Sitting On Top Quotes & Sayings

All questions of right to one side, I have never been able to banish the queasy inner suspicion that Israel just did not look, or feel, either permanent or sustainable. I felt this when sitting in the old Ottoman courtyards of Jerusalem, and I felt it even more when I saw the hideous 'Fort Condo' settlements that had been thrown up around the city in order to give the opposite impression. If the statelet was only based on a narrow strip of the Mediterranean littoral (god having apparently ordered Moses to lead the Jews to one of the very few parts of the region with absolutely no oil at all), that would be bad enough. But in addition, it involved roosting on top of an ever-growing population that did not welcome the newcomers. — Christopher Hitchens

The end of his life, he was asked what stuck in his mind about his experiences in South America and on the Beagle. And he remembered climbing to the peak of the Andes in Peru or Chile - I can't remember - and then turning as he reached the peak and looking behind him. And he said, it was like the Hallelujah Chorus in the Messiah, playing with full orchestra, blaring in his head, because he was on top of the world. He was looking down almost like God upon this creation, which he had begun to sort out in his own mind as he'd been climbing, as it were. At the end of his life he was asked, "What's the most extraordinary experience you had?" And he remembered climbing to the peak of the Andes. And then he slept on it, and the next day he came back to the person and he said, "No, it was the rain forest. It was sitting there and feeling that there must be more to man than the breath in his body. — Krista Tippett

You are pathetic, Rache," Jenks said, and my eyes darted to the top of the rack and I saw him standing there, hands on his hips and frowning at me, his wings a silver blur. "Rachel and Trent, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. No wait, it was a hospital room, and he had his hands on your ass and you had your tongue down his throat. I can see why you might be confused. — Kim Harrison

concept: me, sitting on top of a grassy mountain, taking deep breaths of fresh, pure air. i lay back and watch the clouds all day. there's no rush here — L.J. Buchanan

Leadership (according to John Sculley) revolves around vision, ideas, direction, and has more to do with inspiring people as to direction and goals than with day-to-day implementation. A leader must be able to leverage more than his own capabilities. He must be capable of inspiring other people to do things without actually sitting on top of them with a checklist. — Warren G. Bennis

The monkey didn't help matters any. He was sitting on top of the microbus, just watching the undead plunge to their end. His face appeared so serene, so intelligent, as if he truly understood the situation. I almost wanted him to turn to me and say, 'This is the turning point of the war! We've finally stopped them! We're finally safe!' But instead his little penis popped out and he peed in my face. — Max Brooks

Tibetans look at a person who holds himself above others, believing he is better than others and knows more, and they say that person is like someone sitting on a mountain top: it is cold there, it is hard, and nothing will grow. But if the person puts himself in a lower position, then that person is like a fertile field. — B. Alan Wallace

You'll come to my grave? To tell me your problems?"
My problems?
"Yes.'
And you'll give me answers?
"I'll give you what I can. Don't I always?"
I picture his grave, on the hill, overlooking the pond, some little nine foot piece of earth where they will place him, cover him with dirt, put a stone on top. Maybe in a few weeks? Maybe in a few days? I see myself sitting there alone, arms across my knees, staring into space.
It won't be the same, I say, not being able to hear you talk.
"Ah, talk ... "
He closes his eyes and smiles.
"Tell you what. After I'm dead, you talk. And I'll listen. — Mitch Albom

It was a palace, made entirely of gold, sitting on an island of silver snow at the very top of the world. East of the sun, and west of the moon. — Jessica Day George

No one stands on the top of the world. Not you, not me, not even gods. But the unbearable vacancy of the throne in the sky is over. From now on ... I will be sitting on it. — Tite Kubo

We're talking about an extremely prolific poet and songwriter and lyricist. That stuff comes off the top of her head. She [Joni Mitchell] will write exactly what she lives. If she puts some money in the soda machine, she'll write about putting money in the soda machine. "Dry Cleaner from Des Moines," on the Shadows & Light album, was about sitting next to a dry cleaner from Des Moines, playing a slot machine. — Don Alias

Can't take it, huh?" said the man. Without the slightest movement he was now back, sitting cross-legged, on top of the pole forty feet in front of Arthur. "You come to me for advice, but you can't cope with anything you don't recognize. Hmmm. So we'll have to tell you something you already know but make it sound like news, eh? Well, business as usual, I suppose." He sighed and squinted mournfully into the distance. — Douglas Adams

night, I think I can hear the stars scraping against the sky. That's how quiet it is. After a while it's almost more than I can stand. I want to scream at the top of my lungs. I want to sing, shout, stamp my feet, clap my hands, anything to declare my presence. My conversation with the soldier had been the first words I'd said aloud in weeks. The Hum died on the tenth day after the Arrival. I was sitting in third period texting Lizbeth the last text I — Rick Yancey

The sun of Sunday morning up out of the sleepless sea from black Liverpool. Sitting on the rocks over the water with a jug of coffee. Down there along the harbor pier, trippers in bright colors. Sails moving out to sea. Young couples climbing the Balscaddoon Road to the top of Kilrock to search out grass and lie between the furze. A cold green sea breaking whitely along the granite coast. A day on which all things are born, like uncovered stars. — J.P. Donleavy

I was sitting on top of people and it was just really uncomfortable. There was no place to move. And, I don't like auditioning, anyways. With auditions, you can get so nervous, or other things get into your head and throw you off, and it doesn't really reflect what you can do, as an actor. The whole thing was just really nerve-wracking, but I ended up getting it. — Tinsel Korey

I'm sitting on top of the world, and I've got hemorrhoids. — Rodney Dangerfield

So you really don't have anything against women in the locker room?" "I have something against you in the locker room." He pulled me from sitting to lying on top of him. "Why?" "Because the only dick I want you seeing these days is mine." "That's an oddly sweet statement." "I'm an oddly sweet kinda guy. Now shut up and kiss me." My — Vi Keeland

It reminds me of the story that my American godmother used to tell me years and years ago about two frogs who fell into a pail of milk. One said: 'Ooh, I'm drowning, I'm drowning!' The other frog said, 'I'm not going to drown.' 'How can you stop drowning?' asked the other frog. 'Why, I'm going to hustle around, and hustle around, and hustle around like mad,' said the second frog. Next morning the first frog had given up and drowned, and the second frog, having hustled around all night, was sitting there in the pail, right on top of a pat of butter. Everyone, — Agatha Christie

When I went to Philadelphia I was 26 years old and really sitting on top of the world. Family life, a professional career, plenty of friends and associates, and a good reputation, a wish list that could be the envy of many. — Julius Erving

I had, bluntly, the worst fucking headache I had ever had in my life. I'm trying to think of the best way to describe it. Try this. Imagine a migraine, on top of a hangover, while sitting in a kindergarten of thirty screaming children, who are all taking turns stabbing you in the eye with an ice pick. — John Scalzi

It amazes me how well the majority of jump jockeys ride in a race until they've landed over the last, then how badly most of them ride a finish. Apart from a half-dozen, they look like coster boys sitting on top of donkeys' behinds, bashing about with shillelaghs. — Jack Leach

One day you could be sitting on the top of the world, then the next it could be sitting on you, — J.J. McAvoy

I push open the door just as Tobias, who is sitting on the floor with one leg stretched out, hurls a butter knife at the opposite wall. It sticks, handle out, from a large hunk of cheese they positioned on top of the dresser. Caleb, standing beside him, stares in disbelief, first at the cheese and then at me.
"Tell me he's some kind of Dauntless prodigy," says Caleb. "Can you do this too?"
"With my right hand, maybe," I say. "But yes, Four is some kind of Dauntless prodigy.
Tobias's eyes catch mine on the word "Four." Caleb doesn't know that Tobias wears his excellence all the time in his own nickname. — Veronica Roth

I didn't plan to be this dysfunctional at 27, but dysfunctionality has a way of creeping up on you. One second, you're 22, wrapping up your undergraduate degree from a top business school, and then suddenly, you're sitting alone in your car at 27, wondering how five years slipped trough your fingers without so much as a blink. — R.S. Grey

The ocean swells around us. Sometimes, we are in a bowl of water and sometimes on the top of the lip. The horizon curves.
We are sitting on top of the world.
In theory, anyone is on the top of their world at every moment, given that the Earth is truly round. But, it's hard to see that in a subway under New York City and completely obvious out here. — Lexis De Rothschild

Francis Marion Tarwater's uncle had been dead for only half a day when the boy got too drunk to finish digging his grave and a Negro named Buford Munson, who had come to get a jug filled, had to finish it and drag the body from the breakfast table where it was still sitting and bury it in a decent and Christian way, with the sign of its Savior at the head of the grave and enough dirt on top to keep the dogs from digging it up. Buford had come along about noon and when he left at sundown, the boy, Tarwater, had never returned from the still. — Flannery O'Connor

I am going to take you every imaginable way,' he promised on a whisper, tugging her bodice lower.
'Excellent,' she murmured. She tugged his shirt from his trousers.
'Right side up, upside down, sideways, sitting, standing. You on top. Then me on top.'
'A brilliant plan.' His shirt fell from his shoulders. Oh, his shoulders. The vast glorious curve of them. She couldn't wait to lick one.
'Backward, forward. On the bed, on the table, on the settee.'
He paused, and lifted her dress off over her head with all the ceremony of an unveiling. It fell to the floor.
'And then?' she whispered.
'And then we'll do it all over again.'
It was the never-ending story! — Julie Anne Long

We were sitting outside at our favorite Italian restaurant, Callini's, one Friday lunch when Sam revealed to me what his ideal female looked like. A few women walked by and Sam used words like "big legs" and "too big up top" to describe women that barely weighed over 100 pounds. The following bomb then pried its way out of his mouth, "I'm still in love with Winny Cooper."
I replied with shock in my voice, "Winny Cooper from The Wonder Years?"
Sam glowed, "Yeah, Winny is my ideal woman."
"You do realize that she was a little girl in that show," I said trying to awaken Sam's better judgment.
He started laughing, "Winnie was a babe. I had a huge crush on her."
I needed clarification: "You do realize that you were in your 20s when that show was on. So, that would mean that you had a crush on a 12 year-old. — Phil Wohl

It was some time before this happened, for he had got a very fine hand indeed. I suppose it wasn't often that the boys of Market Snodsbury Grammar School came across a man public-spirited enough to call their head master a silly ass, and they showed their appreciation in no uncertain manner. Gussie may have been one over the eight, but as far as the majority of those present were concerned he was sitting on top of the world. — P.G. Wodehouse

We are sitting on top of a vast cultural and historical pyramid of accumulated misconceptions, lies and myths, built one on top of the other. — Bryant McGill

Night lay upon the forest. There was no moon, but the stars of Silverpelt shed their frosty glitter over the trees. At the bottom of a rocky hollow, a pool reflected the starshine. The air was heavy with the scents of late greenleaf. Wind sighed softly through the trees and ruffled the quiet surface of the pool. At the top of the hollow, the fronds of bracken parted to reveal a cat; her bluish grey fur glimmered as she stepped delicately from rock to rock, down to the water's edge. Sitting on a flat stone that jutted out over the pool, she raised her head to look around. As if at a signal, more cats began to appear, slipping into the hollow from every direction. They padded down to sit as close to the water as they could, until the lower slopes were filled with lithe shapes gazing down into the pool. — Erin Hunter

I'm not entirely sure what these are all for but I think the top one that looks like a stick figure is to notify people that you've found the Blair Witch, and I think the next one means "Poop won't go down. Use your foot." I assume the orange button on the far left is for starting a war, and then there are two for washing your boobs for some reason, and then one about levitating on a fountain, and I think the last one is for ordering bacon? Frankly, I was too afraid to try out all of the buttons because just sitting on it triggered something that made it break out into song. It was unsettling. Like, a pooping lullaby. — Jenny Lawson

There's nothing under the ground that's worth more than the little layer of topsoil sitting on top of it. — Wendell Berry

Dante climbed back on top of him, sitting on Griff's round butt to knead his shoulders. "I just wanna try. It'll be fine. No big deal. Maybe a massage first? Two dudes. That'd be okay right?"
What was he asking?
"And then, I want you" -Dante leaned forward, pressing his chest against Griff's muscular back, lips against his ear -"to fucking turn yourself loose on me. — Damon Suede

We've been swimming at nude beaches and I love to go skinny dipping, but I'm sorry, sitting on top of a mountain, that's just, you're trying to show off or something. That's ridiculous. — Andy Richter

The Federal Reserve - all of them - could be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, and then pouring gasoline on top of it, and then light a cigar with matches, throw the match into the gasoline, and then not notice that there is any danger. — Marc Faber

Look at this thing. It's ruining my life. I'm trying to live a peaceful, meaningful existence, but I feel like I'm sitting on top of a volcano. At any moment this thing can decide to freak, close down, and fight with what's happening. — Michael A. Singer

I want to undress you, touch you, kiss you, taste you. And then I want you to taste yourself on my mouth." He kissed her again, hot and strong and long. One hand crept to her clothed breast, kneading it. "I want you hard and hot and deep and fast. And then I want you slow and sweet. I want you to wrap those beautiful long legs around me. I want you under me and on top of me and sitting and standing. I want to see your eyes when pleasure makes you light up. I want to hold you when you come down and try to find your breath. I want everything with you, Ellie. I care about you more than I've cared about a woman in so long. I hardly recognized the feelings. I'm dying for you." (Noah Kincaid) — Robyn Carr

I nudged myself closer to the ledge and closed my eyes and thought 'Oh what a life this is, why do we have to be born in the first place, and only so we can have our poor gentle flesh laid out to such impossible horrors as huge mountains and rock and empty space,' and with horror I remembered the famous Zen saying, 'When you get to the top of a mountain, keep climbing.' The saying made my hair stand on end; it had been such cute poetry sitting on Alvah's straw mats. — Jack Kerouac

I rooted around the kitchen for a coffee pot, confused by the prehistoric model sitting in one of the cabinets. I brushed off the dust and plugged it in; it took me nearly thirty minutes to figure out how to turn the damn thing on, and once I had two cups of coffee, they had the consistency of burnt mud.

"Cheers," I said, clinking my mug against Molly's. "Don't actually drink it though."

She sniffed the top of the mug.

"Just inhale deeply and hope you get some caffeine through your nasal passages. — R.S. Grey

Do you want me to drive you home? Because I was thinking of taking you somewhere else first, if you're interested."

My curiosity is piqued. "Where?"

His blue eyes twinkle mischievously. "It's a surprise."

"A good surprise?"

"Is there any other kind?"

"Um, yeah. I can think of a hundred bad surprises off the top of my head."

"Name one," he challenges.

"Okay - you're set up on a blind date, and you show up at the restaurant and Ted Bundy is sitting at the table."

Logan grins at me. "Bundy is your go-to answer for everything, huh?"

"It appears so."

"Fine. Well, point taken. And I promise, it's a good surprise. Or in the very least, it's neutral."

"All right. Surprise away then. — Elle Kennedy

You cannot beat the feeling of sitting on top of the charts. I had almost forgotten what it feels like ... It feels great! It is really a very exciting time and I am enjoying the ride. — Lionel Richie

And her eyes immediately met those of a large caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, — Lewis Carroll

Dennis looked at the puppy in the window. We both did. It was the oddest thing. Normally, puppies in pet store windows sleep or pee or roll around on top of other dogs. This one ignored us its window-mates and was instead sitting with its nose pressed against the glass, looking at us with an extremely serious little expression on its face. An expression that seemed to me to be saying, I am a sacred cow. Get out your wallet. — Augusten Burroughs

There is no good talking to him," said a Dragon-fly, who was sitting on the top of a large brown bulrush; "no good at all, for he has gone away."
"Well, that is his loss, not mine," answered the Rocket. "I am not going to stop talking to him merely because he pays no attention. I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."
"Then you should definitely lecture on Philosophy," said the Dragon-fly. — Oscar Wilde

I do not think there should be a limit on the rig's liability, because they are sitting on top of unlimited amounts of oil, and thus, there could be an explosion occur that could do untold damage ... The amount of damage that an offshore oil rig can do is infinite. — John Chafee

There was a time we laughed at the old guys up on the hill. The ones who graduated a couple of years before us, and who would hang around the school and the ballpark still, and would sit on the hoods of their cars and tell us how when they were seniors they did it better, faster, and further. We laughed, because we were still doing it, and all they could do was talk. If our goals were not met, there was next year, but it never occurred to us that one day there would not be a next year, and that the guys sitting on the hoods of their cars at the top of the hill, wishing they could have one more year, willing to settle for one last game, could one day be us. — Tucker Elliot

I can't forget things that way. There's only one thing for it, and that's to admit everything and accept everything, and find some way of living that doesn't mean always sitting on top of a chest of grudges, trying to keep the lid from opening. — Ellis Peters

I was sitting on top of a mountain of secrets so high that it was almost impossible to see the earth anymore. For one thing, now that I lived alone, I was living as a woman about half the time. I'd come home and go female and pay the bills and write and watch television, and then I'd go back to boy mode and teach my classes. I didn't venture out into the world much en femme, although I did get out now and then. It was unbelievably frightening. — Jennifer Finney Boylan

Much more of the brain is devoted to movement than to language. Language is only a little thing sitting on top of this huge ocean of movement. — Oliver Sacks

A man on a hiking trip through the Blue Ridge Mountains came to the top of a hill and saw, just below the crest, a small log cabin. Its aged owner was sitting in front of the door, smoking a corncob pipe, and when the traveler drew close enough he asked the old man patronizingly: "Lived here all your life?" "Nope," the old mountaineer replied patiently. "Not yet." — James Keller

The trouble is that everybody, myself included, has a brain in which the centers concerned with reason and logic are sitting on top of the socalled limbic system which we inherited from our reptilian ancestors and which never evolved past crude instincts and emotions. And that is why we have not yet arrived at the sate of homo sapiens. — Paul Watzlawick

I don't know that you're able to measure your aggregate wisdom as you go through life. I can't say that I ever feel that I'm sitting on top of a growing mound of wisdom. — Dylan Moran

Voldemort's sitting in the Shrieking Shack?" said Hermione, outraged. "He's not--he's not even fighting?"
"He doesn't think he needs to fight," said Harry. "He thinks I'm going to go to him."
"But why?"
"He knows I'm after Horcuxes--he's keeping Nagini close beside him--obviously I'm going to have to go to him to get near the thing--"
"Right," said Ron, squaring his shoulders. "So you can't go, that's what he wants, what he's expecting. You stay here and look after Hermione, and I'll go and get it--"
Harry cut across Ron.
"You two stay here, I'll go under the Cloak and I'll be back as soon as I--"
"No," said Hermione, "it makes much more sense if I take the Cloak and--"
"Don't even think about it," Ron snarled at her.
Before Hermione could get farther than "Ron, I'm just as capable--" the tapestry at the top of the staircase on which they stood was ripped open. — J.K. Rowling

He was a second too late. Ducking, the felt-capped man, muscles hard, dragged himself out of that grasp and, flinging off to one side, got his balance, glanced once at Jerott, and then darted off into the darkness. After the first step, breathing hard, Jerott stayed where he was, swearing. But he could hardly leave Lymond. He looked up. 'Bravo,' said Francis Crawford, sitting crosslegged on top of the wall, his hood shaken free on his shoulders. 'You're a credit to the bloody Order, aren't you? You know you've got a knife in your hand? — Dorothy Dunnett

I think you have to be schizoid three different ways to be an actor ... You have to be a human being. Then you have to be the character you're playing. And on top of that you've got to be the guy sitting out there in Row 10, watching yourself and judging yourself. That's why most of us are crazy to start with, or go nuts once we get into it. — George C. Scott

Before I opened my computer in the parking lot today, I relived one of my favorite memories. It's the one with Woody and me sitting on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum after it's closed. We're watching people parade out of the museum in summer shorts and sandals. The trees to the south are planted in parallel lines. The water in the fountain shoots up with a mist that almost reaches the steps we sit on. We look at silver-haired ladies in red-and-white-print dresses. We separate the mice from the men, the tourists from the New Yorkers, the Upper East Siders from the West Siders. The hot-pretzel vendor sells us a wad of dough in knots with clumps of salt stuck on top. We make our usual remarks about the crazies and wonder what it would be like to live in a penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue overlooking the Met. We laugh and say the same things we always say. We hold hands and keep sitting, just sitting, as the sun beings to set. It's a perfect afternoon. — Diane Keaton

Sitting on the train I watch the scenery speeding by, notice a cobweb in the top corner of the window, undulating with a gentle breeze I can't feel. I lean back in my seat and take my book out of the carrier bag. Turning it over in my hand, it feels warm. It feels how I want to feel; full of knowledge, full of the future.
The time I've spent staying in bed smoking dope I've been hibernating, recuperating and gaining strength. I'm weak socially, but being away from other drug users has made me resilient. It's allowed my mind and body to heal and mend. As if the winter is over, I've come out stronger now. I'm on my own. I have the choice of what to do with my life.
I'm going to stay clean. I'm going to be the woman I can be. — Christine Lewry

Fat people are brilliant in bed. If I'm sitting on top of you, who's going to argue? — Jo Brand

I'd gone into that restaurant and sat down and the waitress had taken my order and everybody else had seen me with this what must have looked like this creature, this animal, sitting on the top of my head! — Derek Jacobi

Sitting and watching a game show, or betting on your lucky numbers is not the price that most of the top 1% paid to become rich — Robert Kiyosaki

And then he has nothing to do. After three weeks-or is it a lifetime?-of ceaseless activity, he has nothing to do. A very long sentence, anchored in solid nouns, with countless subordinate clauses, scores of adjectives and adverbs, and bold conjunctions that launched the sentence in a new direction-besides unexpected interludes-has finally, with a surprisingly quiet full stop, come to an end. For an hour or so, sitting outside on the landing at the top of the stairs, nursing a coffee, tired, a little relieved, a little worried, he contemplates that full stop. What will the next sentence bring? — Yann Martel

The great challenge working on this show for me is wearing polyester all day long and having the worst haircut known to man at the top of my head and sitting under fluorescent lights. That is America, people. Polyester, bad haircuts, under fluorescent lights. — Rainn Wilson

I love snowboarding. It's probably my favorite sport. I love sitting on top of the mountain and the snow falling and that silence, that snow silence. That's, like, a very peaceful, happy place for me. — Philippe Cousteau Jr.

You have to spend a lot to make a lot. It's not like I'm sitting on top of a pile of money. — Katy Perry

Sitting on top of Mr. Weasley's overflowing in-tray was an old toaster that was hiccuping in a disconsolate way and a pair of empty leather gloves that were twiddling their thumbs. A photograph of the Weasley family stood beside the in-tray. Harry noticed that Percy appeared to have walked out of it. — J.K. Rowling

I think - I think the real nightmare place now is less Afghanistan than it is Pakistan. I mean, again, Pakistan is this gigantic country, deeply troubled, kind of almost ungovernable, sitting on top of probably 50 or 60 nuclear warheads. Nobody really knows where the warheads are; the Americans certainly don't know where they are. — Dexter Filkins

Every 24 hours the world turns over on someone who was sitting on top of it. — Sparky Anderson

On the first day of fifth grade, Liz was sitting on the swing beside Liam's at recess. Falling and flying, her hair fanned out behind her and her eyes were closed, and that was what had caught his attention, her closed eyes. She looked a little bit silly and very much alive, and Liam couldn't stop watching.

Liz, on her part, was aware that the boy beside her was watching, but she loved swinging too much to care what he thought. She loved the wind hitting her face and the brief moment of suspension at the top of the arc and the falling sensation that was magnified by the darkness of her eyelids. She imagined that she was a bird, an angel, a wayward star.

At the height of the arc, she let go. And she flew.

Liam watched with his mouth hanging wide open, expecting her to crumple on the asphalt and die tragically before his eyes.

She didn't, and when she walked away, Liam's heart followed. — Amy Zhang

Graduations are full of joy and celebration, but they are also full of broken hearts. It is one of those days when you miss the people you love so much it hurts, when imperfect families and dashed dreams weigh so heavily that you begin to think that everyone else is sitting on top of the world but you. — Susan Estrich

Imagine yourself sitting on top of a great thoroughbred horse. You sit up there and you just feel that power. That's what it was like playing quarterback on that team [the Pittsburgh Steelers]. It was a great ride. — Terry Bradshaw

Yet, even allowing for these failings, was not St John Clarke still a person more like myself than anyone else sitting round the table? That was a sobering thought. He, too, for longer years, had existed in the imagination, even though this imagination led him (in my eyes) to a world ludicrously contrived, socially misleading, professionally nauseous. On top of that, had he not on this earlier occasion gone out of his way to speak a word of carefully hedged praise for my own work? Was that, therefore, an aspect of his critical faculty for which he should be given credit, or was it an even stronger reason for guarding against the possibility of corruption at the hands of one whose own writings could not be approved? — Anthony Powell

The literary publishers were the Lords of Culture, the master parasites sitting on top of this swarming dunghill. — Jonathan Galassi

Marie came with the brandy and poured a glass for Rebekah - then one for Ian, at Rebekah's gesture, and when Jamie made a small polite noise in his throat, half-filled his cup, pouring in more tea on top of it. The taste was peculiar, but he didn't really mind. The pain had gone off to the far side of the room; he could see it sitting over there, a wee glowering sort of purple thing with a bad-tempered expression on its face. He laughed at it, and Ian frowned at him. "What are ye giggling at?" Jamie couldn't think how to describe the pain beastie, so he just shook his head, which proved a mistake - the pain looked suddenly gleeful and shot back into his head with a noise like tearing cloth. The room spun and he clutched the table with both hands. — Diana Gabaldon

Because of the grass and open face, I take one more club for shots from the rough, unless the ball is sitting on top of dry grass. Then, I use more loft and swing softer, trying to hit it about 70 percent to avoid a flyer over the green. — Ernie Els

Sam and Dean Winchester sitting on the top of the Impala sharing their feelings over a beer is a reward worth driving any 'Supernatural' demon away - but in real life, they'd have crippling co-dependency issues. — Margaret Stohl

The moon was round and white, sitting small at the top of the sky. It seemed the right size to sit in the bowl on the bullet mold. That was what I wished. I wished for the moon instead of lead. — Sue Monk Kidd

My brothers are idiots.
Anyone can see that under the scars and the attitude, Isabeau is more fragile than she looks. And as a reclusive Hound princess, her first introduction to the royal family shouldn't be a dose of Hypnos and four idiots gawking at her.
If I'd managed not to gawk, they sure as hell could have. She was beautiful, fierce, and utterly unlike anyone I'd ever known.
It was really hard not to gawk.
Much better to pace outside her door with one of our Bouviers sitting at the top of the stairs watching me curiously.
"This sucks, Boudicca," I told her. "I don't think we inherited Dad's diplomacy."
She laid her chin on her paws. I could have sworn she rolled her eyes. — Alyxandra Harvey

Up and up they went, still a cable's length apart; but slowly, for the ape was footsore and despondent. As for Stephen, by the sixth-hundred step his calves and thighs were ready to burst, and at each rise now they forced themselves upon his attention. Up and up, up and up until the ridge was no great way off at last. But before they reached it, the path took another turn; and when he too came round the corner he was on top of the ape. She was sitting on a stone, resting her feet. He scarcely knew what to do; it seemed an intrusion. 'God be with you, ape.' he said in Irish, which in his confusion seemed more appropriate. — Patrick O'Brian

A person becomes great not by sitting on some high seat, but through higher qualities. A crow does not become an eagle by simply sitting on the top of a palatial building. — Chanakya

What are you going to do to me?"
"Tonight, I am going to seduce you. Next time, I am going to fuck you."
He smiles at me and pushes his back to the sofa leaving me sitting on top of him.
"And why's that?" I ask, a little bit surprised and shocked at the same time.
"I'm the one who makes the rules so you have to do what you're told. — Dora Sky

He wanted head and hands and arms on a pillow - in many different positions. I was asked to move my hands in many different ways - also my head - and I had to turn this way and that. There were nudes that might have been of several different people - sitting - standing - even standing upon the radiator against the window - that was difficult - radiators don't intend you to stand on top of them. (On being photographed by Alfred Stieglitz) — Georgia O'Keeffe

She was sitting on the floor, naked, in a skitter of green bills. Beyond her was the custodian, still simpering in death. She was scooping up handfuls of the green money and dropping it on top of her head so that it came sliding down along the cream-colored hair, slipping down along her shoulders and body. She was making a noise I never heard come out of a human being. It was a scream that was a whisper and a laugh that was a cry. Over and over. The noise and the scooping. The slippery, sliding bills against the rigid body. She — Elliott Chaze

I lost it in the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet, I started to panic when I noticed the graveyard of empty toilet paper rolls. The brown cylinders had ostensibly been placed vertically to form a half oval on top of the flat shiny surface of the stainless steel toilet paper holder. It was like some sort of miniature-recycled Stonehenge in the women's bathroom, a monument to the bowel movements of days past. Actually, it was sometime around 2:30 p.m. when my day exited the realm of country song bad and entered the neighboring territory of Aunt Ethel's annual Christmas letter bad. Last year Aunt Ethel wrote with steady, stalwart sincerity of Uncle Joe's gout and her one - no, make that two - car accidents, the new sinkhole in their backyard, their impending eviction from the trailer park, and Cousin Serena's divorce. To be fair, Cousin Serena got divorced every year, so that didn't really count toward the calamitous computation of yearly catastrophes. I — Penny Reid

She stretched herself up on tiptoe and peeped over the edge and her eyes immediately met those of a large blue caterpillar, that was sitting on the top, with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else. — Lewis Carroll

The builder has ginger curly hair on top of his head, and a thick moustache. He has the look of a McDonald's manager from 1970 who spends his evenings sitting in the smoky back row of theatres in Soho. He's tall and muscular with hands the size of shopping baskets and, on the one occasion I did briefly meet him, I stared into his eyes and was shocked by their darkness. His nose is broken in three places and is the size and shape of a chicken nugget. A deep scar runs the length of his cheek hinting at a violent past.
Old tattoos fade on his arms.
The builder may have killed another human being at some point in his life. — Craig Stone

You're still running." "He's right, you know." Kat stopped at the sound of the voice. Her hand was on the doorknob, freedom just inches away, but it was like she'd forgotten how to unlock a door when she turned around and saw Hale sitting alone at the top of the stairs. — Ally Carter

If anyone should talk to her," Renfield piped up, "it should be me. We're the most compatible, culturewise. I'm sure that on top of feeling as if she's been thrust into one of the many levels of Hades, with all of its attendant demons, she feels like a lady wandering, lost, amongst the mannerless cads of the slums."
We were all silent for a moment before Tom asked, "You do realize that we're sitting right here, right?"
"Oh, I am horribly aware of this fact."
"Just checking. — Lia Habel

Those are the murderers of art who are sitting on the top wearing crowns of fake intelligence. Let me bring them down with the power of my art, without delaying the matter further. — Jeet Aulakh

Vibration is always good. Sitting on top of the washing machine thats going. — Gillian Anderson

I ripped my left arm out of his hand and slammed my elbow into his solar plexus. He exhaled in a gasp. I lunged for the dagger and sat on top of him, my knees pinning his arms, my dagger on his throat.
He lay still. "I give up," he said and smiled. "Your move."
Er. I was sitting atop the Beast Lord in my underwear, holding a knife to his throat. What the hell was my next move? — Ilona Andrews