Quotes by American Authors - Page 7

If you want to be different, if you want to be better than normal, then you must live differently.
Craig Groeschel
You must long for God more than normal. You must be willing to live to give, not live to gain.
Craig Groeschel
To be strong does not mean to sprout muscles and flex. It means meeting one's own numinosity without fleeing, actively living with the wild nature in one's own way. It means to be able to learn, to be able to stand what we know. It means to stand and live.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Call me a proud American, if you want, but I truly believe that no other nation on Earth possesses the capabilities to put on a more powerful display of underwater mermaid patriotism.
Dave Barry
These times are too progressive. Everything has changed too fast. Railroads and telegraphs and kerosene and coal stoves -- they're good to have but the trouble is, folks get to depend on 'em.
Laura Ingalls Wilder
It’s like, how did Columbus discover America when the Indians were already here? What kind of shit is that, but white people’s shit?
Miles Davis
My feelings for Drew couldn't just disappear. They were ingrained within every fiber of my being, and I needed them just the same as I needed air to breathe.
Michelle Madow
My Love wakes in a puddle of sunlight.Her hands asleep beside her.Her hair draped on the lawnlike a mantle of cloth.I give her my lifefor our love is wholeI sing her beauty in my soul.
Roman Payne
I was getting what I had always wanted, him wanting me.
C.J. English
The "right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" begins with "life", and "life" begins at conception.
A.E. Samaan
The older I get the more I enjoy my childhood…! ~James A. Murphy
James A. Murphy
This is a feeling that you had, Quentin, she said. Once, a very long time ago. A rare one. This is how you felt when you were eight years old, and you opened one of the Fillory books for the first time, and you felt awe and joy and hope and longing all at once. You felt them very strongly, Quentin. You dreamed of Fillory then, with a power and an innocence that not many people ever experience. That's where all this began for you. You wanted the world to be better than it was.
Lev Grossman
I come from a long line of body snatchers, probably the top-notch body snatchers in America. No make that the world. Some people might think it's gross digging up bones or corpses, but who asked them? It's no big deal, but then I've been doing it since I got out of diapers.
Minda Webber
Check the top 1000 books on Amazon. Most of them have a shirtless guy on the cover, because they're smutty "romance novels" (read: porn for women) about a girl being swept off her feet by one (or more) billionaire alpha-males. There are literally tens of thousands of books out there about shirtless billionaire alpha-male vampires who can't wait to mate with you. Lucky you! And women eat that shit up! Men, not so much. Men prefer to watch actual porn.
Oliver Markus
I have diligently disciplined my life to search out life’s gifts in the very places where society mistakenly says life stores its scraps. And I am constantly amazed that in the treasure trove that surrounds me, I stand in the company of so few.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Last night I danced. My body rose from its slump for the first time since the beginning of sorrows—my fingers beckoning to the stars at arm's length, back arching as tingles bubbled up my spine, hips caught in a silent tempo while on tiptoe I twirled in endless euphoric circles. It didn't matter that you loved me or that you didn't. For I was wanted by the gods last night, their seraphs and muses descending on moonbeams into my midst, caressing my face and gliding their spirited arms about my waist, lifting my toes from the soil that I might feel what it is to fly without heaviness of heart. I danced with them under the glow of a loyal moon. For one brief, visceral dance I joyed as Heaven joys—in endless bliss.And the universe cherished me.
Richelle E. Goodrich
Tell me you didn’t,” she groaned, knowing it would not be the truth. “Please tell me you didn’t take advantage of these poor people.”t“I didn’t,” he chirped.t“Liar.”tWith an irritated sigh he tried to convince her. “Amora, you’re not seeing things from an immortal perspective. The people who built this temple…”t“Temple?” she cried, cutting him off. “You forced these people to build you a temple? Why? Because all of a sudden you’re God now?”tPerturbed by her interruption, he raised a warning finger. “No, no, Amora, not God. But from their viewpoint I may seem a bit…..god-like.”tShe rolled her eyes in an exaggerated manner.t“If you would let me finish,” he went on, “these particular individuals had no part in the construction of that monument; it was their ancestors who erected it. And I must say, they did a fine job. My likeness has weathered the centuries quite well.”t“You’re despicable.”tHe frowned at the insult. “Nobody was forced to build us a temple, Amora. They chose to do so.”t“You were that impressive to them, huh?”t“Apparently.” His eyes twinkled at the memory. He took a few steps toward the distant city, pulling Eena along. “Come on, let’s go have some fun.”t“No way.” She planted her feet, refusing. Surprisingly it put a stop to him. t“And why not?”t“Because your sudden appearance will upset them! No doubt you’ll want to show off with some shockingly grand entrance. I’m not going to take part in a game of deceit.”t“I’m not deceiving anyone,” Edgar disputed. “I can’t help it if they happen to think I’m perfectly magnificent.”tHis pompous view of himself earned a nasty look as well as a lecture. “I can’t believe you’re okay with selling people lies that affect the way they live and think! You’re not even close to being a god, Edgar, and yet you allow them to accept you as some sort of deity because of your unusual abilities. For centuries now you’ve abandoned this world and a population who probably looked to you and your lousy sisters for help. It’s all a big, disgusting sham!”tEdgar pouted like a child. “Fine—spoil all my fun. We’ll go do something else. Something that doesn’t include your poor, fragile, stupid mortals.”t“They’re not stupid.”t“They think I’m a god,” he sn
Richelle E. Goodrich
If we were to behave half as well as we believe others ought to behave, we might prove ourselves as grand in character as excuses and justifications prevent us from being.
Richelle E. Goodrich
If you mess with dragons, you will get burned. Don’t say no one warned you.
Richelle E. Goodrich
Kresh kept silent beside me as Baron rehearsed his deadly plan. I listened with my eyes aimed at the horizon, witnessing the night consume a final red vein of daylight. It struck me that nightfall always drowned the sunset. Never did the sun resurface from where it sank, nor would it ever.
Richelle E. Goodrich
America’s education system has become less a ladder of opportunity than a structure to transmit inequity from one generation to the next.
Nicholas Kristof
We want a fresh start only because we didn’t sufficiently care for the last fresh start.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
NOW is a fact that cannot be dodged.
Sinclair Lewis
This was home. This was perfection. This was everything he'd never known he wanted. (Griff)
Jami Gold
My spirit is free. My heart is taken.
Crystal Woods
His smiles were hard won, but when they came, they were well worth it. They lit up his face like summer sunshine. The rest of the time, and far more frequently, he seemed lost in winter. And when he laughed, he was a different person.
Danielle Steel
But in this crowd, my blond ponytail stood out like a crescent moon in a midnight sky.
Kristin Bartley Lenz
This is what I want to do with Violet - give her only the good, keep away the bad, so that good is all we ever have around us
Jennifer Niven
I did some research on this a couple years ago," Augustus continued. "I was wondering if everybody could be remembered. Like, if we got organized, and assigned a certain number of corpses to each living person, would there be enough living people to remember all the dead people?""And are there?" "Sure, anyone can name fourteen dead people. But we're disorganized mourners, so a lot of people end up remembering Shakespeare and no one ends up remembering the person he wrote Sonnet Fifty-five about
John Green
Never be afraid to offer a smile; sure the risk is that a few foolish people may misinterpret your kindness as weakness, but the reward in their error be that at least they cannot blame you because you did show your teeth.
Johnnie Dent Jr.
Isn't it fun to work— or don't you ever do it? It's especially fun when your kind of work is the thing you'd rather do more than anything else in the world. I've been writing as fast as my pen would go every day this summer, and my only quarrel with life is that the days aren't long enough to write all the beautiful and valuable and entertaining thoughts I'm thinking. I've finished the second draft of my book and am going to begin the third tomorrow morning at half-past seven. It's the sweetest book you ever saw— it is, truly. I think of nothing else. I can barely wait in the morning to dress and eat before beginning; then I write and write and write till suddenly I'm so tired that I'm limp all over.
Jean Webster
Centuries have passed since the wars of religion ceased in Europe, and since men stopped dying in large numbers because of arcane theological disputes. Hence, perhaps, the incredulity and denial with which Westerners have greeted news of the theology and practices of the Islamic State. Many refuse to believe that this group is as devout as it claims to be, or as backward-looking or apocalyptic as its actions and statements suggest."Their skepticism is comprehensible. In the past, Westerners who accused Muslims of blindly following ancient scriptures came to deserved grief from academics—notably the late Edward Said—who pointed out that calling Muslims 'ancient' was usually just another way to denigrate them. Look instead, these scholars urged, to the conditions in which these ideologies arose—the bad governance, the shifting social mores, the humiliation of living in lands valued only for their oil."Without acknowledgment of these factors, no explanation of the rise of the Islamic State could be complete. But focusing on them to the exclusion of ideology reflects another kind of Western bias: that if religious ideology doesn’t matter much in Washington or Berlin, surely it must be equally irrelevant in Raqqa or Mosul. When a masked executioner says Allahu akbar while beheading an apostate, sometimes he’s doing so for religious reasons.
Graeme Wood
The construction of civilizational difference is not exclusive in any simple sense. The de-essentialization of Islam is paradigmatic for all thinking about the assimilation of non-European poeples to European civilization. The idea that people's historical experience is inessential to them, that it can be shed at will, makes it possible to argue more strongly for the Enlightenment's claim to universality: Muslims, as members of the abstract category "humans," can be assimilated or (as some recent theorist have put it) "translated" into a global ("European") civilization once they have divested themselves of what many of them regard (mistakenly) as essential to themselves. The belief that human beings can be separated from their histories and traditions makes it possible to urge a Europeanization of the Islamic world. And by the same logic, it underlies the belief that the assimilation to Europe's civilization of Muslim immigrants who are--for good or for ill--already in European states is necessary and desirable.
Talal Asad
...Learn to concentrate, to give all your attention to the thing at hand, and then to be able to put it aside and go on to the next thing without confusion. My husband said that being President of the United States meant that you saw more kinds of people, took up more subjects, and learn more about a variety of things than anyone else. But it required complete concentration on the person you were with and on what he was saying. When that person left the room, you pulled down a shade in your mind, and you were ready, with your attention free, for what the next person had to say. You might have to shift from banking to forestry, but each subject had the attention and concentration it required and each, in turn, was put in the back of the mind, ready to be called upon when needed.
Eleanor Roosevelt
I truly don’t understand why at every Q and A, someone always asks, “Do you have a routine?” or “Do you write every morning?” Why those questions remain interesting, I really have no idea. But since no one’s putting a gun to their head to ask them, they must compel. They’re probably necessary on a symbolic level more than a literal one, as people cobble together an imagination of what a life devoted to “making” might be like.[I think people want a path to follow. They want a checklist so they can say, “Alright cool, so if I get up at six and I write for this long and I watch this film and I do that…”]It’s weird, because I might have wanted that, too. I used to dance in New York. My Lower East Side days. Modern dance, or whatever. One thing I learned as a dancer was that people learn combinations different ways. Some people, if they get the right side, they can also get the left side right off the top of their head. Some people need to be taught both right and left. Some people count, some people never count, you know? I noticed then that, for me, it was really watching the whole person dancing, trying to take in the whole combination at once, that helped me learn it. I think I’m the same way as a reader—I like to take in the whole book, not getting too specific about how they did it, but ride the bigger example.I mean, at the end of the day, the answer to the question “How did you do it?” is right there, on the page. They’re showing you how they did it, by doing it. Maybe it’s different with art, when you don’t know if someone had all their sculptures knitted or welded by elves somewhere, but with writing, the answer to the question “How do you write a book like this?” is usually, “Like this” [points to book].
Maggie Nelson
Ronnie snarled and Brendon roared back.Her eyes narrowed. "You roared at me?""And I'll do it again if you can't keep your paws off my Oreos.
Shelly Laurenston
Jovan: "I'll pass any test you present me. I assure you."Eviona: "I wonder what the best test of pride would be." :)
Eve S. Nicholson
Jennifer Merrick had stored all her tears inside her, and her pride and courage would never permit her to break down and shed them.
Judith McNaught
You can tell your story any way you damn well please.Its your solo.
Jandy Nelson
While the opportunity to improve yourself and your situation is a great thing, our striving to build perfect lives seems to have morphed into perfectionism so focused on itself that we forget about others in the world. We work so hard to build the ultimate luxury sedan, to embody society's standard of beauty, and to achieve historical scientific breakthroughs that we conveniently forget our family members in other parts of the world who must walk miles each day in their only set of clothing for the opportunity to go to school.
Holly Sprink
Bright light. You've always found your way.
Nora Roberts
A photograph of a disposable diaper floating in the arctic miles away from human habitat fueled my daily determination to save at least one disposable diaper from being used and created. One cloth diaper after another, days accumulated into years and now our next child is using the cloth diapers we bought for our firstborn.
Gloria Ng
Body language speaks much more succinctly and honestly than mere spoken words.
Dixie Waters
Most ardent reformers are accompanied by but equal portion of dullness . John Quincy Adams
Paul C. Nagel
I don't want Sydney ever to feel like my second choice, when I know in my heart that she's the right choice. The only choice.
Colleen Hoover
Blindness is a choice born of fear, nursed by complacency and groomed by comfort. And what I often don’t see in my blindness is that 'choice' evidences the existence of other options.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do? What a waste, what a senseless waste! But what of those things which you actually didn't like, not because you were not supposed to like them, not because to dislike them was considered a mark of refinement and education - but because you actually found them distasteful? The very idea annoyed me. How could you know? It involved a problem of choice. I would have to weigh many things carefully before deciding and there would be some things that would cause quite a bit of trouble, simply because I had never formed a personal attitude toward so much. I had accepted the accepted attitudes and it had made life seem simple ...
Ralph Ellison
It would be easy to become a victim of our circumstances and continue feeling sad, scared or angry; or instead, we could choose to deal with injustice humanely and break the chains of negative thoughts and energies, and not let ourselves sink into it.
Erin Gruwell
But I could not fully admit it, even then. The way Suzanne's face looked as she watched him - I wanted to be with her. I thought that loving someone acted as a kind of protective measure, like they'd understand the scale and intensity of your feelings and act accordingly.
Emma Cline
As the soil of a garden is richer and as the harvest of the garden bears healthier nourishment from the decay of leaf matter and banana peel and egg shell and human hair and chicken bone and fireplace ash, so the accumulation of death in teh ground of a city implants therein energies and powers.
Tim Gilmore
They’d never scared him, really.  When he was younger, he hadn’t known that there was anything different about them.  By the time he was old enough to figure out that no one else could see them, he was also old enough to realize that being dead didn’t turn people into monsters.  It just meant that most of them were lonely. 
Jacqueline E. Smith
She lifted a shoulder casually and slowly blinked."Where do you want to be?""With you," he answered without hesitation.
Donna Grant
If we let all the negative roadblocks influence us then it's only a matter of time before we end up detoured, lost, or possibly stranded on the side of the highway. Our positive attitude keeps our battery powered and our gas tank full, so that we can make it in one piece to our destination.
Lindsey Rietzsch
You should be aware that anywhere that a ground rod is installed, that there may be AC voltage/current/frequency in the vicinity of it.
Steven Magee
Ultimately, I hoped the tiny-house guy was similar to me: a sane person without a big agenda, who simply wanted a way to make sense of the world, to create a new map with a big X in the middle labeled "Home," even if that meant shrinking his world down to the size of an area rug.
Dee-Williams
I may stay here in this town another day or I may go on to another town. No one knows where I am. I am taking this bath in life, as you see, and when I have had enough of it I shall go home feeling refreshed.
Sherwood Anderson
Stars ink your fingerswith a lexicon of flameblazing rare knowledge.
Aberjhani
Great sex and awesome food is what conquered the beast, not beauty. The key to happiness is to fuck like a porn star and cook like a five star chef.
Travis Luedke
No wonder I stopped keeping a journal. It was like keeping a record of my own stupidity. Why would I want to do that? Why would I want to remind myself what an asshole I was?
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
We must live a genuine life in order to discover personal happiness and self-fulfillment. Understanding that a person is living a lie is the first step into realizing what is possible. No matter how frightful such a proposition is, we must dare to be an original self.
Kilroy J. Oldster