Maraboli
My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.
Woody Allen
I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how a man could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.
Abraham Lincoln
I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours..
Henry David Thoreau
Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it.
Ray Bradbury
People have to forgive. We don't have to like them, we don't have to be friends with them, we don't have to send them hearts in text messages, but we have to forgive them, to overlook, to forget. Because if we don't we are tying rocks to our feet, too much for our wings to carry!
C. JoyBell C.
The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.
Mark Twain
You Are the Master of Your AttitudeYou cannot control what happens to you, but you can control the way you think about all the events. You always have a choice. You can choose to face them with a positive mental attitude.
Roy T. Bennett
Patience Is Not the Ability to Wait: Patience is not the ability to wait. Patience is to be calm no matter what happens, constantly take action to turn it to positive growth opportunities, and have faith to believe that it will all work out in the end while you are waiting.
Roy T. Bennett
The biggest wall you have to climb is the one you build in your mind: Never let your mind talk you out of your dreams, trick you into giving up. Never let your mind become the greatest obstacle to success. To get your mind on the right track, the rest will follow.
Roy T. Bennett
It's never too late to change your life for the better. You don't have to take huge steps to change your life. Making even the smallest changes to your daily routine can make a big difference to your life.
Roy T. Bennett
Believe in your infinite potential. Your only limitations are those you set upon yourself.
Roy T. Bennett
Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad. Let God deal with the things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too.
Will Smith
My body is my journal, and my tattoos are my story.
Johnny Depp
When a woman becomes her own best friend life is easier.
Diane Von Furstenberg
One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
I wonder why I don't go to bed and go to sleep. But then it would be tomorrow, so I decide that no matter how tired, no matter how incoherent I am, I can skip on hour more of sleep and live.
Sylvia Plath
We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future.
Steve Maraboli
You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.
John Green
Who says life is fair, where is that written?
William Goldman
Courage is feeling fear, not getting rid of fear, and taking action in the face of fear.
Roy T. Bennett
Oh, Life, I am yours. Whatever it is you want of me, I am ready to give.
William Steig
Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries.
Theodore Roethke
One always has a better book in one's mind than one can manage to get onto paper.
Michael Cunningham
Some of us get dipped in flat, some in satin, some in gloss...." He turned to me. "But every once in a while, you find someone who's iridescent, and when you do, nothing will ever compare.
Wendelin Van Draanen
I'm sorry for my inability to let unimportant things go, for my inability to hold on to the important things.
Jonathan Safran Foer
Be Brave and Take Risks: You need to have faith in yourself. Be brave and take risks. You don't have to have it all figured out to move forward.
Roy T. Bennett
At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regrets.
Steve Maraboli
Happiness depends on your mindset and attitude.
Roy T. Bennett
It's better to burn out than to fade away.
Neil Young
It all goes away. Eventually, everything goes away.
Elizabeth Gilbert
The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.
Henry Miller
People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Never complain, never explain. Resist the temptation to defend yourself or make excuses.
Brian Tracy