Held Up High Quotes & Sayings

Though, like Everhard, they did not dream of the nature of it, there were men, even before his time, who caught glimpses of the shadow. John C. Calhoun said: "A power has risen up in the government greater than the people themselves, consisting of many and various and powerful interests, combined into one mass, and held together by the cohesive power of the vast surplus in the banks." And that great humanist, Abraham Lincoln, said, just before his assassination: "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country ... Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. — Jack London

Also, the high standard held up to the public mind by the College of which which gave its peculiar sanction to the expensive and highly rarefied medical instruction obtained by graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, did not hinder quackery from having an excellent time of it; for since professional practice chiefly consisted in giving a great many drugs, the public inferred that it might be better off with more drugs still, if they could only be got cheaply, and hence swallowed large cubic measures of physic prescribed by unscrupulous ignorance which had taken no degrees. — George Eliot

A 'death mirror' held up to American culture - Brando, bikes and black leather; Christ, chains and cocaine. A 'high' view of the myth of the American motorcyclist. The machine as totem from toy to terror. Thanatos in chrome and black leather and bursting jeans. — Kenneth Anger

Look,Nik.I can't lose you. We can be partners.With you by my side,and with the band backing us,we could take over. I want you by my side in the High Court?"
"What does that even mean? We'd be ... together? Like, together, together?"
Cole gave a sly smile. "We'd rule hand in hand. And as far as being together, we'd be as together as you'd allow."
Annoyingly,my cheeks got all warm, and I turned away, frustrated at my reaction. I stood and went over to my desk chair to sit down.
Cole chuckled. He pushed himself off the floor and walked closer to me,and the Shade at my shoulder pulled toward him. I wanted to hit it.
"Stay over there," I said.
"Why?" He held his hands up, all innocent-like. "Does my nearness affect you? That's what happens when you spend a century with someone. — Brodi Ashton

Blake, Cole, and I have been family for each other, because the ones we started with were for crap. Why they let me in, I still don't know. But because they did, I believed I was worth more than I would have otherwise." He nodded and gathered his thoughts for a moment.
"Blake's company made me want to hug trees and hear music. Cole's company made me want to try harder to be a better person. I never imagined that anyone could love either of these men enough for me to let them go."
"But I didn't know about the McHugh girls. Their love is fiercer than guns. More powerful than fistfuls of money. I can walk away because of them. Officer McHugh? I want to thank you again for letting me see this through. I know my peace of mind is far from your concern, but I appreciate it anyway."
Beckett held his glass up high. "To my brothers. They've finally gotten the lives they deserve. — Debra Anastasia

Outside the station of Santa Maria Novella Isabella has to stand aside while a line of prisoners are marched into the terminus by armed Fascist guards. They pass within touching distance of her, carrying bags and bundles. There are old people and some children too. They all seem swamped by their clothes, disembodied by them somehow. Then she catches the eye of Ezra, a young Jewish man who once worked in the arts material shop where she buys most of her pigments and brushes. He is almost at the back of the line. The veins are high and urgent on his hand. His trousers are held up with a dirty piece of string. His cobalt blue eyes hold hers for the barest beat of a moment but some essence of his being conveys itself to her and her blood quickens in sympathy for him. She has the feeling of looking into the eyes of a ghost. — Glenn Haybittle

What's bad for the culture is wack rappers that get held in high regard like they're some great thing because it's the flavor of the month, but everybody knows they can't rap. I don't think it's hard, even for somebody who's not hip-hop, to know that that's not good. When you put them up against somebody that can really rhyme, you go, "Okay, I get it. This is what it should sound like." — Ice-T

I've never held myself up particularly high when I had movies that worked, and I never held myself all that low when I had failures. — Ben Affleck

But I can't see how anyone could believe that you killed the bear with a pitchfork,' I said.
'I didn't. I only wounded it - badly, I think, but not enough to put it out of action. It came blundering towards me, I stepped aside and it crashed head-first into the river - I could hear it threshing about in the darkness. I picked up a big stone - poor brute, I hated to do it but I had to finish it off. It gave just one groan as the stone hit it and then went down. I held the lantern high; I could see the bubbles coming up. And then I saw the dark bulk of it under the water, being carried along by the current.'
'But you didn't have a lantern,' I said.
'He didn't have a bear,' said Topaz. — Dodie Smith

I grew up in an upper-middle-class town with a population around 12,000. My high school held around a thousand kids. All smart. We had a strict dress code. If you wore blue jeans to school, they sent you home. — Jeffrey Gitomer

Let me tell you girls a story, short and sweet. In high school, I was a junior varsity cheerleader dating a senior who was up for football scholarships. I'd slept with him several times willingly. One night I wasn't in the mood, but he was. So he held me down and forced me. The few people I told about it - including my best friend - pointed out what would happen to him if I told. They stressed the fact that I hadn't been a virgin, that we were dating, that we'd had sex before. So I kept quiet. I never even told my mother. That boy put bruises on my body. I was crying and begging him to stop and he didn't. That's called rape, ladies. — Tammara Webber

Were you in the military?"
"Are you kidding me? I was in high school."
"High school," he said quietly. "You're American. And a civilian?"
"Uh, yes. An American civilian."
"Lovely. A straight answer. Keep it up. Did somebody train you?"
"No, nobody trained me. Unless you count the Rhode Island child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Why?"
Malachi held up his hand and ticked off the reasons with his fingers. "You stole a Guard's weapon. If I'm not mistaken, it belonged to a Gate Guard. Which means you managed to do it on your way into the city. You escaped Amid even after he had you in hand. You slashed his leg in just the right place, preventing him from chasing you. Under extreme duress, injured and cornered, you threw a knife and hit a target-"
"It's not like I hit something vital. — Sarah Fine

I shrugged uncomfortably, leaning my head against hers, almost forgetting Mr. Gardner's presence as Mo and I fell into that sort of exclusionary, near-telepathic best-friends communion. She knew that I would argue that I wasn't ashamed, but that I hadn't quite figured out how to truly mean it when I held my head up high. My entire life, people had been telling me to keep it down and stop being an embarrassment. So, I was still in that "fake it 'til you make it" stage, hoping genuine pride would come if I pretended confidence long enough. For now, I was relying on bravado and a complete lack of give-a-fuck to carry me through. — Amelia C. Gormley

He told himself that he was a clown clean through. Every time a fly ball had been hit to him with men on the bases, he'd muffed it. Hoping for one thing, then another, and when he did get his chances -- foul ball.

Girls, too. He'd never held one. Twice Lucy had given him the cold shoulder. That girl he'd knelt next to at Christmas Mass in Saint Patrick's once -- cold shoulder. Never got beyond wishing with her. Now Catherine.

Football. He'd wanted to be a star high-school quarterback and he'd not had the guts to stay in school. Fighting. His kid brother had even cleaned him up. In the war when he'd tried to enlist, a leather-necked sergeant had laughed at him.

He was just an all-around no soap guy. — James T. Farrell

I had one criticism to make of my teachers. I had heard a few of them say, "Oh, I'm just a teacher." This burned me up. I told my teachers to never say this. I told them to walk proudly, with their heads held high, and to thank God they had chosen the teaching profession--the mother of all professions; that they were members working in the front line of American democracy. that they were the ground roots and not the brace roots of American democracy. — Jesse Stuart

Many people experience the travesty of regret in their end days; the realization that nothing held them back, that nothing was in their way, that there is no one to blame, only themselves. Don't just sit by waiting for your life to happen, make it happen! Don't just hope your dreams will come alive, breathe life into them! Don't let your fear help you birth a well-nourished regret, take action today! At the end of the day, at the end of the year, at the end of your life, live in such a manner that you can hold your head up high, smile, and be proud of a life well lived. — Steve Maraboli

They continued to mount the winding staircase. A high wind, blowing through the loopholes, went rushing up the shaft, and filled the girl's skirts like a balloon, so that she was ashamed, until he took the hem of her dress and held it down for her. He did it perfectly simply, as he would have picked up her glove. She remembered this always. — D.H. Lawrence

She held him at arms' length, looked at the pipe still gripped inn his hand, then looked at his face and read him like a book. She ran the tip of her red tongue slowly across her full cushiony, sensuous lips, making them wet-red and looked him straight in the eyes with her own glassy, speckled bedroom eyes.

The man drowned.

When he came up, he stared back, passion cocked, his whole black being on a live-wire edge. Ready! Solid ready to cut throats, crack skulls, dodge police, steal hearses, drink muddy water, live in a hollow log, and take any rape-fiend chance to be once more in the arms of his high-yellow heart. — Chester Himes

Each hand held a shoe and a handful of skirt, the hem of her pale blue polonaise gown raised above the knee, exposing satin ribbons which held up her white stockings. The ribbons were a bold cerise, like her lips, which were pulled wide in a girlish grin - inviting and ripe with unspent kisses - a hot-sweet ring of nubile, innocent fire. High cheeks, pink with natural rouge, gave — Samantha Kaye

and eroded. Deandra Demarest's smile said the booking process was just another modeling session. Both times she'd held her head up high, rotated her face to create a flattering contour, squared her shoulders, flashed perfect teeth. Her smile was a strange mix of wholesome and sinful. The kind of blitheness that comes with getting away with too much for too long. In her case, biology helped: perfect oval face, cute cleft in her chin, widely spaced blue eyes with enormous irises that would make her appear appealingly confused when she was anything but. All of that crowned by a creamy sweep of wavy hair - brunette at nineteen, blond at twenty-nine. They say eyes are the true mirrors to the soul but Deandra Demarest's eyes — Jonathan Kellerman

Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high,
where knowledge is free.
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.
Where words come out from the depth of truth,
where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection.
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost it's way
into the dreary desert sand of dead habit.
Where the mind is led forward by thee
into ever widening thought and action.
In to that heaven of freedom, my father,
LET MY COUNTRY AWAKE! — Rabindranath Tagore

Don't talk about shit you don't know, Billy thinks, and therein lies the dynamic of all such encounters, the Bravos speak from the high ground of experience. They are authentic. They are the Real. They have dealt much death and received much death and smelled it and held it and slopped through it in their boots, had it spattered on their clothes and tasted it in their mouths. That is their advantage, and given the masculine standard America has set for itself it is interesting how few actually qualify. Why we fight, yo, who is this we? Here in the chicken-hawk nation of blowhards and bluffers, Bravo always has the ace of bloods up its sleeve. — Ben Fountain

Past the projects, the land opened up and water came into view. The breeze carried rain and salt. Jetties and barrier walls supported the shore, which was stacked with crumbling brick warehouses. Out in the channel, the Statue of Liberty stood alone on her little island, her corroding flame held high in the air as the sun set over the industrial shoreline and skyways of New Jersey. Across the narrows, the bluffs of Staten Island wavered in the smoky light of dusk that turned the Verrazano into bronze. Faint light burnished water into busy with freighters and tug boats. A lone sail boat flitted in the distance. On the near shore, on a slip of water between a jetty and the land, a blood red barge bobbed on the tide. — Andrew Cotto

He took a cable which had been service on a blue-bowed ship, made one end fast to a high column in the portico, and threw the other over the round-house, high up, so that their feet would not touch the ground. As when long-winged thrushes or doves get entangled in a snare ... so the women's heads were held fast in a row, with nooses round their necks, to bring them to the most pitiable end. For a little while their feet twitched, but not for very long. — Homer

Some of the structural drivers of inflation have also weakened. Trade unions have become less powerful. Loss-making state industries have been privatized. But, perhaps most importantly of all, the social constituency with an interest in positive real returns on bonds has grown. In the developed world a rising share of wealth is held in the form of private pension funds and other savings institutions that are required, or at least expected, to hold a high proportion of their assets in the form of government bonds and other fixed income securities. In 2007 a survey of pension funds in eleven major economies revealed that bonds accounted for more than a quarter of their assets, substantially lower than in past decades, but still a substantial share.71 With every passing year, the proportion of the population living off the income from such funds goes up, as the share of retirees increases. — Niall Ferguson

I am a scholar and a pupil who has been lulled to sleep by the meagre fire of a mind too humble. I have been too much burned, and my injured mind has accumulated too much passion; for tormenting itself with the defending of our sex, my mind sighs, conscious of its obligation. For all things - those deeply rooted inside us as well as those outside us - are being laid at the door of our sex.
In addition, I, who have always held virtue in high esteem and considered private things as secondary importance, shall wear down and exhaust my pen writing against those men who are garrulous and puffed up with false pride. I shall not fail to obstruct tenaciously their treacherous snares. And I shall strive a war of vengeance against the notorious abuse of those who fill everything with noise, since armed with such abuse, certain insane and infamous men bark and bare their teeth in vicious wrath at the republic of women, so worthy of veneration. — Laura Cereta

I believe in strong women. I believe in the woman who is able to stand up for herself. I believe in the woman who doesn't need to hide behind her husband's back. I believe that if you have problems, as a woman you deal with them, you don't play victim, you don't make yourself look pitiful, you don't point fingers. You stand and you deal. You face the world with a head held high and you carry the universe in your heart. — C. JoyBell C.

If we held grudges for all the idiotic things we said and did as freshman and sophomores, the hallways would be silent. — Kenneth Logan

Women are indoctrinated from infancy about beauty. We feel we must be Superwoman and have it all: beauty, brains, a good work ethic, great with children, a good cook. The list is long, isn't it? I think it's particularly hard for women to accept the unconditional love God offers. We are so used to being held to such a high standard - and failing - that we feel we can never measure up. What a blessing when we realize that we don't have to. God loves us, warts and all. We are safe in his arms. Safe to tell him our dreams, our fears, our failings. Safe to relax in his unconditional love. — Colleen Coble

Shane's dad stopped the van," Claire said. "He took Monica as a hostage."
For a second, neither one of them moved, and then Eve whooped and held up her hand for a high five. Claire just stared at her, and Eve compensated by clapping both hands over her head. "Yesssss!" she said, and did a totally geeky victory dance. "Couldn't have happened to a nicer psycho!"
"Hey!" Claire yelled, and Eve froze in midcelebration. It was stupid, but Claire was angry; she knew Eve was right, knew she had no reason at all to think Monica was ever going to be anything but a gigantic pain in the ass, but ... "Shane's dad's going to burn her if they go through with the execution. He has a blowtorch."
The glee dropped out of Eve's expression. "Oh," she said. "Well ... still. Not like she didn't ask for it. Karma's a bitch, and so am I. — Rachel Caine

I will never accept life for what it is. I don't need an easy life. My road was meant to be hard because anything worth having in this world will take me to the very edge of myself. I will overcome everything I have ever gone through and will make my future the one God intended me to have. I will pick up the pieces of this pain and sculpt it into art. I am not ordinary and never was. I walk into my birthright as a queen with her head held high. I was born to do this! — Shannon L. Alder

Do you have any idea how much it turns me on, knowing something of mine has been cradling your sweet pussy all day long?" Without warning, he thrust two thick fingers inside her with just enough force to make her cry out, bring her up on her toes. He didn't move them, only held them there, high and tight inside her. Ruby's head fell forward on a moan that was equal parts frustrated and relieved. He'd finally filled her. But she needed so much more from him, and he seemed determined to take his time. "You walked around with your naughty secret all day, didn't you? Did you think of me while you sat in class wearing my underwear? Did the thought of me get you all wet, baby?" His thrust his fingers deeper. "Answer me or you'll get no more. — Tessa Bailey

If we step back from the progressive argument and put it in any other context, its absurdity immediately becomes apparent. Imagine if I were to say to my daughter, who got a high score on the SAT, "You don't deserve your scores at all. You didn't build that. After all, young lady, you had teachers who helped you with vocabulary and math. Moreover, you took the public roads to the test. Had your car been held up along the way or caught fire, you would count on the services of the police and the fire department. So society deserves a large part of the credit for those scores. They don't reflect your accomplishment but society's accomplishment." If I said this I am sure my daughter would think I was talking like an insane person. In fact, of course, I would be talking like a progressive. — Dinesh D'Souza

Are you high? There's no such thing as right and left socks." She held up two matching socks as if to prove her point. — Jewel E. Ann

Stand. Stand against this threat. Stand with your heads held high - for you are the true possessors of this world's future. Stand proud. And I will stand with you. This is our world to rebuild. Not theirs. Ours. So, let's not fuck it up. - The post-apocalyptic nomadic warrior from a speech given at the gates of Eternal Hope, Colorado, moments before the Massacre of Eternal Hope, Colorado. — Benjamin Wallace

source of profound irritation. "Ed, mate! And little, hmmm . . . It's your first day at school too, isn't it?" Nathan could never be bothered to remember Madeline's children's names. He held up his palm for a high five with Fred. "Gidday, champ." Fred betrayed her by high-fiving him back. Nathan kissed — Liane Moriarty

I dreamed my shoulders held up the sky for a thousand hawks that squawked and cawed and beat their feathered wings against the hotness of the day. I supported their flight, watching and marveling, until sweat dripped from my body, and groans crossed my lips over fatiguing muscles.
Choosing to let the sky fall, I awoke.
My eyes opened to a cast of hawks gripping me in their talons. They supported my weight, hauling me high above the clouds through a blue expanse of heaven. And though they struggled - squawking and flapping wearily - never once did a single bird release its hold. — Richelle E. Goodrich

On a certain day in the blue-moon month of September
Beneath a young plum tree, quietly
I held her there, my quiet, pale beloved
In my arms just like a graceful dream.
And over us in the beautiful summer sky
There was a cloud on which my gaze rested
It was very white and so immensely high
And when I looked up, it had disappeared. — Bertolt Brecht

She went as through a forest
the columns were furrowed like ancient trees, and in through the forest flowed the light, many-hued and clear as song, from the pictured windows. High up above her, beasts and men sported among the stone leafage, and angels played
and yet far, dizzily far higher, the vaulting soared, lifting the church towards God. In a hall that lay to one side, worship was being held at an altar. Kristin sank down on her knees by a pillar. The singing cut into her like a too strong light. Now she saw how low she lay in the dust ... Pater noster. Credo in unum Deum. Ave Maria, gratia plena. — Sigrid Undset

With his bare hands Mulder dug at the loose earth. After a minute, he said, 'I've go it. I just have to pull it out and-'
He got no further.
He and Scully were blinded by a high power flashlight.
When their vision cleared, they saw the sheriff looming over them, brandishing an ugly-looking .45.
'May I ask what you're doing?' he growled.
Mulder held up what he had found in the earth: a piece of raw potato.
'Exhuming your potato,' was all he could say. — Les Martin

A daughter,' Rowley scooped up the child and held her high. The baby blinked from sleep and crowed with him. 'Any fool can have a son,' he said. 'It takes a man to conceive a daughter. — Ariana Franklin

Name one hero who was happy."
I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back.
"You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward.
"I can't."
"I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret."
"Tell me." I loved it when he was like this.
"I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it."
"Why me?"
"Because you're the reason. Swear it."
"I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes.
"I swear it," he echoed.
We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned.
"I feel like I could eat the world raw. — Madeline Miller

For a little while, I actually feel grown-up and responsible. I strut around with my head held high, looking the other responsible people in the eye with that knowing glance that says, I understand. I'm responsible now too. Just look at my groceries. — Allie Brosh

This outfit makes me want to get my nose pierced and spend some time at the tattoo parlor," I said, frowning at the clothing.
"Hey, we can make that happen," Nessa, joked.
"That's very funny, Nessa," I said as I pulled out the knee high black combat boots and black fishnet stockings to match.
"It is better than the plaid cowboy shirt and Wranglers they got me," Noah said, as he held up the outfit complete with worn leather cowboy boots.
"Oh, Nessa, we will pay you back dearly for this," I said sarcastically. — Andrea Heltsley

Rebecca held her head high and swanned across the hallway, but as she neared the footman, she could see quite plainly that his gaze was not where it should be. She stopped dead and slapped her hands over her bosom.
"Its too low, isn't it? I knew I shouldn't have listened to that maid. She might not mind her boobies hanging out for all to see, but i just can't-" Her brain suddenly caught up with her mouth. She removed her hands from her bosom and slapped them over her awful, awful, awful mouth. — Elizabeth Hoyt

She felt the snake between her breasts, felt him there, and loved him there, coiled, the deep tumescent S held rigid, ready to strike. She loved the way the snake looked sewn onto her V-neck letter sweater, his hard diamondback pattern shining in the sun. It was unseasonably hot, almost sixty degrees, for early November in Mystic, Georgia, and she could smell the light musk of her own sweat. She liked the sweat, liked the way it felt, slick as oil, in all the joints of her body, her bones, in the firm sliding muscles, tensed and locked now, ready to spring
to strike
when the band behind her fired up the school song: "Fight On Deadly Rattlers of Old Mystic High."
Harry Crews- A Feast of Snakes — Harry Crews

Watching the children, he noticed two things especially. A girl of about five, and her sister, who was no more than three, wanted to drink from the pebbled concrete fountain at the playground's edge, but it was too high for either of them, so the five-year-old ... jumped up and, resting her stomach on the edge and grasping the sides, began to drink. But she was neither strong enough nor oblivious enough of the pain to hand on, and she began to slip off backward. At this, the three-year-old ... advanced to her sister and, also grasping the edge of the fountain, placed her forehead against her sister's behind, straining to hold her in place, eyes closed, body trembling, curls spilling from her cap. Her sister drank for a long time, held in position by an act as fine as Harry had ever seen on the battlefields of Europe. Pg 32 — Mark Helprin

And there in the middle, high above Prechistensky Boulevard, amidst a scattering of stars on every side but catching the eye through its closeness to the earth, its pure white light and the long uplift of its tail, shone the comet, the huge, brilliant comet of 1812, that popular harbinger of untold horrors and the end of the world. But this bright comet with its long, shiny tail held no fears for Pierre. Quite the reverse: Pierre's eyes glittered with tears of rapture as he gazed up at this radiant star, which must have traced its parabola through infinite space at speeds unimaginable and now suddenly seemed to have picked its spot in the black sky and impaled itself like an arrow piercing the earth, and stuck there, with its strong upthrusting tail and its brilliant display of whiteness amidst the infinity of scintillating stars. This heavenly body seemed perfectly attuned to Pierre's newly melted heart, as it gathered reassurance and blossomed into new life. — Leo Tolstoy

I cried, sitting by her bed, and I told her the story of us. "It's about the feed," I said. "It's about this meg normal guy, who doesn't think about anything until one wacky day, when he meets a dissident with a heart of gold." I said, "Set against the backdrop of America in its final days, it's the high-spirited story of their love together, it's laugh-out-loud funny, really heartwarming, and a visual feast." I picked up her hand and held it to my lips. I whispered to her fingers. "Together, the two crazy kids grow, have madcap escapades, and learn an important lesson about love. They learn to resist the feed. Rated PG-13. For language," I whispered, "and mild sexual situations. — M T Anderson

After Game Six of the Finals, as Paxson's shot went through the net, Michael Jordan raced to the basket to get the ball. He held it up high above his head, and his teammates thought he was going to say something about a prospective trip to Disneyland. Instead, he yelled out, Thunder Dan Majerle-my fucking ass! — David Halberstam

I'm just dropping her off."
"Who off?" Ryder questioned.
That's my cue.
I stepped into the kitchen with my head held high and when Ryder saw me, he jumped up to his feet and let the cup that was halfway raised to his mouth fall to the floor with surprise.
"Shit," he hissed when the cup smashed to pieces then cleared his throat. "branna
I lifted my hand and lightly waved. "Hey, Ry."
"Hi, hey," he said in rapid succession.
"Hello."
"Bro, one greeting is enough," Alec mumbled — L.A. Casey

America ... holds up its way of life as the ideal for every nation, and seeks to impose its own standards of living - which many people think ridiculously and unwholesomely high - on others, partly of course in the search for markets. If it were openly stated that it was just a search for markets, that would be one thing, but it is not; by a tremendous propaganda campaign this materialistic conception is held up as an ideal, as somehow part of liberty, and above all, as a form of happiness. — Ann Bridge

I gave up trying to establish where progress lay, and where revolution, or to see the plot
as Amparo's [Brazilian] comrades expressed it
of capitalism. How could I continue to think like a European once I learned that the hopes of the far left were kept alive by a Nordeste bishop suspected of having harbored Nazi sympathies in his youth but who now faithfully and fearlessly held high the torch of revolt, upsetting the wary Vatican and the barracudas of Wall Street, and joyfully inflaming the atheism of the proletarian mystics won over by the tender yet menacing banner of a Beautiful Lady who, pierced by seven sorrows, gazed down on the sufferings of her people? — Umberto Eco

I could feel his hand on my waist, his arms around me, feel the rise and fall of his chest next to mine as I held my breath, and wished the sun would drop out of the sky. — Kenneth Logan

So, ah, who's the lucky girl?" Sam asked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. When Jericho ignored him, Sam grabbed one of Jericho's Civil War soldier figurines and held it up to his mouth. "Oh, Jericho," he said in a high-pitched voice. "Take me in your arms, you big he-man, you!"
"Please put General Meade back in Gettysburg. You're changing the course of the war. And it's just a date. — Libba Bray

Pa
I did exactly as you said, Pa
I held my head up high..

Even before we got to ten
I was aiming for the sky
I was aiming for the sky — Lin-Manuel Miranda

When all is complete deep in the teapot, when tea, mint, and sugar have completely diffused throughout the water, coloring and saturating it ... then a glass will be filled and poured back into the mixture, blending it further. The comes waiting. Motionless waiting. Finally, from high up, like some green cataract whose sight and sound mesmerize, the tea will once again cascade into a glass. Now it can be drunk, dreamily, forehead bowed, fingers held wide away from the scalding glass. — Simonne Jacquemard

Magic happens when the wand of language strikes a stone and makes it melt, touches a spindle and turns it into gold, or taps a trunk and makes it fly. By drawing on a syntax of enchantment that conjures fluidity, ethereality, flimsiness, and transparency, writers turn solidity into resplendent airy lightness to produce miracles of linguistic transubstantiation.

What is the effect of that beauty? How do readers respond to words that create that beauty? In a world that has discredited that particular attribute and banished it from high art, beauty has nonetheless held on to its enlivening power in children's books. It draws readers in, then draws them to understand the fictional worlds it lights up. — Maria Tatar

Thorne, on the aisle, held out his hand as Cinder passed. She snorted and accepted the high five before floating up the stairs. — Marissa Meyer

Lake, tell me this is too fast. Tell me what's going on between us is crazy because ... " My eyes flitted between hers and my hand high on her leg.
"Because ... " she whispered " ... it feels like we've known each other forever. Like that one day three years ago held the significance of every day before it. Because on the one day you needed to feel a connection to life again, I showed up at your door. I was your connection. — Jewel E. Ann

Men always failed Maman in the end. They forever fell disastrously short of whatever ideal she held them up to. What began with exuberance and passion always ended with terse accusations and hateful words, with rage and weeping fits and the flinging of cooking utensils and collapse. High drama. Maman was incapable of either starting or ending a relationship without excess. — Khaled Hosseini

The rest of her friends were in their reserved seats in the front row. Thorne, on the aisle, held out his hand as Cinder passed. She snorted and accepted the high five before floating up the stairs. Winter — Marissa Meyer

To get what you want, you have to know exactly how much you are willing to give up.
Never had he wanted something this badly, and held it in his hands knowing that tomorrow it would be gone, traded for the high cliffs of Ios, and the uncertain future across the border, the chance to stand before his brother, to ask him for all the answers that no longer seemed important. A kingdom, or this. — C.S. Pacat

When I got back to my office Tween was there. She rose from the foyer couch as I wheezed in off the ramp. I took one look at her and said, "Come inside." She followed me through the inner door. I waved my hand over the infra-red plate and it closed. Then I put out my arms.
She bleated like a new-born lamb and flew to me. Her tears were scalding, and I don't think human muscles are built for the wrenching those agonized sobs gave her. People should cry more. They ought to learn how to do it easily, like laughing or sweating. Crying piles up. In people like Tween, who do nothing if they can't smile and make a habit-pattern of it, it really piles up. With a reservoir like that, and no developed outlet, things get torn when the pressure builds too high.
I just held her tight so she wouldn't explode. The only thing I said to her was "sh-h-h" once when she tried to talk while she wept. One thing at a time. — Theodore Sturgeon