Propped Quotes & Sayings

It was one of those decisions that shouldn't have been so easy to get so wrong. Go on your own or take the half wasted waif. She was wearing denim hotpants with a pink vest top, and was hanging off his arm, more for stability than closeness, so he propped her up against the wall next to the counter and reached inside his coat pocket for his badge. It was definitely his badge, he clearly remembered stealing it two years before whilst in California. — Dylan Perry

Will Solace sighed. He was, of course, tied to Nico. He propped his elbow on Nico's shoulder as if the son of Hades were a convenient shelf. — Rick Riordan

I grew up, really, in the days before air conditioning. So I can remember what it was like to be really hot, for instance, and I can remember what it was like when your barber shop and your local stores weren't air conditioned, so it was hot when you went in them and they propped the doors open. — Bill Bryson

What are you terrible at?" I asked, running my hand across his starched shirt. Encouraged by the touch, Maxon drew circles on my shoulder with the hand he had wrapped behind my back.
"Why would you want to know that?" He asked in mock irritation.
"Becaue I still know so little about you. And you seem perfect all the time.It's nice to have proof you aren't.
He propped himself up on an elbow, focusing on my face.
"You know I'm not."
"Pretty close,' I countered. Little flickers of touch ran betwen us. Knees, arms, fingers.
He shook his head, a small smile on his face. "Okay then. I can't plan wars. I'm rotten at it. And I'm guessing I'd be a terrible cook. I've never tried, so-"
"Never?"
"You might have noticed the teams of people keeping you up to your neck in pastries? They happen to feed me as well. — Kierra Cass

Right," Chaol said. "So you're just ... memorizing that information now?"
"If you're suggesting that I have no reason to be here and to leave, then tell me to go."
"I'm just trying to figure out what's so boring that you dozed off 10 minutes ago."
She propped herself up onto her elbows. "I did not!"
His eyebrows rose. "I heard you snoring."
"You're a liar, Chaol Westfall." She threw her paper at him at ploppedback on the couch. "I only closed my eyes for a minute."
He shook his head again and went back to work.
Celaena blushed. "I didn't really snore, did I?"
His face was utterly serious as he said, "Like a bear. — Sarah J. Maas

I'm sweaty and sore and I can feel his come leaking out of my ass and onto the pillow he propped under me. I really hope Mrs. Gieger is well compensated. — Jana Aston

Laurence kept sneaking looks under the table at his propped-open copy of Have Space Suit - Will Travel. He was already halfway through the book. — Charlie Jane Anders

Noah propped himself up on his elbow, his wicked grin in place. "Do you have any idea how long I've wanted to see you on this bed?"
"Nope." The hem of my sweater rode up from our fall, exposing my belly button. Noah traced circles onto the skin of my stomach, down to the material of my low-rise jeans. His touch sent a combination of tickles and chills through my body. My heart sped up and I struggled to keep my breathing normal.
Every Noah rumor had been right. His kisses curled my toes and now his simple touch rocked my body. Fear mingled with the pleasure in my bloodstream. — Katie McGarry

My sister, Judy, has always said that she would like to lie in state, propped up in her coffin with her eyes blared wide open, face fixed in a big grin, and have a taped greeting for all her mourners. Something real upbeat and, well, live-sounding, like: 'He-e-e-ey!Cuteshoestellyomamahi! — Jill Conner Browne

He lay on the bed, freshly shaven and washed, legs crossed at the ankles and arms propped behind his head. His posture said, Yes, ladies. I truly am this handsome. And I don't even have to try. — Tessa Dare

I get a message from my dad. In the mood I'm in, I tear up to see his name in my inbox, and imagine him down the hall in bed, propped on pillows, emailing me.
"Hon,
Enjoyed our gelato date the other night. I just want to say I'm proud of you for a lot of reasons. Also, I've attached a picture of my foot."
He's such a weirdo goofball. I love him. — Sara Zarr

On the hop from Manchester to New York, she and Bill settled into adjoining seats at the front of the jet. They fell asleep, her head on his shoulder and his head propped against hers. — Jonathan Allen

I moved to the counter. A note was propped on the register. Welcome home, Ms. Lane. Arrogant, overconfident jackass. — Karen Marie Moning

But Hey, Guess What
Crazy means I'm not liable
for my actions. So screw it,
I'll go home, propped up on
Prozac against distractions — Ellen Hopkins

Hey. She said, looking up from an open book propped up on one knee. She brushed a few strands of pale hair out of her face. Her boyfriend, Christian, lay on the floor near her, his head propped up on her other knee. He greeted me by way of a nod. Concidering the antagonism the sometimes flared up between us, that was almost on par with him giving me a bear hug. — Richelle Mead

But my heart is always propped up in a field on its tripod, ready for the next arrow. — Billy Collins

Alex propped himself against the metal railing where Willow had just stood. "Okay, let's get something straight," he said in Spanish."If you think I don't know you're after my girfriend, you're crazy. And if you try to put any sleazy moves on her while you're here, you're going to regret it." Seb's knapsack was at his feet. He took out a pack of cigarettes; tapped out the last one and lit it.Settling back against the door jamb, he gave Alex a considering, faintly humorous look. "Sleazy moves?" he repeated. "Don't worry, I don't do sleazy moves."
"Let me rephrase," said Alex coldly "Any moves, just keep your hands off her. — L.A. Weatherly

Kat," Hale groaned, then fell back onto the pillows.
"Funny, I didn't hear a doorbell."
"I let myself in; hope that's okay."
Hale smiled. "Or the alarm."
She stepped inside, tossed a pocket-size bag of tools onto the bed.
"You're due for an upgrade."
Hale propped himself against the antique headboard and squinted up at her.
"She returns." He crossed his arms across his bare chest. "You know, I could be naked in here. — Ally Carter

I like stories"
He propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at her. "What sort of stories?"
"Stories with magic and intrigue. Tragedy. And Love."
"Ah yes...love. You can't have a story without love."
Joanna giggled and nodded, relaxing. "Well, you can have a boring story without love — Delilah Dove

Clay sat back in his chair and propped his feet on his desk as he took a sip from his coffee cup. If these two assholes wanted to kill each other, he didn't care as long as they didn't get blood on the floor, or move one piece of furniture. — Alex Morgan

When Hel and I were Fivers, a Barbarian raiding party took us prisoner. I was trussed like a festival-day goat, but they tied Helene's hands in front of her with twine and propped her on the back of a pony, assuming she was harmless. That night, she used the twine to garrote three of our jailers and broke the necks of the other three with her bare hands.
"They always underestimate me," she said afterward, sounding puzzled. — Sabaa Tahir

The Questioner was repacking his tools with a vague air of disappointment. Deciding my legs were steady enough to carry me, I propped myself to my feet, then turned towards my would-be torturer. 'You got a cigarette?' I asked.
He shook his head, the burned red crown of his hood bobbing. 'I don't smoke,' he said without taking his eyes off his work. 'That stuff will kill you. — Daniel Polansky

I wonder why the mountain men's wives don't seem to mind them drinking so much and dancing with other women?" Emma's propped up her chin with her fist, her elbow resting on her knee, as she watched the goings-on. Davis grinned. "You see the size of those men? I'm sure they do whatever it is they want to do. Most Ute women tend to be easy on their men. Besides, not everyone has an exemplary husband such as myself." She slanted him a look and smirked. — Callie Hutton

Lying in their field above the sea, watching the sun go down and the darkness creep over the field so that they were wrapped together in shadow. Will propped himself on one elbow beside her, is finger curling strands of her dark hair until it was bound so tight it pulled her scalp and she cried out, and then he bent over her, kissed her, so,so tenderly, and she thought she would die with happiness. They had made love, the very first time. — Julia Green

A pie so delicate, so luscious, that I hope to be propped up on my dying bed and fed a generous portion. Then I think that I should refuse outright to die, for life would be too good to relinquish. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Memory is capricious. I can look back and see decadence, old bigots, the constant racial slurs, the bores, the wild cards, the bighearted, the family album of alcoholics, the saints, the old aunt propped in a chair saying only "da-da," the slow-motion suicides, but at four, six, ten, they loomed, powerful, not as types but as themselves. Among them, logic takes wing." (pg. 31) — Frances Mayes

propped up a little as her eyes adjusted. She hardly ever got to watch Roarke sleep. Most of the time he rose before she did. And sleep for her tended to be wandering in lucid, often disturbing dreams, — J.D. Robb

Napier surfaced next to her and propped his arms on the ledge. "I meant to ask - can you swim?"
"No," she said through chattering teeth, "Actually I can't."
He cocked his head to the side and looked perplexed. "Your lips are blue."
"I'm cold," she said curtly.
"Want me to warm you up?" he asked, grinning.
"I'd rather be cold," she snapped, hating him more by the second. — Emory Sharplin

My thoughts are free to roam back to the way she leaned her head on my arm for a split second, as if wishing she could let herself go, let herself lean farther. But she didn't, and I can't help but respect her for that, even I know her strength is false, propped up by the shaky girders of Old Man Jack. One day soon, those girders will collapse, and her world will crumble, and I know I have to be there when that happens. — Jasinda Wilder

It is not biology alone but heroism too that drives women to find the will and grit and creativity to put one's own impulses aside to serve the needs of a tiny creature around the clock - especially in an environment in which that heroic choice is only casually acknowledged, much less honored, cherished, or assisted. I believe the myth about the ease and naturalness of mothering - the ideal of the effortlessly ever-giving mother - is propped up, polished, and promoted as a way to keep women from thinking clearly and negotiating forcefully about what they need from their partners and from society at large in order to mother well, without having to sacrifice themselves in the process. — Naomi Wolf

Why, a moral truth is a hollow tooth Which must be propped with gold. — Edgar Lee Masters

When Goya was 80 he drew an ancient man propped on two sticks, with a great mass of white hair and beard all over his face, and the inscription, "I am still learning." — Simone De Beauvoir

There were thousands of brown books in leather bindings, some chained to the book-shelves and others propped against each other as if they had had too much to drink and did not really trust themselves. These gave out a smell of must and solid brownness which was most secure. — T.H. White

Before he could answer, the front door flew open and a little girl ran out, skidding to a halt inches from them. "Daddy?" The concern in the tiny child's eyes melted Shay's heart.
"Josie," Shay whispered.
Josie propped her fists on her hips, and she cocked her head to the side. "How do you know my name?"
"Joselynn, be nice and go get your nana."
Her lower lip trembled, but she turned and ran back inside. — Lia Davis

She fell asleep, leaning on his chest, and he edged her a little off a particularly painful bruise, leaned his head back against the tree he had propped them up against, and closed his own eyes. — Robin McKinley

The studies about differences between the sexes that you see kind of get propped up in the media are more often than not denigrating women in some way, saying that women really don't have any spatial understanding, and that's why they can't park. — Jessica Valenti

He propped his cane up, placed his arm on the wall beside her and leaned casually, close to her. Closer than was proper. Her womanly essence sent his thoughts scattering. "Gwyneth, I wonder, have you ever had a kiss that near took your breath away?"
Her cheeks reddened even more.
"I confess, just the thought of kissing you the way I would like does that to me. — Vonda Sinclair

Robots can now milk cows. Oil prices have fallen globally, meaning both the petro-states and those indirectly propped up by them are weakened. At the same time, slower growth in China has lately shrunk its voracious appetite for African, Australian, and Latin American commodities. China accounted for more than a third of global growth in recent years, and its growth engine multiplied the growth of many of the countries that exported raw materials to Beijing. That has slowed. China's total debt has grown from roughly 150 percent of its GDP in 2007 to around 240 percent today - a massive increase in one decade that is dampening its growth and its imports and shrinking China's wallet for foreign aid and investment in African and Latin American commodity-exporting countries. In — Thomas L. Friedman

I'll die propped up in bed trying to do a poem about America. — Carl Sandburg

Intrigued, Maxon propped himself up on one arm to listen. Tell me everything. — Kiera Cass

Hours later, Adam propped himself up on an elbow and stared down at Gabrielle, pondering what made beauty.
He thought he was beginning to understand. It wasn't symmetry of features; it wasn't perfection. It was uniqueness. That which one person had that no other possessed. That which was only their own. — Karen Marie Moning

One last Friday I handed Mrs. Croft eight one-dollar bills in an envelope, brought my suitcase downstairs, and informed her that I was moving. She put my key into her change purse. The last thing she asked me to do was hand her the cane propped against the table, so that she could walk to the door and lock it behind me. "Good-bye, then," she said, and retreated back into the house. I did not expect any display of emotion, but I was disappointed all the same. I was only a boarder, a man who paid her a bit of money and passed in and out of her home for six weeks. Compared to a century, it was no time at all. — Anonymous

One ancient retired Air Force nurse does nothing but screams 'Help!' for hours at a time from a second-story window. Not six weeks ago, a huge stole HELP WANTED sign was found attached right below the retired shrieking nurse's window.
Unit #5, kittycorner across the little street from Ennet House, is for catatonics and various vegetablish, fetal-positioned mental patients. It is, understandably, a pretty quiet place. But in nice weather, when its more portable inmates are carried out and placed in the front lawn to take the air, standing there propped-up and staring, they present a tableau it took Gately some time to get used to. A couple newer residents got discharged late in Gately's treatment for tossing firecrackers into the crowd of catatonics on the lawn to see if they could get them to jump around or display affect. — David Foster Wallace

When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb. The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one's ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the fender, of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy canaries. — Kenneth Grahame

Are you both drunk?" I headed up the ladder and propped myself on a swing with no problem.
"Correction, dear brother." Hex held one finger in the air. "We're exquisitely tipsy. — Kenya Wright

The Times carried detailed descriptions of Sara's ivory gown and the five-carat blue diamond on her finger, the Cravens' reported opinions of the play, and speculation on whether Derek was truly a "reformed rake." "There's not a word of truth in any of it," Derek said. "Except the part where they said you were resplendent." "Thank you, kind sir." Sara set down the paper and reached over to toy with one of the large soapy feet propped on the porcelain rim of the tub. She wriggled his big toe playfully. "What about the part that says you're reformed?" "I'm not. I still do everything I used to do ... except now only with you." "And quite impressively," she replied, her tone demure. — Lisa Kleypas

You are on your back at the foot of an aspen. In its trembling shade. She at right angles propped on her elbows head between her hands. Your eyes opened and closed have looked in hers looking in yours. In your dark you look in them again. Still. You feel on your face the fringe of her long black hair stirring in the still air. Within the tent of hair your faces are hidden from view. She murmurs, Listen to the leaves. Eyes in each other's eyes you listen to the leaves. In their trembling shade. — Samuel Beckett

And then Harry Potter had launched in to a speech that was inspiring, yet vague. A speech to the effect that Fred and George and Lee had tremendous potential if they could just learn to be weirder. To make people's live surreal, instead of just surprising them with the equivalents of buckets of water propped above doors. (Fred and George had exchanged interested looks, they'd never thought of that one.) Harry Potter had invoked a picture of the prank they'd pulled on Neville - which, Harry had mentioned with some remorse, the Sorting Hat had chewed him out on - but which must have made Neville doubt his own sanity. For Neville it would have felt like being suddendly transported into an alternate universe. The same way everyone else had felt when they'd seen Snape apologize. That was the true power of pranking. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

A cowboy, a lawyer, and a mechanic watched Queen of the Damned," I murmured.
Warren - who had once, a long time ago, been a cowboy - snickered and wiggled his bare feet. "It could be the beginning of either a bad joke or a horror story."
"No," said Kyle, the lawyer, whose head was propped up on my thigh. "If you want a horror story, you have to start out with a werewolf, his gorgeous lover, and a walker. — Patricia Briggs

Taylen," Glate whispered, wrapping his arm around my waist. "Are you okay?"
Was I okay? No. I was a complete and utter wreck, but there was no way in hell I was going to show him that. "I'm dandy."
"You're a terrible liar." He propped himself up on his elbow, and leaned in closer, resting his chin on my shoulder. My body was well aware of how close he was, and it took everything in me to fight the urge to turn and face him. Teenage hormones were the absolute worst. "You know how I can tell?" he asked, running a single finger down my arm.
"How?" the word barely escaped my lips.
"Your voice trembles," he whispered. Glate moved his hand to my hips and pulled me back towards him. "Whenever you lie, you get this slight tremble in your voice. It's almost as if you're scared to admit the truth, so you try to conjure up a lie, but the fear engulfs your words on the way out, calling your bluff. — Nicole Sobon

He turned, picked up a bundle he'd left propped against the steps, and, grinning, held it out. It was a beautiful bunch of red roses, tied with an expensive silk ribbon. "Here, I got you a present. It's to celebrate." "Gareth - " she shook her head and looked at him in mock exasperation - "if you're going to start being frugal, you can't be wasting money on buying me flowers. Money should be spent on necessities!" He grinned. "Do you like them?" "Of course I do, but that's not the point - " "I said, do you like them?" "Well, yes, but - " "Then they are a necessity. Now, go fetch Charlotte and let's get out of London before the neighborhood awakes, shall we?" He gazed down at his humble clothes with a mixture of amusement and ruefulness. "I don't want to give those miserable old gits anything more to talk about than they already have." ~~~~ — Danelle Harmon

Then my gaze slid over the people to the blaze of green beyond the diaphanous
curtains, and I felt as if I were sitting in the window of an enormous department store. The figures around me weren't people, but shop dummies, painted to resemble people and propped up in attitudes counterfeiting life. — Sylvia Plath

[Kieran]his head propped on a stack of poetry books he'd brought from the library. Almost all of them had been inscribed on the inside cover by a James Herondale, who had neatly written out his favorite lines. — Cassandra Clare

Olivia sat back and propped her half-boots on the table. 'So far it's working. He has to return to me because I have his sister hostage.' She briefly put her fingertips to her lips. 'Did I just say that? I mean I'm protecting the baby sister and earning his trust — Kresley Cole

Hey there, sleeping beauty ... "
Over his shoulder, the sky had deepened to a denim blue. "Did you kiss me awake?"
"I did." Daemon was propped on his side, using his arm to support his head. He placed his hand on my stomach and my chest fluttered in response. "Told you, my lips have mystical powers."
My shoulders moved in a silent laugh. "How long have you been here?"
"Not long." His eyes searched mine. "I found Blake sulking around the woods. He didn't want to leave while you were out here."
I rolled my eyes.
"As much as it bothers me, I'm glad he didn't."
"Wow. Pigs are flying. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

What's a meet-cute?" Peter's lying on his side now, his head propped up on his elbow. He looks so adorable I could pinch his cheeks, but I refrain from saying so. His head is big enough as it is. "A meet-cute is when the hero and heroine meet for the very first time, and it's always in a charming way. It's how you know they're going to end up together. The cuter the better. — Jenny Han

He propped his hands on his hips, shook his head slightly and turned his gaze from the front of the building to meet her eyes, dead on. "It sounds ridiculous, but I want you to have dinner with me. Since we have an early night."
Those truths clamored louder. She shook her head.
"Why not?"
"I don't have time, Rogan." [ ... ]
"You don't have time to eat?" he asked.
Kennedy blew out a breath. "I don't have time for dating games."
"Good, neither do I."
"Then what's this?"
He let go of her and lifted his shoulders, hands out. "Flirtation?"
Something intangible popped, and the tension faded. She smiled. "I expected you to say foreplay. — Natalie J. Damschroder

Two weeks ago I didn't know what it felt like . . . to be pressed against a wall, to be propped up on a desk, to be made love to on the floor of the Venetian. — Kyra Davis

She's sitting propped up on the — Tawni O'Dell

It's a good thing you don't bring Lily in to the bar. If they see what a beautiful baby you made, we'll have to double our napkin orders."
He propped his elbows on the bar so his face was very close to hers.
"I can't make magic like Lily with any woman but you. — Shannon Stacey

Therese was propped up on one elbow. The milk was so hot, she could barely let her lip touch it at first. The tiny sips spread inside her mouth and released a melange of organic flavors. The milk seemed to taste of bone and blood, of warm flesh, or hair, saltless as chalk yet alive as a growing embryo. It was hot through and through to the bottom of the cup, and Therese drank it down, as people in fairy tales drink the potion that will transform, or the unsuspecting warrior the cup that will kill, Then Carol came and took the cup, and Therese was drowsily aware that Carol asked her three questions, on that had to do with happiness, one about the store and one about the future. Therese heard herself answering. She heard her voice rise suddenly in a babble, like a spring that she had no control over, and she realized she was in tears. She was telling Carol all that she feared and disliked, of her loneliness, of Richard, and of gigantic disappointments. — Patricia Highsmith

What's that for?"
A flash of hurt crossed his face. "What? I can't buy you a gift?" he asked, in a tone that nearly stopped the electric pulses in her wiring.
"No. Not after I've ignored six of your comms in the last week. Are you dense?"
"So you did get them!"
She propped her elbows on the table, sinking her chin into both palms. "Of course I got them."
"So why are you ignoring me? Did I do something?"
"No. Yes. — Marissa Meyer

The Thwaites lived on Central Park West in the upper Eighties, in a building that, while manifestly grand, particularly to someone from Ohio, was by no means the most elegant among its neighbors. Its lobby, for one thing, was little more than a wide corridor, with two drably upholstered wing chairs propped against a wall and, between them, a glass table upon which rested an elaborate but unaesthetic arrangement of silk flowers. The light in the corridor was greenish, dim and lavatorial, barely illuminating the shallowly carved figures that marched, in pseudo-Egyptian fashion, along the pink stone tiles as far as the elevator. The floor, incongruously, was of a black and white parquet, upon which all but the softest slippers echoed ominously. And the elevator itself - paneled, with brass fixtures and a single tiny red velvet stool, presumably for its operator's comfort - seemed again of a different, though no less ancient, era. — Claire Messud

Then you agree that you should keep me." With the smug satisfaction of an argument won, he propped his shoulder against the stall door. Her eyes picked him over as if he were a carved goose on a table. "Aye, I'll have to either keep you ... or kill you." "I vote for keeping me." A glint of humor shone in her eyes. "And I shall so long as you behave yourself." "And if I don't behave? If I try to escape?" "I'll hunt you down and kill you." The conviction in her voice chilled him, and yet he felt something else, an ache of pity that a wonderful creature like Caitlin MacBride should be compelled to have the heart of a murderer. "Then you leave me no alternative," he said lightly. "I shall stay. Think of it, Cait, we'll grow old together. We'll walk on the strand and watch the sunset, and you'll sing songs to me in that lovely voice of yours. — Susan Wiggs

According to St. Augustine, the left hand represented the temporal, the mortal, and the bodily, as opposed to the right, which stood for "God, eternity, the years of God which fail not."25 For centuries the preference for the right hand over the left governed how people fished, ploughed fields, twisted rope, and ate their meals. The Greeks and Romans, for example, always reclined on the left side, propped on the left elbow, leaving the right hand free for the business of eating and drinking. Plutarch noted that parents taught children to eat right-handed from a young age, and "if they do put forth the left hand, at once we correct them."26 The prejudice against the left hand persisted during the Renaissance, with parents freeing a child's right hand from its swaddling clothes to ensure right-handedness at the dinner table as well as at the writing desk. — Ross King

My ex-wife was trying to be nice once, so she took me to a concert in Los Angeles. I went with her to Symphony Hall, and the orchestra was playing. When the show started, the spotlight was sharp on this one man (Andres Segovia) and he had sombrero on and his guitar propped up like this and, oh man ... he was a master ! - I really heard it. That one guitar sounded like a whole orchestra to me. — B.B. King

This is modern liberalism in action: an unregulated virtue-exchange in which representatives of one class of humanity ritually forgive the sins of another class, all of it convened and facilitated by a vast army of well-graduated American professionals, their reassuring expertise propped up by bogus social science, while the unfortunate objects of their high and noble compassion sink slowly back into a preindustrial state. — Thomas Frank

It seemed to Rand like years since there had not been firewood to split. But complaining would not keep the house warm, so he fetched the axe, propped up bow and quiver beside the chopping block, and got to work. Pine for a quick, hot flame, and oak for long burning. — Robert Jordan

Rolfe unlocked the door, muttering, "This had better be worth my time," and stalked into the awaiting dimness beyond. Then stopped dead.
Even in the watery light, Dorian could perfectly see the woman sitting at Rolfe's desk, her black clothes dirty, weapons gleaming, and her feet propped on the dark wooden surface.
Aelin Galathynius, her hands laced behind her head, grinned at them all and said, "I like this office far better thank your old one Rolfe. — Sarah J. Maas

He laced his hands behind his neck and propped his boots on the opposite arm of the sofa. If an artist were to capture this image, it would have been labeled,Smugness: A Portrait. She wanted to shake him. — Tessa Dare

In my parents' house, nothing was ever thrown away. Clothes piled up, formed drifts that grew into mountains Philip, Baron, and I would climb and leap from. The heaps of garments filled the hallway and chased my parents out of their own bedroom, so that they eventually slept in the room that was once Dad's office. Empty bags and boxes filled gaps in the clutter, boxes that once held rings and sneakers and clothes. A trumpet that my mother wanted to make into a lamp rested atop a stack of tattered magazines filled with articles Dad planned to read, near the heads and feet and arms of dolls Mom promised she would stitch together for a kid from Carney, all beside an endless heap of replacement buttons, some still in their individual glassine bags. A coffeemaker rested on a tower of plates, propped up on one end to keep coffee from flooding the counters. — Holly Black

That Chippendale is a coffee table, Lieutenant, not a footstool."
"How do you walk with that stick up your ass?" She left her feet where they were, propped comfortably on the table. "Does it hurt, or does it give you a nice little rush?"
"Your dinner guests," he said, curling his lip, "have arrived."
"Thank you, Summerset." Roarke got to his feet. "We'll have the hors d'oeuvres in here." He held out a hand to Eve.
She waited, deliberately, until Summerset had stepped out again before swinging her feet to the floor.
"In the interest of good fellowship," Roarke began as they started toward the foyer, "could you not mention the stick in Summerset's ass for the rest of the evening?"
"Okay. If he rags on me I'll just pull it out and beat him over the head with it."
"That should be entertaining. — J.D. Robb

This is not exactly what I had in mind when I agreed to miss lunch," Alex said grumpily forty minutes later. He shifted uncomfortably and tried to see what I was doing.
I stared him back into submission. "Wait."
The art room is usually empty Thursday afternoons except for me. Ms. Evers leaves early to teach her UArts class and looks up.Of course, I am one of the few entrusted with the Secret Location of the Key.
A few feet away from where I sat perched on a stool,Alex was posed on the anchient chaise we use for figure drawing. It's a relic, probably from the Palladinetti years: chipped mahogany and dusty velvet, what little remaining stuffing pokes out from a century of holes. I was probably luxurious once. Now it's like sitting on a slightly smelly board. But I'd wanted to sketch Alex as I so often saw him, reclining with his head propped on one hand,listening or talking or coaxing me to put down the glass, already,Ella,and come here. — Melissa Jensen

It doesn't benefit me to lie to people. They're eventually going to find out the truth, and then where am I? That's the problem with liberalism and socialism, by the way: it has to be propped up by lies. — Rush Limbaugh

Cecilia knew she could not go on wasting her days in the stews of her untidied room, lying on her bed in a haze of smoke, chin propped on her hand, pins and needles spreading up through her arm as she read her way through Richardson's Clarissa. — Ian McEwan

She gulped her whiskey sour. The bar was hot tonight.
CJ circled back to check on them. "You ladies doing okay?"
"Define okay." Natalie's whiskey seemed to be talking. Because the whiskey was the only thing that could've put that husky, suggestive tone in her voice. Yep, that was all the whiskey.
He propped his elbows on the bar, which put his face level with hers, and fixed his undivided attention on her. There went her lady bits fanning themselves. With a few added whimpers. They remembered what his hands and body and lips felt like too.
"Content." His voice was low and raw, his gaze penetrating and unwavering. "Happy. Completely, one hundred percent satisfied."
Her mouth went dry while the rest of her went up in needy flames that made her want to scratch the all-but-gone rash he'd tended so well on Monday.
"Nope," Natalie squeaked. "Not okay then. — Jamie Farrell

Ronan wasn't exactly sure why he was angry. Although Gansey had done nothing to invoke his ire, he was definitely part of the problem. Currently, he propped his cell between ear and shoulder as he eyed a pair of plastic plates printed with smiling tomatoes. His unbuttoned collar revealed a good bit of his collarbone. No one could deny that Gansey was a glorious portrait of youth, the well-tended product of a fortunate and moneyed pairing. Ordinarily, he was so polished that it was bearable, though, because he was clearly not the same species as Ronan's rough-and-ready family. But tonight, under the fluorescent lights of Dollar City, Gansey's hair was scuffed and his cargo shorts were a greasy ruin from mucking over the Pig. He was barelegged and sockless in his Top-Siders and very clearly a real human, an attainable human, and this, somehow, made Ronan want to smash his fist through a wall. — Maggie Stiefvater

Jack?"
"Hmmm?"
"We are going to be all right, aren't we? I mean, the two of us?"
He groaned as he eased his feet onto the bed. He rolled on his side to face Mabel, reached to her, and ran his hand down her unbraided hair, again and again, without speaking. Mabel saw tears in the corners of his eyes, and she propped herself on an elbow. She leaned to him and kissed him on his closed wet eyelids.
"We will, Jack. We will be all right," and she cradled his head in the crook of her arm and let him cry. — Eowyn Ivey

Behind a rack of framed photos of Snow, we encounter a wounded Peacekeeper propped up against a strip of brick wall. He asks us for help. Gale knees him in the side of the head and takes his gun. — Suzanne Collins

What, you didn't pack your lunch?" Ty asked sarcastically as he
shifted around in the seat and wedged himself against the door. He kicked a
foot up and propped it on the console between the two front seats.
"Sure, in my SpongeBob SquarePants lunch box. I have the thermos,
too," Morrison shot right back.
Zane kept his mouth shut, eyes moving between the two men, and
occasionally back to the driver, who was casually paying attention.
Ty stared at the kid and narrowed his eyes further. "Spongewhat?" he
asked flatly.
Zane didn't even try to hold back the chuckle when Morrison looked
at Ty like he'd lost his mind.
"Spongewha ... you're yanking my chain, aren't you?" Morrison
said. "Henny, he's yanking my chain."
"Yeah, well, that's what you getting for waving it in his face," the
driver answered reasonably.
"What the hell is a SpongeBob?" Ty asked Zane quietly in the
backseat. — Madeleine Urban

Rebecca, standing at the window, felt a tiny smile inside her getting larger - how delicious it would be: one moment of perfect joy, propped up and righteous with booze, to let that first punch fly. — Elizabeth Strout

I came home to find him propped up on a stack of pillows, sipping blood through a crazy straw (because it amused Zeb) and wearing Star Wars pajamas (because it amused Dick). — Molly Harper

As I sit here writing to you, I have propped my stocking feet much too close to the hearth. I've actually singed my stockings on occasion, and once I had to stomp out my feet when they started smoking. Even after that I can't seem to rid myself of the habit. There, now you could pick me out of a crowd blindfolded. Simply follow the scent of scorched stockings. — Lisa Kleypas

I'm Captain Logan MacKenzie. I received every last one of your missives, and despite your best attempts to kill me, I am verra much alive."
He propped a finger under her chin, tilting her face to his. So she would be certain to hear and believe his words.
"Madaline Eloise Gracechurch ... I've come here to marry you. — Tessa Dare

That night, after Gansey had gone to meet Blue, Ronan retrieved one of Kavinsky's green pills from his still-unwashed pair of jeans and returned to bed. Propped up in the corner, he stretched out his hand to Chainsaw, but she ignored him. She had stolen a cheese cracker and now was very busily stacking things on top of it to make sure Ronan would never take it back. Although she kept glancing back at his outstretched hand, she pretended not to see it as she added a bottle cap, an envelope, and a sock to the pile hiding the cracker. — Maggie Stiefvater

The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who are nearly half people and half bicycles ... when a man lets things go so far that he is more than half a bicycle, you will not see him so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones. — Flann O'Brien

A long suburb of red brick houses -some with patches of garden-ground, where coal-dust and factory smoke darkened the shrinking leaves, and coarse rank flowers, and where the struggling vegetation sickened and sank under the hot breath of kiln and furnace.
On mounds of ashes by the wayside, sheltered only by a few rough boards, or rotten pent-house roofs, strange engines spun and writhed like tortured creatures; clanking their iron chains, shrieking in their rapid whirl from time to time as though in torment unendurable, and making the ground tremble with their agonies.
Dismantled houses here and there appeared, tottering to the earth, propped up by fragments of others that had fallen down, unroofed, windowless, blackened, desolate, but yet inhabited. Men, women, children, wan in their looks and ragged in attire, tended the engines, fed their tributary fire, begged upon the road, or scowled half-naked from the doorless houses. — Charles Dickens

So Henry," Puck said as he kicked off his shoes and propped his smelly feet on the kitchen table. "I was wondering what you can tell me about puberty."
Henry turned pale and stammered.
Sabrina wanted to crawl under the table and die. — Michael Buckley

Damen pushed himself up on an elbow, and propped his head on his hand, his fingers in his hair. He saw that Laurent was looking at him. Not watching him, as he did sometimes, but looking at him, as a man might look at a carving that has caught his attention. — C.S. Pacat

The night she died, Dan found her propped up in her hospital bed; she appeared to have fallen asleep with the TV on and with the remote-control device held in her hand in such a way that the channels kept changing. But she was dead, not asleep, and her cold thumb had simply attached itself to the button that restlessly roamed the channels - looking for something good. At the time, in 1989, it seemed a fairly unusual way to die. Nowadays, I suspect, more and more people are dropping off that way. And we're still looking for something good on television. We won't find it. There's precious little on TV that can keep us awake or alive. Ever the prophet, Owen Meany was right about television, too. — John Irving

And whowasit youwasit propped the pot in the yard and whatinthe nameofsen lukeareyou rubbinthe sideofthe flureofthe lobbywith Shite! will you have a plateful? Tak. — James Joyce

I dropped the towel to the floor and crawled into the warm nest of the covers and Nathaniel's body. 'You sure you don't need to sleep more than you need sex?'
'Sex energizes me; you should know that by now.'
Nicky loomed over both of us, propped up on one shoulder. 'I vote you as an honorary lion.'
'High praise,' Nathaniel said. — Laurell K. Hamilton

His appreciative gaze set off an internal chain reaction--erratic heartbeat, rush of heat--like all her cells collectively blushed, sighed, and propped their chins in their hands to stare. Well, if cells had chins and hands. — Angela Quarles

Where is Simus?" Keir asked.

As if at his command, the flaps of the main entrance opened, and there was a commotion as Simus was borne aloft on a cot by four men, like the roast pig at the mid-winter festival. I had to smile, and saw that others in the crowd were not immune to the humor of the image.

"Make way!" Simus boomed out, his voice filled with laughter. "Make way!" He grinned like a fool, white teeth gleaming in his dark face, carried aloft over everyone's head, propped up with brightly colored pillows. But his joy changed to a yell of panic when one of his bearers stumbled slightly. This caused an outbreak of laughter in the crowd, as Simus berated his bearers for their clumsiness. — Elizabeth Vaughan

Where are we?" She sat up.
"My room at the cabin."
"Your room?"
He propped himself up on one elbow and shrugged his other shoulder. "Needed someplace soft to land. Besides ... Now when you teleport without a destination you've got a fifty-fifty chance of either ending up in the lake, or in my bed. I have to say, I like those odds."
"Ha-ha. — Jena Leigh

education and money. I go to church with the kids for the same reason Genie and I play our grandchildren classical music and litter the floors and chairs all over our home with open art books. Jack, age three, eats his lunch with a big Goya book propped in front of him asking for the — Frank Schaeffer

I once heard of a murderer who propped his two victims up against a chess board in sporting attitudes and was able to get as far as Seattle before his crime was discovered. — Robert Benchley

Claudia was either unaware of her expression, or didn't care that he knew of her interest in his nakedness. Once he had hoped to find a mistress who would look at him with such undisguised longing.
He had never dared hope to find lust in a wife. The perfect woman sat before him, and she was his. Life was very good indeed. He propped his hands behind his head. "I am at your mercy, my lady. Do with me as you will."
"You wish to be ravished, Baron?"
"'Tis my fondest desire. — Elizabeth Elliott

Him wearily halfway and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as he propped his — James Joyce

Hey," I murmured.
One side of his full lips tipped up. "Hey there, sleeping beauty ... "
Over his shoulder, the sky had deepened to a denim blue.
"Did you kiss me awake?"
"I did."
Daemon was propped on his side, using his arm to support his head. He placed his hand on my stomach and my chest fluttered in response.
"Told you, my lips have mystical powers. — Jennifer L. Armentrout