Man Under The Thumb Quotes & Sayings

The razor hung between his shoulder-blades from a loop of cotton string round his neck inside his shirt. The same motion of the hand which brought the razor forward over his shoulder flipped the blade open and freed it from the cord, the blade opening on until the back edge of it lay across the knuckles of his fist, his thumb pressing the handle into his closing fingers, so that in the second before the half-drawn pistol exploded he actually struck at the white man's throat not with the blade but with a sweeping blow of his fist, following through in the same motion so that not even the first jet of blood touched his hand or arm. — William Faulkner

I think ... " She lifts her head from his shoulder. "I think that you have it in you to be a fine young man. Exceptional even. I have always thought that. Mothers are supposed to, aren't they? I don't think you're there yet. Not yet. I think you've got some way to go. That's all."
"I see."
"You mustn't take this badly, but sometimes ... " She takes his hands in hers, rubbing the palm of it with her thumb. "Sometimes I worry that you're not very nice anymore."
They sit there for a while until eventually he says, "There's nothing I can say to that."
"There's nothing that you have to say."
"Are you angry with me?"
"A little. But then I'm angry with pretty much everyone these days. Everyone who isn't sick. — David Nicholls

Look," Anil says, after Billy has explained enough of this. "Just cut to the chase."

"The chase," Billy says. He knocks back the new shot that the bartender has set up for him. He wipes his chin with the back of his hand. "The chase is that at the end of it she said she just wanted me to say one thing. She just wanted me to tell her that everything was going to be okay and that things were going to get easier from here on out."

"Okay, yeah," says Anil. "And you responded by saying - ?"

"I responded by saying that it would be ethically unsound for me to make a claim, for the purposes of comfort, that I couldn't be certain was true under the present circumstances."

Anil opens his mouth and then shuts it again. Finally he offers this: "No offense, man, but you're a fucking idiot."

"I'm aware."

"Fucking," Anil says, ticking it off on his thumb. "Idiot," he concludes, ticking this one off on his pointer finger. — Jeremy Bushnell

As it 'appens, I am Arthur's right-hand man," said Suzy. "Or left-hand girl, I can't remember where I stood last time. Anyhow, me and Arthur is like two fingers of a gauntlet. Or at least the thumb and the little finger. I mean, I'm his top General, and all. So if I say you're in, you're in. — Garth Nix

That's not the whole of it. As with many other faiths - including our own Christian one - a small group of zealots have distorted Islam to further their own agenda. When many women took to imitating the fashions of the Prophet's wives, some Moslem men saw an opportunity to put all women under their thumb. They espoused foul laws like those allowing a man to beat his wife or force her into his bed. — Matthew Reilly

Roark looked at the clean white sheet before him, his fist closed tightly about the thin stem of a pencil. He put the pencil down, and picked it up again, his thumb running softly up and down the smooth shaft; he saw that the pencil was trembling. He put it down quickly, and he felt anger at himself for the weakness of allowing this job to mean so much to him, for the sudden knowledge of what the months of idleness behind him had really meant. His finger tips were pressed to the paper, as if the paper held them, as a surface charged with electricity will hold the flesh of a man who has brushed against it, hold and hurt. He tore his fingers off the paper. Then he went to work ... — Ayn Rand

Titus, have you ever had your heart broken?"
"Oh, son. How could you ask a man who used to play the blues a question like that?"
"How long does it take to go away?"
"A broken heart?"
"Yeah."
"There's no precise formula, Sammy."
"Just give me an estimate."
"A good rule of thumb is at least half the time that you were in love. Or twice the time. It all just depends. — Zack Love

Men may sail the seas for a lifetime and seldom, if ever, come in contact with the nightmare monsters that inhabit the caves and cliffs of the ocean floor. Gazing down at the slightly muddy water, the men of The Unicorn saw a squirming mass of interwoven tentacles resembling enormous snakes, immensely thick and long and tapering at their free ends to the size of a man's thumb. It was a foul sight, an obscene growth from the dark places of the world, where incessant hunger is the driving force. At one place, down near the bulge of the hull, appeared a staring gorgon face with great lidless eyes and a huge parrot beak that moved slightly, opening and shutting as though it had just crunched and swallowed a meal of warm flesh.
("Fire In The Galley Stove") — William Outerson

No-one will ever have golf under his thumb. No round ever will be so good it could not have been better. Perhaps this is why golf is the greatest of games. You are not playing a human adversary; you a playing a game. You are playing old man par. — Bobby Jones

She would not have another man push her aside like some appetizer, there to wet his whistle only to be left once the main dish arrived.

No more. She pushed her thumb into his throat a little harder. — Jacqueline Simon Gunn

Perhaps he had to be close in order to keep a reason for the things he did. To make the things he did be themselves Life. And not merely a delightful excercise of technical skill which man had been able to achieve because he, of all animals, had a fine thumb. Which is nonsense, for whatever you live is Life. — Robert Penn Warren

Not once in her life had Darcy wanted to thumb her nose at danger and rip the clothes off a man, but she was contemplating that very thing. — Donna Grant

Tom ran his thumb over the head, circling lightly, unable to resist leaning down to suck the tip into his mouth. Prophet inhaled sharply, threaded his fingers into Tom's hair. He closed his eyes and groaned when Tom stroked in earnest, lifting his hips off the bed in a big cat-like stretch, letting Tom take control of him again. "Think I didn't get enough?" "Think you need sleep." Prophet's eyes opened as he studied Tom's face. "You're going to put me to sleep this way." "Gonna try," Tom told him, his hand pumping Prophet's cock slowly, then faster when the man refused to tear his gaze away. He couldn't read the man's expression, not until his mouth dropped and his eyes glazed. "Yeah, like that." Prophet's voice was hoarse, body tense. His casted hand reached out to hold on to Tom's biceps, the one with the dreamcatcher. Tom caught him staring at it when he came. — S.E. Jakes

There was an ape in the days that were earlier, Centuries passed and his hair became curlier; Centuries more gave a thumb to his wrist - Then he was a Man and a Positivist. — Mortimer Collins

The Oracle rose. As one, the three witches bowed.
"See?" Bran jerked his thumb at the three women. "That's how a woman should treat a man. Next time you see me, I want you to do just like them. — Ilona Andrews

Preston pulled me up against his chest and cupped my face in his hands. "I love you. I love you so damn much it consumes me. I don't deserve you, but I'm gonna become the man who does deserve you. I promise you. I'll make you proud of me."I reached up and ran my thumb over his lips. "I am and will always be proud of you. I want the world to know you're mine. — Abbi Glines

Passing the kitchen the second time, the vodka sang to him from the freezer its sweet song of forgetfulness. He longed to dart in there and free it from its prison, to twist the cap off with a practiced flick of his thumb and tip his head back, filling his mouth with the only thing that could quell the fear that roiled his stomach. Mullins clapped one hand on his shoulder, perhaps sensing something. The goddamn man was on him like a tick. — Fred Anderson

Brooke turned to Luke. "Rescue me from this madness, Merritt. Tell me you retain some hold on your faculties of reason. What say you to the man-deer?"
"Werestag," Portia corrected.
Luke circled the rim of his glass with one thumb. "A cursed, half-human creature, damned to an eternity of solitude in Denny's back garden?" He shot Cecily a strange, fleeting glance. "I find the idea quite plausible. — Tessa Dare

It felt good to stand out from the world, just mysterious and pious. You weren't a lantern under any basquet. You stood out righteous as a sore thumb. You were the one holy man to keep God from crushing all of the Sodom and Gomorrah seething around you in the Valley Plaza Shoping Center. — Chuck Palahniuk

This pointing-hand gesture - with its index finger and thumb extended upward - is a well-known symbol of the Ancient Mysteries, and it appears all over the world in ancient art. This same gesture appears in three of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous encoded masterpieces - The Last Supper, Adoration of the Magi, and Saint John the Baptist. It's a symbol of man's mystical connection to God." As above, so below. The madman's bizarre choice of words was starting to feel more relevant now. "I've never seen it before," Sato said. Then watch ESPN, Langdon thought, always amused to see professional athletes point skyward in gratitude to God after a touchdown or home run. He wondered how many knew they were continuing a pre-Christian mystical tradition of acknowledging the mystical power above, which, for one brief moment, had transformed them into a god capable of miraculous feats. — Dan Brown

He walked among the bookstore shelves, hearing Muzak in the air. There were rows of handsome covers, prosperous and assured. He felt a fine excitement, hefting a new book, fitting hand over sleek spine, seeing lines of type jitter past his thumb as he let the pages fall. He was a young man, shrewd in his fervors, who knew there were books he wanted to read and others he absolutely had to own, the ones that gesture in special ways, that have a rareness or daring, a charge of heat that stains the air around them. — Don DeLillo

Left weaponless, Roran was forced to retreat before the remaining soldier. He stumbled over a corpse, cutting his calf on a sword as he fell, and rolled to avoid a two-handed blow from the soldier, scrabbling frantically in the ankle-deep mud for something, anything he could use as a weapon. A hilt brushed his fingers, and he ripped it from the muck and slashed at the soldier's sword hand, severing his thumb.
The man stared dumbly at the glistening stump, then said, "This is what comes from not shielding myself."
"Aye," agreed Roran, and beheaded him. — Christopher Paolini

What I hate is the thought of being under a man's thumb," I had told Doctor Nolan. "A man doesn't have a worry in the world, while I've got a baby hanging over my head like a big stick, to keep me in line. — Sylvia Plath

On an evening in the latter part of May a middle-aged man was walking homeward from Shaston to the village of Marlott, in the adjoining Vale of Blakemore, or Blackmoor. The pair of legs that carried him were rickety, and there was a bias in his gait which inclined him somewhat to the left of a straight line. He occasionally gave a smart nod, as if in confirmation of some opinion, though he was not thinking of anything in particular. An empty egg-basket was slung upon his arm, the nap of his hat was ruffled, a patch being quite worn away at its brim where his thumb came in taking it off. Presently he was met by an elderly parson astride on a gray mare, who, as he rode, hummed a wandering tune. — Thomas Hardy

I suddenly saw the little hobo standing under a sad street lamp with his thumb stuck out
poor forlorn man, poor lost sometime boy, now broken ghost of the penniless wilds. — Jack Kerouac

Thomas jabbed a thumb over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows.
"You met our new friend?" Miho responded, a smirk flashing across his face. "Real piece of work, this guy. I gotta get me one of those shuck suits. Fancy stuff."
"Am I awake?" Thomas asked.
"You're awake. Now eat - you look horrible. Almost as bad as Rat Man over there, reading his book. — James Dashner

Goddess," he rasped, running his hands over her hips, up her legs.
"Lover," she whispered back, threading the fingers of her right hand through the fingers of his left and moving his hand to her breast. It was heavy and swollen and ripe with desire. He scraped his thumb over her nipple, loving the way she closed her eyes and hummed in appreciation. He loved that she was in charge. He loved how she took pleasure from his body with such confident leisure. He loved how she squeezed her innermost muscles in pulse after deliberate, exquisite pulse as she rode his length. He loved how he was just that to her, her lover, not Nick Blackthorne rock star, but just the man she gave her body, her heart, her soul to. He loved her. Everything about her. — Lexxie Couper

Our host drifted away, and Vidia and I continued chatting about this and that. Swift judgments came down. The simplicity in Hemingway was "bogus" and nothing, Vidia said, like his own. Things Fall Apart was a fine book, but Achebe's refusal to write about his decades in America was disappointing. Heart of Darkness was good, but structurally a failure. I asked him about the biography by Patrick French, The World Is What It Is, which he had authorized. He stiffened. That book, which was extraordinarily well written, was also shocking in the extent to which it revealed a nasty, petty, and insecure man. "One gives away so much in trust," Vidia said. "One expects a certain discretion. It's painful, it's painful. But that's quite all right. Others will be written. The record will be corrected." He sounded like a boy being brave after gashing his thumb. The — Teju Cole

Because he treats the world as rather empty and ignores the interrelatedness of all things (so stupefying to thought and action), administrative man can make decisions with relatively simple rules of thumb that do not make impossible demands upon his capacity for thought. — Herbert Simon

The priest rose to take up the crucifix; at that, she strained her neck forward like someone who is thirsty, and, pressing her lips to the body of the Man-God, she laid upon it with all her expiring strength the most passionate kiss of love she had ever given. Then he recited the Miserateur and the Indulgentiam, dipped his right thumb in the oil, and began he unctions: first on the eyes, which had so coveted all earthly splendors; then on the nostrils, greedy for mild breezes and the smells of love; then on the mouth, which had opened to utter lies, which had moaned with pride and cried out in lust; then on the hands, which had delighted in the touch of smooth material; and lastly on the soles of the feet, once so quick when she hastened to satiate her desires and which now would never walk again. — Vladimir Nabokov

She watched Delta try to pull herself into a pitiful looking crouch. Delta was far from coordinated, though, so her feet slipped out from under her. For a second, she almost looked like she was trying to run in place with her feet slipping and sliding all over the place. Finally, Delta stopped her pathetic running man imitation so that she ended up in a squat. Her hands held out in front of her, clasped together with her pointer finger and thumb in the shape of a gun. Good Lord, her sister looked like a Charlie's Angel reject. - Elena — Jessie Lane

I was never an Angry Young Man. I am angry only when I hit my thumb with a hammer. — Kingsley Amis

Oh, the way he was looking at her, really looking at her . . . this was the Christopher of her dreams. This was the man who had written to her. He was so caring, and real, and dazzling, that she wanted to weep.

"I thought . . ." Christopher broke off and drew his thumb over the hot surface of her cheek.

"I know," she whispered, her nerves sparking in excitement at his touch.

"I didn't mean to do that."

"I know."

His gaze went to her parted lips, lingering until she felt it like a caress. Her heart labored to supply blood to her nerveless limbs. Every breath caused her body to lift up against his, a teasing friction of firm flesh and clean, warm linen.

Beatrix was transfixed by the subtle changes in his face, the heightening color, the silver brightness of his eyes.

She wondered if he were going to kiss her.

And a single word flashed through her mind.

Please. . . — Lisa Kleypas

Masses of warring men animated the horizon, crashing into stubborn ranks, churning in melee. The air didn't so much thunder as hiss with the sound of distant battle, like a sea heard through a conch shell, Martemus thought - an angry sea. Winded, he watched the first of Conphas's assassins stride up behind Prince Kellhus, raise his short-sword ...
There was an impossible moment - a sharp intake of breath.
The Prophet simply turned and caught the descending blade between his thumb and forefinger. "No," he said, then swept around, knocking the man to the turf with an unbelievable kick. Somehow the assassin's sword found its way into his left hand. Still crouched, the Prophet drove it down through the assassin's throat, nailing him to the turf.
A mere heartbeat had passed. — R. Scott Bakker

He gently caressed her bottom lips with his thumb. "It just occurred to me that I've never told you how beautiful you are until now, which has to make me possibly the slowest, or dumbest, man in the world. — Paige Tyler

Shall a man have nothing of his own; -- no sorrow in his heart, no care in his family, no thought in his breast so private and special to him, but that, if he happen to be a clergyman, the bishop may touch it with his thumb?'
I am not the bishop's thumb,' said Mr. Thumble — Anthony Trollope

I've heard men complain of doing woman's work, and women complain of doing man's work," she added, fastening her bony thumb and forefinger on Gurgi's ear and marching him to a stool beside Taran, "but I've never heard the work complain of who did it, so long as it got done! — Lloyd Alexander

Arthur reaches over to take them. As he does, his thumb brushes my thumb, and it's so cold, this sudden shock of cold. The flowers get dropped. They make a slight, swishy sound as they hit the floor.

"Shit," I say, my voice sounding really loud in my ears.

And then he kisses me.

It's -

I don't know.

I don't know, I don't know.

It's my brain turning off, it's nothing. It's a feeling. It's a mouth on mine, and fuck it. Fuck my whole goddamn life, man. Just fuck it. I don't move away like I should, but neither does he. He puts one of his hands on my face.

Then the bells on the front door ring. We break apart and I open my eyes.

And there's Arthur looking back at me. — Hannah Johnson

You asked me in Paris how many
women I'd loved. I said one. I should
have said two." He cupped her cheek,
his thumb rubbing over her bottom lip.
"As a child I loved my mother, and as a
man I love you. — Kitty French

By a man's finger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser-knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt-cuff - By each of these things a man's calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable. You know that a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his trick; and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all. — Arthur Conan Doyle

I produced a fulsome sermon. When the appointed Sunday arrived, I used all of my best grooming skills. I picked the cat hairs off my most expensive suit, smoothed my hair, and put a Band-aid on the thumb I had chewed while working overtime on my sermon. Once I met the delegation at church I did my best to dazzle them, and after the service was over we sat for almost two hours in a Sunday School room as I answered question after question about my history, my beliefs, my weaknesses, and my strengths. One man on the committee noticed the Band-aid on my thumb. "What did you do to yourself?" he asked sympathetically. "I cut it while I was cooking, "I lied. — Barbara Brown Taylor

Later, years later even, sometimes I might say, "How about the duel on the cliff with Inigo and the man in black?" and my father would gruff and grumble and get the book and lick his thumb, turning pages till the mighty battle began. — William Goldman

The kiss was everything she hadn't dared let herself think about. Slow. Hot. Hungry. His lips molded to hers, drinking up her small, breathless exhale before his tongue skimmed across hers. Bree reached out and gripped his shirt, tugging him until he was flush against her. The man knew how to kiss, and she felt her mind emptying of everything but how incredible his mouth felt working deeper into hers. Every nip, every silky stroke of his tongue, every breath dragged between their mouths made her hold on tighter. The second he stopped, the real world would slide back into place, and more than anything, she wanted this. Wanted Finn with an unexpected yearning that burrowed deeper with each second he continued to kiss her. He cupped the nape of her neck, tipping her head back as he deepened the kiss. She whimpered, catching his bottom lip between hers. His thumb trailed along her jawline, and she shuddered in its wake, wanting his mouth there. Wanting — Sydney Somers

Dear God, surely you aren't the chef Sam was talking about?"
"No," he said with a laugh, and gestured behind him with a thumb. "Cale here is."
"Kale?" Alex echoed blankly, her eyes sliding to the still half-closed door. She didn't see any evidence of a second man. Frowning, she set the phone back in its receiver and leaned to the side, trying to see out into the kitchen as she muttered, "Kale is a vegetable. — Lynsay Sands