Little Bottom Quotes & Sayings

Everyone [in higher education] was what I call drillers of deeper wells. These academics sit at the bottom of a deep well and they look up and see a sliver of the sky. They know everything about that little sliver of sky and nothing else. I scan all my horizons. — Vaclav Smil

Once upon a time there were three little sisters,' the Dormouse began in a great hurry; 'and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well
' 'What did they live on?' said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking. — Lewis Carroll

As I was sitting in my chair,
I knew the bottom wasn't there,
Nor legs nor back, but I just sat,
Ignoring little things like that. — Hughes Mearns

Remember my experiments with the RTG and having a hot bath? Same principle, but I came up with an improvement: submerge the RTG. No heat will be wasted that way. I started with a large rigid sample container (or "plastic box" to people who don't work at NASA). I ran a tube through the open top and down the inside wall. Then I coiled it in the bottom to make a spiral. I glued it in place like that and sealed the end. Using my smallest drill bit, I put dozens of little holes in the coil. The idea is for the freezing return air from the regulator to pass through the water as a bunch of little bubbles. The increased surface area will get the heat into the air better. Then I got a medium flexible sample container ("Ziploc bag") and tried to seal the RTG in it. But the RTG has an irregular shape, and I couldn't get all the air out of the bag. I can't allow any air in there. — Andy Weir

Stop worrying about the 'dumbing down' of our language by bloggers, tweeters, cableheads and MSM thumbsuckers engaged in a 'race to the bottom' of the page by little minds confined to little words. — William Safire

Joe hid his grin. "A little grab-ass is not accosting." At the worst of times, Luna could amuse him. And now he finally had her where he wanted her.
...
Her mesmerizing eyes shone with annoyance and disbelief. "I barely knew you, Joe. I brought you a sandwich, and half a minute later you had your hands all over me."
Despite his aches and pains, the memory warmed Joe. Locking onto her gaze, he said in his defense, "You have that kind of bottom, honey. All round and soft."
Her color deepened. "Of all the stupid, sexist
"
"It's irresistible," Joe insisted, and meant it. "It begs for a man's hands. It
" There looked to be an explosion imminent, so Joe wisely let that go for now and instead distracted her. "And for your information, no. I didn't get beat up by a woman." He snorted. "How absurd is that?"
"I dunno." Her body vibrated with tension. "I'm ready to beat you up."
-Joe and Luna — Lori Foster

The receipt to make a speaker, and an applauded one too, is short and easy. Take common sense quantum sufficit; add a little application to the rules and orders of the House [of Commons], throw obvious thoughts in a new light, and make up the whole with a large quantity of purity, correctness and elegancy of style. Take it for granted that by far the greatest part of mankind neither analyze nor search to the bottom; they are incapable of penetrating deeper than the surface. — Lord Chesterfield

Our goal should be to make decision makers internalize the full consequences of their decisions, rather than prevent them from making decisions altogether [...] But we tend to reform under the delusion that the regulated institutions and the markets they operate in are static and passive, and that the regulatory environment will not vary with the cycle. Ironically, faith in draconian regulation is strongest at the bottom of the cycle, when there is little need for participants to be regulated. By contrast, the misconception that markets will govern themselves is most widespread at the top of the cycle, at the point of maximum danger to the system. We need to acknowledge these differences and enact cycle-proof regulation, for a regulation set against the cycle will not stand. To have a better chance of creating stability throughout the cycle--of being cycle-proof--new regulations should be comprehensive, nondiscretionary, contingent, and cost-effective. — Raghuram G. Rajan

When you get right down to it, there is no dignified way to go, be it decomposition, incineration, dissection, tissue digestion, or composting. They're all, bottom line, a little disagreeable. It takes the careful application of a well-considered euphemism - burial, cremation, anatomical gift-giving, water reduction, ecological funeral - to bring it to the point of acceptance. — Mary Roach

South Africa, it's like the little asshole of the whole world - it's, like, the bottom. It's, like, in the dark depths of the hallway. — Watkin Tudor Jones

I have to admit that business-type thoughts do sneak into my head: I hope our customers pay us, I hope this stuff is decent, I hope we get it done on time. The little additions and subtractions that one has to do. Take sales, take costs and try to get that big positive number at the bottom. — Bill Gates

My own view is that, since we have it and since it gives such pleasure to so many, especially around the world, it would be folly to get rid of it. The backside of whom are we going to lick when we send a letter in the Republic of Britain? William Hague? Harriet Harman? An elected British President will not glamourize the heads of state of other countries when they come on a state visit. Compared to carriages, crowns, orbs and ermine, an entry-level Jaguar and Marks & Spencer suit offer no edge over other nations when vying for trade advantages. By definition half the country will despise a Labour President or a Conservative one, and you can bet your bottom dollar that politicians will ensure that, if we do become a republic, there will be little other choice than the major parties. Which, at the time of writing, might include UKIP. Lovely. — Stephen Fry

It's true though, that the impulse to give freely to the world seems to be at the bottom of the well of human intentions where the purest and clearest water arises. To be able to offer back what the world has given you, but shaped a little by your touch - that makes a true life. — John Tarrant

Since White America refuses to see its past, they can't really see me either. Add to that a little of Madame C.J.s magic and watch me go invisible. Watch me step outside of history. Assimilation as revolution. That's one thing that most of us know that white folks don't. Race doesn't really exist. Culture? Ethnicity? Sure. Class too. But race is just a bunch of rules meant to keep us on the bottom. Race is a strategy. The rest is just people acting playing roles. — Mat Johnson

I have a little tradition that humbles me as a man that lets me know I'm a part of the field and a part of the game, and it's the very bottom as well as the very top. Yeah, it's going to be all over the internet. You know what? You should've seen some games before this. I'll tell you one thing, the grass at Tiger Stadium tastes best. — Les Miles

There is a vortex of energy at the bottom of Walden Pond. That's where the inter-dimensional opening is. As people swim in Old Walden Pond, it soothes them, it renews them. It's a little bit like the pool in Cocoon - I suppose, any power spot is. — Frederick Lenz

We can not be swallowed up like those little pebbles. We aren't pebbles. We won't just quietly sink to the bottom. We can run, we can fight, and we can work. We are not helpless unless we let ourselves be. — Sook Nyul Choi

Rabbi Heskel Shpilman is a deformed mountain, a giant ruined desert, a cartoon house with the windows shut and the sink left running. A little kid lumped him together, a mob of kids, blind orphans who never laid eyes on a man. They clumped the dough of his arms and legs to the dough of his body, then jammed his head down on top. A millionaire could cover a Rolls-Royce with the fine black silk-and-velvet expanse of the rebbe's frock coat and trousers. It would require the brain strength of the eighteen greatest sages in history to reason through the arguments against and in favor of classifying the rebbe's massive bottom as either a creature of the deep, a man-made structure, or an unavoidable act of God. — Michael Chabon

People make the mistake of assuming far too many things about armies,' Lefevre told me one evening. 'They assume, for a start, that generals know what they are doing and know what is going on. They assume that orders pass down from top to bottom in a smooth and regulated fashion. And above all they assume that wars start only when people decide to start them.' 'You are going to tell me that is not the case?' 'Wars begin when they are ready, when humanity needs a bloodletting. Kings and politicians and generals have little say in it. You can feel it in the air when one is brewing. There is a tension and nervousness on the face of the least soldier. They can smell it coming in a way politicians cannot. The desire to hurt and destroy spreads over a region and over the troops. And then the generals can only hope to have the vaguest notion of what they are doing. — Iain Pears

I don't know why you want to hang out when I'm half asleep?"
Cooper leaned over and kissed me softly. His lips sucked at my bottom lip for a second before he pulled back and relaxed into the corner of the couch. "You pout when you sleep."
"Huh?"
"Like an angry little pout," he said, demonstrating with his lips. "It's the hottest thing I've ever seen. I thought you might give me a real talking to like my old gym teacher. Man, did that bitch hate me."
"I'm sure she had her reasons."
Cooper snorted. "Of course, you'd take a stranger's side over the guy who's feeding you."
"Maybe you called her a bitch forty times."
"Yeah, there was that. — Bijou Hunter

In an even wilder part of the river's jungle of cane and gum and pin oak, there is an Indian mound. Aboriginal, it rises profoundly and darkly enigmatic, the only elevation of any kind in the wild, flat jungle of river bottom. Even to some of us - children though we were, yet we were descended to literate, town-bred people - it possessed inferences of secret and violent blood, of savage and sudden destruction, as though the yells and hatchets we associated with Indians through the hidden and seceret dime novels which we passed among ourselves were but trivial and momentary manifestations of what dark power still dwelled or lurked there, sinister, a little sardonic, like a dark and nameless beast lightly and lazily slumbering with bloody jaws ... — William Faulkner

She rose and walked to the small fireplace, where a kettle had been set long before supper. It was gently steaming now. She caught up a rag and reached for the handle, but another, much bigger, hand got there first. Lily gave a tiny jump, watching wide-eyed as Caliban picked up the hot kettle as easily as lifting a twig. At least he'd had enough sense to shield his palm from the heat with a rag. He stood blank-faced until she pulled herself together. "In here." She stepped gingerly around his bulk and led him into the little bedroom. A tin hip bath was waiting, laid beside the bed on some old cloths. It was already half full of cold water. "You can pour it in there." He lifted the hem of his shirt to hold the bottom of the kettle and she caught an unsettling flash of his stomach. Hastily she looked away, her cheeks heating. — Elizabeth Hoyt

I think he is losing heart in his attempts to woo her. In that bright-yellow waistcoat, the bottom button always punctiliously undone and the pointed flaps open over his neat little paunch, he is as intent and circumspect as one of those outlandishly plumed male birds, peacock or cock peasant, who gorgeously stalk up and down at a distance, desperate of eye but pretending indifference, while the drab hen unconcernedly pecks in the gravel for grubs. — John Banville

The bottom line on the declaration, 'This is part of our culture,' is this: At its best, this is a choice made with little or no critical thinking about future results. At its worst, it is merely an excuse to do what one wants to do. It is selfish, leaderless, pack behavior with unconsidered consequences that ultimately destroy families, neighborhoods, cities, and before you know it, generations. — Andy Andrews

And I could test myself - my own courage - with it, too, because when the doors at either end of the secret staircase were closed, it was impenetrably dark. I hid in the staircase, shivering with terror, telling the narrative: The little girl was in a dark, dark place but she was very brave ... Sometimes the door at the bottom opened, and a wedge of light sliced up the stairs; a maid, her arms filled with folded laundry, would find me and ask in amazement what I was doing there.
And though I answered lightheartedly that I was playing, the truth is that I was not entirely certain what I was doing there, crouched and frightened in the darkness. Only now, sixty years later, do I see that I was arming myself, rehearsing panic, loss, and helplessness; assessing my own cowardice and courage, and and the same time reassuring myself that the door would always open, that the light would always find its way in. — Lois Lowry

A little girl and her father were walking along in the evening. She was fascinated by the stars, and kept looking up at them, but made no comment until her father asked what she was thinking. She replied, If the bottom side of heaven is so beautiful, how wonderful the other side must be — Francis Gay

The way she sat now, leaning forward frowning, biting her pink bottom lip, her shirt dipping to reveal a hint of her cleavage ... He wondered idly if he could get her to bend over a little farther ...
"Just what are you staring at, exactly?"
Kadar snapped back to reality. "You. You've been thinking hard for the last five minutes. It's not good for you to strain your pretty little head like that. I'm waiting for the steam to shoot out of your ears to relieve the pressure on your brain."
"Aha." Audrey glanced at Jack and George. "What you have here is a man who was caught gaping at my breasts, and now he's trying to cover it up with rudeness. — Ilona Andrews

Goddamn. what is this shit?
early times, called j-bone. best little old drink they is. drink that and you wont feel a thing the next mornin.
or any morning.
whoo lord, give it here. hello early, come to your old daddy.
here, pour some of it in this cup and let me cut it with coca-cola.
can't do it, bud.
why not?
we done tried it. it eats the bottom out.
watch it suttree. don't spill none on your shoes
lord honey i know they make that old splo in the bathtub but this here is made in the toilet. he was looking at the bottle, shaking it. bubbles the size of gooseshot veered greasily up through the smoky fuel it held.
the last time i drank some of that shit i like to died. i stunk from the inside out. i laid in a tub of hot water all day and climbed out and dried and you could still smell it. i had to burn my clothes.
early times, he called. make your liver quiver.
(page 26) — Cormac McCarthy

There seems to be a common strain of miserliness in the American people when it comes to throwing away toothpaste tubes which havea little left in the bottom. — Robert Benchley

If you feel safe in the area you're working in, you're not working in the right area. Always go a little further into the water than you feel you're capable of being in. Go a little bit out of your depth. And when you don't feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you're just about in the right place to do something exciting. — David Bowie

Everybody burns out in this world; amateur, pro, it doesn't matter, they all burn out, they all get hurt, the OK guys and the not-OK guys both. That's why everybody takes out a little insurance. I've got some too, here at the bottom of the heap. That way, you manage to survive if you burn out. If you're all by yourself and don't belong anywhere, you go down once, and you're out. Finished. — Haruki Murakami

My life has been a kind of mystery to me. By all my logical, linear thinking I started out in school as a little boy, I didn't have a clue about anything. What they were talking about in school, couldn't play sports, couldn't learn, and I was bottom of the class. — Anthony Hopkins

When we were little, Eric and Fitz and I invented a language. I've forgotten most of it, with the exception of a few words: valyango, which meant pirate; palapala, which meant rain; and ruskifer, which had no translation to English but described the dimpled bottom of a woven basket, all the reeds coming together to form one joint spot, and that we sometimes used to explain our friendship. — Jodi Picoult

There was a long period during which nearly every thinking man was in some sense a rebel. Literature was largely the literature of revolt or of disintegration. Gibbon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Shelley, Byron, Dickens, Stendhal, Samuel Butler, Ibsen, Zola, Flaubert, Shaw, Joyce - in one way or another they are all of them destroyers, wreckers, saboteurs. For two hundred years we had sawed and sawed and sawed at the branch we were sitting on. And in the end, much more suddenly than anyone had forseen, our efforts were rewarded, and down we came. But unfortunately there had been a little mistake. The thing at the bottom had not been a bed of roses after all, it was a cesspool full of barbed wire. — George Orwell

The tide goes out imperceptibly. The boulders show and seem to rise up and the ocean recedes leaving little pools, leaving wet weed and moss and sponge, iridescence and brown and blue and China red. On the bottoms lie the incredible refuse of the sea, shells broken and chipped and bits of skeleton, claws, the whole sea bottom a fantastic cemetery on which the living scamper and scramble. — John Steinbeck

He could judge with reasonable accuracy the amount of use a book had had. The first item to show any sign of wear was the dust jacket at the top and bottom of the spine. Little tears or cracks in the paper appeared here if a book had been taken off a shelf as much as three or four times. — Leonard Holton

There's a space at the bottom of an exhale, a little hitch between taking in and letting out that's a perfect zero you can go into. There's a rest point between the heart muscle's close and open - an instant of keenest living when you're momentarily dead. You can rest there. — Mary Karr

At the top of the hill stood a cross and a little below at the bottom was a stone tomb. In my dream, just as Christian came up to the cross his burden loosened from his shoulders and fell off his back. It tumbled and continued to do so down the hill until it came to the mouth of the tomb where it fell inside and was seen no more. Christian was so glad and overjoyed and in his excitement he said, He has given me rest by his sorrow and life by his death. — John Bunyan

We're all doing time. As soon as we get born, we find ourselves assigned to one little body, one set of desires and fears, one family, city, state, country, and planet. Who can ever understand exactly why or how it comes down as it does? The bottom line is, here we are. Whatever, wherever we are, this is what we've got. It's up to us whether we do it as easy time or hard time. — Bo Lozoff

They were happy to help someone, to succeed at something, even if they weren't to benefit. We'd been trying to touch the sky from the bottom of the ocean. I realised that if we boosted one another, maybe we'd get a little closer. — Hwang Sok-yong

The hearts of women are like those little pieces of furniture with secret hiding - places, full of drawers fitted into each other; you go to a lot of trouble, break your nails, and in the bottom find some withered flower, a few grains of dust - or emptiness! — Gustave Flaubert

Patches of hair stuck to his wet cheekbones. His ears were threaded with tiny little wampum earrings, except at the cartilage, where the rings were turquoise. His stubby nose ended abruptly at the bottom of a short bridge. His face tapered with a round chin, a white birthmark under his jaw. He was my favorite picture. He burned into the backs of my eyes. — Rose Christo

A little wanton money, which burned out the bottom of his purse. — Thomas More

What's that line from TS Eliot? To arrive at the place where you started, but to know it for the first time. I'm able to write about a breakup from a different place. Same brokenness. Same rock-bottom. But a little more informed, now I'm older. Thank God for growing up. — Alanis Morissette

I've heard that people spend a really long time finding their soul mates."
I squeeze Lily's shoulder. She's been in her soul mate's arms since she was little.
"It took you two long enough, didn't it?" Lo says. "No thanks to me." He pauses. "But I want you two to know - from the bottom of my black, decaying heart - I love you both, and the only perfect world has Ryke standing beside Daisy and Daisy standing beside Ryke. Anything less is fucked up. Remember that, will you? — Krista Ritchie

I thought all I had to do to get you back was kill off your so-called mother and that little girl. No, I also pondered eating you alive. I imagined drinking all your blood and swallowing you whole many times. A thousand times ... no, a million times over the past few days! I couldn't even tell apart my dreams from reality. Why are you so obsessed with your piece of shit family? They abandoned you! Why must you only desire the things I can't give you, huh?! If you have any love left to go around, then don't give it to those worthless people. Give it to me! Give me everything. I want it all, even the last speck of dust lying at the bottom of your heart! Give me everything before I lose my mind! Before I really do drink your blood and eat your flesh! Before I swallow you whole! — Hajin Yoo

At the bottom of not a little of the bravery that appears in the world, there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they have not the courage to face public opinion. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

My fingers slid along the bottom of the door jamb until I felt the rubber door stopper wedged in place. A similar rubber triangle sealed the door leading back into the house. From experience, I knew the little stoppers would hold in place where a deadbolt might fail. They'd saved my rear before and I was always careful to pack them for the next use. — William Allen

Gabriel settled over her, pinning her in place. His mouth lowered to her shoulder for a brief, soft bite. "You obsess me, with your sweet mouth and clever little hands . . . your beautiful back . . . and legs . . ." "You need a hobby," Pandora said severely as she felt his erection against her bottom. "Have you ever tried writing poetry? Building a ship in a bottle?" "You're my hobby." He pressed his lips to the back of her neck, having discovered it was a particularly sensitive place. — Lisa Kleypas

I always polish my shoes and clean the bottom of them before I go out. I also wipe my handbags. I keep them in little bags to stop them getting dusty. You have to keep your accessories looking smart and clean. — Jerry Hall

[E]very time you think the entertainment moguls have hit rock bottom, they reach for the jackhammer and rat-a-tat-tat a little deeper. — Ellen Goodman

You're killing me, love," Furi panted. He gripped the base of his cock and cupped Syn's chin trying to give him the hint. "Impatient little bottom aren't you?" Syn laughed throatily against his balls and Furi thought he'd lose his load right there. Furi slammed his eyes shut and squeezed the base of his cock. Syn took the opportunity to fully suck the head of Furi's dick into his mouth and give it a couple hard pulls. Furi yelled out in the dimly lit room but Syn didn't stop, and he wouldn't until Furi was out of his mind with ecstasy. — A.E. Via

Simon was looking at Jace as if he were both fascinating and also a little alarming. 'Did I
did we ever
did I bite you?'
Jace touched the scar on his throat. 'I can't believe you remember that.'
'Did we ... roll around on the bottom of a boat?'
'Yes you bit me, yes, I kind of liked it, yes, let's not talk about it again,' said Jace. 'You're not a vampire anymore. Focus. — Cassandra Clare

Ultimately, if you're not doing what you love, you're not going to be fulfilled. Sure, to make money, you have to be tough, you have to have some smarts and a little luck would help, but the bottom line is: You have to love what you do. — Donald Trump

The bottom line is, life is for living, sweetie. It's for taking chances and trying to grab up every little piece of happiness you can latch on to. — Katie MacAlister

I had a kind of meandering little career, and then I was given a chance to play one of the bottom six in The Dirty Dozen. — Donald Sutherland

It's you young folks what's going to make the changes, y'all's the ones. You got to lead and you got to fight and move us all on up a little higher. And I tell you something else, it's the ones from the South that's got to do it, them what knows the fire and ain't forgot how it burns. Up here too many forgits. They finds a place for themselves and forgits the ones on the bottom. Oh, heap of them talks about doing things, but they done really forgot. No, it's you young ones what has to remember and take the lead. — Ralph Ellison

What bedrooms did you give to our guests?"
"The ones all the way ... way ... way on the other side of the manse."
He laughed at that, hugging her tightly for giving him that ability to indulge in humor once more.
"Then I'd say the bedroom with the old armoire you like should suffice."
"Yes, master," she teased, flicking her hand and sending them there. "Oops, one sec." She winked at him and snapped her fingers, the bottle of lotion suddenly in her hand.
"Show-off. You know, you are going to have to tell me how you do that."
"Well, first you pump this little thing on top, then the lotion - "
Legna yelped when he slapped his hand hard on her bottom, the blanket doing little to shield her from the sting of it.
"Gideon! Do not ever do that again!" she scolded.
"Not even if you beg me to?" he countered lecherously.
Legna laughed, unable to help herself.
"I hate you!"
"No, you do not," he insisted. "How many times do I have to tell you that? — Jacquelyn Frank

button (for example, if you're reading a book or viewing a web page), simply tap your finger in the middle of the screen and a bar will pop up on the bottom of the screen that has the Home button on it. To access your Favorites, tap the star in the bottom right of any page (we'll go into detail about the Favorites a little later). Here's what the Favorites icon looks like: The Status Bar — Carl Bohner

Every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top. My mama, she told me don't worry about your size. She says boys like a little more booty to hold at night. Yeah I won't be no stick figure silicone Barbie doll, so if that's what you're into then go ahead and move along. — Meghan Trainor

Just when I think you've hit bottom you continue to amaze me," Kyle said. "Or, does this get worse? Nothing would surprise me after this. Are you sleeping with a married man whose wife is dying of cancer?"
Elroy didn't think he'd done anything wrong. "I know nothing about his wife, or his husband for that matter. I don't ask and I'm not out to break up his home. Lighten up, man. Everybody does it. It's not like I'm going to freaking marry this dude. I'm only having a little fun with him. You wanna come with me? We'll have a three-way. You should see the way this guy moves. It will blow your mind."
With that remark Kyle shoved his hands into his pockets and walked faster. "No, thank you. That's not something I'm interested in doing. Meeting nice, decent people is the only thing that blows my mind. I just hope you're using condoms, you goddman asshole. — Ryan Field

You know, sometimes the little victories that I have throughout the season are not necessarily obvious on the track. Maybe they're another aspect of what I'm doing, winning little victories here and there to get everything in line to be able to perform from top to bottom on race day. — Danica Patrick

Isn't it ironic that pay, perks, and benefits all cost your company at the bottom line, but authentic recognition, especially when it's most unexpected, costs very little and gives the most impressive return on investment? — Chip Conley

A Complete List of Lily's Nicknames
Silly
Little
Lil
Monkey
Bunny
Bunny Rebbit
Mousse
Tiny Mouse
Goose
Silly Goose
Mongoose
Monster
Monster
Peanut
Penuche
Pinochle
Sweet Pea
Walnut
Walnut Brian
Copper Bottom
Crazy
Baby
Puppy
Guppy
Old Lady
Crank
Cranky
Cranky Pants
Squeaky
Squeaky Frome
Tiger
Dingbat
Mush
Mushy Face
Hipster
Slinkster
Slinky
Bean
Dog — Steven Rowley

September laughed a little. She tried to make it sound light and happy, as though it were all over now and how funny it was, when you think about it, that simply not having another person by you could hurt so. But it did not come out quite right; there was a heaviness in her laughing like ice at the bottom of a glass. She still missed Saturday, yet he was standing right beside her! Missing him had become a part of her, like a hard, dark bone, and she needed so much more than a few words to let it go. In all this while, she had spent more time missing Saturday than seeing him. — Catherynne M Valente

Sing little box

Don't let sleep overtake you
The world's awake within you

In your four-sided emptiness
We turn distance into nearness
Forgetfulness into memory

Don't let your nails come loose

For the very first time
We watch sights beyond this world
Through your keyhole

Turn your key in our mouths
Swallow words and numbers
Out of your song

Don't let your lid fly open
Your bottom drop

Sing little box — Vasko Popa

When you are at the bottom, you find beauty in such little things, and goodness in such little gestures. When I compare any struggle today to ones that I may have had in my childhood, there is nothing that can bring me down. — Natalia Vodianova

It's tempting to think that decisions that are not life-and-death are therefore unimportant, and that the little compromises we make don't matter to our bottom line or our spiritual selves. How many of us are tempted, in business, to make a less-than-ethical decision? To appropriate someone else's idea or fudge some numbers? We have to remember that maintaining our ethical and spiritual selves is absolutely linked with achieving the degree of success we're working toward. — Marianne Williamson

Great man is still a great man even at the bottom of a well and a little man is still a little man even at the top of a mountain! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

We lay side by side on the extension roof, hands behind our heads, elbows just touching. My head was still spinning a little, not unpleasantly, from the dancing and the wine. The breeze was warm across my face, and even through the city lights I could see constellations: the Big Dipper, Orion's Belt. The pine tree at the bottom of the garden rustled like the sea, ceaselessly. For a moment I felt as if the universe had turned upside down and we were falling softly into an enormous black bowl of stars and nocturne, and I knew, beyond any doubt, that everything was going to be all right. — Tana French

You were wonderful," Caleb said, giving Lily's bottom a little pat. "Like I said, if it weren't for me, you'd probably be dead." Caleb laughed and pulled her down onto his lap. "Probably so. You win, Lily. You were right to believe you knew how to take care of yourself, no matter what the circumstances." "Of course I was right," Lily said, unbuttoning her fancy shirtwaist, which was now dirty and speckled with blood. An — Linda Lael Miller

So he slips his head off of Jeff's shoulder and slides out from under Evan's Armand shuffles down to the bottom of the bed. It doesn't have a lot of dignity this part of their sleeping arrangement. He's complained about this before but Jeff just nodded, and Evan had kissed the back of his neck, and they'd both snuggled in a little tighter, pinning him in the middle even more effectively than before. — Kate Sherwood

The Baron took his cane and put it under the doctor's chin. "You are a very unlikeable man. In my true form, I'd think you as little more than spooge on the bottom of my shoe. — Daniel Younger

Over and over, I ran at the sea, beating it until I was so tired I could barely stand. And then the next time I fell down, I just lay there and let the waves wash over me, and I wondered what would happen if I stopped trying to get back up. Just let my body go. Would I be washed out to sea? The sharks would eat my limbs and organs. Little fish would feed on my fingertips. My beautiful white bones would fall to the bottom of the ocean, where anemones would grow upon them like flowers. Pearls would rest in my eye sockets. — Ruth Ozeki

I have very little interest in the bottom line or signing artists to help make the label profit. That's a lucky, unique position to be in, but it all comes out in the wash. — Jack White

We, the beggar class, have little to lose and our expectations are, at best, modest, and when we suffer, it seems we suffer to the depths, for there is nothing in our lives nor in our souls to buoy our hope. Nothing in the way of the blackness. It sinks to the bottom as the lead weight that is despair. We look forward such a short distance that our spirit is myopic, not to be corrected by any lens within our world. — Dan Groat

At the bottom of religious persecution is the doctrine of self-defence; that is to say, the defence of the soul. If the founder of Christianity had plainly said: 'It is not necessary to believe in order to be saved; it is only necessary to do, and he who really loves his fellow-men, who is kind, honest, just and charitable, is to be forever blest' - if he had only said that, there would probably have been but little persecution. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Instead of working hard to keep their share of a shrinking pie, or working even harder to make sure the industry stays as is, I think the most essential thing legacy book industry players can do is set up independent ventures with great people and little interference and work really hard to put themselves out of business by starting at the bottom, not by reinforcing the top. — Seth Godin

The Eastern potentate who declared that women were at the bottom of all mischief, should have gone a little further and seen why it is so. It is because women are never lazy. They don't know what it is to be quiet. They are Semiramides, and Cleopatras, and Joan of Arcs, Queen Elizabeths, and Catharine the Seconds, and they riot in battle, and murder, and clamour, and desperation. If they can't agitate the universe and play at ball with hemispheres, they'll make mountains of warfare and vexation out of domestic molehills; and social storms in household teacups. Forbid them to hold forth upon the freedom of nations and the wrongs of mankind, and they'll quarrel with Mrs Jones about the shape of a mantle or the character of a small maid-servant. To call them the weaker sex is to utter a hideous mockery. They are the stronger sex, the nosier, the more persevering, the most self-assertive sex. — Mary Elizabeth Braddon

Then I knew that the sign I had asked for was not a little thing, not a passing nod of recognition, and a phrase came back to me from my childhood of the veil of the temple being rent from top to bottom. — Evelyn Waugh

When the film was presented in New York, the distributor reproduced the fountain scene on a billboard as high as a skyscraper. My name was in the middle in huge letters, Fellini's was at the bottom, very tiny. Now the name of Fellini has become very great, mine very little. — Anita Ekberg

When I grew a little older, and had suitors, I demanded from them rings from the bottom of the sea, or a sword from the depths of the desert, or a golden bough and a thick golden fleece, too, before I allowed even one kiss. — Catherynne M Valente

I'm not into the money thing. You can only sleep in one bed at a time. You can only eat one meal at a time, or be in one car at a time. So I don't have to have millions of dollars to be happy. All I need are clothes on my back, a decent meal, and a little loving when I feel like it. That's the bottom line. — Ray Charles

My idea of the perfect bottom would be nice, bubbly, curvy, firm, maybe a little bit bouncy. — A. J. McLean

One day, the lotus spoke again. "You remember me? The flower that grows through the mud?" I did. I said as much. "Have you ever considered my significance? I'm everywhere - art, religion, nature.... Have you ever wondered why?"

... It spoke, "Nothing touches me. I radiate beauty. You can do the same."

"How?" I asked.

"Easy," it said. "I grow in a pond. I take the water and nutrients I need to grow, and let the rest sink to the bottom. What's in mud, anyway? Water, nutrients, life and a little bit of sludge. Let the sludge go like I do. Then stand tall above the leaves. — Dawn Casey-Rowe

The beggarly question of parentage
what is it, after all? What does it matter, when you come to think of it, whether a child is yours by blood or not? All the little ones of our time are collectively the children of us adults of the time, and entitled to our general care. That excessive regard of parents for their own children, and their dislike of other people's, is, like class-feeling, patriotism, save-your-own-soul-ism, and other virtues, a mean exclusiveness at bottom. — Thomas Hardy

I don't think I'm too thin at all. I understand when people say, 'Well your face gets gaunt,' but to get your bottom half to be the right size, your face might have to be a little gaunt. You choose your battles. — Courteney Cox

Imagine going to Mexico with a notebook and trying to figure out the average wealth of the population from talking to people you randomly encounter. Odds are that, without Carlos Slim in your sample, you have little information. For out of the hundred or so million Mexicans, Slim would (I estimate) be richer than the bottom seventy to ninety million all taken together. So you may sample fifty million persons and unless you include that "rare event," you may have nothing in your sample and underestimate the total wealth. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Close your eyes," Marcus said, his hand moving to her bottom in a circling caress. He brushed his mouth over her forehead and her fragile eyelids. "Rest. You'll need to regain your strength ... because once we're married, I won't be able to leave you alone. I'll want to love you every hour, every minute of the day." He nestled her more closely against him. "There is nothing on earth more beautiful to me than your smile ... no sound sweeter than your laughter ... no pleasure greater than holding you in my arms. I realized today that I could never live without you, stubborn little hellion that you are. In this life and the next, you're my only hope of happiness. Tell me, Lillian, dearest love ... how can you have reached so far inside my heart?" He paused to kiss her damp silken skin ... and smiled as the wisp of a feminine snore broke the peaceful silence. — Lisa Kleypas

What is the state of things, then? It is this: I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him. I advise you, however, to keep what is really yours; and you cannot begin too early. For, as our ancestors believed, it is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask.[1] Of that which remains at the bottom, the amount is slight, and the quality is vile. Farewell. — Seneca.

[E]lections amount to little more than choosing between the scum that floats to the top of the barrel and the dregs that settle to the bottom. — L. Neil Smith

When she absently worried her bottom lip with one of her adorable little fangs, he sighed.
The Enemy of Old fucking sighed.
Dear gods, it'd finally happened to him.
Happiness.
Then his own fangs sharpened.I will kill anyone who tries to take this feeling away from me. — Kresley Cole

But Moominpappa wasn't listening, because just at that moment he had got the right grip on a big round boulder, and with a great thud it rolled down the slope. It made two very clear sparks and left a faint but enchanting smell of gunpowder behind. Now it was lying at the bottom, just where it should lie. It was wonderful to roll stones, first pushing with all one's might, then feeling them beginning to move just a little at first
then a little more
and then giving way and rolling into the sea with a colossal splash, leaving one standing there trembling with effort and pride. — Tove Jansson

We just want to win. That's the bottom line. I think a lot of times people may become content with one championship or a little bit of success, but we don't really reflect on what we've done in the past. We focus on the present. — Derek Jeter

Surfing is such an amazing concept. You're taking on Nature with a little stick and saying, 'I'm gonna ride you!' And a lot of times Nature says, 'No you're not!' and crashes you to the bottom. — Jolene Blalock

All I know is that my life is filled with little pockets of silence. When I put a record on the turntable, for example, there's a little interval-between the time the needle touches down on the record and the time the music actually starts-during which my heart refuses to beat. All I know is that between the rings of the telephone, between the touch of a button and the sound of the radio coming on, between the dimming of the lights at the cinema and the start of the film, between the lightning and the thunder, between the shout and the echo, between the lifting of a baton and the opening bars of a symphony, between the dropping of a stone and the plunk that comes back from the bottom of a well, between the ringing of the doorbell and the barking of the dogs I sometimes catch myself, involuntarily, listening for the sound of my mother's voice, still waiting for the tape to begin. — Robert Hellenga

Educational romanticism asks too much from students at the bottom of the intellectual pile, asks the wrong things from those in the middle, and asks too little from those at the top. — Charles A. Murray

Gray stood up and came round the desk. "Think of the words on that memorial, Wraysford. Think of those stinking towns and foul bloody villages whose names will be turned into some bogus glory by fat-arsed historians who have sat in London. We were there. As our punishment for God knows what, we were there, and our men died in each of those disgusting places. I hate their names. I hate the sound of them and the thought of them, which is why I will not bring myself to remind you. But listen." He put his face close to Stephen's. "There are four words they will chisel beneath them at the bottom. Four words that people will look at one day. When they read the other words they will want to vomit. When they read these, they will bow their heads, just a little. 'Final advance and pursuit.' Don't tell me you don't want to put your name to those words. — Sebastian Faulks

Belly, this is Yolie. She's my co-lifeguard."
Yolie reached over and shook my hand. It struck me as a businessy thing to do for someone in a bikini. She had a firm handshake, a nice grip, something my mother would have appreciated. "Hi Belly," she said. "I've heard a lot about you."
"You have?" I looked up at Jeremiah.
He smirked. "Yeah. I told her all about the way you snore so loud that I can hear you down the hall."
I smacked his foot. "Shut up." Turning to Yolie, I said, "It's nice to meet you."
She smiled at me. She had dimples in both cheeks and a crooked bottom tooth. "You too. Jere, do you want to take your break now?"
"In a little bit," he said. "Belly, go work on your sun damage. — Jenny Han

Jackson hesitated, licking a drop of whisky from his bottom lip with his tongue.

Mollie's stomach tightened a little, but she told herself that it hadn't. It mostly worked - she'd gotten darn good at telling her body that it had absolutely no response to Jackson Burke. — Lauren Layne