Climbing Back Up Quotes & Sayings

Nick pressed a finger onto the table. "Would you bust him out of prison?"
"No," Zane answered immediately.
Nick sat back, eyebrows climbing high. "No?"
"No," Zane said again. He poured another glass, gritting his teeth. "I wouldn't let him make it to a cell."
"How is that not enough? — Abigail Roux

This obsession is a curious thing. Sometimes wonder about the merits of devoting so much of myself to a singular climbing objective. Much of the time it beats me down, leaves me hanging my head in despair. But then there are the moments that bring me to life. When excitement wells up inside my chest in a way that doesn't happen in every day life. Today my fingertips were cracked and bleeding. I made no progress despite great conditions. Now I am on the ground and can hardly contain my excitement to get back on the wall. It's a crazy rollercoaster and I owe my family and partners a great deal for encouraging me through it all. — Tommy Caldwell

The end of his life, he was asked what stuck in his mind about his experiences in South America and on the Beagle. And he remembered climbing to the peak of the Andes in Peru or Chile - I can't remember - and then turning as he reached the peak and looking behind him. And he said, it was like the Hallelujah Chorus in the Messiah, playing with full orchestra, blaring in his head, because he was on top of the world. He was looking down almost like God upon this creation, which he had begun to sort out in his own mind as he'd been climbing, as it were. At the end of his life he was asked, "What's the most extraordinary experience you had?" And he remembered climbing to the peak of the Andes. And then he slept on it, and the next day he came back to the person and he said, "No, it was the rain forest. It was sitting there and feeling that there must be more to man than the breath in his body. — Krista Tippett

Credibility lasts about two cycles of bad material, and then you'll probably never get it back. If you let people down, that's really hard to come back from - harder than climbing from nothing to something, even. — Louis C.K.

Continually question climbing pursuits. Do they draw one back to the climbing community? Or do they lead along the [inner-directed] path? This questioning generates a tension that is heightened by disillusionment. Ultimately, one reaches an
emptiness, and this is where our basic spontaneous nature leads to the beginning of the path... Thereafter one can continually stand apart from the outer world of climbing, yet at times be fiercely involved in it. Philosophical and mystical dimensions emerge when the two worlds are brought together. — Jon Krakauer

I wish I could do to you what you did to me, he wished. But it can't be done to an android because they don't care. If I had killed you last night, my goat would be alive now. There's where I made the wrong decision. Yes, he thought; it can all be traced back to that and to my going to bed with you. Anyhow, you were correct about one thing; it did change me. But not in the way you predicted.
A much worse way, he decided.
And yet I don't really care. Not any longer. Not, he thought, after what happened to me up there, toward the top of the hill. I wonder what would have come next, if I had gone on climbing and reached the top. Because that's where Mercer appears to die. That's where Mercer's triumph manifests itself, there at the end of the great sidereal cycle.
But if I'm Mercer, he thought, I can never die, not in ten thousand years. Mercer is immortal. — Philip K. Dick

Was Zeb asking if Silver wanted to come home with him? He had to squeeze the pad hard against his scrape so the pain would shut away the idea of climbing into Zeb's bed. The most horrible part was realizing the longing wasn't centered in Silver's dick, but higher. Something hollow right below his ribs, like the constant gnaw of hunger he remembered from when he'd been living on the street. The thought of being pressed up close to Zeb's skin, the familiar arms around him, the brush of hair against his neck. The idea hurt worse than when Silver had smelled fried food back then. Because there was no way he was ever going to be able to feed this rumble of want. "Oh. Back to Quinn's. I'm still staying with them. — K.A. Mitchell

Outside the window of the balcony room, three
metal guys were building a new patio for the
defunct pool. The pool was slowly filling with
red dust carried across the highway by intermittent
breezes. At some point I stood up from the table
and pulled back the curtain a bit and watched the
half naked bodies of the guys climbing in and out
of their trucks for tools or to turn up the volume
of the music. I felt like a detective with only the window
glass and the curtains camouflaging my desire. For a
moment I was afraid the intensity of my sexual fantasies
would become strangely audible; the energy of
the thought images would become so loud that
all three guys would turn simultaneously like
witnesses to a nearby car crash. — David Wojnarowicz

You'll be found, your nickels, dimes and Indian-heads fused by electroplating. Abe Lincolns melted into Miss Columbias, eagles plucked raw on the backs of quarters, all run to quicksilver in your jeans. More! Any boy hit by lightning, lift his lid and there on his eyeball, pretty as the Lord's Prayer on a pin, find the last scene the boy ever saw! A box-Brownie photo, by God, of that fire climbing down the sky to blow you like a penny whistle, suck your soul back up along the bright stair! — Ray Bradbury

When they got back in the Corvette, Gretel fished around in her shopping bad. "What is this?"
She had chosen a black tank suit, but somehow a pink bikini had wound up among her purchases.
"Don't be mad," Margot pleaded.
"I'm not wearing this." Gretel tossed the bikini back in the bag. All the same, she couldn't help but notice the fabric was the same exact shade as the palest climbing roses. The tint of seashells on a deserted beach, or the mouth of someone you might want to kiss. — Alice Hoffman

Perhaps there's no better act of simplification than climbing a mountain. For an afternoon, a day, or a week, it's a way of reducing a complicated life into a simple goal. All you have to do is take one step at a time, place one foot in front of the other, and refuse to turn back until you've given everything you have. — Ken Ilgunas

You're not doing a good job of selling me this dumb fantasy. I'm not climbing into the back of your van if I have to be Robin. I'm Batman. That's how these things work. — John Kerry

I can't be seen climbing through no hearse's hatchback! It used to be dead bodies back there!" "You a lie. Me and my woman ain't dead," Cousin Shake insisted. My eyes popped wide open. The visual he'd just painted was about to send me crazy. "Cousin — Ni-Ni Simone

Reluctantly, I pulled out my necklace and showed it to them.
Samuel frowned. The little figure was stylized; I suppose he couldn't tell what it was at first.
"A dog?" asked Zee, staring at my necklace.
"A lamb," I said defensively, tucking it safely back under my shirt. "Because one of Christ's names is 'The Lamb of God.'"
Samuel's shoulders shook slightly. "I can see it now, Mercy holding a roomful of vampire at bay with her glowing sheep."
I gave his shoulder a hard push, aware of the heat climbing to my cheeks, but it didn't help. He sang in a soft taunting voice, "Mercy had a little lamb ... — Patricia Briggs

Listen Wanderlei, I will do a home invasion on you. I will cut the power to your house and the next thing you'll hear is me climbing up your stairs in a pair of night vision goggles I bought in the back of Soldier of Fortune magazine. I'll pick the lock to the master room door, take a picture of you in bed with the Nogueira brothers working on your 'jiu-jitsu'. I'll take said quote unquote photograph, post it at dorksfrombrazil, password - not required, username - not required. That, Wanderlei, is how you threaten someone. Dummy. — Chael Sonnen

That first peak is the best place to pause and look back, to see if you took the easiest route, to learn the lessons from the first climb. And it is the best place to examine the terrain ahead, to change your plans and goals, to take a deep breath and begin climbing again. — Michael Johnson

Short of climbing aboard a time capsule and peeling back eight and one-half decades, James Cameron's magnificent Titanic is the closest any of us will get to walking the decks of the doomed ocean liner. Meticulous in detail, yet vast in scope and intent, Titanic is the kind of epic motion picture event that has become a rarity. You don't just watch Titanic , you experience it from the launch to the sinking, then on a journey two and one-half miles below the surface, into the cold, watery grave where Cameron has shot never-before seen documentary footage specifically for this movie. — James Berardinelli

Yes, we had made and excursion into another world and we had come back, but we had brought the joy of life and of humanity back with us. In the rush and whirl of everyday things, we so often live alongside one another without making any mutual contact. We had learned on the North Fae of the Eiger that men are good, and the earth on which we were born is good."(p.126) — Heinrich Harrer

Here we say that life is a cliff, and you must never turn around and look back when you're climbing. — Paul Bowles

If you're concentrating on climbing , you can't be concentrating on money and cars and houses and wives and boyfriends. And when you come back to deal with them, you have a better view of their reliative importance. Climbing puts things in perspective again. — Jeff Lowe

You get kinder when you get into my age range. You think back to how really unkind you were, and how cynical you were and how you tossed things away and you tossed people away, and you didn't care because you were climbing some mountain that you thought you needed to be on top of. — Frank Langella

Oh, yes, I'm going to have to kill you, Barrons, I said coolly. Partly because, for the most minuscule sliver of an instant, while looking at those handcuffs, I'd imagined myself climbing back into bed and pretending I wasn't cured yet. — Karen Marie Moning

My mother, who is a pianist and a fine artist, purchased a piano for me. Twice. This was back when I was a small girl. Pianos, of course, came complete with the quintessential piano teacher who whacked my hand with a stick each time I struck the wrong key. I learned a few pieces, yes, but eventually my pen compelled me to write too much and the sound of the leaves rustling in the wind compelled me to climb trees too often. Sorry mom. Coincidentally, books come from trees and flipping the pages sounds like wind through leaves ... hhhmmmm ... I guess I'm still just climbing trees now, but in a different way! — C. JoyBell C.

Back in the day, I had this plan for the off chance that I was around for the whole end-of-the-world thing. It involved climbing up on my roof and blasting R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" as loud as humanly possible, but real life rarely turns out that cool. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Don't you have anything to stop a dragon?" Lux asked, climbing as fast as he could in the tree. "The only way to stop a dragon is to stab it through its heart!" Wick shouted back. "Get out of the tree before it comes back! — Amanda Hocking

I was so grateful to have made 'Into the Wild' before I made 'Speed Racer' because on 'Speed Racer' I was indoors every single day, every single scene, on a green screen. Some of the time, just to pass the time, I would think back to climbing mountains in Alaska. That really helped me. — Emile Hirsch

I shut the car door as quietly as possible and quickly maneuvered to the front porch, climbing the steps two at a time, and rushing to the door. I knocked. Loudly. Several times. And then I waited.

My heart was lodged in my throat so I tried to swallow past it. I couldn't show weakness. I needed to be tough.

I can be tough. I nodded, shifting from one foot to the other. I can be real tough. You can't be a sissy and make fifty loaves of bread in a day. That's a lot of kneading. I'm tough as nails. I'm basically the Rocky Balboa of bakers. I'm unstoppable! Aint nobody gunna -

The door swung open. I jumped back a half step. My voice failed me. — Penny Reid

Jacob remained by Mollie's side throughout the night, clinging to her hand as well as to her vow. She wasn't going to leave him. She'd given her word, and Mollie never broke a promise. He prayed. He tended the cuts she'd suffered from the blackberry brambles when she'd fallen. The vines had grown entangled within a cedar's branches, and as best he could tell, she'd climbed the tree in order to reach the ripe berries that other pickers had left behind. Unfortunately, the limb she'd shimmied out on had been weak and had broken beneath her weight. "You know, this tree climbing and dropping through busted church floors is going to have to stop after we're married. My heart won't be able to take the stress." He smiled and ran the back of his finger down the smooth line of her cheek. "Not that I expect any dictate I give you to have much effect. My only hope is that you'll grow to care enough about me that you'll take pity on me and cease taking unnecessary risks with your life. — Karen Witemeyer

It's not just back-to-back Super Bowls - it's back-to-back Super Bowls in his first three years, it's back-to-back Super Bowls climbing over the backs of Tom Brady and Peyton Manning ... If Russell Wilson wins back-to-back Super Bowls, there is no doubt it puts him amongst the top. — Michael Irvin

You don't play triathlon. You play soccer; it's fun. You play baseball. Triathlon is work that you can leave you crumpled in a heap, puking on the roadside. It's the physical brutality of climbing Mount Everest without the great view from the top of the world. What kind of person keeps coming back for more of that? — Chris McCormack

My grandmother caught me climbing the highest tree in her yard, the one we were all forbidden to attempt. All five feet of her stood tall as she tilted her head back and squinted up at me. "Well, don't stop now," she said. "If you're going to fall no use doing it from the halfway point. Keep climbing and let's see just how high you can go. — Toni Sorenson

The whole purpose of climbing something like Everest is to effect some sort of spiritual and physical gain. But if you compromise the process you're an asshole when you start out and an asshole when you get back. — Yvon Chouinard

Waterhouse's new roommate is out of town just now, but by glancing over his personal effects, Waterhouse estimates that he is paddling a black kayak from Australia to Yokosuka Naval Base, where he will slip on board a battleship and silently kill its entire crew with his bare hands before doing an Olympic-qualifying dive into the bay, punching out a few sharks, climbing back into his kayak and paddling back to Australia for a beer. — Neal Stephenson

And she turned for the stairs as the sound of rain came, finally, scattered across the roof, a fall that now gave substance to the stilled beams of headlamps in the drive where those of flashlights rose and fell to the cadenced steps come back and round the range of yew and up the terrace and through the door to fall on broken glass and flee across the inkstained carpet, darting, climbing, caught fixed in niches, they scaled the walls and leaped the beams to skirt the hayloft. — William Gaddis

People ask me, 'What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?' and my answer must at once be, 'It is of no use.'There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behaviour of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron ... If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won't see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for. — George Mallory

I simply ate a fish-head, but fish-heads won't fill
me now. Your attention is a fish-head,
so throw it back into my new body, back
into the body climbing the stairs. — Patricia Lockwood

The Soul which is approaching its' liberation, as it looks back over past lives ... down the vistas of the centuries along which it has slowly been climbing, ... is able to see there the way in which the bonds were made, the causes which set it in motion. It is able to see how many of those causes have worked themselves out and ... how many ... are still working themselves out. — Annie Besant

If you're climbing the ladder of life, you go rung by rung, one step at a time. Don't look too far up, set your goals high but take one step at a time. Sometimes you don't think you're progressing until you step back and see how high you've really gone. — Donny Osmond

Cash misses his wife with a blank pain in his chest, and he misses his sisters and cousins, who have known him since he was a strong, good-looking boy. Everyone back there remembers, or if they are too young, they've been told. The old ones get to hang on the sweet, perfect past. Cash was the best at climbing trees; his sister Letty won the story bees. The woman who married Letty's husband's brother, a beauty named Sugar, was spotted one time drinking a root beer and had her picture in LIFE magazine. They all know. Now she has thin hair and a humped back but she's still Sugar, she gets to walk around Heaven, Oklahoma, with everybody thinking she's pretty and special. which she is. That's the trouble with moving away from family, he realizes. You lose your youth entirely, you have only the small tired baggage that is carried within the body. — Barbara Kingsolver

If things went my way, I would be working at a renaissance fair as a falconer. I wouldn't have to worry about climbing career ladders or getting promotions, because falconry's not like that. Either you're a falconer or you're not. Either the birds come back to you or they fly away. My father waited — Carol Rifka Brunt

She trailed after him, admiring the line of his back. He began climbing the stairs, and she sighed with pleasure. Every bit of him was gorgeous. "Do you mind if I objectify you?"
"Please do," he said over his shoulder. "Particularly my knees, as they are oft-neglected."
"Maybe if you ever got your pants off, they wouldn't be."
"It hardly matters, sweet; once they've come off, the attention isn't likely to center on my absurdly handsome knees. — Meljean Brook

This world has turned into a place where you can get stabbed in the back for trying climbing a ladder. — Jose N. Harris

I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can only rest for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not ended. — Nelson Mandela

When you're climbing Mount Everest, nothing is easy. You just take one step at a time, never look back and always keep your eyes glued to the top. — Jacqueline Susann

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree~
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. — Robert Frost

The casket was gunmetal gray with a blanket of white lilies covering the closed lid. The smell of wet earth was pungent as the machine lowered his body into the grave. Claire's knees went weak. Her grandmother stroked her back. Her mother offered her arm. Claire shook her head. She thought of strong things: iron. Steel. Paul. It was not until they were climbing into the back of the black limousine that Claire truly understood that she would never see her husband again. — Karin Slaughter

When he finally goes still, I raise my head with a sigh. "Really, dude? That was like two seconds. You have the stamina of a pre-teen." His shoulders tremble as he rolls over on his side in hysterics. "I guess you've still got it," he chokes out between laughs. Climbing up the mattress, I ease in behind him, yanking his big body toward me. He stiffens for a second, then relaxes, his taut ass nestling against my groin, his back flush to my chest. — Sarina Bowen

when you get to the peak, remember the valley exists — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

To put yourself into a situation where a mistake cannot necessarily be recouped, where the life you lose may be your own, clears the head wonderfully. It puts domestic problems back into proportion and adds an element of seriousness to your drab, routine life. Perhaps this is one reason why climbing has become increasingly hard as society has become increasingly, disproportionately, coddling. — Al Alvarez

She's soft, but sure. "I'm going with you. You kept telling me you'd take me home with you, and that's what you're going to do." She squeezes my hand, climbing to her feet now. I want so badly to believe her, but the bitter twist of fear inside me says she'll do anything to keep me safe. She'd lie to my face if she thought it would save me. I know she would. I'd do the same for her. She reaches up to curl a hand around the back of my neck, pulling my head down so her forehead can press against mine. "I know what you would've given up for me. I could never let that be for nothing. — Amie Kaufman

Our room swallowed light whole. Even in summer when sunlight glared through the windows, it was somehow dim inside. Now it was only Easter morning, and the muted sky of early spring offered scant relief to our tenebrous room. On our side of the house a gnarled and ancient oak tree spread its reach across the back facade of the house as if to shade and protect us. One of the massive branches of its principal fork reached invitingly right up to our window to offer to take us wherever we wanted to go. This great limb, with circumference grander than both of us together, was our stairway to heaven and our secret exit to the ground; it was our biplane in the Great War of our imaginations and a magic carpet to Araby; it was our lookout post and the clubhouse of our most secret fraternal order; it was our secret passageway through the imaginary castle we made of our house. It was our escape from the darkness into the light. — Mason West

I looked back at the summit of the mountain, which seemed but a cubit high in comparison with the height of human contemplation, were in not too often merged in the corruptions of the earth. — Petrarch

As long as you are forced to be a woman first instead of a person, by default, you need to be a feminist. That's it. Men are people, women are women? Screw that. Screw that. I am sick of having words aimed to shut me up. I am sick of having to be anything other than a person first. Zounds! I enjoy being a girl, whatever that means. For me, that meant Star Wars figurines, mounds of books, skirts and flats. It meant Civil War reenacting and best girlfriends I'd give a kidney to and best guy friends I'd ruin a liver with and making messes and cleaning up some of them and still not knowing how to apply eye shadow. That's being a girl. That's being a person. It's the same damn thing. I wish Rush had just called me an idiot. I'm happy to be called an idiot! On the day when someone on the Internet calls me an idiot first and ugly second, I will set down my feminist battle flag and heave a great sigh. Then I will pick it back up and keep climbing. There are many more mountains to overcome. — Alexandra Petri

When I realize that she is gone, perhaps gone forever, a great void opens up and I feel that I am falling, falling, falling into deep, black space. And this is worse than tears, deeper than regret or pain or sorrow, it is the abyss into which Satan was plunged. There is no climbing back, no ray of light, no sound of human voice or human touch of hand. — Henry Miller

She found a small picture made entirely of feathers and was trying to decide whether it depicted a monkey climbing up the back of a man - or possibly a person climbing a flight of stairs or perhaps a cow next to a tree, when she saw a chess piece, sitting by itself on a small pedestal.
It was the white queen, carved from ivory. She stood with a regal frown, her body shadowed by the enormous crown that bloomed on her head. The crown was a hollow sphere, exquisitely carved with open work, and when Jemma peered inside she saw inside another sphere, also open, and inside that, yet another. — Eloisa James

He felt imprisoned in an airplane. In an airplane there was absolutely no place in the world to go except to another part of the airplane. Doc Daneeka had been told that people who enjoyed climbing into an airplane were really giving vent to a subconscious desire to climb back into the womb. — Joseph Heller

I know what you're thinking," Ellis said, hitting the key remote in his hand. "It's pretty much the most stunning example of vehicular perfection
ever."
We all stood there, watching as the back door of the sky blue van slid open, revealing two rows of seats, the rear of which was stacked with
soccer balls and various pairs of cleats.
"Don't try to point out to him that it is just a minivan," Heather said, climbing into the backseat and pushing a ball onto the floor. "We've tried. — Sarah Dessen

Striving to meet my father's expectations is like climbing out of quicksand: the harder I try to get to the top, the more I'm sucked back down by his unrelenting criticism. — Lac Su

Jake's helping her." "Good luck with that." Max scooped another helping of corn. "Just needs a little coaxing is all," Jake said. Max shrugged. "I think you're wasting your time. Dad tried that already, and she wouldn't budge." "She's too afraid," Ben said. Meridith's eyes darted to Jake's face, just a quick look. But Jake was looking back, and the quick look stretched into long seconds. "I'm a patient man." His brown eyes warmed under her gaze. The double meaning kick-started Meridith's heart. She couldn't drag her eyes away until she felt warmth climbing her cheeks. Meridith — Denise Hunter

She imagined the reading she did now as like climbing inside one of those deep old beds she'd seen in a museum, with a sliding door to close behind you: even as she was suffering with a book and could hardly bear it, felt as if her heart would crack with emotion or with outrage at injustice, the act of reading it enclosed and saved her. Sometimes when she moved back out of the book and into her own life, just for a moment she could see her circumstances with a new interest and clarity, as if they were happening to someone else. — Tessa Hadley

I had forgotten: this is what it feels like to live in time. The lurching forward, the sensation of falling of a cliff into darkness, and then landing abruptly, surprised, confused, and then starting the whole process again in the next moment, doing that over and over again, falling into each instant of time and then climbing back up only to repeat the process. — Charles Yu

To set out for rehearsals in that quivering quarter-hour is to engage conclusions, not beginnings, for one walks past the guilded hallucinations of poverty with a corrupt resignation touched by details, as if the destitute, in their orange-tinted back yards, under their dusty trees, or climbing into their favelas, were all natural scene designers and poverty were not a condition but an art. Deprivation is made lyrical, and twilight, with the patience of alchemy, almost transmutes despair into virtue. In the tropics nothing is lovelier than the allotments of the poor, no theater is as vivid, voluble, and cheap. — Derek Walcott

I pull his mouth to mine and I kiss him. I kiss him for always having the perfect thing to say. I kiss him for always being there for me. I kiss him for supporting whatever decision I think I might need to make. I kiss him for being so patient with me while I figure everything out. I kiss him because I can't think of anything better than climbing back inside that car with him and talking about everything we'll do when we get to Hawaii. - Sky — Colleen Hoover

Hollywood is a place where a man can get stabbed in the back while climbing a ladder. — William Faulkner

I'll be on another case soon. You won't need me anymore. You'll be walking, though I think you should wait a while before climbing another mountain."

"You're my therapist," Blake snapped.

Dione gave a little laugh. "For months you've depended on me more than any other person in your life. Your perspective is distorted now.
Believe me, by the time I've been gone a month, you won't even think about me."

'Do you mean you'd just turn your back on me and walk away?" he asked disbelievingly. — Linda Howard

One day as Father and I were returning from our walk we found the Grote Markt cordoned off by a double ring of police and soldiers. A truck was parked in front of the fish mart; into the back were climbing men, women, and children, all wearing the yellow star ...
"Father! Those poor people!" I cried ...
"Those poor people," Father echoed. But to my surprise I saw that he was looking at the solders now forming into ranks to march away. "I pity the poor Germans, Corrie. They have touched the apple of God's eye. — Corrie Ten Boom

Alpha. Cress leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees. "Like the star?" "What star?" She stiffened, instantly embarrassed, and scooted back from him again. "Oh. Um. In a constellation, the brightest star is called the alpha. I thought maybe you meant that she's ... like ... your brightest star." Looking away, she knotted her hands in her lap, aware that she was blushing furiously now and this beast of a man was about to realize what an over-romantic sap she was. But instead of sneering or laughing, Wolf sighed. "Yes," he said, his gaze climbing up to the full moon that had emerged over the city. "Exactly like that." With — Marissa Meyer

It was toward the middle part of their relationship, though neither she nor Vohannes knew it then. She had found him sitting beneath a tree, watching the rowing team practicing in the Khamarda River, next to the academy. The girls' team had just set their shell in the water and was climbing in. When Shara joined him and sat in his lap, as she often did, she felt a soft lump pressing into her lower back. — Robert Jackson Bennett

He froze, becoming stone still. As the hover climbed the hill to the palace, his shoulders sank, and he returned his gaze to the window. "She's my alpha," he murmured, with a haunting sadness in his voice.
Alpha.
Cress leaned forward, propping her elbows on her knees, "Like the star?"
"What star?"
She stiffened, instantly embarrassed, and scooted back from him again. "Oh. Um. In a constellation, the brightest star is called the alpha. I thought maybe you meant that she's ... like ... your brightest star." Looking away, she knotted her hands in her lap, aware that she was blushing furiously now and this beast of a man was about to realize what an over-romantic sap she was.
But instead of sneering or laughing, Wolf sighed, "Yes," he said, his gaze climbing up to the full moon that had emerged in the blue evening sky. "Exactly like that. — Marissa Meyer

We're just good friends," caroled Miles, and laughed hysterically. He lunged for the comconsole - the guards grabbed for him and missed - and, climbing across the desk, snarled into the vid, "Stay away from her, you little shit! She's mine, you hear, mine, mine, all mine - Quinn, Quinn, beautiful Quinn, Quinn of the evening, beautiful Quinn," he sang off-key as the guards dragged him back. Blows ran him down into silence. "I thought you had him on fast-penta," said the clone to Galen. "We do." "It doesn't sound like fast-penta! — Lois McMaster Bujold

We shook hands. For a moment our eyes met - which I found surprisingly destabilizing. Then we pulled back and there was a mement of what seemed like mutual appraisal. For me, it was like being at a regatta, sizing up the competition on the dock before climbing into the shells. Could I take him? ... He could inflict serious damage. I sensed that. But he would be unfamiliar with rowers - men used to toiling backwards, blindly, trained, most of all, to endure. — Stefan Kieszling

I have very fond memories of growing up in Greece, of my brothers and I causing chaos and climbing up trees, which is really cool. Back then, we didn't have all the video games and all that stuff. We just had each other, and we played on the street. — Tracy Spiridakos

For many years I had an impression of my golf swing, which was that I vividly resembled Tom Weiskopf in the takeaway and Dave Marr on the downswing. Unfortunately, there came a day when I was invited to have my golf swing filmed via a video camera. Something I will never do again. When it was played back, what I saw - what you would have seen - was not Weiskopf and Marr but a man simultaneously climbing into a sweater and falling out of a tree. — Alistair Cooke

The mountain is nothing without people on it. Often you part expedition exasperated, but a year or two later you go back with the same partners knowing there's potential in this human relationship. — Greg Child

Electric light!" I said. We'd never had electric light at home, just gaslight and candles, and the only taps were in the kitchen and the back scullery. "Well, this is good!" said Ma. "Daisy, when we get to New York I won't want to get off this ship!" By midday I didn't know if she'd even get out of her bunk. It was a nice enough day and not a bit stormy, but the rocking of the ship in the water made her queasy before we even started moving. The boys wanted to go on deck so I had to go with them, and we joined the masses of third-class passengers climbing up to the fresh air. — Margi McAllister

A world like that is not really natural, or (the thought strikes one later) perhaps it really is, only more so. Parts of it are neither land nor sea and so everything is moving from one element to another, wearing uneasily the queer transitional bodies that life adopts in such places. Fish, some of them, come out and breathe air and sit about watching you. Plants take to eating insects, mammals go back to the water and grow elongate like fish, crabs climb trees. Nothing stays put where it began because everything is constantly climbing in, or climbing out, of its unstable environment. — Loren Eiseley

Life is easy when you're hot. But what happens when the ball bounces the other way? You just keep getting back up and climbing up. — Bill Walton

Bryn?"
Chase's voice was a whisper in my mind, and the sensation sent a single chill up my spine.
"Yes?"
"You asked me what I liked, before." He paused, and all the silence tickled my mind, the chill in my spine climbing its way to the hairs on the back of my neck.
"Before, I loved cars, Yeats, having a bedroom that locked from the inside, and you. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Secrets are a sneaky little seed. You can hide them, you can bury them, you can disguise them, and cover them up. But then just when you think your secret has rotted away and decayed into nothing, it stirs back to life. It sprouts roots and stems, crawls its way through the mud and muck, growing and climbing, and bursting through the surface, blooming for everyone to see. That's the lesson here. The truth always comes out eventually. — Kimberly Belle

This morning the secret has claws. And it's climbing the walls of my stomach, twisting my gut, quivering and rolling and burning. Red-hot acid in the back of my throat. Ready to explode. — Courtney C. Stevens

Real miracles bother people, like strange sudden pains unknown in medical literature. It's true: They rebut every rule all we good citizens take comfort in. Lazarus obeying orders and climbing up out of the grave - now there's a miracle, and you can bet it upset a lot of folks who were standing around at the time. When a person dies, the earth is generally unwilling to cough him back up. A miracle contradicts the will of the earth. — Leif Enger

Outside, Ky and I walk down the path a little way. I lean back against the rock and stands before me, reaching up to put his hand along my neck, under my hair and the collar of my coat. His hand feels rough, cut from carving and climbing, but his touch is gentle and warm. The night wind sings through the canyon and Ky's body shields me from the cold. — Ally Condie

Hello there. I'm out social climbing, but if you leave your name and number and if you're anybody, I'll get back to you. — Erma Bombeck