American Author Quotes

Politicians were like talking dogs in a circus: the fact that they existed was uncommonly interesting, but no sane person would actually believe what they said

And here is our girl, looking— If possible, worse than before. (You thought this was Cinderella transistorized?)

James Tiptree, Jr

I have to think it's possible to suffer a great wrong and walk away from it. To build a life of small, exquisitely important moments.

Cinda Williams Chima

We are striving to forge our union with purpose.
To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man.

Murder, I'm afraid, if someone does not intervene.
He laughed. Oh, you women are so melodramatic. Do no expect me to catch you when you faint.
I would rather hit the ground. Good day, sir.

Mary Robinette Kowal

When you don't know what to do, do what's right and do what's in front of you. But not necessarily what's right in front of you.

Never judge people by who they date — your own sex life is confusing enough without trying to figure out someone else's.

Kim Gruenenfelder

The most fundamental pride in the world is the pride you have in owning a little piece of land! You've got to live on your own land, walk on it, work in its dirt, to know the final pride of being free.

Janice Holt Giles

As for what we were like before we met you, I no longer care. No periods of time over which my ancestors held sway, no documentation of complex civilizations, is any comfort to me. Even if I really came from people who were living like monkeys in trees, it was better to be that than what happened to me, what I became after I met you.

Jamaica Kincaid

A story can fly like a bee, so straight and swift you catch only the hum of its passing. Or move so slowly it seems motionless, curled in upon itself like a snake in the sun. It can vanish like smoke before the wind. Linger like perfume in the nose. Change with every telling, yet always remain the same.

I sincerely believe that there is a time in life for drifting. There is a time for sitting back and getting in touch with yourself. Some of our most interesting illuminations and ideas will come when we take time to reflect, time to kick back and cruise awhile.

Fate isn't some middle-aged man with a squint who won't recognize you if you change your clothes.

I guess because twins have this mystique, and triplets - I think the normal sibling connection potentially can be very powerful, and there's this idea that it's even more powerful. It really is, not just someone like me, but another version of me.

Curtis Sittenfeld

I've got this image in my head of how I want my life to look, and I have absolutely no idea how to get there. And I'm so scared that I'll make some wrong decision - just one - and everything will get messed up and go wrong -for good.

Lisa Ann Sandell

When you became a student at Oxford you realized both your own mortality, in the flow of this near-millennium of students, and also the small particle of immortality that attaches to you when you begin to belong to an immortal place.

We have to figure out how to let go, and forgive. This is our job.

Your boyfriend had a dream about potatoes and you're asking me to interpret it? I'm just old. Being old doesn't mean you know more; it means you ate enough fiber.

Jonathan Carroll

If we marvel at the artist who has written a great book, we must marvel more at those people whose lives are works of art and who don't even know it, who wouldn't believe it if they were told. However hard work good writing may be, it is easier than good living.

Katherine Paterson

The boys think they can all be athletes, and the girls think they can all be singers. That's the way to fame and success....as a group blacks must give up their illusions.

Perhaps lovers aren't supposed to look down at the ground. That kind of story is told in symbols-and earth represents reality, and reality represents frustrations, chance illnesses, death, murder, and all kinds of other tragedies. Lovers are meant to look up at the sky, for up there no beautiful illusions can be trampled upon.

Generations should not be mingled for daily fare, she thought; they are really contemptuous of one another, and the strong individuals, whether they belong to the older or the younger, impose on the meek their creeds and opinions, and, if they are strong enough, brook no dissent.

That there should be a purpose to suffering, that a person should be chosen for it, special — these are houses of the mind, in which whole peoples have found shelter.

That meant I could come back whenever I could manage it. And she was telling me to go. She knew the decision was too big a load for me to carry by myself. She knew me through and through. She had eyes in the back of her heart.

Richard Peck (writer)

If you ever managed to make me cry, my tears would sear your face.

Jonathan Littell

My neediness is not a hole to be filled but something beneath the skin scratching to get out.

Jonathan Evison