Authors From The United States

"Good writers indulge their audience; great writers know better."

"The educated don't get that way by memorizing facts; they get that way by respecting them."

"If you are your own worst enemy, don't do yourself any favors."

"Nuance: for best results apply with sledge hammer."

"Fear not the tyrant; fear the tyrant's wake."

"Cultural pluralism is the only thing we all have in common."

"Science embraces facts and debates opinion; religion embraces opinion and debates the facts."

"Big professorial words are good to know but not necessarily use at every turn. Try not to serve vichyssois to a coal miner, and do not give Cheerios to the queen of England. Neither will be amused."

"Democracy: The last thing it sees is a clear blue sky."

"They say democracy dies in darkness. At least that’s what the Washington Post has been telling us anyway, ever since MAGA rose to power in 2017 – our daily reminder that without a free press to shine its light on wayward politicians, democracy will eventually succumb to bad actors like Trump and his pro-Putin enablers in Congress."

"Courage is the ability to ignore your options."

"Dark blue journalism is more insidious and dangerous than yellow journalism because it’s subtle and slick and classy, in the same way that subtle and slick and classy racism is more effective than a mulleted screamer with a pointy white hood and a tiki torch he got on sale at Home Depot. Dark blue journalism is respectable because it’s perpetrated by respectable journalists who probably don’t shop at Home Depot, folks who move with ease in the bluest of circles, like Anderson Cooper, Chris Licht, Carrie Budoff Brown, and Leslie Stahl. Inevitably, in today’s ratings-obsessed newsrooms, for every Scott Pelly or Margaret Brennan or Abby Phillip with the backbone to say no, there’s a Kaitlin Collins with the ambition to say yes, to platform a demagogue in the name of “fairness to both sides.” At least that’s what she tells herself – presumably - in makeup before going on air:"

"But do they? Do they really? Russian disinformation deserves its rightful place in our American town hall conversation? That’s the hill you’re planting your fair and balanced flag on? Liz Cheney deserves to be heard. Adam Kinzinger deserves to be heard. Mitt Romney deserves to be heard. Marjorie Taylor Green does not."

"And let’s stop calling them never-Trumpers and start calling them what they are: decent conservatives."

"Dark blue journalism is going to get a lot of people killed if it delivers the Electoral College to MAGA in November. And the violence won’t start with Seal Team Six knocking on Rachel Maddow’s door. Instead, Trump will follow his Russian mentor’s playbook by giving all the Proud Boys out there the only thing they need - a wink and a nod. These are the kinds of people who would drag a 14-month-old puppy to a gravel pit and blow its brains out for Christ’s sake. These are the kinds of people who would murder 100,000 Ukrainians just to make Russia’s coin-operated grocery carts great again."

"Here’s the point. We are on our own. There isn’t going to be a Woodward and Bernstein to turn darkness to light and save the day this time. The world just doesn’t work that way anymore. If anything, there’s too much light, and it’s blinding us to the danger we’re in. For the news media has lit up our politics like the clear blue sky – less in the name of fair and objective journalism, and more in the name of Arthur C. Neilson."

"And if you think our military will save us from the MAGA gravel pits to come, please stop thinking that. Trump may be book-dumb, but he’s street-smart. General Austin will be replaced, probably with Flynn or someone Flynnish. Hell, we can’t even rely on the better angels of the Supreme Court - that human centipede of textualist hypocrisy – which right now is shamelessly dragging at least nine of its 18 feet in a cynical attempt to put the kibosh on Judge Chutkan’s trial. Watch as the creature bends itself - and America - backward, sideways, and upside down to help Trump familiarize a thing that isn’t supposed to be a thing - American autocracy."

"American Democracy: If you've never gotten a death threat, you're not doing it right."

"Listening is ninety percent of effective speaking - and most of the remaining ten percent of the time should be spent thinking with one's mouth closed."

"Soon, when AI has mastered the art of brilliant writing, conversational speech will come to be known as the only form of communication fully trusted as authentically human and the only real proof of one's eloquence, such that those who can assuredly speak will be held in a higher regard than those who can supposedly write."

"Words are like little gods; to forsake their power is to forsake yours."

"Most creative people have this thing called negative capability, which is the ability to not become annoyed by what one does not understand. So if you, for instance, have no regard for Jackson Pollock, but are drawn to things like Bob Ross’s landscapes, or Thomas Kinkade’s cabins, or Hitler’s watercolors, then rest assured, you have zero negative capability – which doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t be creative (the MAGA poet David Lehman comes to mind here), only that you’re making things way more difficult than they need to be."

"It's not easy to kill a man and walk away from it. Every time you kill, a little piece of you dies. Kill often enough, and though you still may talk and eat and breathe, you're a walking dead man your ownself."

"If you want great relationships, live your life fully. Your enthusiasm will spark those around you, who then become better company themselves."

"How can someone say they’re successful if they’re not happy doing their work?"

"Since you may never discover the truth, invent it."

"Everyone else on the planet, from the lowest amoebae to the great blue whale, expresses all their component elements in a perfect dance with the world around them. Only human beings have unfulfilled lives."

"Go for vitality, not comfort."

"Just because you have long legs doesn't mean you'll be happy as a Rockette."

"The way to “find” the perfect career is to give up the notion that you will ever find it, stumble across it, or that it will somehow magically find you, and to get to work designing it."

"The willingness to feel fear and keep going forward distinguishes the living from the merely breathing. In fact, it is not just the so-called negative emotions that are uncomfortable. When you choose to live fully, your palate of experiences, thoughts, emotions, and possibilities expands. This leads you onto new ground in other areas of your life as well. And, folks, all that newness swirling around just ain’t comfortable."

"The question is not whether to take risks, but which ones to take. The peril of being reasonable is that you will miss all the fun. It’s not enough to cautiously edge your way toward the cliff. Learn to revel in taking risks for the sake of your soul. Every choice you make gives birth instantly to certain risks as surely as your shadow follows you."

"The secret to perseverance is a simple one: have a bigger commitment to getting the job done than to attempting to control your inner feelings and sensations."

"You are the author of your life, the inventor of your future, the agent of your intentions."

"A passionately lived life is not always comfortable. Going for it involves being open to all of life - the joys, the sorrows, the mundane as well as the magic, the splendid victories, the most abject defeats. You might even stop closing your eyes during the scary parts of the movie."

"It takes committed, high energy, full-tilt boogie participation to have the kind of life you want."

"Real friends are those people who will stand for you expressing yourself fully, who will go out of their way to support you to keep your word, to go the extra mile, to get out of the box, to make your dreams come true."

"True independence means being free from the domination of your own internal automatic behaviors, not doing what you feel like when the urge strikes."

"It takes courage to be the author of your life. When you are struggling through one of the difficult parts of turning your dreams into reality, you may wonder why you always get stuck with having to put up with so much fear and uncertainty. Why, you wonder, couldn't I feel more courageous, like those other people do. You don't feel courageous because courage is not an emotion. There is no such thing as feeling "courageous". It is an imaginary emotion. Courage consists of doing what you said you would do even when you don't want to. In the face of danger you have a choice to be the delegate of either your commitments or your feelings. It's as simple and as difficult as that."

"Greatness is often born of the passionate dance between a rare talent and a noble purpose."

"As "unkindness has no remedy at law," let its avoidance be with you a point of honor."

"God's glowing covenant."

"Idleness is emptiness; the tree in which the sap is stagnant, remains fruitless."

"Hatred is self-punishment."

"Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit."

"There is one inevitable criterion of judgment touching religious faith in doctrinal matters. Can you reduce it to practice? If not, have none of it."

"Education commences at the mother's knee, and every word spoken within the hearsay of little children tends towards the formation of character."

"Humanity, in the aggregate, is progressing, and philanthropy looks forward hopefully."

"If our Creator has so bountifully provided for our existence here, which is but momentary, and for our temporal wants, which will soon be forgotten, how much more must He have done for our enjoyment in the everlasting world?"

"If crowdfunding has this idea of rebellion to it, and of circumventing the system, then these crowdfunding sites aren't really freedom. We're just creating another gatekeeper."