Notch Quotes & Sayings

What do you like?'
'Music. Numbers. Equations. They're not like words. They...they don't get mixed up.'
'If only you could talk to girls in equations.'
There was a long silence, and then, eyes trained on the notch they'd created in the link, Wylan said, 'Just girls?'
Jesper restrained a grin. 'No, not just girls. — Leigh Bardugo

I love the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team for many reasons and they have given me some wonderful memories. When I look back, I don't think about the games they lost but I remember going to see the games when I was a little boy with my grandfather. I remember talking to my mom on the phone after the Cardinals won the World Series in 2006 while I was dressed up in my Captain of the Fallopian Swim Team Halloween costume. I remember taking my lovely wife to her first Cardinals game where she broke out in hives due to the heat and humidity. I remember the joy I felt as I sat with my little man watching our first Cardinals game together at Busch Stadium. I know I need to take my obsession down a notch but in the end it is worth it because it takes me back to times I will never forget and always cherish. — Matt Shifley

In general, we need America to take its game up a notch when it comes to broadband. It's important to acknowledge the billions and billions of dollars of investment in fiber. But we need more. — Julius Genachowski

In flow, the relationship between what a person had to do and what he could do was perfect. The challenge wasn't too easy.
Nor was it too difficult. It was a notch or two beyond his current abilities, which stretched the body and mind in a way that made the effort itself
the most delicious reward. That balance produced a degree of focus and satisfaction that easily surpassed other, more quotidian,
experiences. In flow, people lived so deeply in the moment, and felt so utterly in control, that their sense of time, place, and even self melted
away. They were autonomous, of course. But more than that, they were engaged. — Daniel H. Pink

In a city swollen by refugees but still mostly at peace, or at least not yet openly at war, a young man met a young woman in a classroom and did not speak to her. For many days. His name was Saeed and her name was Nadia and he had a beard, not a full beard, more a studiously maintained stubble, and she was always clad from the tips of her toes to the bottom of her jugular notch in a flowing black robe. Back then people continued to enjoy the luxury of wearing more or less what they wanted to wear, clothing and hair wise, within certain bounds of course, and so these choices meant something. — Mohsin Hamid

I'm not a notch on a belt."
"You could never be a notch, London Chantelle. You're the whole belt, sugar. — Elizabeth SaFleur

Scarlet cocked her head. "Are you sure you don't want me to go? It's going to require some precise manuvering to attach to the docking clamp, and from what Cinder told me about your flying skills ... "
"What do you mean? What did Cinder say about my flying skills?"
Scarlet and Cinder shared a look. "Naturally, she told me that you're a fantastic pilot," said Scarlet, "Absolutely top-notch."
"I think she was practicing her sarcasm," said Iko.
Thorne glared, but Cinder only shrugged. — Marissa Meyer

As if we didn't have enough weapons already. But that's human nature, we've always got to go one better, to increase the terror another notch. — Peter F. Hamilton

Have used him well; making them old men and women inexorably enough, but leaving their hearts and spirits young and in full vigour. With such people the grey head is but the impression of the old fellow's hand in giving them his blessing, and every wrinkle but a notch in the quiet calendar of a well-spent life. — Charles Dickens

The simple things come back to us. They rest for a moment by our ribcages then suddenly reach in and twist our hearts a notch backward. — Colum McCann

It's always healthy to be taken down a notch, even though it's humbling. — Geoffrey S. Fletcher

Top notch! Everyone needs to be warned about Hell so that they can avoid going there. — C. Matthew McMahon

Mick Jagger also a music connoisseur and knows everything about that era. So, you knew the music side was going to be top-notch. It's HBO. On Men of Certain Age, if we wanted a song, it would break the bank. But, Vinyl can go all-out. — Ray Romano

Of the necessary equipment to invent really top-notch — Lemony Snicket

I absolutely love this. Top notch art and scripting encapsulating a brilliant idea. — Leinil Francis Yu

The Big L was cold crazy, A top-notch crook snatchin' pocket books from old ladies I told him, "Give up the dough, before you get smoked! Oh you broke? ( *shots* ) Now you're dead broke" My name is L and I'm from a part of town where clowns, Get beat down and all you hear is gunshot sounds 'Cause at nighttime niggas try to tax, they're sneakier than alley cats, that's why I carry gats — Big L

The next thing Juliana knew, he had her braced against the back wall of the shower, one hand under her bottom, the other tangled in the back of her wet hair, holding her in place as he took her mouth with what seemed to be an urgent, desperate craving, and claimed her body in the same way. His c#ck found her soft notch, his first thick thrust so hard and deep it shoved the air up out of her lungs, her thoughts fracturing beneath the violent surge of sensation. — Rhyannon Byrd

The human mind demands intellectual expansion and expression. — Brandon Notch

Understand 'Minecraft,' and you'll begin to understand the power of games. Like any good story, this one begins with a man and a dream. Markus 'Notch' Persson first started on the project to create a three-dimensional world vast in scope, with elements that allowed you to customize your character into the way you want them. — Rob Manuel

Well, I appreciate your help, Hunter. But let's get some things straight right now. I don't party, I don't use illicit drugs, and I won't be a notch in anyone's headboard."
He choked and sputtered before smiling widely. "Wow. You've been reading the daily rumor mill, haven't you? You've already decided what kind of guy I am. — Lacey Weatherford

I spent hours putting that cassette together. To me, making a tape is like writing a letter - there's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again, and I wanted it to be a good one ... A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention, and then you've got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch ... oh, there are loads of rules. (pg. 88-9) — Nick Hornby

Did you really just invite Adrian to your room later?" asked Lissa.
Avery shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe. Sometimes we hang out once you guys are all tucked into bed. You aren't going to get jealous, are you?"
"No," laughed Lissa.
"Just curious. Adrian's a good guy."
"Oh?" asked Christian. "Define 'good'." Avery held up her hand and began ticking items off with each finger. "He's devastatingly handsome, funny, rich, related to the queen ... "
"You got your wedding colors picked out?" asked Lissa, still laughing.
"Not yet," said Avery. "I'm still testing the waters. I figured he'd be an easy notch on the Avery Lazar belt, but he's kind of hard to read."
"I really don't want to be hearing this," Christian said. — Richelle Mead

Fairy Princessfuckingrella is kicking her slutting up a notch.
He saw Livia tense out of the corner of his eye. Shit. Kyle's going to ruin their night together. — Debra Anastasia

Back off, perv! I have a black belt in taekwondo
and I will fuck you up if you take another step toward
me."
Chase raised his hands in surrender, trying really,
really hard to keep his eyes on hers. "Whoa, there,
crouching tiger. Let's just take this down a notch. — Lorelei James

Why shouldn't Mom trust me, Dad" Why are you so determined to make me out to be the bad guy all the time?" I stared at the side of his face, willing him to make eye contact. He didn't. "I've been doing really good late and you don't even care."
"Yet you still managed to get into trouble tonight," he said.
"You have no idea what happened tonight," I said, my voice ratcheting up a notch. "All you know is that, because I was involved, I'm somehow guilty of something. You could at least pretend to care, you know. You could at least try to understand."
Dad gave a sardonic little laugh. "I'll tell you what I understand," he said. "I understand that when you're left to your own devices you get into trouble, that's what I understand. I understand I was trying to have a happy, restful evening with Briley and once again you screwed it up. — Jennifer Brown

I pushed Ezra back for a second. He had taken the make out session up a notch upon Logan's arrival. I knew what he was doing, it was ticking me off. I wasn't just some territory he could mark. "Hike a leg and pee on me, why don't you?"
Logan snorted and practically choked on his coffee.
- RUHK'S RISING; Phoenix Elite Book 2 — Melissa Starr

But calm is precisely what is absent from love's classroom. There is simply too much on the line. The "student" isn't merely a passing responsibility; he or she is a lifelong commitment. Failure will ruin existence. No wonder we may be prone to lose control and deliver cack-handed, hasty speeches which bear no faith in the legitimacy or even the nobility of the act of imparting advice. And no wonder, too, if we end up achieving the very opposite of our goals, because increasing levels of humiliation, anger, and threat have seldom hastened anyone's development. Few of us ever grow more reasonable or more insightful about our own characters for having had our self-esteem taken down a notch, our pride wounded, and our ego subjected to a succession of pointed insults. We simply grow defensive and brittle in the face of suggestions which sound like mean-minded and senseless assaults on our nature rather than caring attempts to address troublesome aspects of our personality. Had — Alain De Botton

At night, with only the bedside lamp on, I would pretend to sleep and listened to Dad's muffled crying in the semi-darkness, wishing that I could cry like him, that I could bring Stevan back from the dead by the strength of my tears. But they were regular tears carving the same slicing-hot trails down my cheeks, and in the end, I could not summon a distinct kind of grief for Stevan. Just the same grief that has gripped mankind for centuries, which time would inevitably ebb into a notch in one's skin or a small limp in the way one walks or a bottled memory that would only resurface some nights. And soon, you'd struggle to remember how that person talked or how that person used to occupy a customized space in your life. And you don't want to forget, but you don't want to remember either, and there seemed to be no place where you could just exist. — V.J. Campilan

Clear night, thumb-top of a moon, a back-lit sky.
Moon-fingers lay down their same routine
On the side deck and the threshold, the white keys and the black keys.
Bird hush and bird song. A cassia flower falls.
I want to be bruised by God.
I want to be strung up in a strong light and singled out.
I want to be stretched, like music wrung from a dropped seed.
I want to be entered and picked clean.
And the wind says "What?" to me.
And the castor beans, with their little earrings of death, say "What?" to me.
And the stars start out on their cold slide through the dark.
And the gears notch and the engines wheel. — Charles Wright

I love classic rock, rock and roll, that's the top notch. I love soul - bluesy music as well. — Haley Reinhart

After conscientiously tasting fritters every day for a month Lola had put on two pounds! Her little belt bore witness to the disaster, she found herself obliged to move on to the next notch. She burst into tears. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with 'Got To Get You Off My Mind', but then realised that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straight away, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you've got to up it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs, and ... oh there are loads of rules. — Nick Hornby

Before I put another notch in my lipstick case, you better make sure you put me in my place. — Pat Benatar

Mark, how the ready hands of Death prepare: His bow is bent, and he hath notch'd his dart; He aims, he levels at thy slumb'ring heart: The wound is posting, O be wise, beware. — Francis Quarles

I'm not trying to get myself up a notch on the ladder by shoving somebody else down on the ladder, whether it's a candidate or the president of the United States or anybody else. I just don't believe that's the way one oughta campaign, I've never done that. — George H. W. Bush

There are a lot of top-notch shows in Canada. — David Alpay

Nobody is expecting us to do anything. We can't let that perception become our reality, because with the ability on this team, if everybody can pick it up a notch, we'll be fine. It's not going to be Brooks coming in saving the day, or myself. It's got to be everybody as a unit playing consistent. If it happens, it's going to be great. It will be something like I've never experienced. — Vinny Testaverde

There's no room for failure performing [stand-up] for a black audience. If you don't get them right away it's tough winning them back even if you're doing top-notch material. If you didn't win them right when you walked out there, it's tough. — Hannibal Buress

What I'm saying is that until somebody steps up and actually has a forceful attack on Donald Trump and actually takes him down a notch, Donald Trump is just going to keep plowing through. — Sean Hannity

She was just another notch on my guitar. — Robert Cray

I didn't go into the NASA program to pick up rocks or to go the moon or anything else. I went in there because I was a military officer, and that was the next notch in my profession. — Jim Lovell

I'm not quite as limber, but for my peers and my age group, I'm still top notch! — Portia De Rossi

Helen was beautiful in the way a supercomputer was beautiful: sleek with elegant but utilitarian styling, full of top-notch technological know-how, far too expensive for most people to possess. — Maggie Stiefvater

While reading writers of great formulatory power - Henry James, Santayana, Proust - I find I can scarcely get through a page without having to stop to record some lapidary sentence. Reading Henry James, for example, I have muttered to myself, "C'mon, Henry, turn down the brilliance a notch, so I can get some reading done." I may be one of a very small number of people who have developed writer's cramp while reading. — Joseph Epstein

She had a passion for anyone who did something top-notch. — Mikhail Bulgakov

(My greatest human flaw and strength, not surprisingly, is that I can always imagine anything
a marriage, a conversation, a government
as being different from how it is, a trait that might make one a top-notch trial lawyer or novelist or realtor, but that also seems to produce a somewhat less than reliable and morally feasible human being.) — Richard Ford

Curator Shantrelle P. Lewis left for Amsterdam an Andy Warhol fellow, and came back with a film in her pocket. Please support this confrontation of the Netherlands' violently passive aggressive racist traditions, by an American Southern, aggressive aggressive. She's a top notch thinker and lover of questions ... — Dream Hampton

Take Charge and Move Out (TACAMO) planes would quickly get off the ground, climb steeply, and send an emergency war order on a very-low-frequency radio, using an antenna five miles long. SAC began to develop a Post Attack Command and Control System. It would rely on airborne command posts, a command post on a train, a command post at the bottom of an abandoned gold mine in Cripple Creek, Colorado, and a command post, known as The Notch, inside Bare Mountain, near Amherst, Massachusetts. The — Eric Schlosser

Tally sticks were quite explicitly IOUs: both parties to a transaction would take a hazelwood twig, notch it to indicate the amount owed, and then split it in half. The creditor would keep one half, called "the stock" (hence the origin of the term "stock holder") and the debtor kept the other, called "the stub" (hence the origin of the term "ticket stub.) — David Graeber

I'm just a notch on your bedpost but you're just a line in a song. — Fall Out Boy

There's always one more notch and four more aces Billy, and you're playin' all alone. — Bob Dylan

No matter what you do in the offseason, you can't simulate putting spikes on and standing in the grass and being around your teammates. When you're around your teammates, you step it up a notch. It's just kind of instinctive you do that. — Jon Lester

Your self esteem is like a notch below Kafka's. — Woody Allen

Ben sighed loudly. "Can you help Tory or not?"
Jason's cool slipped a notch. "If you don't need anything, why are you here?"
"I'm studying jerkoffs in the wild," Ben answered dryly. "This seemed like a good chance to observe one up close. — Kathy Reichs

In this ever-changing world, it's more important than ever that our top-notch military continues to receive the resources needed to serve and protect our country. — Max Baucus

Why, the top-notch gentleman visits his hatter every few days just to have his hat ironed! — Michel Faber

We'd never miss Alex's retirement. No matter how you feel about us being here."

Pompous prick. That was the exact reason Reese bounced his fist off Hayes's face all those years ago. He flexed his hand with the temptation to do it now too. Smarmy dickweed.

"Alex is a good man." Merina stroked Reese's arm, bringing his temper down a notch. "I'm sure he can see exactly what you are trying to accomplish by being here. If you'll excuse us." In a stage whisper, she added, "I'm going to sneak out of here for a moment with Reese. You remember how hard it was to keep your hands off him, I'm sure. — Jessica Lemmon

Your self-esteem is a notch below Kafka. — Woody Allen

I have never thought you weren't good enough for me. The fear I always had, deep down in my heart, is that I'm not good enough for you."
Murmurs of astonishment rippled through the room but he didn't seem to notice.
"You see, I was never the one who could make you laugh." He glanced at Lawrence, then back at her.
"I was never the one who made coronets of rosebuds for your hair and told you that you were pretty."
He swallowed hard, and his chin lifted a notch, telling her as clearly as any word how difficult it was for him to reveal himself this way.
"I always wanted to say those things, do those things, but I couldn't, for a gentleman is not supposed to behave that way. A gentleman is not supposed to fall in love with the chef's daughter. But right now, today, I don't give a damn what gentlemen do. I'm just a man, and the only thing I care about is you. — Laura Lee Guhrke

One cannot help but be impressed by this music. The musicianship is top-notch, the performances unpredictable and full of surprises, and Eric Starr's writing is consistently inventive. — Scott Yanow

I loved seeing my name in print, I loved seeing my words in print. I felt really privileged to be in the kind of company I was in at Esquire, but I didn't think it was going to launch a career as a top-notch journalist. It's just not what I wanted. — Laurence Shames

I guess people feel like they kind of know me. The game developer me, or the Twitter persona, that's Notch. It's a censored version. The real me is Markus. — Markus Persson

I don't want a boyfriend just for the sake of it. I don't trust most people out there. There's too much at risk and I don't need to be a notch on somebody's bedpost. I'll flirt with you all night long, but then it's buh, bye! — Mariah Carey

A Kiss concert experience is like sex or anything else that's done with more that one person. It's the give and take that makes it so great. When the audience takes it to the next level, we can kick it up another notch. — Paul Stanley

I would have made her a part of me. If I could, I would have had a notch cut in my already aging side and a slip of her, my young rose, inserted there and lashed to me with twine. — John Banville

I don't have the relationship that I thought I did with my fans. Maybe I did early on when I had a couple thousand fans, but it's not like us anymore. It's the idea of Notch and the 'Minecraft' community. — Markus Persson

I love my jeans and my sweats-I'm really just a tomboy at heart. So it's really hard for me to be like Kim Kardashian and be makeup-and hair-ready every time I go out of my house. I'm not a believer in that, you know? On the other hand, when you do wear those sweats, you're like, Oh God, I should step it up a notch. — Britney Spears

He's laughing me into a stupor, she thought. I could heckle, I suppose, I could throw a bread roll at him, but he's eaten them all. She glanced at the other diners, all of them going into their act, and thought is this what it all boils down to? Romantic love, is this all it is, a talent show? Eat a meal, go to bed, fall in love with me and I promise you years and years of top notch material like this? — David Nicholls

Ruthlessness, charm, focus, mental toughness, fearlessness, mindfulness (living in the moment), and action. Who wouldn't, at certain points in their lives, benefit from kicking one or two of them up a notch? What was important was being able to turn them back down. — Kevin Dutton

That's when I notice Cheryl and Mickey cuddled up on the couch. She's leaning on his shoulder, his arm around her, her leg across his lap. Cheryl throws glances at Kerry that say, "Look at me!" while Kerry shoots a "You go, girl!" smirk right back. I think of CK, how he and I often sat like that. Not because we were seconds from making out or wanted to look like a couple, but just out of a deep, platonic connection. My heart hits a higher notch on the ache-o-meter, my teeth sear into my bottom lip, and then something inside me snaps as cleanly as a crayon. — Kea Alwang

If we could do high-speed rail in California just half a notch above what they've done on the Shanghai line in China, and if we had a straight path from L.A. to San Francisco, as well as the milk run, at least that would be progress. — Elon Musk

I come from a long line of body snatchers, probably the top-notch body snatchers in America. No make that the world. Some people might think it's gross digging up bones or corpses, but who asked them? It's no big deal, but then I've been doing it since I got out of diapers. — Minda Webber

Take a look at the scaly witches round your local shopping center, many of them with children. Grim enough with their clothes on. Imagine them naked! Snatches that yo-yo between their knees, breasts so flaccid you could tie them in a knot. One would have to be literally galvanized on Spanish Fly even to consider it. Yet it gets done somehow. Look at the kids. - The teenager may be more spontaneous, doglike, etc., but it's generally only another name on the list, only another notch on the cock. — Martin Amis

My mommy said my daddy fights bad men and wins. She says he likes to fish and he knows how to play really cool games." Her chin lifted a notch in a surfeit of pride. "She said my daddy will love me more than a kid loves ice cream. My mommy doesn't lie to me, so you lied to her when you told her you were my daddy. You are not my daddy! She screamed the final declaration to him, dry-eyed and filled with childish fury. — Lora Leigh

I'm not the girl who swings from the chandeliers and screws men because she can, fixing her lipstick in the rear view mirror of a cab hailed at dawn. I'm the girl you call Wednesday for Saturday. The girl who reads Milton for fun and knows a fish fork when she sees one. A flirt maybe, but in that harmless, nineteenth-century, kiss-my-hand-and-ask-me-to-waltz kind of way. Mostly, I'm a thinker, a worrier. Since I'm a New Yorker, you can take that last bit up a notch. It's not that there's no free spirit in me. But it's a free spirit with a five-year plan. — Elizabeth Bard

Rush has done some top-notch quality work, and we're very, very pleased with them. We really enjoy working with them. They are on time and on budget, which makes me happy. — Mark Russell

I wanted other people who have curiosity to understand they can kick it up a notch and it's a superpower. — Brian Grazer

Spain has some of the richest culinary traditions and truly appreciates food that is simply prepared with top-notch ingredients. — Emeril Lagasse

He knocked again and his smile broadened. "Knock, knock," he added, at once giving himself away. He was pleased to hear that her heartbeat kicked up another notch. "Let me in?" he requested softly. Then, in a slightly deeper tone filled with amusement, he added, "I won't bite." It was what he had said to her outside of her apartment several days ago. It held a lot more meaning now — Heather Killough-Walden

"I am not just another notch on your belt?" she asked him. "Of course not." he said as he put a mark on the chalkboard. — Jay Leno

I don't commit to things unless I have my A-team to do it. And I'm not trying to be cocky, but that shows in my productions. They are top notch! — Cameron Mackintosh

I look at each day as a chance to move one notch above yesterday - whether it's in service quality, delivery, speed, or any other aspect of the business. — Daniel Snyder

If only you could talk to girls in equations."
There was a long silence, and then, eyes trained on the notch they'd created in the link, Wylan said, "Just girls? — Leigh Bardugo

If you get earaches, I'd turn my volume down a notch or two for you. Cause I will do anything for you. — Alice Cooper

The secret of being a top-notch con man is being able to know what the mark wants, and how to make him think he's getting it. — Ken Kesey

Yet one more item is needed to complete success, and that is the rendering of service to others in the community. Without this the mere satisfaction of selfish desire does not reach the top notch. — Robert Baden-Powell

You want me to list characteristics of a ... ?"
"Potential mate, yes, that would be helpful ... "
Without meaning to, I looked sideways at Patch. He was eased back in his seat, one notch above a slouch, studying me with satisfaction. He flashed his pirate smile and mouthed, We're waiting.
I stacked my hands on the table, hoping I lookedmore composed than I felt. "I've never thought about it before."
"Well, think fast."
"Could you call on someone else first?"
Coach gestured impatiently to my left. "You're up, Patch."
Unlike me, Patch spoke with confidence. He had himself positioned so his body was angled slightly toward mine, our knees mere inches apart.
"Intelligent. Attractive. Vulnerable — Becca Fitzpatrick

If you put sexual attraction on a scale of one to ten, where ten equals "you can't keep your hands off each other,"five equals "you can take it or leave it," and one equals "repulsed," to support a vibrant relationship, it should be at least a seven, preferably an eight, nine, or ten. With work, you might raise the attraction one notch, but because there is so much biochemistry involved in sexual attraction, it's hard to do much more than that. So if a sexual attraction doesn't evolve, remember, it's not anyone's fault and it's just the what is of your pairing, and you might make better friends than lovers.

Sexual attraction doesn't have to be instantaneous on first meeting, but it must eventually flower because it provides a basic glue for successful conjugal union. If we're not sexually alive to our beloved, it often leads to a subdued relationship, loneliness, affairs, or lots of fantasies. — Charlotte Kasl

temperature in the storehouse seemed to have risen a notch. I guessed it was my anxiety. The air was faintly smoky, as if somebody was smoking a cigarette. Takeo smoked. I remembered his long-ago offer of a cigarette. I'd declined and bhe had never smoked in my presence after that. Was he inside and smoking as he leisurely made his way toward me? No, he wasn't the one. I knew that the danger was Eriko Iwata. I heard — Libby Fischer Hellmann

I wanted to tell them that, in Kabul, we snapped a tree branch and used it as a credit card. Hassan and I would take the wooden stick to the bread maker. He'd carve notches on our stick with his knife, one notch for each loaf of naan he'd pull for us from the tandoor's roaring flames. At the end of the month, my father paid him for the number of notches on the stick. That was it. No questions. No ID. — Khaled Hosseini

Amanda groaned and pressed against his hand, seeking more stimulation. He kept his touch maddeningly light, resting his thumb just above the delicate rise of female flesh that had become swollen and unbearably sensitive. She trembled and writhed as he circled his thumb in tickling swirls.
Carefully he brought their loins together, not penetrating her, just allowing the sensitive underside of his sex to rub into the wet notch between her legs. Each jolt of the well-sprung carriage urged their bodies together. — Lisa Kleypas

Song I try to make the step-down call of the chickadee, but do it too insistently, over and over so it loses sense, the air going equally out and back, not slower in the opening, then quickening as the tight hinge retracts, but absolutely evenly, too even, the way one breathes and regulates breath for a doctor, to present the body's equanimity. There's a bird in a tree with a hinge in its throat, a door opening to let the sweet air pass from a high, thin place down a notch. There's phlox out there, opening between one black and another black, hanging branch of an apple tree - the very tree that holds the bird that bends the air so parenthetically around itself, and its song around anything listening. — Lia Purpura

As far as I could tell, my history teacher had three passions in life: quoting Shakespeare, identifying historical inaccuracies in cable TV shows, and berating Ryan Washburn. "Eighteen sixty-three, Mr. Washburn. Is that so hard to remember? Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in eighteen sixty-three." Ryan was a big guy: a little on the quiet side, a little shy. I had no idea what it was about him that had convinced Mr. Simpson he needed to be taken down a notch - or seven. But more and more, this was how history class went: Simpson called on Ryan, repeatedly, until he made a mistake. And then it began. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

I just gave you permission to fuck me, but be clear: I'm not another notch on your belt. You're a notch on mine. — Lisa Renee Jones

Regret is pointless. I never do anything without first deciding to do it based on facts and feelings, and if it doesn't work out how I hoped, oh well - there's another notch on my experience belt. — Isaac Marion

Do you think music has the power to change people? Like you listen to a piece and go through some major change inside?"
Oshima nodded."Sure, that can happen. We have an experience - like a chemical reaction - that transforms something inside us. When we examine ourselves later on, we discover that all the standards we've lived by have shot up another notch and the world's opened up in unexpected ways. Yes, I've had that experience. Not often, but it has happened. It's like falling in love. — Haruki Murakami

I just wasn't able to say it before now.'
He blinked. 'You needed to knee a man in the groin before you could tell me you loved me?'
'No!' Then she thought about his words. 'Well, yes, in a way. I've always been so fearful that you would run my life. But I've learned that having you with me doesn't mean that I can't take care of myself as well.'
'You certainly made short work of Eversleigh.'
Her chin lifted a notch and she allowed herself a satisfied smile. 'Yes, I did, didn't I? And do you know, but I think I couldn't have done it without you.'
'Victoria, you did this all on your own. I wasn't even present.'
'Yes, you were.' She picked up his hand and placed it over her heart. — Julia Quinn

I really got into Osho's books. I have always loved his books. They were top notch. — Marianne Williamson

Really top-notch directors, I've often worked with them just to see how they work. — Alan Alda

Of course, rivals do affect athletes mentally, but if you are competing with top-notch athletes, you will push each other, you will encourage each other. — Liu Xiang