Holding Things Over Your Head Quotes & Sayings

Remember that all tax revenue is the result of holding a gun to somebody's head. Not paying taxes is against the law. If you don't pay your taxes, you'll be fined. If you don't pay the fine, you'll be jailed. If you try to escape from jail, you'll be shot ... Therefore, every time the government spends money on anything, you have to ask yourself, 'Would I kill my kindly, gray-haired mother for this?' — P. J. O'Rourke

And I just couldn't take it anymore. I closed the distance between us, slammed him back against the chair and kissed him, holding his head still with both my hands buried in that stupid, stupid hair. I half expected more resistance, because Pritkin had never met an argument he didn't like. So it was a shock when he ran his hands down my sides, cupped my hips and slid us both to the floor.
"I'm going straight to hell for this," he muttered.
"At least you'll know a lot of people," I said breathlessly. — Karen Chance

Ico made to charge her again. The queen raised a clawlike nail, but Yorda stepped between them. Without a word, Yorda stretched out her arms in front of Ico, holding him back. Ico looked into her eyes and she shook her head, pleading with him. — Miyuki Miyabe

Cool wind soothed her. She could breathe sweet air. The only heat she felt was the warm, familiar heat from the mage's body. Opening her eyes, she saw that she stood close to him. Raising her head, she gazed up into his face ... and felt a swift, sharp ache in her heart.
Raistlin's thin face glistened with sweat, his eyes reflected the pure, white flame of the burning bodies, his breath came fast and shallow. He seemed lost, unaware of his surroundings. And there was a look of ecstasy on his face, a look of exultation, of triumph.
"I understand," Crysania said to herself, holding onto his hands. "I understand. This is why he cannot love me. He has only one love in this life and that is his magic. To this love he will give everything, for this love he will risk everything! — Margaret Weis

And as Sumi flipped through more, she couldn't help smiling at the pictures of Hauk holding the human babies and children. They were so tiny in comparison to him. He looked awkward and scared in some, and in others - later ones - he was much more confident. One of the most adorable was a more recent image of him with a girl around a year old. She was dressed in a frilly tulle gown that filled Hauk's muscular arms with pink fluff. Laughing, the girl had her hands tangled in his braids while she laid her little head against his massive shoulder. Tears — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Time seemed to stand still as they remained embraced, him holding his body weight on his elbows as he looked down at her and grinned.
"Now that's a vacation." She laughed and then his grin fell and he shook his head.
"Like a couple of horny teenagers with no thought of tomorrow and no thought of protection. We should both be shot."
"Can you wait until the glow leaves me before you shoot me?" she asked.
He smiled down at her. "You are glowing. You look gorgeous." "It's the look of a sated woman." "I like it. — Carla Cassidy

The craft with which the world is made runs also into the mind and character of men. No man is quite sane; each has a vein of folly in his composition, a slight determination of blood to the head, to make sure of holding him hard to some one point which Nature has taken to heart. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Holding each other, the rain cooling their bodies, they laughed like children. "I expected steam this time," Jacques said, crushing her to him.
"Can you do that?" Shea fit the back of her head into the niche of his sternum. One hand idly slid over the heavy muscles of his chest.
"Make us so hot we turn the rain to steam?" He grinned boyishly down at her, for the first time so carefree that he forgot for a moment the torment he had suffered. — Christine Feehan

You're out there, Lespere. It's all over. It's just as if it had never happened, isn't it?"
"No."
"When anything's over, it's just like it never happened. Where's your life any better than mine, now? Now is what counts. Is it any better? Is it?"
"Yes, it's better!"
"How?"
"Because I got my thoughts, I remember!" cried Lespere, far away, indignant, holding his memories to his chest with both hands.
And he was right. With a feeling of cold water rushing through his head and body, Hollis knew he was right. There were differences between memories and dreams. He had only dreams of things he wanted to do, while Lespere had memories of things done and accomplished. And thus knowledge began to pull Hollis apart in slow, quivering precision.
"What good does it do you?" he cried to Lespere. "Now? When a thing's over it's not good any more. You're no better off than me."
"I'm resting easy," said Lespere. "I've had my turn. I'm not getting mean at the end, like you. — Ray Bradbury

Charlie glared at the puppet. "I'm really mad."
"Sure you are. Super mad." Leo circled his head one way and then the other. "I've got an idea."
"What?"
"Tell him how mad you are. Then look really pitiful and ask him to take you Boogie-boarding. If you look pitiful enough, I bet he'll feel so bad that he'll take you."
Charlie wasn't born yesterday. He looked past Leo to the man holding him. "Really! Can we go right now?"
His father set Leo aside and shrugged. "The waves look good. Why not? Get your stuff."
Charlie jumped up, and raced toward the house. His legs pumping. But just as he got to the front step, he stopped and whipped around. "I get to drive!"
"No you don't!" his mother countered, slipping Scamp from her arm.
Charlie stomped inside, and his father laughed. "I love that kid. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

He keeps his arms away from me, but eventually, holding him, I feel him tuck his chin over my head. Then he whispers, "You're the sweetest girl, the best girl, I ever kissed, Carrie West," and rubs his face into my hair like a child, breathing deep. — Mary Ann Rivers

Middling monsters died at the point of pitchforks, burned with torches, or at the butt of silver-capped canes wielded by angry, geriatric Poles. Middling people were dime-a-dozen, emptied souls, shorn sheeple, human husks. A good monster didn't worry about what it was doing; it just did it. A true predator didn't worry about guilt, or being popular, or anything. It just cruised along, living for the kill, surviving. A good person, well, she'd put a bullet in her head or weigh her feet down and throw herself into the Chicago River, holding her breath until she went to the sludgy, filthy bottom, and had to open wide and breathe water until she died. — D.T. Neal

He didn't know how to say good-bye. His throat ached from the strain of holding back his emotions. "I don't want to leave you," he said humbly, reaching for her cold, stiff hands.
Emma lowered her head, her tears falling freely. "I'll never see you again, will I?"
He shook his head. "Not in this lifetime," he said hoarsely.
She pulled her hands away and wrapped her arms around his neck. He felt her wet lashes brush his cheek. "Then I'll wait a hundred years," she whispered. "Or a thousand, if I must. Remember that, Nikki. I'll be waiting for you to come to me. — Lisa Kleypas

There is the image of the man who imagines himself to be a prisoner in a cell. He stands at one end of this small, dark, barren room, on his toes, with arms stretched upward, hands grasping for support onto a small, barred window, the room's only apparent source of light. If he holds on tight, straining toward the window, turning his head just so, he can see a bit of bright sunlight barely visible between the uppermost bars. This light is his only hope. He will not risk losing it. And so he continues to staring toward that bit of light, holding tightly to the bars. So committed is his effort not to lose sight of that glimmer of life-giving light, that it never occurs to him to let go and explore the darkness of the rest of the cell. So it is that he never discovers that the door at the other end of the cell is open, that he is free. He has always been free to walk out into the brightness of the day, if only he would let go. (192) — Sheldon B. Kopp

She saw him pause to watch it, going still with his hand on a stem and his other holding a seed head. And she wished she could paint. All those vivid colors of late summer, bold and strong, and the man so still, so patient, dropping his work to share his flowers with a bird. — Nora Roberts

Holding a tear back makes them drain upward, higher and higher, until one day your head just explodes and you're left with a stub of a neck and nothing more. — Alice Hoffman

Penny sets down her book. "You don't want to know why your girlfriend was snogging your sworn enemy?"
"I don't know about 'sworn,' " I say. "I've never taken an oath."
"I'm pretty sure Baz has."
"Anyway, they weren't snogging."
Penny shakes her head. "If I caught Micah holding hands with Baz, I'd want an explanation."
"So would I."
"Simon. — Rainbow Rowell

Do you know one reason my parents have stayed married so long?" I asked and Lark shook her head. "They're a team. If one has a problem, they both have a problem. No secrets, no holding back. They face everything together. — Bijou Hunter

She hit the button again, holding her breath this time until she heard it.
Soft, sibilant, as insubstantial as the breaths that came before: Shannon. The voice whispered Shannon.
The blood rushed out of her head. Her heart knocked hard in her chest. Her knees buckled and she grabbed the counter to keep from falling. She was starting to hyperventilate, had to calm it down before she was taken by a full-blown panic attack.
Paper bag. Think. Think! Drawer below the silverware, next to the sink. Over the nose and mouth. Breathe slowly, slowly.
Holding the bag against her face, Shane slid to the floor with her back against the cabinets, legs splayed, lungs heaving.
It couldn't be him. It couldn't be Jordan. Jordan was dead. — Jane Taylor Starwood

Demetrious was studying Law on the Open University and was, in all ways, a ray of sunshine into her life: warm and glorious, achingly temporary. He lived just off the high street with his boyfriend Rob, who worked in the City, doing something neither Demi nor Sukie pretended to understand.
"All the cute guys are gay," Sukie had laughed, that first day, holding her coffee mug high to her face to hide her genuine disappointment. Demi had just tilted his head and looked at her playfully, an expression she would get to know well.
"I'm not gay," he had clarified, matter-of-factly.
"Living with a boyfriend called Rob doesn't sound very straight!" Sukie had pointed out.
"Labels!" Demi had scorned, with one of his characteristic and very Greek hand gestures. "I fall in love with the person, not the gender. — Erin Lawless

She knew how fortunate she was to have her independence, and to have a disposition that cared so little for the opinions of others. Let them talk, she thought, as long as they also saw her holding her head high, and as long as she possessed the whip-hand of wealth. — Gordon Dahlquist

Rehv swooped down with his long arms and gathered her up against him, tucking her with vital care to his chest. Ducking his head to hers, his voice was deep and grave.
"I never thought I would see you again."
As he shuddered, she lifted her hands up to his torso. After holding herself back for a moment ... she embraced him as fully as he did her.
"You smell the same," she said rought, putting her nose right into the collar of his fine silk shirt. "Oh ... God, you smell the same. — J.R. Ward

In that instant, your billboard careened ashore on a wall of water, cracking the back of my head. I reached for balance and touched what I thought was a puppy. Then you grabbed my finger. My God, I thought. It's a baby. I fainted dead away. That's how Macon found us the next day - me unconscious on half a billboard, you nestled in my arms, nursing on the pocket of my uniform. The half billboard said: " ... Cafe ... Proprietor." Our path seemed clear.
I will always love your mother for letting you go, Soldier, and I will always love you for holding on.
Love, the Colonel.
PS: I apologize for naming you Moses. I didn't know you were a girl until it was too late. — Sheila Turnage

Chloe had her knees pulled up, one arm wrapped around them. Her other hand was entwined with Derek's. He leaned back against the tree. Slumping, as if it was holding him up. His face glowed with sweat and his eyes were closed.
When I'd seen Derek in wolf form, I figured werewolves grew when they shifted, like the ones in movies. They didn't. He was really that big. Even slumped, he was more than a head taller then Chloe. A huge football player of a guy.
Beside me, Daniel whispered, "I was going to tell him off for bullying you. But I'm having second thoughts."
I smiled at him. "I don't blame you."
Despite his size, Derek was obviously no older than us. His cheeks were dotted with mild acne and I could see the ghosts of fading pocks, as if it had been much worse not too long ago. Dark hair tumbled into his eyes as he rested with his head bent forward. — Kelley Armstrong

Clary remembered how it had felt to be lifted up by those hands, his arms holding her up and the stars hurtling down around her head like a rain of silver tinsel. — Cassandra Clare

Uh-oh," Moni sang, and nodded her head in Chantal's direction. "I think someone's a wee bit upset with us." She turned and walked a few steps backward.
"Careful," I said. "We're not out of range."
"Have no fear, Super Brain is here." Moni whipped out her calculator, holding it up like a shield.
"What are you going to do, daze her with denominators?"
"Maybe. But first I'm going to pummel her with my Pythagorean theorem. — Charity Tahmaseb

Suddenly a ragged man wearing a hairnet and flip-flops walks toward us, holding a stack of pamphlets. Sophie, scared, hides behind her mother's chair. "My brother," the vagrant asks me, "have you found the Lord Jesus Christ?"
"I didn't know he was looking for me."
"Is He your personal savior?"
"You know," I say, "I'm still kind of hoping to rescue myself."
"The man shakes his head, dreadlocks like snakes. "None of us are strong enough for that," he replies, and moves on. — Jodi Picoult

It was the least I could do after what you did for us," Gregori said. Mikhail graciously thanked each of the Lycan hunters for their help. Vikirnoff and Natalya along with Destiny and Nicolae immediately came over. Destiny had fought with the Lycans and she introduced her lifemate, his brother and Natalya as she led the other pack members over to the tables of food and drink. Fen knew immediately that Mikhail had planned for just that move. The pack respected Destiny's abilities and would relate to her and her family. Out of the corner of his eye he could see other Carpathian couples going up and introducing themselves to the pack members and engaging them in conversation. Mikhail inclined his head toward Fen. "I believe you two know one another." "We've certainly fought a few battles together now," Zev said, holding out his hand to Fen. — Christine Feehan

There was a single
golden hair on the pillow, curled in on itself as if asleep. Simon
picked it up carefully, then lay down still holding it, his head in its
place. The bed was cold, but it still smelled warm, like Matt. — J.L. Merrow

When I'm running, there's always this split second when the pain is ripping through me and I can hardly breathe and all I see is color and blur - and in that split second, right as the pain crests, and becomes too much, and there's a whiteness going through me, I see something to my left, a flicker of color [ ... ] - and I know then, too, that if I only turn my head he'll be there, laughing, watching me, and holding out his arms.
I don't ever turn my head to look, of course. But one day I will. One day I will, and he'll be back, and everything will be okay.
And until then: I run. — Lauren Oliver

Sometimes just to paint a head you have to give up the whole figure. To paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape. It might seem like you're limiting yourself at first, but after a while you realize that having a quarter of an inch of something you have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe than if you pretended to be doing the whole sky. — Nicole Krauss

If I ever do get married," Tariq said, "they'll have to make room for three on the wedding stage. Me, the bride, and the guy holding the gun to my head — Khaled Hosseini