American Novelist Quotes

Tis emblematic, the rose of youth and health soon fades when watered by the tear of affliction.

Racism doesn't know color, death doesn't know age, and pain doesn't know might.

Jacqueline Woodson

Three times I have been mistaken for a prohibition agent, but never had any trouble clearing myself.

Dashiell Hammett

There is a secret society of seven men that controls the finances of the world. This is known to everyone but the details are not known. There are some who believe that it would be better if one of those seven men were a financier.

Rather like spent swimmers, who had given up the hope of rescue and then had suddenly met with it, they were sensing with all their being, the feel of the solid ground beneath their feet, the grateful monotony of the skies above their heads,... and everywhere about them the immanence of God.... The Chinaberry Tree became a Temple.

Jessie Redmon Fauset

Oppression is never right, even when it is elegant.

Justice requires lawyers who are prepared, witnesses who tell the truth, judges who know the law, and jurors who stay awake. Justice is the North Star, the burning bush, the holy virgin. It cannot be bought, sold, or mass produced. It is intangible, ineffable, and invisible, but if you are to spend your life in its pursuit, it is best to believe it exists, and that you can attain it.

That horrible moment of suspense when the artist shows one of his creations to strange eyes for the first time.

Nobody gets everything in this life. You decide your priorities and you make your choices. I'd decided long ago that any cake I had would be eaten.

Donald E. Westlake

We are in the middle of what looks increasingly like the zombie apocalypse. Moaning people don't need help. Moaning people are intending to eat us.

You don't feel like smiling? Then what? Force yourself to smile. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to make you happy.

I shared this insight with some other boat owners, and they all agreed that, definitely, putting your boar into the water is asking for trouble. Most of them have had their boats sitting in their driveways long enough to be registered historical landmarks.

He had lost life by making knowledge its ultimate end, and was still delving on, with never a laugh and never a cheer, feeding his emaciated heart on the locusts and wild honey of entomology and botany...

George Washington Cable

Love is a state of the heart, but also, an activity. And quite an awesome one.

I wanted to be loved because I deserved it. Except I was scared to be loved like this, because what if I stopped deserving it? Unconditional love was insulting, but conditional love was terrifying.

Art is the most terrifying of human inventions — it preserves the right to undermine all categories.

If there were a mile high mountain of granite, and once every ten-thousand years a bird flew past and brushed it with a feather, by the time that mountain was worn away, a fraction of a second would have passed in the context of eternity

I wonder if Eve could write letters in Paradise! But, poor Eve, she had no one to write to - no one to whom to tell what Eden was, no beloved child to whom her love traveled through any or all space. Poor Eve!

Catharine Sedgwick

Near or far, there are burdens and terrors in sisterhood, and perhaps the nearer, the more complicated.

When you get down to the bottom of it, only about half of what we remember really happened. We tend to modify things to make ourselves look better in our own eyes and in the eyes of others. Then, if what we did wasn't really very admirable, we tend to forget that it ever happened. A normal human being's grasp on reality is very tenuous at best. Our imaginary lives are usually much nicer.

Customers are ninjas now. They are stealthily evaluating you right under your nose.

The easy road is always under construction,so have an alternate route planned.

Everything wrong I've ever done has always seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

Judith McNaught

We used to all come outside when the streetlights came on and prowl the neighborhood in a pack, a herd of kids on banana-seat bikes and minibikes. The grown-ups looked so silly framed in their living-room and kitchen windows. They complained about their days and signed deep sighs of depression and loss. They talked about how spoiled and lucky children were these days. We will never be that way, we said, we will never say those things.

Examining the actual contents of my crying, I found a quailing sludge emotion, with a foul insecticide taste. If it was a peanut, you would spit it out. Yet I was indulging this toxic goo, giving it its head and letting it dictate my actions. People had every good reason to despise me.