Quotes by American Authors - Page 78

[I]n a place with absolutely no private or personal life, with the incessant worship of a mediocre career-sadist as the only culture, where all citizens are the permanent property of the state, the highest form of pointlessness has been achieved.
Christopher Hitchens
When we do not know our true identity as powerful creators, we are susceptible to being used and manipulated.
Bryant McGill
Anyone can plot a course with a map or compass; but without a sense of who you are, you will never know if you're already home.
Shannon L. Alder
We can't control on how each day will fall, but we can control how we fall into each day. Learn to make adjustments to match the circumstances.
Anthony Liccione
Humility is the only thing that can restore a relationship, when respect has been lost.
Shannon L. Alder
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
Richard Wright and his Negro intellectual colleagues never realized the plain truth that no one in the United States understood the revolutionary potential of the Negro better than the Negro's white radical allies. They understood it instinctively, and revolutionary theory had little to do with it. What Wright could not see was that what the Negro's allies feared most of all was that this sleeping, dream-walking black giant might wake up and direct the revolution all by himself, relegating his white allies to a humiliating second-class status. The negro's allies were not about to tell the Negro anything that might place him on the path to greater power and independence in the revolutionary movement than they themselves had. The rules of the power game meant that unless the American Negro taught himself the profound implications of his own revolutionary significance in America, it would never be taught to him by anybody else. Unless the Negro intellectuals understood that in pursuit of this self-understanding, they would have to make their own rules, by and for themselves, nationalism would forever remain--as it was for Wright-- "a bewildering and vexing question.
Harold Cruse
Everyone loses their class when they travel through hell, but only a few will regain it if they remain humble and accept the part they played in their own misery.
Shannon L. Alder
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
A mature person reaps joy in the commonplace acts of living, appreciates the serenity of just being, while balancing the responsibilities that come naturally about when deeply immersed in family and community affairs. Directing their attention outward, assisting other people in their troubled times, while denying themselves the indulgence of self-absorption frees a person’s bidding mind from a jumble of discordant thoughts, wants, and unholy bequests.
Kilroy J. Oldster
With every passing day, we add a page to our personal story, an illustrative script that casts our character shaped by an implacable external environment and fashioned by our supple state of inwardness.
Kilroy J. Oldster
无惧无急 (The fearless do not hurry.)
Eric Micha'el Leventhal
It takes extraordinary mental discipline to transmit human experience without perversion. Truth telling is unnatural. Lying is an important aspect of humanity. We lie to other people to prevent hurt feelings and we deceive ourselves in order to protect our noble sense of being a good person. Dishonesty and inaccuracy preserves our quest seeking uninterrupted personal pleasure. I shall eschew pleasure seeking and cultivate precision of mind and moral character that precious truth telling necessitates. Reading and writing, along with observing nature and studious reflection on vivid personal experiences is the process methodology that will bring me closest to discovering inviolate verity of existence and becoming a doyen for all the immaculate truth, beauty, and goodness in this world.
Kilroy J. Oldster
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
Storytelling creates a healing serum. The thematic unguent of our personal story represents a fusion of the ineffable truths that each of us must discover within ourselves.
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
Your mission in life is to determine what You believe—not to accept what someone else tells you to believe.
Peggy Toney Horton
Rakkim would have loved to believed that… another reason he wasn't convinced.
Robert Ferrigno
The dominant philosophy in today’s public university is called relativism, which categorically denies the existence of truth or moral absolutes. Those who are foolish enough to believe in such archaic notions as biblical authority or the claims of Christ are to be pitied—or bullied.
James C. Dobson
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 don't even like me, remember?" That's what I try to say. What actually comes out of my mouth is closer to a baby's first attempt at babbling. "Shh." He runs his fingertips along my cheek, caressing my face. "Hush. I'm right here." He looks at me with deep anguish in his eyes. Like there's so much he wants to tell me but feel it's too late now. I want to stroke his face and tell him that it will be okay. That everything will be all right. And I wish so badly that it would be.
Susan Ee
I’m glad I married you too, Harper,” I whispered into her hair, “because I’m in love with you.” But she didn’t hear, gone into a dream.
Fisher Amelie
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
Helpful is happy.Selfish is sad.(It's not uncommon to confuse the two.)
Richelle E. Goodrich
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
Her tragedy, if she had one, was to be as normal and average as any child ever born.
Holly Black
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
Boo and I walked up the steps to the porch. His fingers found the doorknob. He gently released my hand, opened the door, enter inside, and shut the door behind him. I never saw him again.
Harper Lee
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
David looked at me, then, the regret plain on his face. No matter what I said, we both knew the hard truth. We do our best. We try. And usually, it makes no difference at all
Leigh Bardugo
So don't fall in love, there's just too much to lose; if you're given the chance then I'm begging you choose to walk away, walk away, don't let it get you. I can't bear to see the same thing happen to you.
Mayday Parade
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
Loose and forbear!
Mark Twain
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
One must not be shy where language is concerned.
Ann Patchett
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
I should think a dead language would be rather boring, sociallyspeaking.
Sol Luckman
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