Women Authors From The United States

"# Forgive yourself (Listen up! This one's extremely important.)"

"It's important to look for ways to be grateful for all that you've manifested, even things that you might label under "No, thanks.""

"It was strange, I reflected, as we went out into the golden evening of the Byzantine streets, that even in the weirdest circumstances, the most troubling episodes of one’s life, the greatest divides from home and familiarity, there were these moments of undeniable joy."

"I’ve always been interested in foreign relations. It’s my belief that the study of history should be our preparation for understanding the present, rather than an escape from it."

"It is a fact that we historians are interested in what is partly a reflection of ourselves, perhaps a part of ourselves we would rather not examine except through the medium of scholarship; it is also true that as we steep ourselves in our interests, they become more and more a part of us. Visiting an American university — not mine — several years after this, I was introduced to one of the first of the great American historians of Nazi Germany. He lived in a comfortable house at the edge of the campus, where he collected not only books on his topic but also the official china of the Third Reich. His dogs, two enormous German shepherds, patrolled the front yard day and night. Over drinks with other faculty members in his living room, he told me in no uncertain terms how he despised Hitler’s crimes and wanted to expose them in the greatest possible detail to the civilized world. I left the party early, walking carefully past those big dogs, unable to shake my revulsion."

"I call myself bisexual because I acknowledge that I have in myself the potential to be attracted – romantically and/or sexually – to people of more than one sex and/or gender, not necessarily at the same time, not necessarily in the same way, and not necessarily to the same degree."

"Dracula is a metaphor for the evil that is so hard to undo in history."

"As a historian, I have learned that, in fact, not everyone who reaches back into history can survive it. And it is not only reaching back that endangers us; sometimes history itself reaches inexorably forward for us with its shadowy claw."

"Life’s better, sounder, when we don’t brood unnecessarily on horrors. As you know, human history is full of evil deeds, and maybe we ought to think of them with tears, not fascination."

"In the Year of Our Lord 1456 Drakula did many terrible and curious things. When he was appointed Lord in Wallachia, he had all the young boys burned who came to his land to learn the language, four hundred of them. He had a large family impaled and many of his people buried naked up to the navel and shot at. Some he had roasted and then flayed. There was a footnote, too, at the bottom of the first page. The typeface of the note was so fine that I almost missed it. Looking more closely, I realized it was a commentary on the word impaled. Vlad Tepes, it claimed, had learned this form of torture from the Ottomans. Impalement of the sort he practiced involved the penetration of the body with a sharpened wooden stake, usually through the anus or genitals upward, so that the stake sometimes emerged through the mouth and sometimes through the head. I tried for a minute not to see these words; then I tried for several minutes to forget them, with the book shut. The thing that most haunted me that day, however, as I closed my notebook and put my coat on to go home, was not my ghostly image of Dracula, or the description of impalement, but the fact that these things had — apparently — actually occurred. If I listened too closely, I thought, I would hear the screams of the boys, of the “large family” dying together. For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history’s terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth. And once you’ve seen that truth — really seen it — you can’t look away."

"My dear and unfortunate successor: I shall conclude my account as rapidly as possible, since you must draw from it vital information if we are both to — ah, to survive, at least, and to survive in a state of goodness and mercy. There is survival and survival, the historian learns to his grief. The very worst impulses of humankind can survive generations, centuries, even millennia. And the best of our individual efforts can die with us at the end of a single lifetime."

"Never before had I known the sudden quiver of understanding that travels from word to brain to heart, the way a new language can move, coil, swim into life under the eyes, the almost savage leap of comprehension, the instantaneous, joyful release of meaning, the way the words shed their printed bodies in a flash of heat and light."

"Hypnosis is the epitome of mind-body medicine. It can enable the mind to tell the body how to react, and modify the messages that the body sends to the mind."

"The central question about vegetarian diets used to be whether it was healthy to eliminate meat and other animal foods … Now, however, the main question has become whether it is healthier to be a vegetarian than to be a meat eater. … The answer to both questions, based on currently available evidence, seems to be yes. A properly planned vegetarian diet can provide all the essential nutrients, even for growing children … And, on the whole, vegetarians are less likely to be afflicted with the chronic diseases that are leading killers and cripplers in societies where meat is the centerpiece of the diet."

"Early findings from the most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease are challenging much of American dietary dogma. The Cornell–Oxford] study, being conducted in China, paints a bold portrait of a plant-based eating plan that is more likely to promote health than disease. The study can be considered the Grand Prix of epidemiology."

"Over the ships that are anchored, Over the fleets that part, Over the cities dark by the shore, High as a dream thou art!"

"Within a temple's towering walls I stand A temple vast; the heaven is its dome: No corniced crag was hewn by human hand, Nor by it wrought this tracery of foam;"

"O wondrous sphinx! within thy marble breast What undreamed secrets lie concealed! Hast thou no pity for my wild unrest My maddening longing for the unrevealed?"

"If he bring me a rose, a briar rose, To place in my braided hair, I shall know there are thorns in life for me And many a wearying care. If he bring me a lily pure and pale And lay it upon my breast, I shall know that my life will be of peace, As a bird in its mother's nest."

"North from the beautiful islands, North from the headlands and highlands, The long sea-wall, The white ships flee with the swallow; The day-beams follow and follow, Glitter and fall."

"Though I were gifted with an angel's tongue, And voice like that with which the prophets sung, Yet if mild charity were not within, 'T were all an impious mockery and sin."

"Now that the wind is tamed and broken, And day gleams over the lea, Row, row, for the one you love Was out on the raging sea: Row, row, row, Sturdy and brave o’er the treacherous wave, Hope like a beacon before, Row, sailor, row Out to the sea from the shore!"

"Leaning on thy dear faithful breast, I would resign my breath, And in thy loved embraces lose The bitterness of death."

"The planted seed consigned to common earth, Disdains to moulder with the baser clay; But rises up to meet the light of day, Spreads all its leaves, and flowers, and tendrils forth; And, bathed and ripened in the genial ray, Pours out its perfume on the wandering gales, Till in that fragrant breath its life exhales."

"Blindfold I walk this life's bewildering maze; Up flinty steep, through frozen mountain pass, Through thornset barren and through deep morass: But strong in faith I tread the uneven ways, And bare my head unshrinking to the blast, Because my Father's arm is round me cast; And if the way seems rough, I only clasp The hand that leads me with a firmer grasp."

"He’s no politician. He’s a businessman. He knows how to talk. He can give an hour speech without notes . . . He’s blunt."

"You know, people criticize me for talking about her because I had an affair with her husband, and I don’t blame them for that, I understand that. I understand that they can be mad at me. I get it. I accept my responsibility. … But she’s never accepted her responsibility at being an enabler. She’s been an enabler that has encouraged him to go out and do whatever he does with women. Woman’s rights. Ha! I personally have worked my tail off to get where I am in the entertainment business, which has not been easy since the Clinton scandal, by the way. … Hillary never put up a shingle and worked for her clients and built her clientele. She always got things on the back of her husband. … I think it’s a joke that she would run on women’s issues."

"Invisibility is a condition of godhead. If folk could see them, they would know the truth, and the Lords Protector would cease to be divine."

"“Aren’t you even curious?” he asked. “A million worlds out there with more wonders than I could tell you in a million years, and you don’t even want to ask a question?”"

"I can’t tell you if the stories are true. Men lie without meaning to. They talk as if they had been part of a thing that happened to someone they never knew and only heard of by sixth remove."

"“Better to make haste slowly than not at all,” said Amnir sententiously."

"The mountains dwindled away into hills covered with a dark, stunted scrub. Beyond them the land flattened out to the horizon, a treeless immensity of white and gray-green, a spongy mossiness flecked with a million icy ponds. The wind blew, sometimes hard, sometimes harder."

"Stark did not like them. There was a touch of madness in them, born of the long dark and the too-long-held faith."

"With any luck. Stark smiled cynically. Not that he did not believe in luck. Rather, he had found it to be an uncertain ally."

"The man who doesn’t fear, doesn’t live long. I fear everything."

"The Thyrans came on, as merciless as time."

"There was a smell in the air now. The hot, close, frightening small of mob; mob excited, hungry, dreaming blood and death. The primitive in Stark knew that sweaty acridity all too well."

"I am finished with running. Now I will stop and choose my way. Sooner or later a man has to stop and choose his way, not out of the ways he would like there to be, or the ways there ought to be, but out of the ways there are."

"Knowledge is not like sin. There is no mystical escape from it."

"I have let it blow through me, and it is just a wind. I have let the words sound in my ears, and they are nothing but words, spoken by an ignorant man with a dusty beard. They do not stir me, they do not touch me. I am done with them, too. I know now what lies across the land, the slow and heavy weight. They call it faith, but it is not faith. It is fear. The people have clapped a shelter over their heads, a necessity of ignorance, a passion of retreat, and they have called it God, and worshiped it."

"But for today, yesterday, tomorrow, it is not important. Time goes on without any of us. Only a belief, a state of mind, endures, and even that changes constantly, but underneath there are two main kinds—the one that says, Here you must stop knowing, and the other which says, Learn. Right or wrong, the fruit was eaten, and there can’t ever be a going back. I have made my choice."

"Stark said wearily, “I don’t think you understand.” Normally he was tolerant of tribal fancies, but he felt no great tenderness for the Outdwellers. “The stars are already defiled. They’re only suns, like that one over your head. They have worlds around them, like this one under your feet. People live on those worlds, people who never heard of Outdwellers or their footling goddess. And the starships fly between them. It’s all going on out there, this second as you stand here, and nothing you can do will stop it.”"

"“Will it always stay like this?” “Nothing,” said Hostetter, “ever stays always like anything.”"

"“I guess we’ve got a lot to learn.” “Quite a lot,” said Hostetter thoughtfully. “It won’t be easy, either. So many things will jar against every belief you’ve grown up with, and I don’t care how you scoff at it, some of it sticks to you.”"

"There’s never been an act done since the beginning, from a kid stealing candy to a dictator committing genocide, that the person doing it didn’t think he was fully justified. That’s a mental trick called rationalizing, and it’s done the human race more harm than anything else you can name."

"You can’t destroy knowledge. You can stamp it under and burn it up and forbid it to be, but somewhere it will survive."

"He could hear Pa’s voice saying, “A man’s religion, his sect, is his own affair. But those people have no religion or sect. They’re a mob, with a mob’s fear and cruelty, and with half-crazy, cunning men stirring them up against others.”"

"“I grew up with the idea of it,” said Hostetter. “Nobody ever taught me that it was evil or forbidden, or that God had put a curse on it, and that’s the difference.”"

"“Why did they do it?” he asked. “Because they’re afraid.” “Of what?” “Of yesterday,” said Mr. Hostetter. “Of tomorrow.”"

"“Was he trying to frighten you?” “I don’t think so,” said Len. “I think he was just telling me the truth.”"