Top 1200 Quotes & Sayings by American Authors - Page 5

If you're presenting yourself with confidence, you can pull off pretty much anything.

I would say national security is work in progress.

We don't want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into complacency and dependence.

I think Freddie Mercury is probably the best of all time in terms of a rock voice. There was a vulnerability to it, his technical ability was amazing, and so much of his personality would come out through his voice. I'm not even a guy to buy Queen records, really, and I still think he's one of the best.

By giving people the power to share, we're making the world more transparent.

I'm such a big fan of 'The Bachelor.'

Barriers tend to intensify romance. It's called the 'Romeo and Juliet effect.' I call it 'frustration attraction.'

The secret to multitasking is that it isn't actually multitasking. It's just extreme focus and organization.

It's been so long since I've had sex I've forgotten who ties up whom.

There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.

Paris, as always, is swarming with Americans, and these days, it's also swarming with hamburgers. Oddly, though, it's not typically the Americans who are pursuing the perfect burger on the perfect bun with the obligatory side of perfect coleslaw; the Americans are pursuing the perfect blanquette de veau.

Vulnerability is the essence of romance. It's the art of being uncalculated, the willingness to look foolish, the courage to say, 'This is me, and I'm interested in you enough to show you my flaws with the hope that you may embrace me for all that I am but, more important, all that I am not.'

It takes a smart man to play dumb.

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.

The standard of 'affordable' housing is that which costs roughly 30 percent or less of a family's income. Because of rising housing costs and stagnant wages, slightly more than half of all poor renting families in the country spend more than 50 percent of their income on housing costs, and at least one in four spends more than 70 percent.

I don't think I really have a talent for movie acting.

I don't think you can climb Mount Everest with a broken leg, but I did break my leg prior to going to Mount Everest, so I was really climbing with a healing broken leg. I had the good fortune of climbing the highest mountain on each of the seven continents. That was a goal that I had.

I have a lot of conservative views on a lot of things.

Inequality causes problems by creating fissures in societies, leaving those at the bottom feeling marginalized or disenfranchised.

No matter what, people grow. If you chose not to grow, you're staying in a small box with a small mindset. People who win go outside of that box. It's very simple when you look at it.

Whenever I gaze up at the moon, I feel like I'm on a time machine. I am back to that precious pinpoint of time, standing on the foreboding - yet beautiful - Sea of Tranquility. I could see our shining blue planet Earth poised in the darkness of space.

I'm so thankful to have been born in the times that we live in.

I'm so glad cities have personalities, just like people have personalities. That's something that makes me smile.

Some of the most wonderful people are the ones who don't fit into boxes.

The only thing that will make you happy is being happy with who you are, and not who people think you are.

I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone.

Stand-up comedy and comedy in general is the ultimate form of free speech, because you get to poke holes in all the pretentious bubbles politicians and pundits and popes and pretenders try to float over our heads.

Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled. So the point is, we all have choices, and we make the choice to accept people or situations or to not accept situations.

It's important to build trust if you're trying to deal with big things. Big issues require everybody to get outside their comfort zone, and people are more willing to do so if they believe that their partner is sincere in their efforts. And the only way you can do that is to engage them on a personal level.

Let's be honest: The trade embargo with Cuba hasn't secured our interests or helped the Cuban people. Because the way to promote positive change and better human rights in Cuba is through engagement, not isolation.

Violet speaks Spanish and understands it. She loves Cuban food! My mom is very good at teaching her about our culture, whether it be the food or Spanish or explaining to her that she's Cuban.

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

Globalization requires taking a broad contextual and long-term view.

And if you don't believe the sun will rise, stand alone and greet the coming night in the last remaining light.

Fashion allows you to be whoever you want to be.

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

The thing about a hero, is even when it doesn't look like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, he's going to keep digging, he's going to keep trying to do right and make up for what's gone before, just because that's who he is.

To me, a wise and humane policy is occasionally to let inflation rise even when inflation is running above target.

I tried being reasonable, I didn't like it.

You cannot live to please everyone else. You have to edify, educate and fulfill your own dreams and destiny, and hope that whatever your art is that you're putting out there, if it's received, great, I respect you for receiving it. If it's not received, great, I respect you for not.

I am an advocate of education. It is the panacea for all that ails us in our society.

A person being patient with an insane person is my favorite thing in the world.

My pet peeves are people touching me a lot. Random dudes grabbing me and slapping me across the back. They're not doing it on purpose, but it's like they forget I'm a person. But you can't do anything about it. What are you going to do?

People want to be creatively satisfied, and having fun is such an important part of that.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

If only the human body could handle trauma as well as biotechnology stocks do.

Do not listen to the rhetoric from campaigns, but rather, hold everyone of us accountable, hold me accountable and every other candidate accountable to be a consistent conservative.

Every writer from Montaigne to William S. Burroughs has pasted and cut from previous work. Every artist, whether it's Warhol or, you know, Dangermouse or whoever.

I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around a campfire but are lousy in politics.

Every habit is made of three parts... a cue, a routine and a habit. Most people focus on the routine and behavior, but these cues and rewards are really the way you make something into a habit.

If you make the mistake of looking back too much, you aren't focused enough on the road in front of you.

Ideology has shaped the very sofa on which I sit.

We're all expendable. We think the world's going to stop when a pope dies, or a king. And then... life goes on.

Money is not the only answer, but it makes a difference.

From 'Midnight Cowboy' to 'Taxi Driver' is a brief era whose grit, beauty, and violence has been quite mythologized.

Small acts of decency ripple in ways we could never imagine.

Performance art is really more of a command than an invitation.

I don't believe in happy endings, but I do believe in happy travels, because ultimately, you die at a very young age, or you live long enough to watch your friends die. It's a mean thing, life.

The future rewards those who press on. I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I don't have time to complain. I'm going to press on.

Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.