Quotes by American Authors - Page 44

... I was feeling so depressed I didn't even think. That's the whole trouble. When you're feeling very depressed, you can't even think
J.D. Salinger
One last word,' I said in my horrible careful English, 'are you quite, quite sure that—well, not tomorrow, of course, and not after tomorrow, but—well—some day, any day, you will not come to live with me? I will create a brand new God and thank him with piercing cries, if you give me that microscopic hope''No,' she said smiling, 'no.''It would have made all the difference,' said Humbert Humbert.Then I pulled out my automatic-I mean, this is the kind of fool thing a reader might suppose I did. It never even occurred to me to do it.
Vladimir Nabokov
Twenty years have intervened; for ten of them I lived and fought for Dejah Thoris and her people, and for ten I have lived upon her memory.
Edgar Rice Burroughs
You can't fight mental health bias if you label people based on a lists of symptoms and you have no medical degree to diagnose people. We all have crazy running through our blood and so many things trigger that. We all struggle with our anxiety and twisted issues. Defamation of character is not kind, nor Christlike. Because when you label people with self righteous vindication you open the door to the very idea that self righteousness is itself a disorder that we should all be afraid of. This doorway when left open too long gets people to pull away from Christ, not run to him.
Shannon L. Alder
When a loved one is sick, the days are long, but the years are short.
Lindsay Eagar
But space shrinks when you get old, and things lose their wonder, and the wisest thing to do then is to try your best to sleep.
Dexter Palmer
I am metaphysical being, mystical and emotional, skeptical and cynical, happy and boisterous, loud and bawdy, quiet and melancholy, tender and cruel, full of mirth and despair. Inherent inconsistences mark me as part of nature, which is neither cruel nor fair, or reliable or predictable.
Kilroy J. Oldster
There was no other way to say it. After being heartbroken for so long, I had made myself completely numb inside. Maybe not from physical pain, but anything emotional, yes. Sexual pleasure? Numb to that, too. I’d have been a great actress. After all, I had the perfect, mind-blowing orgasm down to an art. Suppose I deserve an Oscar for that.
Jennifer Salaiz
Astley comes to my side. "Are you well?" "No," I tell him, voice hoarse. "I am not well. I am broken inside. I am broken almost all-the-way deep, and I don't know...I don't know if I can ever be unbroken, let alone well again”.
Carrie Jones
Because different cultures see a particular animal as representing a certain human virtue or vice, the use of animal imagery also allows for more colorful commentary on the human condition.
Larry Herzberg
Back in New York I took full advantage of my status as a native speaker. I ran my mouth to shop clerks and listened in on private conversations, realising I’d gone an entire month without hearing anyone complaint that they were “stressed out”.
David Sedaris
Music is the Universal Language that allows all people to communicate with each other.
Ellen J. Barrier
We believe that information is an enlightening agent, but I can assure you it is not. We consume information, but we can’t read. We forgot how to sit down and engage the dense layers of a text. We are so busy devouring information that we forgot how to dance with ideas. We confuse linguistic bits of data for knowledge and ideas. I can assure you, gentlemen, they are not the same. Ideas require effort and the kind of sensibility that engages the subtle layers of meaning. What the hell does information require?
R.F. Georgy
They too, knew this beautiful and harrowing landscape; they'd had the same experience of looking up from their books with fifth-century eyes and finding the world disconcertingly sluggish and alien, as if it were not their home.
Donna Tartt
Music is the language of the universe, which everyone, including all animals, can understand.
Debasish Mridha
We have a bad habit of seeing books as sort of cheaply made movies where the words do nothing but create visual narratives in our heads.So too often what passes for literary criticism is "I couldn't picture that guy", or "I liked that part", or "this part shouldn't have happened." That is, we've left language so far behind that sometimes we judge quality solely based on a story's actions.So we can appreciate a novel that constructs its conflicts primarily through plot - the layered ambiguity of a fatal car accident caused by a vehicle owned by Gatsby but driven by someone else, for instance. But in this image-drenched world, sometimes we struggle to appreciate and celebrate books where the quality arises not exclusively from plot but also from the language itself.
John Green
Those who mouth your sacred words with an accent you deem wrong annoy you more than those speaking something you cannot understand.
Thomm Quackenbush
There are no barriers to poetry or prophecy; by their nature they are barrier-breakers, bursts of perceptions, lines into infinity. If the poet lies about his vision he lies about himself and in himself; this produces a true barrier.
Lenore Kandel
Gankis lifted an arm to point at the distant shale cliffs. "And in the face of it there were thousands of little holes, little what-you-call-'ems...""Alcoves," Kennit supplied in an almost dreamy voice. "I call them alcoves, Gankis. As would you, if you could speak your own mother tongue.
Robin Hobb
Uh, she said maybe your eyes matched the Fog like a synchronous magnetic field?” “I don’t even know what language that is.
Joel N. Ross
Every problem of medicine is a problem of language, and this operation was a malapropism.
William S. Wilson
She suddenly remembered studying the brain in science class- how a steel rod pierced a man's skull, and he opened his mouth to speak Portuguese, a language he'd never studied. Maybe it would be like this, now, for Josie. Maybe her native tongue, from here on in, would be a string of lies.
Jodi Picoult
I am not sure if we are numbed to the reality of rape, but here's the sad irony. While the word rape can add an edginess to your language, talking about actual rape is taboo. I didn't know this until one of my friends was raped. Then I knew this, because I didn't want to tell anyone. If she were mugged, I would have told everyone and raged.
Christine Stockton
Twist a tongue, and tongue a twist how many twists can a tongue twister twist around the twisting tongue.
Jazz Feylynn
Peace is the way, not the destination.
Shannon L. Alder
Those dear to me took fright for my safety and, perhaps, my sanity. Kings, they explained, do not walk like beggars for hundreds of miles. My response was that if a beggar could managed the feat, then why not a king? Did they think me less capable than a beggar?Sometimes I think that I am. The beggar knows much that the king can only guess. And yet who draws up the codes for begging ordinances? Often I wonder what my experience in life--my easy life following the Desolation, and my current level of comfort--has given me of any true experience to use in making laws. If we had to rely on what we knew, kings would only be of use in creating laws regarding the proper heating of tea and the cushioning of thrones.
Brandon Sanderson
Painful experiences are like scars in our minds. Some have healed and been forgotten. Others are there as a reminder of what we have been through…
James A. Murphy
It’s the journey, not the destination, but that doesn’t make sense until you get there.
J.R. Rim
Beware of anything to do with President Obama...I speak from experience.
Steven Magee
Experience is not worth the getting. It's not a thing that happens pleasantly to a passive you--it's a wall that an active you runs up against.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
You love meand love me notyour love is an arm of clockjoining hands with mineonly to leave me again
Lori Jenessa Nelson
I wanted you mine. I wanted me yours.
Lori Jenessa Nelson
Pina colada kisses and cocaine nipsnever lie, swear to me that this feeling is real.
Lori Jenessa Nelson
imagine the desertmothers, with hair tangledtighter than their theologyand breasts that flowed milkand mystic wisdom. theyknew how to draw the singingsigils in the sand, how to digrough and bitten fingersinto desiccated dirt for waterto wet the lips of their young.women of hips and heft, wholearned how to burnbeneath the wild and searingsun, who made loud loveagainst the star-flecked threatof night, who knew that strengthis not always a matter of muscle.imagine your ancestresses,the prophetesses of the aridlands, before these starchedtraditions and pews too hardto pray from, who bled trueritual and birthed their own fiercesouls at creation's crowning --
Beth Morey
No. Not really red,but the color of a rose when it bleeds.
Anne Sexton
Home at six AM.Is it still a walk of shame?I was shooting porn.
Asa Akira
You tell me that yes, I can do it. I know. And I may do it, if I so choose.You tell me that no, I cannot. I say, Oh? I shall do it, since you refuse!
Richelle E. Goodrich
I dreamt of you last night,vivid and consuming andgone as I woke upfaded from memory before I had the chanceto collect and recollectEven in my dreams you are ephemeraland just outside of reach- Fleeting
Abby Rosmarin
The only time she's come close to being "known" was when she accidentally came out as bisexual during sophomore English class while talking about her favorite poem.
C.B. Lee
This is not the time to be passive. This is the time to shape, sculpt, paint, participate… the time to get sweaty, to get dirty, to fall in love, to forgive, to forget, to hug, to kiss… this is the time to experience, participate and live your life as a verb.
Steve Maraboli
Do it, Octavian” She ghosted the tips of her fingers along the hem of his shirt. “Touch me.”He growled low in his throat, his forehead dropping another inch toward her shoulder, his hair tickling the side of her face. “Be my angel, Riley, not my siren. Don’t tempt me.”Moistening her lips with a sweep of her tongue, Riley glided her fingers over his belt, tracing the strip of leather to the silver buckle in the center. She felt rather than heard his deep inhalation and the tremor that raked his powerful body. Driven by his surrender, she used two fingers to walk over the square carvings etched into his abdomen, biting her lip to stop the grin that pulled when he groaned. “I want to be both for you, Octavian,” she whispered, letting her lips brush the curve of his shoulder.
Airicka Phoenix
I know.” The two words ghosted against the skin of her neck, sending goose bumps down her spine. “But I want to touch you. I want to put my hands all over you. I want to kiss every inch of you and taste you as you come apart in my arms. I want to feel you wrapped around me with nothing but my name on your lips and the sheets a tangled mess beneath us. I want…” He exhaled heavily into her ear. “I want. I want. I want!
Airicka Phoenix
Are you throwing darts at the challenges in your life? Hoping something sticks? Try using a laser instead! Choose the biggest challenge you have and take action as focused and precise as a laser. Darts can go anywhere, lasers only go where you aim them...
James A. Murphy
Relying only on logic, on what can be factually established, may inform or intimidate, but it will rarely stir anyone into action or change.
Charlotte Beers
A product in the marketplace is the result of thought in an inner space and action more than the common place.
Ryan Lilly
Because in life, knowledge is only part of the battle. WITHOUT ACTION, KNOWLEDGE IS OFTEN MEANINGLESS. As Aristotle put it, to be excellent we cannot simply think or feel excellent, we must act excellently. Yet the action required to follow through on what we know is often the hardest part.
Shawn Achor
No cause occurs without effect, and no effect occurs without cause. No unjust action goes without penalty, and no action or thought flows unnoticed throughout the universe.
Suzy Kassem
A moment comes, and if you wish to look at yourself as human, you must take some kind of action. Otherwise, you can read the newspapers and congratulate yourself on your good fortune.
Alan Furst
To spend one's life being angry, and in the process doing nothing to change it, is to me ridiculous. I could be mad all day long, but if I'm not doing a damn thing, what difference does it make?
Charles Fuller
Most of life's actions are within our reach, but decisions take willpower.
Robert McKee
Suppose whatever we can recognize we can find. We can if P=NP.
Lance Fortnow
Since we are not yet fully comfortable with the idea that people from the next village are as human as ourselves, it is presumptuous in the extreme to suppose we could ever look at sociable, tool-making creatures who arose from other evolutionary paths and see not beasts but brothers, not rivals by fellow pilgrims journeying to the shrine of intelligence. Yet that is what I see, or yearn to see. The difference between raman and varelse is not in the creature judged but in the creature judging, and when we declare an alien species to be raman, it does not mean that they have passed a threshold of moral maturity. It means that we have.
Orson Scott Card
I guess I should thank you for totally making my morning. It’s not every day a stranger notices my perspiration level.- Dr. Jeri Asher (BLACK MARIAH - A Calling)
Richard Finney
Good science fiction has its roots in good science.
Dan Brown
Fiction writers, at least in their braver moments, do desire the truth: to know it, speak it, serve it. But they go about it in a peculiar and devious way, which consists in inventing persons, places, and events which never did and never will exist or occur, and telling about these fictions in detail and at length and with a great deal of emotion, and then when they are done writing down this pack of lies, they say,There! That's the truth!
Urusla K Le Guin
We need to keep government small, but we also need to keep the influence of big business small, and we need to keep the power in the hands of the people, where it belongs. Big government and big business aren’t the only two alternatives.
Michael Monroe
Blacker than the night, the wedge penetrated the darkness. An F 117 raced by, the roar from its engines screaming through the interior of the chopper, and then it sliced away a piece of sky and disappeared into the void.-Narrator, Truth Insurrected: The Saint Mary Project
Daniel P. Douglas
Wait awhile, and everything will change."~'Griblich
Stephanie Osborn
Powell’s face appeared on screen. “It’s true, the doomsday crowd is a little crazy,” she said, looking thoughtful. “But that doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
Forrest Carr
Myths grew from the ancient tradition of passing on knowledge orally, the only means of doing so before writing.They’re narratives of human existence. They helped our ancestors interpret reality, solve problems, and guided social behavior. They structured natural and social information into patterns using symbols, and embedded fact into story form. This increased their impact, making information meaningful and personally involving—not just cold, detached facts.
Alan Joshua