Quotes by American Authors - Page 37

I am not perfect, but if I looked perfect to everyone I must have been rocking imperfect perfectly to a few imperfect souls that seek imperfection vs. perfection, in an imperfect world where God asks us to seek perfection for our imperfect souls.
Shannon L. Alder
There is no perfectly shaped part of the motorcycle and never will be, but when you come as close as these instruments take you, remarkable things happen, and you go flying across the countryside under a power that would be called magic if it were not so completely rational in every way.
Robert M. Pirsig
There’s no need to sharpen your pencils any more. Even the dull ones can make a mark.
Ze Frank
Maybe it's not just about finding the perfect friend, partner, or tribe, but finding the perfection in those you've already found.
Mike Dooley
Perfection can hide a lot of warts.
Khang Kijarro Nguyen
We want all possible things made actual, the perpetual possibility of perfection, the best of all futures all at once.
Dexter Palmer
Be wary of someone who has never failed, or seem to have no faults... Too good to be true usually is. Perfection hides something.
Henry Cloud
Under Steve Jobs, there's zero tolerance for not performing," its CEO said. At another point, when VLSI Technology was having trouble delivering enough chips on time, Jobs stormed into a meeting and started shouting that they were "fucking dickless assholes." The company ended up getting the chips to Apple on time, and its executives made jackets that boasted on the back, "Team FDA.
Walter Isaacson
I pat the brand new twenty-seven inch Macintosh computers Mr. Foley brought us. 'These boxes alone should make both of us scream like it's Christmas morning! Snap out of it. Santa came! Now we get to play with all of our toys!
Anne Eliot
Hugh refused to leave the scene of the action. He seated himself on the top stair in the hall, banged his head against the railing a few times, just by way of uncorking the vials of his wrath, and then subsided into gloomy silence, waiting to declare war if more “first girl babies” were thrust upon a family already surfeited with that unnecessary article.
Kate Douglas Wiggin
Dave put a lot of thought into picking out the books his dad would like least.
Theric Jepson
Miracles happen on Christmas, Pat. Everybody knows that shit.
Matthew Quick
Tizzy squawked, and he bounced like a ball on the floor. “I completely forgot; Santa said something more.He said that a book gives your very thoughts wings,That carry you off to see wonderful things,That lift you aloft, throughout time, throughout spaceTo every era and every place!
Dorothea Jensen
Paying twenty-five dollars for me was your mistake, ma’am. I’m not worth more than fifteen.
Margaret Brownley
MOLLY: You don't like New Years Eve? Are you insane? It's literally the best holiday ever. You just party all night and it doesn't matter what stupid stuff you do because the year's over and you get a brand new start in the morning.
Hillary DePiano
Hot cocoa and cold toes remind me of Christmas.
Toni Sorenson
Christmas and the others can end up making you sad, because you know you should be happy.
Ava Dellaira
When we wake, it’s officially Christmas Eve.”t“Good. Because I have something special to give you.”tShe turned over her shoulder and cocked an eyebrow. “Thought you just did.”ttHe chuckled, a deep and throaty sound. “Something else.
Lisa Carlisle
Colored lights blink on and off, racing across the green boughs. Their reflections dance across exquisite glass globes and splinter into shards against tinsel thread and garlands of metallic filaments that disappear underneath the other ornaments and finery.Shadows follow, joyful, laughing sprites.The tree is rich with potential w
Vera Nazarian
The Christmas tree, twinkling with lights, had a mountain of gifts piled up beneath it, like offerings to the great god of excess.
Tess Gerritsen
The Knowledge Rule 2080: From maggots to men, the world is a corner bully. Better you knuckle up and go for yours than have to bow your head and tuck your chain.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
You have terminated me,” one of them said in a strange, flat voice. “But Iam one of many.”“Robots!” Iggy breathed, taking Total from Angel.“One of many, one of many, one of many,” the robot Eraser was saying. NowNudge saw the red light in its eyes, saw how they were fading and winking out.“Good!” spat the Gasman, kicking it hard. “Because we like to blow stuff up,blow stuff up, blow stuff up!
James Patterson
There is no honor in sending men to die for something you won't even fight for yourself
Mark Owen
- Why you?- (...) I’m the best.- Modest of you.- I am the best. Modesty has nothing to say about it.
Paul Hoffman
He slammed the door shut in Ian's face, the lock clicking into place. Ian hit it again with his fist before roaring, “If I were a pervert, I'd be looking for something a damn bit more attractive than you, jackass. And definitely someone that smelled alive.
Rose Wynters
It's always funny that you can try and try again to steal all your critics' ammo, predict their responses, but no matter what, they'll still have a water gun stashed somewhere.
Criss Jami
Some people will still find a way to create a fire with wet logs.
Anthony Liccione
My fingers try to grab onto the net. I’m pulled away too quickly, dragged through the snow. Everything is white and flying and painful.“Nick!”I claw at the snow, trying to slow down. There’s nothing to hold on to. I kick and kick. The hands clutch my ankles. Flipping my torso over I get one quick glance of their backs. They’re wearing parkas and hats and look normal, like people, but faster. I smash onto my face again and lift up my head just in time to see Nick snarling inside the net. He’s transformed again.“Nick!” I yell, but snow pours into my mouth. Sharp cold pain smashes through my teeth and into my skull. I cough and try again. “Nick!”He raises himself up onto four legs and howls, a long, searing cry of anguish and rage.My heart breaks for him, caught there. I have to help him escape. I have to get free.I kick again. “Let me go.”Pain shoots through my head. Fireworks. Explosions. All inside my brain. The white world goes dark and I know what’s about to happen. I’m the one leaving. I am the one gone.
Carrie Jones
It's worth it to stay alive. Because life is hard in the moment, it's hard to see what can be down the road. You get tunnel vision and I think that the current moment is all you have left. But that's not it. There can be come. Please let there be more. Please stay alive.
Josh Dun
But she had known, better than anyone else, what demons he had faced, had known how hard he had fought to free himself from them. That he had lost the fight in the end made the struggle no less honorable.
Donna Woolfolk Cross
Fuck off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let... lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may.
Chuck Palahniuk
Prepare to evacuate soul in ten, in nine, eight.Chloe's splashing through the ankle-deep back-up of renal fluid from her failed kidneys.Death will commence in five.Five, four.Around her, a parasitic life spray paints her heart.Four, three.Three, two.Chloe climbs hand-over-hand up the curled lining of her own throat.Death to commence in three, two.Moonlight shines in through the open mout...h.Prepare for the last breath, now.Evacuate.Now.Soul clear of body.Death commences.Now.
Chuck Palahniuk
Nature had found the perfect place to hide the yellow fever virus. It seeded itself and grew in the blood, blooming yellow and running red.
Molly Caldwell Crosby
After all, Malthus was wrong. Marx was wrong. Democracy did not die during the Great Depression as the Communists predicted. And Khrushchev did not 'bury' us. We buried him. Neville Chute's On the Beach proved as fanciful as Dr. Strangelove and Seven Days in May. Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb never exploded. It fizzled. The Clash of 79 produced Ronald Reagan and an era of good feelings. The Club of Rome notwithstanding, we did not run out of oil. The world did not end at the close of the second millennium, as some prophesied and others hoped. Who predicted the disappearance of the Soviet Empire? Is it not possible that today's most populous nations -China, India, and Indonesia- could break into pieces as well? Why do predictions of the Death of the West not belong on the same shelf as the predictions of 'nuclear winter' and 'global warming'? Answer: the Death of the West is not a prediction of what is going to happen, it is a depiction of what is happening now. First World nations are dying.
Pat Buchanan
Society gets by from the help of its citizens.
Brian Joyce
Top question of the dying: "What made me sick?
Steven Magee
This StoneHe went looking for a roadthat doesn't lead to death.He went looking for that roadand found it.It was a stone road.He walked that roadthat doesn't lead to death.He walked on it awhilebefore he stopped,having turned to stone.Now he stands there on that roadthat doesn't lead to deathnot going anywhere.He can't dance.from his eyes stones fall.The rainbow people pass himcrossing that road, long-legged, light-stepping,going from the Four Housesto the dancing in the Five Houses.They pick up his tears.This stone is a tearfrom his eye, this stonegiven me on the mountainby one who died before my birth,this stone, this stone.
Ursula K Le Guin
Last Comforts” was born when one nagging question kept arising early in my journey as a hospice volunteer. Why were people coming into hospice care so late in the course of their illness? That question led to many others that rippled out beyond hospice care. Are there better alternatives to conventional skilled nursing home operations? How are physicians and nurses educated about advanced illness and end-of-life care? What are more effective ways of providing dementia care? What are the unique challenges of minority and LGBT people? What is the role of popular media in our death-denying culture? What has been the impact of public policy decisions about palliative and hospice care? tThe book is part memoir of lessons learned throughout my experiences with patients and families as a hospice volunteer; part spotlight on the remarkable pathfinders and innovative programs in palliative and late-life care; and part call to action. I encourage readers – particularly my fellow baby boomers -- not only to make their wishes and goals clear to friends and family, but also to become advocates for better care in the broader community.
Ellen Rand
Death is permanent. There’s no coming back if you get off the ferryman’s boat.
Martha Sweeney
Part of us did die. Literally - that tissue on your face, the part they removed. It died. And you can't recover from any kind of death without mourning it.
Alyssa B. Sheinmel
It behooves me to remember as I advance in age that death is an inevitable part of the life cycle rather than a medical failure.
Lisa J. Shultz
What would I have wanted to say if I had had the opportunity to see him one more time? I would like to think that I would have kept it simple and said, “I love you,” then just held his hand in silence, letting that thought linger in the space of the time we had left together.
Lisa J. Shultz
A paradigm shift of viewing palliative care or hospice as a gift instead of seeing it as giving up has the potential to change the way we experience advanced age.
Lisa J. Shultz
When I reflect on the stories of death supported by hospice care and contrast it with our story depicting an absence of support, I find myself dealing with envy and anger. I have channeled those emotions into this book with the hope that hearing our story might give someone else a chance to create a better ending to the life of a loved one.
Lisa J. Shultz
A principled life begins by accepting the evident truth that we must die. Death becomes us. Knowledge of the impermanence of our existence reassures us that how we live does make a difference. Because our allotted time for living is finite, we must make the most of each day.
Kilroy J. Oldster
Moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but the world's champions.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
What art should do, I think, is advance the generation into the next era. It should be one step ahead of the ordinary, ahead of what is already known. Art is what pulls on the next age. I’m not saying that my art is that, but that it would be good if it could be.
Andy Couturier
Garry Shandling has always been a pioneer of… meta entertainment. He's always been a defender of the creative right to use the frame as part of the painting.
Dan Harmon
My cat brought me a toy. I thanked her and threw it. She sat there gave me a look that made me realize people and dogs are the crazy ones.
Dan Harmon
Another site of Leftist struggle [other than Detroit] that has parallels to New Orleans: Palestine. From the central role of displacement to the ways in which culture and community serve as tools of resistance, there are illuminating comparisons to be made between these two otherwise very different places.In the New Orleans Black community, death is commemorated as a public ritual (it's often an occasion for a street party), and the deceased are often also memorialized on t-shirts featuring their photos embellished with designs that celebrate their lives. Worn by most of the deceased's friends and family, these t-shirts remind me of the martyr posters in Palestine, which also feature a photo and design to memorialize the person who has passed on. In Palestine, the poster's subjects are anyone who has been killed by the occupation, whether a sick child who died at a checkpoint or an armed fighter killed in combat. In New Orleans, anyone with family and friends can be memorialized on a t-shift. But a sad truth of life in poor communities is that too many of those celebrate on t-shirts lost their lives to violence. For both New Orleans and Palestine, outsiders often think that people have become so accustomed to death by violence that it has become trivialized by t-shirts and posters.While it's true that these traditions wouldn't manifest in these particular ways if either population had more opportunities for long lives and death from natural causes, it's also far from trivial to find ways to celebrate a life. Outsiders tend to demonize those killed--especially the young men--in both cultures as thugs, killers, or terrorists whose lives shouldn't be memorialized in this way, or at all. But the people carrying on these traditions emphasize that every person is a son or daughter of someone, and every death should be mourned, every life celebrated.
Jordan Flaherty
In the twenty-first century, the visions of J.C. Nichols and Walt Disney have come full circle and joined. “Neighborhoods” are increasingly “developments,” corporate theme parks. But corporations aren’t interested in the messy ebb and flow of humanity. They want stability and predictable rates of return. And although racial discrimination is no longer a stated policy for real estate brokers and developers, racial and social homogeneity are still firmly embedded in America’s collective idea of stability; that’s what our new landlords are thinking even if they are not saying it. (138)
Tanner Colby
That's my wish for our community, as it were, that during this very confusing and amazing time, we be gentle with ourselves, and with each other.
Thea Hillman
Invitation is not only a step in bringing people together, it is also a fundamental way of being in a community. It manifests the willingness to live in a collaborative way. This means that a future can be created without having to force or sell it or barter for it. When we believe that barter or subtle coercion is necessary, we are operating out of a context of scarcity and self-interest, the core currencies of the economist.
Peter Block
Noting the lack of crime or security in the Netherlands, the author asked a native who guarded a national landmark. He got the replay, "We all do.
Bill Bryson
Well, in the early days of humans, the community was our only protection against predators, and against the starvation. We survived because we trusted one another.
Sherman Alexie
Empowered Women 101: A confident woman doesn't make her whole life purpose her man. She understands that he is her counter part to achieving whatever she is to accomplish on this earth with the blessings and talents God has given her. He is part of the plan, not the whole plan.
Shannon L. Alder
If you possess enough courage to speak out what you are, you will find you are not alone.
Richard Wright
Accept each other. Love. Even if it is messy. Live with no regrets. Remember that diversity is our strength. We shouldn't be building walls, we should be tearing them down. Accept each other no matter who we love, how we pray or how we look.
Johnny Corn
Agriculture must mediate between nature and the human community, with ties and obligations in both directions. To farm well requires an elaborate courtesy toward all creatures, animate and inanimate. It is sympathy that most appropriately enlarges the context of human work. Contexts become wrong by being too small - too small, that is, to contain the scientist or the farmer or the farm family or the local ecosystem or the local community - and this is crucial.
Wendell Berry
...if your great-great-great-grandfather wanted to read his book after dark, some poor soul had to crawl around in a whale’s head for an afternoon.
Steven Johnson