American Author Quotes

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

There is no way to ease the burden. The voyage leads on from harm to harm, A land of others and of silence.

Those who do not know how to see the precious things in life will never be happy.

Everyone in our culture wants to win a prize. Perhaps that is the grand lesson we have taken with us from kindergarten... everyone gets a ribbon, and praise becomes a meaningless narcotic to soothe egoistic distemper.

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.

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.

Margaret Ayer Barnes

Sweet Genevieve,
The days may come, the days may go,
But still the hands of memory weave The blissful dreams of long ago.

George Cooper (poet)

I like to make the reader laugh — and then steal that laugh, right out of the throat. Because I think life is like that, tragedy right alongside humor.

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.

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.

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

Whitney Gaskell

As a writer, I have always considered it my job to describe the world as I know it; to struggle toward whatever portion of the truth is available to me,

When and where will another come to take your holy place?
Old man mumbling in his dotage, or crying child, unborn?

Margaret Walker

None of us ever escape the first few years of our lives. They make a mould into which we are cast, and though it may be broken, and we turned loose, some remnant of it, some intangible evil or lovely thing or both, will remain with us, like the odor to a flower, or the smoothness to a piece of ivory. It is part of the immortality of youth.

Lizette Woodworth Reese

Peaches grow wild, and pigs can live in clover;
A barrel of salted herrings lasts a year;
The spring begins before the winter's over.

We get mad, sure! Like ice an' snow an' thunder an' lightning storm, but they don't hurt the wheat down in the ground any.' Mom picked up her whitewash brush and slapped it against the rough boards. 'Yolochka, you don't know how love is yet.'

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

Joel C. Rosenberg

Propaganda is a weapon that the Confederacy wields best, and wields heaviest. It is their hammer. And when all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.

A poem is not an expression, nor is it an object. Yet it somewhat partakes of both. What a poem is is never to be known, for which I have learned to be grateful.

I think it must be lonely to be God.
Nobody loves a master. No.

Gwendolyn Brooks

The view from the window, particularly if you enjoy neon, is extraordinary.

Chris Bachelder

Summertime
And the livin' is easy,
Fish are jumpin',
And the cotton is high.
Oh, your daddy's rich,
And your ma is good lookin';
So hush, little baby,
Don' yo' cry.

Because systems of mass communication can communicate only officially acceptable levels of reality, no one can know the extent of the secret unconscious life. No one in America can know what will happen. No one is in real control.

I say to my breath once again, little breath come from in front of me, go away behind me, row me quietly now, as far as you can, for I am an abyss that I am trying to cross.

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

Harriet Winslow Sewall