American Author Quotes

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

Have you ever watched a leaf leave a tree? It falls upward first, and then it drifts toward the ground, just as I find myself drifting towards you.

Am I new minted by thy Stamp indeed?
Mine Eyes are dim; I cannot clearly see.
Be thou my Spectacles that I may read
Thine Image and Inscription stampt on mee.

A feller's glad to be a friend, Out fishin'. A helpin' hand he'll always lend, Out fishin' The brotherhood of rod and line An' sky an' stream is always fine; Men come real close to God's design, Out fishin'. A feller isn't plotting schemes, Out fishin'. He's only busy with his dreams, Out fishin' His livery is a coat of tan; His creed, to do the best he can; A feller's always mostly man Out fishin'.

Edgar Guest
Edgar Guest
Only Death could teach us love
By Death we shall grow wise.

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

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

My love for you won't stop with my leaving. Come an evening over the years, when you step outside your door and hear the wind blowing through the cottonwoods, that'll be me, thinking of you, whispering your name, and loving you.

" Tis plain to me
As A B C,
My dear friend, Mr. Neff!"
"Oh, yes! but then,"
Says Mr. N,
"You know I'm D E F!"

Charles Follen Adams
Charles Follen Adams
Poor indeed must thou be, if around thee
Thou no ray of light and joy canst throw—

Someone spoke to me last night,
told me the truth. Just a few words,
but I recognized it.
I knew I should make myself get up,
write it down, but it was late,
and I was exhausted from working
all day in the garden, moving rocks.

Dorianne Laux
Dorianne Laux
Yet I will look upon thy face again, My own romantic Bronx, and it will be A face more pleasant than the face of men. Thy waves are old companions, I shall see A well remembered form in each old tree And hear a voice long loved in thy wild minstrelsy.

Joseph Rodman Drake
Joseph Rodman Drake
Sometimes people do things that are complicated. For complicated reasons.

Loaded with note cards for research papers that I was hopelessly behind on, I'd enter the Public Library only to end up wandering around lost, wasting the day.

Wasn't no "death do us part" in slavery; wasn't even no "dead or sold" less'n two peoples made it that. Far as two peoples loving with each other, it was any handy place if you was willing —and sometimes if you wasn't; or you jumped the broom if the masters let you marry. But you couldn't help dreaming. Dreams was one of the reasons you got up the next day.

My poetry has become the way of my giving out what music is within me.

We dwell within the Milky Way, Our Earth, a paltry little mommet, Suspended in a grand array Of constellation, moon and comet.

Arthur Guiterman
Arthur Guiterman
I've almost come to feel that it doesn't make much difference what you believe in — the thing that's important is a state of belief. It's much better to believe in nonsense than in nothing.

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

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.

under a soprano sky, a woman sings,
lovely as chandeliers.

Sonia Sanchez
Sonia Sanchez
People are all the same. We need a personal reason to get our asses off the couch.

Olen Steinhauer
Olen Steinhauer
The only animal capable of giving man a fair fight is man. Actually, among ourselves, we fight unfairest of all, and the more we practice, the nastier we get.

We come back to autumn,
to zucchini that wilt like witches' shoes...