Batchelder Award Quotes & Sayings

And he gave me a few of the Xeroxed sheets of paper lying on the table in front of him. As he passed them to me, his thumb brushed mine and I trembled from the touch. I had the sensation that our past and our future were in our fingers and that they had touched. And so, when I began to read the proffered pages, I at one moment lost the train of thought in the text and drowned it in my own feelings. In these seconds of absence and self-oblivion, centuries passed with every read but uncomprehended and unabsorbed line, and when, after a few moments, I came to and re-established contact with the text, I knew that the reader who returns from the open seas of his feelings is no longer the same reader who embarked on that sea only a short while ago. I gained and learned more by not reading than by reading those pages ... — Milorad Pavic

But mighty Nature bounds as from her birth;
The sun is in the heavens, and life on earth:
Flowers in the valley, splendor in the beam,
Health on the gale, and freshness in the stream. — Lord Byron

In his farewell address, George Washington warned the people about political parties. Now we see how both Democrats and Republicans have conspired to reduce democratic participation. If this is the best the Democrats and Republicans have to offer, it's time to look elsewhere.Politics should be the prism for our most noble intentions. — Marianne Williamson

You're going to bat so many times during a season and it's not worth getting mad about. I still get frustrated, but I try not to let the other team know that. — Chase Utley

Without an element of vulgarity, no man can be a work of art ... I have to try and think what an artist is, apart from a hooligan who cannot live within his income of praise. — Quentin Crisp

Directing is really my favorite thing to do, but if I never directed again, I'd be okay if all the work I did was good. — Jeff Garlin

But we also believe that part of our mission in life is to find our bliss and follow it. Life is a precious and delicate gift. How much of that gift do we squander out of fear? — Dianne Sylvan

The economic egalitarianism of the liberal ideology implies ... the reduction of Westerners to hunger and poverty. — James Burnham

In time, she eased into sleep, and her head rested against the plane of his shoulder. He held her and wondered that such a simple intimacy between a man and woman could mean so much. — Dorien Kelly

I got to do something I never do, which is go to Starbucks and read 'The New York Times' until 7 a.m. I took my daughter to school on the East Side, which was a lot of fun. And I admit I played Call of Duty, one of those war video games. — Joe Scarborough