c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Writing is my oxygen. Music is my carbon dioxide.
— Jessica Bell
This whole show vs tell concept both bewilders and challenges my mind.
— Davee Jones
You are not an "author," you are a writer. If your books are still selling like hotcakes ten years after your demise, THEN you're an author.
— H.P. Oliver
No matter how entertaining, diverse, concise, or detailed, a writing craft book is, it’s not going to work magic on you, it’s not going to suddenly make you a brilliant writer simply by reading it. You need to use what you read and learn in your own writing. Because that’s when you have those AHA moments. That's when it really sticks.
— Jessica Bell, Show & Tell in a Nutshell: Demonstrated Transitions from Telling to Showing
Find the problem, find the story.
— John Brown
During 30 years of earning my daily bread as a writer I have learned many lessons about our craft. The most significant of those lessons is that I still have many lessons to learn about out craft.
— H.P. Oliver
Writing is more than a craft
—  it is a way of life. Everything you see or do becomes part of what you write.
I don’t know if you have had the same experience, but the snag I always come up against when I’m telling a story is this dashed difficult problem of where to begin it.
— P.G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves
However great a man's natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau
If you start to revise before you've reached the end, you're likely to begin dawdling with the revisions and putting off the difficult task of writing.
— Pearl S. Buck
In my opinion it is not the writer's job to solve such problems as God, pessimism, etc; his job is merely to record who, under what conditions, said or thought what about God or pessimism. The artist is not meant to be a judge of his characters and what they say; his only job is to be an impartial witness. I heard two Russians in a muddled conversation about pessimism, a conversation that solved nothing; all I am bound to do is reproduce that conversation exactly as I heard it. Drawing conclusions is up to the jury, that is, the readers. My only job is to be talented, that is, to know how to distinguish important testimony from unimportant, to place my characters in the proper light and speak their language.
— Anton Chekhov
You need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer.
— Margaret Atwood
Meredith,' interposed Celia, 'makes one of his women, Emilia in England, say that poetry is like talking on tiptoe; like animals in cages, always going to one end and back again.
— Harold Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware: Or Illumination
Telling a story is like playing a fiddle. No one want's to hear it when it's done badly
— K.A.Young
Writing is a team sport.
— Chris  White
It was not the privileged and the fortunate who took in the Jews in France. It was the marginal and damaged, which should remind us that there are real limits to what evil and misfortune can accomplish. If you take away the gift of reading, you create the gift of listening. If you bomb a city, you leave behind death and destruction. But you create a community of remote misses. If you take away a mother or a father, you cause suffering and despair. But one time in ten, out of that despair rises as indomitable force. You see the giant and the shepherd in the Valley of Elah and your eye is drawn to the man with sword and shield and the glittering armor. But so much of what is beautiful and valuable in the world comes from the shepherd, who has more strength and purpose than we ever imagine.
— Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
It is at midnight, not midday, that stars shine the brightest.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Be proud of your struggles. Adversity brings out the best in us.
— Avijeet Das
Adversity are the lemons nobody wanted, but without them we would still be in a cave pounding rocks
— S.L. Northey
Lovely flowers sometimes bloom in ugly places.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Moving rocks today strengthens you for moving mountains tomorrow.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Today's tears water tomorrow's gardens.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
You cannot stop the ocean's current, but you can swim.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
As water downs ships but upholds leaves,and as fires burn cities but refines gold,so do life's troubles propel the meek to greatnessand the proud to ruin.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
When bad things happen to you, become wiser, not bitter.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
The desert is harsh, but persevering flowers flourish.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
The loveliest flowers sometimes grow in the ugliest places.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Your back may be pushed against the wall, but your brain is not.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Caged birds still sing beautiful symphonies.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Seeds pour out oil when pressed.Grapes pour out wine when squeezed.Herbs pour out medicine when pounded.Flowers pour out perfume when crushed.The gifted pour out excellence when tested.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
He who runs from a challenge runs from an opportunity.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
The most beautiful rainbows are sometimes formed in the ugliest storms.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
When darkness comes,stars shine.When storms come,plants flourish.When adversity comes,champions triumph.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
A flower does not lose its beauty because it grew on concrete.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Flowers still have to stretch to bloom.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Flowers have to stretch to bloom.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Your mind is greater than your problems,your heart is greater than your troubles,your soul is greater than your temptations,and your God is greater than your obstacles.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Broken pencils still write beautiful songs.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Pain frees you from complacency.Tears free you from sorrow.Weaknesses free you from pride.Adversity frees from boredom.Challenges free you from monotony.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
It is at night, not in the day, that stars shine the brightest.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Impossible is what you say to yourself when you have given up.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Only because of darkness are we able to clearly see the stars.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Adversity is the evil twin of reward.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Your breaking point is often your blessing point.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
As water drowns but also cleanses, so adversity scalds but also blesses.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Present trials strengthen you for future blessings.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
The tree that stands to the tempest is strong;the tree that refuses to bend, the strongest.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Average people focus on the storm
— extraordinary people look forward to the rainbow.
Adversity is opportunity inside out.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Your greatest wildernesses lead you to your greatest Promised Lands.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Adversity is the door to opportunity.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
The further you are in the wilderness, the closer the Promised Land is.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
The greater the pressure, the greater the treasure.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Great tests precede great blessings.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Your next victory is behind your next test.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Adversity builds characterand character is who we are
— character moulds who we becomefor all and not just for some.
Trials are part of the adventure to greatness.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
As a rose blossoms despite being surrounded by thorns, bloom despite being surrounded by troubles.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
The hotter the furnace the finer the gold.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
sing so loud that the musicdrowns out the sounds ofthe naysayers.one day they’ll be singingyour song.
— JaTawny Muckelvene Chatmon, Getting Lost
Through storms you are able to get all the colors you need to paint the rainbow.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
The darkest clouds precipitate the most rain.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
There is no better teacher than adversity
— there is none wiser than its student.
You are no greater than the adversity you can handle.
— Matshona Dhliwayo
Endure the pain, overcome the hurt.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
Jesus is the light of the world. His light shines through all darkness. His love heals all hatred. His grace and mercy forgives all sins. The anointing of his blood heals the sick and the lame. His guarding angels will forever protect you and his word will forever guide you.
— Colishia S. Benjamin, Poetry of Life
If you can’t forgive and move on, then your feelings will grow and fester and they will eat you alive.
— T.M. Gaouette, The Destiny of Sunshine Ranch
You can never be defeated in life, you are a learner.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
If we know what can happen in a minute will could have avoid all tragedies.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
There are opportunities in every struggle. Look for these opportunities and make it great.
— Lailah Gifty Akita, Think Great: Be Great!
Hope is the one positive force to help us persevere during our darkest storms. Jesus gives us hope when He walks beside us through the fiery furnace and helps us rise above adversity.
— Dana Arcuri, Harvest of Hope: Living Victoriously Through Adversity
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,Nothing is going to get better. It's not.
— Dr. Seuss, The Lorax
We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
— Elie Wiesel
You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.
— Mahatma Gandhi
One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
— Martin Luther King Jr.
Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.
— Mahatma Gandhi
If I were to remain silent, I'd be guilty of complicity.
— Albert Einstein
An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law
— Martin Luther King Jr.
We declare our right on this earth...to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.
— Malcolm X
Say what you want but you NEVER say it with violence!
— Gerard Way
It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.
— Samuel Adams
We Americans are interested only in the consumption of our products. We have no interest in how they are produced, or what happens to them once we discard them, once we throw them away.
— M.T. Anderson, Feed
Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, 'She doesn't have what it takes." ~ ' They will say, 'Women don't have what it takes." -
— Clare Boothe Luce
Protest is when I say I don't like this. Resistance is when I put an end to what I don't like. Protest is when I say I refuse to go along with this anymore. Resistance is when I make sure everybody else stops going along too.
— Ulrike Marie Meinhof
I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they'll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action.
— Malcolm X
I learned early that crying out in protest could accomplish things. My older brothers and sister had started to school when, sometimes, they would come in and ask for a buttered biscuit or something and my mother, impatiently, would tell them no. But I would cry out and make a fuss until I got what I wanted. I remember well how my mother asked me why I couldn't be a nice boy like Wilfred; but I would think to myself that Wilfred, for being so nice and quiet, often stayed hungry. So early in life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.
— Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X
I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Henceforth, I will repeat these words each hour, each day, everyday, until the words become as much a habit as my breathing, and the action which follows becomes as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids. With these words I can condition my mind to perform every action necessary for my success. I will act now. I will repeat these words again and again and again. I will walk where failures fear to walk. I will work when failures seek rest. I will act now for now is all I have. Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now. Success will not wait. If I delay, success will become wed to another and lost to me forever. This is the time. This is the place. I am the person.
— Og Mandino
When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith.
— Abraham Kuyper
Every day I get better at knowing that it is not a choice to be an activist; rather, it is the only way to hold on to the better parts of my human self. It is the only way I can live and laugh without guilt.
— Staceyann Chin
Never explain, never retract, never apologize. Just get the thing done and let them howl.
— Nellie L. McClung
If you join the rat race — you're in the race of rats.
— Bertolt Brecht
You cannot change people but you can change the system so that people are not pushed into doing evil things.
— Slavoj Žižek
What lies between where you are and where you want to be sometimes requires traveling through the Twilight Zone.
— Shannon L. Alder
As you get to thirty, the main thing is to not be sensible.
— Mark Steel
[W]hat possible purpose does this lashing-out serve? Will activists be shamed into recovering their previous enthusiasm? Will Republicans stop their vicious attacks because Obama is lashing out to his left? It was pure self-indulgence; even if he feels aggrieved, he has to judge his words by their usefulness, not by his desire to vent. This isn't about him.
— Paul Krugman
To engage in activism that envisions alternatives ways of organizing society and alternative ways of being is to risk membership in society, a sense of belonging, however partial it may be. Activism can make us vulnerable because it is so obviously about wanting something beyond what is, and to have a political desire often is construed as wanting too much.
— Deborah B. Gould, Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP's Fight against AIDS
We felt as though we had a responsibility to do something about it. So, we did.
— Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, We Rise: The Earth Guardians Guide to Building a Movement that Restores the Planet
Where there is poverty, there will be destruction and exploitation by the corporations and governments benefitting from destroying our rainforests and trafficking wildlife.﻿
— Eileen Anglin
When, thirty-five years ago, I tried to give a summary of the ideas and principles of that social philosophy that was once known under the name of liberalism, I did not indulge in the vain hope that my account would prevent the impending catastrophes to which the policies adopted by the European nations were manifestly leading. All I wanted to achieve was to offer to the small minority of thoughtful people an opportunity to learn something about the aims of classical liberalism and its achievements and thus to pave the way for a resurrection of the spirit of freedom after the coming debacle.
— Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism
If you’re not angry, you’re either a stone, or you’re too sick to be angry. You should be angry. You must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. It doesn’t do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use that anger, yes. You write it. You paint it. You dance it. You march it. You vote it. You do everything about it. You talk it. Never stop talking it.
— Maya Angelou
I do what I can,' I said. 'When I can do more, I will. You know that.
— Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents
It's not an effective protest if it's not pissing people off.
— John Scalzi, Lock In
Don’t be a witness. Be an activist.
— DaShanne Stokes
A study of the San Francisco Beat enclave by psychiatrist Dr. Francis Rigney in the late 1950's showed 60 percent "were so psychotic or crippled by tensions, anxiety and neurosis as to be nonfunctional in the competitive world." In contrast, the several studies released so far made of the student radicals at Berkeley show them to be stable, serious, and of above-average intelligence. The point is that the Beats had to "cop out" of the Rat Race because they couldn't perform; the New Left chooses to reject a society it could easily be successful in.
— Jack Newfield
I really admire people in the public eye, who have influence or celebrity and they take a stand on something important, bring awareness and take compassionate action.When you have been blessed with abundance or are an influencer and you bring attention to a cause, or do something to help the world, that's using your blessings for the greater good. Those are the people who inspire me.
— Eileen Anglin
This is the world as it is. This is where you start.
— Saul D. Alinsky
16 days of activism? I don't know about you folks, but I'm an activist every single day.
— Christina Engela, All That Remains
I remember the philosopher Bertrand Russell was asked why he spent his time protesting against nuclear war and getting arrested on demonstrations. Why didn’t he continue to work on the serious philosophical and logical problems which have major intellectual significance? And his answer was pretty good. He said: “Look, if I and others like me only work on those problems, there won’t be anybody around to appreciate it or be interested.
— Chomsky Noam
I was born for this moment in Earth's history and if you believe you are a lightworker, so were you.
— Eileen Anglin
As far as we could tell, the face of the revolution was a sea of embroidering women, patiently waiting the resignation of their repressive governor.
— Diana Denham
We are the vanguard of our times. What we do in our lifetimes will set the future of all beings. The loving, conscious choices you make for yourself will effect the future of life and of souls uncounted. This is how important you are. And this is how important loving yourself and living your best life is.
— Eileen Anglin
Extract and expel implicit biases from your work life. Don't taint our visitors with your bias and views. Allow them to form their own conclusions where it's developmentally appropriate.
— Monica O Montgomery
We are beginning to understand that the world is always being made fresh and never finished; that activism can be the journey rather than the arrival; that's struggle doesn't always have to be confrontational but can take the form of reaching out to find common ground with the many others in our society who are also seeking ways out from alienation, isolation, privatization, and dehumanization by corporate globalization.
— Grace Lee Boggs, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century
Voices joined together for a cause are like a wave that changes the shore.
— Eileen Anglin
Still, it becomes clearer every day that organizing or joining massive protests and demanding new policies fail to sufficiently address the crisis we face. They may demonstrate that we are on the right side politically, but they are not transformative enough. They do not change the cultural images or the symbols that play such a pivotal role in molding us into who we are.
— Grace Lee Boggs, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century
The physical threat posed by climate change represents a crisis that is not only material but also profoundly spiritual at its core because it challenges us to think seriously about the future of the human race and what it means to be a human being.
— Grace Lee Boggs, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century
Every crisis, actual or impending, needs to be viewed as an opportunity to bring about profound changes in our society. Going beyond protest organizing, visionary organizing begins by creating images and stories of the future that help us imagine and create alternatives to the existing system.
— Grace Lee Boggs, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century
A single whisper can be quite a disturbance when the rest of the audience is silent.
— Anthony Marra, The Tsar of Love and Techno
You never do any good until you get into some trouble.
— Arthur Miller
There is nothing like the whites of someone’s eyes to convince you how very true what you believe is, how very much you must act on it.
— Jennine Capo Crucet, Make Your Home Among Strangers
We are the dead . Our only true life is in the future. We shall take part in it as handfuls of dust and splinters of bone.
— George Orwell, 1984
But if you sit around thinking what to do and end up not doing anything, why bother even thinking about it? You're better off going out on the town and having a good time. No, we have to think and act. That's what we're doing here, and that's what you have to do.
— Elvia Alvarado, Don't Be Afraid, Gringo
There is no politically neutral fence available for us to sit on, and our attempts to do so have the consequence (intended or not) of supporting the existing political system.
— Anne Kearney, Counselling, Class and Politics: Undeclared Influences in Therapy
I'm fighting now only for individual captive dolphins and dolphins in general but also for people, for the mind and sensibilities of future generations toward the world itself.
— Richard O'Barry, To Free a Dolphin
Or perhaps it's "activist," but on environmental and economic problems, without understanding that pressuring women to have too many children is the biggest cause of environmental distress, and economic courses should start with reproduction, not just production.
— Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road
Reuse is the original green collar job.
— MaryEllen Etienne
We can't achieve zero waste without reuse.
— MaryEllen Etienne
I have no interest in eliminating the tension between justice and forgiveness by taking justice off the table. Given the subtleties of sin and the persistence of evil, we would soon be living in moral anarchy and political chaos if there were no provision for justice.
— Eugene H. Peterson, Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers
Why is it that the people who seem to have the most to say aren’t doing anything at all?
— Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, Vegan's Daily Companion: 365 Days of Inspiration for Cooking, Eating, and Living Compassionately
Do what you can, when you can.
— Johnny Worthen, The Brand Demand
There is a stereotype that vegans talk about being vegan all the time. The irony is, once people find out I’m vegan, I quickly become their confessor, counselor, and sounding board.
— Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, Vegan's Daily Companion: 365 Days of Inspiration for Cooking, Eating, and Living Compassionately
People will love him (Theodore Roosevelt) for the enemies he has made.
— Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
I really admired Cesar Chavez and Gandhi, but my form of activism would have to be the written word, not the empty stomach. My parents had brought my family t the United States because of the fear of empty stomachs.
— Josefina López, Hungry Woman in Paris
Lincoln on Grant: "He makes things get. Wherever he is, he makes things move.
— Abraham Lincoln
A truly living human being cannot remain neutral.
— Nadine Gordimer, The Quotable Gordimer; or, The Wit and Wisdom of Nadine Gordimer
While most activists could use a good dose of gentleness, I think most believers could use a good dose of holy anger.
— Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical
I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who is for or against it.
— Malcolm X
No genuine change in society ever occurs without the mass public getting behind a cause. The good guys in government are counting on enough of us common people waking up and demanding more rights and greater freedoms.
— James Morcan, The Orphan Conspiracies: 29 Conspiracy Theories from The Orphan Trilogy
I guess it's the curse of our generation, having to put aside our lives to do the right thing.
— Allan Dare Pearce, Paris in April
To crank up a noisy bad stance out in a place like San Francisco and start yelling about “getting things done in Washington” is like sitting far back in the end zone seats at the Super Bowl and screaming at the Miami linebackers “Stop Duane Thomas!
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
In the case of Tunisia, it was indeed this single act that sparked what had been long-standing active protest movements and moved them forward. But that's not so unusual. Let's look at our own history. Take the civil rights movement. There had been plenty of concern and activism about violent repression of blacks in the South, and it took a couple of students sitting in at a lunch counter to really set it off. Small acts can make a big difference when there is a background of concern, understanding, and preliminary activism.
— Noam Chomsky, Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire
Why do you live out here? You're a great healer; you could get work in the inner city if you wanted to. Even in E-star, I bet." 	"Well, I just don't want to live anywhere else," She looked up, smiling so that the lines at the edges of her eyes crinkled. As she looked out into the expanse of endless desert that led up to the crater wall, she seemed as though her thoughts were far away. "This place is our home. It was my mother's home, and her mother's before that. This is what we know, and even though our lives aren't as long as those with the clean air... this is our land.
— Hazel Blackthorn, His Brother's Keeper
We survive on adversity and perish in ease and comfort.
— Livy
Nobody can possibly be so hungry that they need to take a life in order to feel satisfied - they don't after all, take a human life, so why take the life of an animal? Both are conscious beings with the same determination to survive. It is habit, and laziness and nothing else.
— Morrissey, Autobiography
The enemy was not the Klan but the inside-outside lock that racism and classism had on the minds of the people: It operated from the inside through self-hate and self-doubt, and from the outside through the police, carnivorous landlords, and the welfare system.
— Junius Williams, Unfinished Agenda: Urban Politics in the Era of Black Power
If not you, who? If not now, when? The worst thing well-meaning people can do is simply let things remain as they are.
— Christine Pope, The Mandala Maneuver
There is no way to tell if we are the pioneers of a visionary new age, whisking humanity into the high vibrations of an interdimensional love party, or post-modern Don Quixotes attacking techno-industrial windmills with our flimsy, rolled-up yoga mats.
— Jonathan Talat Phillips, The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic
I detect the activist returning with a vengence.
— E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
Our ailing planet needs spiritual warriors, ones capable of standing up to the Western materialism machine, so we can create sustainable societies that care for their citizens, harmonize with the cycles of nature, and receive and honor the vast healing light that quietly connects us all.
— Jonathan Talat Phillips, The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic
We need to stop fighting the old systems and start creating new containers for people who are going through these spiritual openings,’ Tavis reflected. ‘Together, we need to build something that’s never existed before—a global network of light.
— Jonathan Talat Phillips, The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic
Could it be that following our initiatory path and connecting with higher source wisdom might actually be one of our species’ best defense systems?
— Jonathan Talat Phillips, The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic
Why build entirely new systems for connecting to Christ consciousness when the institutions—whether Methodist, Lutheran, or Baptist—have already been created?
— Jonathan Talat Phillips, The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic
Maybe the same essential download was also being delivered to other people—a massive, compassionate battalion of us—at the same time.
— Jonathan Talat Phillips, The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic
What good is a revolution anyway if it isn’t joyful?
— Jonathan Talat Phillips, The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic
They built a city of their dreams, with a thriving gift economy and vibrant culture that encouraged all participants to let loose their wildest, most glorious freak. They weren’t protesting; they were celebrating.
— Jonathan Talat Phillips, The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic
Everything's urgent to a Democrat.
— Carol sobeski
You didn't choose God. He chose you. When you stop feeling hurt by everyone and plotting your comeback, he has some very important things he wants you to accomplish with your life.
— Shannon L. Alder
I don't get it. I just don't get it. If Art is supposed to imitate Life, why do they want all the actors to be thin? There are fat people in the world. Shouldn't there be a few of us actors to represent them?
— Camryn Manheim, Wake Up, I'm Fat!
Wrong is an addictive, repetitive story; Right is where the movement is.
— Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming
The world is on fire! Why am I sitting in front of my computer? It is because I don’t have a fire extinguisher for the world, and there isn’t a global 911 to call.
— Charles Eisenstein, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible
If you look at the science that describes what is happening on earth today and aren't pessimistic, you don't have the correct data. If you meet people in this unnamed movement and aren't optimistic, you haven't got a heart.
— Paul Hawken, Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming
We need to consume less. A lot less. Less food, less energy, less stuff. Fewer cars, electric cars, cotton T-shirts, laptops, mobile phone upgrades. Far fewer.Yet, every decade, global consumption continues to increase relentlessly.
— Stephen Emmott, Ten Billion
I think the church is often a culprit in the busyness, especially in the evangelical church. Again, it's part of being Americans. Part of being evangelicals too is that we're highly activist. We are always diving in, willing to solve problems, and again there's a lot good there. But we also need the theological balance that the Kingdom is not ours to bring or ours to create.
— Kevin DeYoung
If my activism, however well-motivated, drives out love, then I have misunderstood Jesus’ gospel. I am stuck with law, not the gospel of grace.
— Philip Yancey
Action comes from keeping the heat on. No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough.
— Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals
What a nation needs more than anything else is not a Christian ruler in the palace but a Christian prophet within earshot.
— Philip Yancey
We cannot do everything, but we can all do something.
— Dillon Burroughs, Activist Faith: From Him and For Him
Don't be self-conscious, if I could dream at all, it would be about you. And I'm not ashamed of it.
— Stephenie Meyer, Twilight
All extremes of feeling are allied with madness.
— Virginia Woolf, Orlando
All that existed was Jace; all she felt, hoped, breathed, wanted, and saw was Jace. Nothing else mattered.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Glass
This connection we have isn't going away, it's only getting stronger. Because the more I spend time with her, the closer I want to be.
— Simone Elkeles, Perfect Chemistry
If you have to speculate if someone loves you and wants to be with you, chances are they don't. It's not that complicated. Love, in most cases, betrays the one feeling it. Don't waste moments waiting and wondering. Don't throw away your time dreaming of someone that doesn't want you. No one is that amazing, certainly not the one who would pass you up.
— Donna Lynn Hope
I wanted to see you again, touch you, know who you were, see if I would find you identical with the ideal image of you which had remained with me and perhaps shatter my dream with the aid of reality.-Claude Frollo 
— Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame
This isn't a crush, it's obsession.You are never not in my thoughts. Your scent carries across a room and paralyzes me with longing. I don't want to hold your hand. Part of me wants to set you on fire and hold you while the flame consumes us both, to eat your heart so I know that only I possess it entirely.
— Gwen Hayes, Falling Under
From the first time I saw you, I've belonged to you completely. I still do. If you want me. -Jace
— Cassandra Clare, City of Glass
It’s not like love at first sight, really. It’s more like… gravity moves. When you see her, suddenly it’s not the earth holding you here anymore. She does. And nothing matters more than her. And you would do anything for her, be anything for her… You become whatever she needs you to be, whether that’s a protector, or a lover, or a friend, or a brother.
— Stephenie Meyer, Eclipse
Mujer, you own my soul.
— Simone Elkeles, Perfect Chemistry
Never in my life had I been more frustrated. Go figure it wouldn't be with a human but a freaking alien. At least I now knew that the male species were asses no matter what planet they hailed from.
— Jennifer L. Armentrout, Obsession
All right, you caught me. I'm secretly obsessed with you and spend all my free time writing about you in my journal. 'Dear Diary, today Will was an ass for the 467th day in a row. He's so dreamy
— Elizabeth Scott, Perfect You
My whole life was about her, what if her whole life wasn’t all about me?
— Jodi Picoult, The Pact
Why should I blame her that she filled my daysWith misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,Or hurled the little streets upon the great, Had they but courage equal to desire?What could have made her peaceful with a mindThat nobleness made simple as a fire,With beauty like a tightened bow, a kindThat is not natural in an age like thisBeing high and solitary and most stern?Why, what could she have done, being what she is?Was there another Troy for her to burn?
— W.B. Yeats, The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats
The outside world holds no interest for me without you." -Edward
— Stephenie Meyer, Eclipse
That’s the thing about success and happiness. Every time I fall in love I become absolutely, pathologically obsessed. The moment that you have what you want, and you’re not totally ready for it, you become obsessed with the idea that you don’t deserve it.
— Sara Quin
...an obsession is a way for damaged people to damage themselves more.
— Mark Barrowcliffe, The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons And Growing Up Strange
He really would have done all that for her, you see, and done it believing he'd burn in hell forever for doing it. He hadn't done it, and wouldn't had made her his anyway, but you see why he'd have figured it did. Or maybe I saw it anyway, at the time. He was a maniac and a monster, but people don't love like that anymore. Or maybe it's only the maniacs and monsters who do. I don't know. 
— Peter S. Beagle, Tamsin
and I looked and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else. She was only the faint violet whiff and dead leaf echo of the nymphet I had rolled myself upon with such cries in the past; an echo on the brink of a russet ravine, with a far wood under a white sky, and brown leaves choking the brook, and one last cricket in the crisp weeds... but thank God it was not that echo alone that I worshipped. What I used to pamper among the tangled vines of my heart, mon grand pch radieux, had dwindled to its essence: sterile and selfish vice, all that I cancelled and cursed. You may jeer at me, and threaten to clear the court, but until I am gagged and halfthrottled, I will shout my poor truth. I insist the world know how much I loved my Lolita, this Lolita, pale and polluted, and big with another’s child, but still gray-eyed, still sooty-lashed, still auburn and almond, still Carmencita, still mine; Changeons de vie, ma Carmen, allons vivre quelque, part o nous ne serons jamais spars; Ohio? The wilds of Massachusetts? No matter, even if those eyes of hers would fade to myopic fish, and her nipples swell and crack, and her lovely young velvety delicate delta be tainted and torneven then I would go mad with tenderness at the mere sight of your dear wan face, at the mere sound of your raucous young voice, my Lolita.
— Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
Is it love, obsession, infatuation? You don't know. You think of a strange and beautiful word you read about once, Limerance, a psychological term, meaning an obsessive love, a state that's almost like a drug. Need like a wolf paces the perimeter of your world, back and forth, back and forth, never letting up. ...You're appalled by the new appetites within you, kicking their feet and clawing to get out.
— Nikki Gemmell
There is practically no activity that cannot be enhanced or replaced by knitting, if you really want to get obsessive about it.
— Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much
All good research-whether for science or for a book-is a form of obsession.
— Mary Roach
To muse for long unwearied hours with my attention riveted to some frivolous device upon the margin, or in the typography of a book — to become absorbed for the better part of a summer's day in a quaint shadow falling aslant upon the tapestry, or upon the floor — to lose myself for an entire night in watching the steady flame of a lamp, or the embers of a fire — to dream away whole days over the perfume of a flower — to repeat monotonously some common word, until the sound, by dint of frequent repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever to the mind — to lose all sense of motion or physical existence in a state of absolute bodily quiescence long and obstinately persevered in — Such were a few of the most common and least pernicious vagaries induced by a condition of the mental faculties, not, indeed, altogether unparalleled, but certainly bidding defiance to any thing like analysis or explanation.
— Edgar Allan Poe, Berenice
Mine first --mine last-- mine even in the grave!
— Louisa May Alcott
It's similar to the way you feel cuddling an infant or a kitten, when you want to squeeze it so hard you'd kill it...
— Zoë Heller, What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal]
i discovered that my obsession for having each thing in the right place, each subject at the right time, each word in the right style, was not the well-deserved reward of an ordered mind, but just the opposite: a complete system of pretense invented by me to hide the disorder of my nature.
— Gabriel García Márquez
You fueled my obession, even encouraged it and your selfishness ruined my life
— Novala Takemoto, Missin' (Novel)
I don't believe outstandingly beautiful and charismatic women create obsession in what would otherwise be normal men, but rather they attract the weirdos and the stalkers; flames in the darkness that these disturbing people inhabit, unwittingly drawing them closer until they extinguish the very flame they were drawn to.
— Rosamund Lupton, Sister
All men are, at times, influenced by inexplicable sentiments. Ideas haunt them in spite of all their efforts to discard them. Prepossessions are entertained, for which their reason is unable to discover any adequate cause. The strength of a belief, when it is destitute of any rational foundation, seems, of itself, to furnish a new ground for credulity. We first admit a powerful persuasion, and then, from reflecting on the insufficiency of the ground on which it is built, instead of being prompted to dismiss it, we become more forcibly attached to it.
— Charles Brockden Brown, Somnambulism And Other Stories
When two people love each other as we do, no one can come between them, no one," I said, amazed at the words I was uttering without preparation. "Lovers like us, because they know that nothing can destroy their love, even on the worst days, even when they are heedlessly hurting each other in the cruelest , most deceitful ways, still carry in their hearts a consolation that never abandons them." (p.191)
— Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence
Nobody's bought this land. And no one's going to want it either. It's dying land, lonely land.""Like me, then," I said."Yes, like you." You chewed the corner of your lip. "You both need saving.
— Lucy Christopher
And people with obsessions, reflected Bond, were blind to danger.
— Ian Fleming, Moonraker
Obession makes everything possible
— Novala Takemoto, Missin' (Novel)
It's all you think about, all you talk about, and all you want us to talk about. What in the world would we call something like that? Oh, yeah! An obsession!
— Maggie Stiefvater, Shiver
I began to understand that the most worthwhile obsession is an obsession that is actually independent of the object of fixation. The object is only borrowed as a pretext, a means, an environment, through which or in which the obsessed person can project his own eternal and essential hunger, thus fulfilling the requirements of death--the dissolution of the ego for something, anything, that exists independently outside of one's self. Perhaps that obsession should be controlled. At some point the most mundane catalyst, a skirt or fallen leaf, is enough to provoke a series of captivating chain reactions, while at another time much more important objects will inspire only an absurd indifference.
— Phạm Thị Hoài
But it is easy to call a man in love a mad man.
— Brendan Connell, Metrophilias
You've invaded my mind and I can't get you out of it," he accused with discernible disdain. She avoided looking at him and said, "Then you should forget." "Forget?" he thundered,"EVERYTHING reminds me of you!" She turned to confront him, slowing lifting her eyes to meet the disgust in his. "That's not my doing," she countered, "That's your doing and you are the only one who can control it.
— Donna Lynn Hope
Recognize the signs, these perpetual question and need to control. Never be a part of someone else's obsession. Let them carry it alone, with their snakeskin smile. These are the people that hold their hand out and it’s as cold as their heart.
— Ron Baratono
When others' obsessions are not ours, we are sad for them, and we talk of how empty their lives will be if they don't achieve their empty goal: the gymnastics prize, the firm partnership. But there is a monomania in which it is the focus, the sense of transport, that is the real pleasure.
— Alice W. Flaherty, The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain
It was as if I were an oyster and somebody forced a grain of sand into my shell -- a grain of sand that I didn't know was there and didn't particularly welcome. Then a pearl started forming around the grain and it irritated me, made me angry, tortured me sometimes. But the oyster can't help becoming obsessed with the pearl.
— Truman Capote
It's hard to explain how an infatuation actually starts. It's a state so all-encompassing that it's almost impossible to remember how it felt to live inside your own head before it began. Everything that precedes it becomes a pathway that was always leading there. Time before is valuable only as a resource with which to create a persona, to bind the object of the infatuation closer. I had given my (partially fabricated) past life to Mizuko to make a story that in the end never got told. Or not by her. It is also hard to explain the intensity of the infatuation itself. There is rarely an explanation that seems reasonable to anyone but you. Unless you're part of a cult or viral phenomenon, so that when you weep outside the object of your infatuation's hotel room, you do so in the company of millions.
— Olivia Sudjic, Sympathy
An obsession is where something will not leave your mind
— Eric Clapton
All these men who loved Emma, I think. For all her problems, men were fixated on her. Will anyone ever feel like that about me?
— J.P. Delaney, The Girl Before
I've always loved Halloween: the one day of the year when you can blatantly dress as your number-one obsession and people will smile instead of snicker.
— J.C. Lillis, A&B
Meeting Hettie again made him achingly conscious once more of the irrefutable nature of his obsession with her. Obsession - or love? Or was it something more unhealthy - a kind of craving, an addiction?
— William Boyd
Love? I wanted to go with him, to be on the stronger side, for him to spare me, like one who seeks shelter in the arms of the enemy to stay far from his arrows. It was different than love, I was finding out: I wanted him as a thirsty person desires water, without feelings, without even wanting to be happy.
— Clarice Lispector, The Complete Stories
If it weren‘t for Asperger‘s and obsessions there would be no Theory of Relativity, no Magic Flute, no Microsoft…and no Ghost Busters.
— Rudy Simone, Aspergirls: Empowering Females with Asperger Syndrome
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.My sin, my soul.
— Vladimir Nabokov
Over and over I played her favorite Arvo Pärt, as a way of being with her; and she had only to mention recently read novel for me to grab it up hungrily, to be inside her thoughts, a sort of telepathy
— Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch
Some good shit happens fast (a bestselling book), and some good shit happens slow (love).
— Caroline Kepnes, You
My feathered friends were so much to me that I am constantly tempted to make this sketch of my first years a book about birds and little else.
— William Henry Hudson, Far Away and Long Ago
Let go into His arms untill you find yourself obsessed with things devine
— John Crowder, The Ecstasy of Loving God
They know too well the violent hypnosis of those who hope to possess them-- men who can smell the blood on the places where a woman is breaking.
— Alana Massey, All the Lives I Want: Essays About My Best Friends Who Happen to Be Famous Strangers
We should bear in mind the supercrip stereotype as a figure obsessively, indeed maniacally, over-compensating for a perceived physical difference or lack, since, as we shall see, this aspect ties in quite neatly with the genre specificities and narratival concerns of so much Silver Age superhero literature.
— José Alaniz, Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond
See? Reading you all night has strengthened me. That’s what God’s love does. If you’re beginning to feel uncomfortable now, it’s because the changes in you are already beginning to happen and one day you’ll be glad to say, Deliver me from meaninglessness.
— Ian McEwan, Enduring Love
They were just boys. Take away the band, the lights, the fame, and the screaming girls, and they were just boys, chosen for us to obsess over.
— Goldy Moldavsky, Kill the Boy Band
... I fell in love with him even more, because I realized I was not just falling in love with Taymour but also with generations of him that connect through history, traits that had been passed down from one generation to the next. I was in love with his ancestry that stretched out for centuries.
— Saleem Haddad
Obsessive love is built on a tissue of illusions: that by having sex with someone you can possess that person's soul; that you can transmute past defeats into present triumphs without understanding or mourning; that you make the unloving love you by constancy, uncomplaining availability, and molding yourself into what you thing that person wants.
— Jeanne Safer, The Golden Condom: And Other Essays on Love Lost and Found
He talked about her in a way that only the obsessed do. It was always a pressured monologue, and it was always the same. He had to relate every detail, interpreting and seeking meaning in her every utterance or action, like a fundamentalist minutely analyzing a biblical text.
— Jeanne Safer, The Golden Condom: And Other Essays on Love Lost and Found