Ballingrud Quotes & Sayings

Within even the most social group there are many relations that are not as yet social. — John Dewey

Do not be embarrassed by your failures, learn from them and start again. — Richard Branson

The roaches were in high spirits. There were half a dozen of them, caught in the teeth of love. They capered across the liquor bottles, perched atop pour spouts like wooden ladies on the prows of sailing ships. They lifted their wings and delicately fluttered. They swung their antennae with a ripe sexual urgency, tracing love sonnets in the air. — Nathan Ballingrud

And random bits of happiness, like Finnick and Annie's newborn boy. — Suzanne Collins

Poetry restores language by breaking it, and I think that much contemporary writing restores fantasy, as a genre of writing in contrast to a genre of commodity or a section in a bookstore, by breaking it. Michael Moorcock revived fantasy by prying it loose from morality; writers like Jeff VanderMeer, Stepan Chapman, Lucius Shepard, Jeffrey Ford, Nathan Ballingrud are doing the same by prying fantasy away from pedestrian writing, with more vibrant and daring styles, more reflective thinking, and a more widely broadcast spectrum of themes. — Michael Cisco

Silence blew from the hole she had dug like smoke. She could feel what lay just beyond. The new countryside. The unspeaking multitude. Steeples and arches of bone; temples of silence. She felt the great shapes that moved there, majestic and unfurled, utterly silent, utterly dark. — Nathan Ballingrud

He imagined the room bathed in blood, himself striding through it, a raven amongst the carcasses. Strutting like any carrion king. — Nathan Ballingrud

Not only is writing more important than ever, but visual literacy is vital. We don't teach enough design, art, visual things. We have to recognize what we're seeing. It matters if you send someone a cluttered design. It matters more than ever. — Marissa Moss

Something big was trapped inside him, some great sadness, and he felt if he could cry, or even articulate it in speech, it would relieve the pressure and provide him some measure of relief. But he couldn't reach it. He couldn't find a way to address it. He wondered if it would become the thing that defined him. — Nathan Ballingrud

She disliked confidences, for they might lead to self-knowledge and to that king of terrors - Light. — E. M. Forster

Gay activists claim that because I don't subscribe to their political agenda, I am a homophobe, meaning I have a mental disorder - because that is what phobias are. — Laura Schlessinger

It is all in vain; the torture of the unfulfilled law cannot be overcome. — Friedrich Nietzsche

This is not about Republican or Democrat. It is about our children, it's about our families, it is about our country, and frankly, ladies and gentlemen, it is about the world. We've got to leave here and march, and make sure Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are president and vice president of the United States. — John Kasich

I hover over myself
Watching.
Mind and body separated,
Each in control
As though there are two puppeteers
Working the strings of my marionette self. — Stasia Ward Kehoe

Why are you measuring? This is how you block, delay, hinder, obstruct and deny his place in the life as a father. — Iyanla Vanzant

Life so far seemed like a kind of dance to him, and he was pleased to discover that he was pretty good at it. Lf there was something hollow underneath it all, a well of fear that sometimes seemed to pull everything else into it and leave him clutching the stone rim for fear of falling into himself, well, that was part of being human, he supposed. That's what the booze was for. — Nathan Ballingrud

When you're making the record, you're not thinking about an audience, but you still need them and you want them. — Alexis Taylor

When you're inspired you attract abundance. — Wayne Dyer

Sounds rose from the earth. New sounds: cobwebs of exhalations, pauses of the heart, the monastic work of the worms translating flesh to soil, the slow crawl of rock. There was another kind of industry, somewhere beneath her. Another kind of machine. — Nathan Ballingrud

She's like a thousand different people right now, all waiting to be, and every time she makes a choice, one of those people goes away forever. Until finally you run out of choices and you are whoever you are. — Nathan Ballingrud

Jeremy supposed that a Christmas party full of elementary school professionals might be the worst place in the world. He would drift among them helplessly, like a grizzly bear in a roomful of children, expected not to eat anyone. — Nathan Ballingrud

Today Baba got a blister when he put his palm down on the hood of our rental car! Mother had to put toothpaste on it. — Khaled Hosseini

Balance eases the heart. — Nathan Ballingrud