Quotes by American Authors - Page 47

Be sure that whatever you are is you.
Theodore Roethke
I stared at the stop sign and even though I was only five I thought, I will remember that stop sign for the rest of my life. The dents and the bumps, the colors and the shape, the three-fingered, black scuff and long silver scrape - even the dirty gray sky behind it. Days will go by and I will grow old but from time to time the image of this stop sign will come to my mind and I will think about it and remember what I was thinking at this exact time. I even remember thinking that I was awfully young to have such a profound thought and premonition but there it was.
April Adams
Life has a tendency to provide a person with what they need in order to grow. Our beliefs, what we value in life, provide the roadmap for the type of life that we experience. A period of personal unhappiness reveals that our values are misplaced and we are on the wrong path. Unless a person changes their values and ideas, they will continue to experience discontentment.
Kilroy J. Oldster
无惧无急 (The fearless do not hurry.)
Eric Micha'el Leventhal
A fine line exists between quitting on ourselves and letting go of a restrictive position in life and moving forward to reach our ultimate destination based upon our natal predisposition honed by a lifetime of experimentation. Who has not been forced to stop and ask ourselves, ‘who are we,’ ‘what are we doing,’ and ‘where are we going?’ Who has not been forced to pause by life’s dynamic forces and ask ourselves, ‘what mystical chords bind us as a species; what is the meaning of life; and how do we give birth to our genetic blueprint while shaping a sense of purposefulness out of our own existence and striving to bring joy to other people’s hearth?’ To answer these life affirming questions that gnaw most voraciously at our consciousness at the time when tension and unsettling trauma besieges us, we must appreciate our heritage, be mindful our epoch, accept responsibility for our adult decisions, and strive to accumulate wisdom that segues our entrance into the future. Each of us must arrive at a unifying philosophy that guides our living quest, and the sooner we come to terms with our eccentric self the quicker we will perceive and appreciate the ineffable beauty of nature.
Kilroy J. Oldster
Bigotry hurts the economy, so the next time you want to blame minorities for your problems, first take a look in the mirror.
DaShanne Stokes
Those who benefit from unearned privilege are too often quick to discount those who don't.
DaShanne Stokes
Character modification requires active participation in challenging new experiences, but without reflection upon our encounters in life and the purposeful alteration in our base philosophy new experiences alone will not result in core personality changes. Our thoughts become our habits, and our habits reveal our character. Only by thinking and acting differently will a person attain the quality of character that they seek.
Kilroy J. Oldster
Beware the unbelief of others. It's contagious!
Jim George
If you make anything a higher priority than God, you are worshiping it and not God.
Jim George
God rewards those who put Him first and seek to do His will.
Jim George
You must believe to see, see to do, do to improve, and improve consistently to win; therefore, believing is the key to winning.
Orrin Woodward
With making changes, the difficult part of trying to implement a new way, idea or thought, is getting people to believe the effect of your notion, and have them believe in themselves of adapting to something new.
Anthony Liccione
Rakkim would have loved to believed that… another reason he wasn't convinced.
Robert Ferrigno
God will fight your battles if you just keep still. He is able to carry you through. Trust Him. Keep standing, keep believing and keep hoping.
Germany Kent
Wasn't it beautiful when you believed in everything?
Taylor Swift
I get what it's like to want something, but to try and force yourself to really believe that you don't.
Cora Carmack
We all want to believe in impossible things, I suppose, to persuade ourselves that miracles can happen.
Paul Auster
YOU DEMAND SALVATION EVEN AS YOU STEAL FROM THE COLLECTION PLATE.YOU SEND FOOD TO THE REFUGEES, AND THEN YOU DON'T ALLOW THE DELIVERY TRUCKS THROUGH THE WARZONES. THE FOOD WILL SPOIL , THE SUPPLIES WILL BE SOLD BY THE VICTORS . THE CIVILIANS WILL STARVE AND SICKEN AND EVENTUALLY DIE. IT IS THE WAY OF THINGS. THEY WILL ALL DIE, WHETHER FROM THE BRUTAL SAVAGERY THAT IS UNIQUE TO MAN OR FROM THE ABUNDANCE OF DISEASE OR FROM THE SCARCITY OF SUSTENANCE.
Jackie Morse Kessler
Ari!" Jeb had finally seen his son. He rushed to Ari's side and knelt next to him. Looking stunned, he gathered Ari's hulking form and held him to his chest. "I'm so sorry." I saw his mouth shape the words, though I couldn't hear them. "I'm so sorry." He bent over Ari's form, mindless of his vulnerable position.
James Patterson
I called Isaac, who cursed life and the universe and God Himself and who said where are the goddamned trophies to break when you need them, and then I realized there was no one else to call, which was the saddest thing. The only person I really wanted to talk to about Augustus Waters’s death was Augustus Waters.
John Green
You can't be gone. I need you here, with me. What am I going to do without you?
Patrick Carman
She loves him sobut he didn't stay.The wind can't blowthis storm away.
Phoebe Stone
... 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
He was the friend of my life. You know, you only have one friend like that; there can't be two.
James Salter
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
Language is a door. Words en-trance and are an entrance; they draw you in. When you read, the book you cradle disappears and the tales within unfold in your mind. Writing is a shelter of words and reading an interior adventure.
Laurie Seidler
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
Gargoyles sat on the battlements- lean they were and the same hideous damp grey as the stone. They looked at her with hollow eyes and rattled their silver chains. They had wings of bats or wings or birds, most of them, and licked their beaks or teeth with forked or double tongues. Two paced restlessly before their platforms; others whined or picked their claws or groomed their mangy fur or feathers or lizard skin or scales.
Meredith Ann Pierce
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