American Author Quotes

Through my Invisible new veil Of finity, I see November's world — Low scud, slick street, three giggling girls — As, oddly, not as sombre As December, But as green As anything: As spring.

To misunderstand the nature and threat of evil is to risk being blindsided by it.

The soul of the river had entered my soul, And the gathered power of my soul was moving So swiftly, it seemed to be at rest Under cities of cloud and under Spheres of silver and changing worlds Until I saw a flash of trumpets Above the battlements over Time!

Edgar Lee Masters
Edgar Lee Masters
You will not fight your battles on my body anymore.

Lynn Nottage
Lynn Nottage
How strange it was that a dream, once realized, could quickly turn mundane.

How sad they are, the promises we never return to. They stay in our mouths, roughen the tongue, lead lives of their own.

Jane Hirshfield
Jane Hirshfield
The rules of marriage were simple and easy to follow: faithfulness, patience, compromise. But there were no rules to divorce, or if there were, he had not yet discovered them.

Painters are so bitchy. Magritte told Miró that Kandinsky had feet of Klee.
Told to Ned Sherrin

Sleep on your writing; take a walk over it; scrutinize it of a morning; review it of an afternoon; digest it after a meal; let it sleep in your drawer a twelvemonth; never venture a whisper about it to your friend, if he be an author especially.

Amos Bronson Alcott
Amos Bronson Alcott
Sometimes people do things that are complicated. For complicated reasons.

Poetry is road maintenance for a fragmented world which seeks to be kept together. It's been an integral activity for a long time.

I read, for the first time, of the Carolina Parakeet-a North American parakeet whose green, yellow and reddish-orange plumage appeared vivacious and altogether quite wonderful. As stunning as I found the hawk-chased conures, this bird astounded me even more. That the Carolina Parakeet was extinct simply added to my amazement.

People often choose to misunderstand if it makes life more interesting.

Neither awake nor in a dark dream are perilous blades just as they seem.

It has taken a great deal of energy, which has not been so difficult to summon as the necessary patience to wait, simply wait much of the time - until my instincts assured me that I had assembled my materials in proper order for a final welding into their natural form.

Hart Crane
Hart Crane
Love is the answer, that everyone seeks...Love is the language, that every heart speaks.

There's no sense to being Irish unless you know the world's going to break your heart.

The big picture is that there is no big picture.
That's why we keep painting it.

Tell me thou all pervading mind,
When I this life forsake,
Must ev'ry tender tie unbind,
Each sweet connection break?

Ann Eliza Bleecker
Ann Eliza Bleecker
under a soprano sky, a woman sings,
lovely as chandeliers.

Sonia Sanchez
Sonia Sanchez
We can only do what is possible for us to do. But still it is good to know what the impossible is.

María Irene Fornés
María Irene Fornés
So even the most unlikely events have to take place somewhere...

Men want a challenge, but they want a challenge they can win.

You'd scarce expect one of my age
To speak in public on the stage;
And if I chance to fall below
Demosthenes or Cicero,
Don't view me with a critic's eye,
But pass my imperfections by.
Large streams from little fountains flow,
Tall oaks from little acorns grow.

In this life you sometimes have to choose between pleasing God and pleasing man. - In the long run, it's better to please God - he's more apt to remember.