Slipped Quotes & Sayings

His skin was a pretty colour, it made me jealous.
Jacob noticed my scrutiny.
What?" he asked, suddenly self-conscious.
"Nothing. I just hadn't realised before. Did you know, you're sort of beautiful?"
Once the words slipped out, I worried that he might take my implusive observation the wrong way.
But Jacob rolled his eyes. "You hit your head pretty hard, didn't you?"
"I'm serious."
Well, then, thanks. Sort of."
I grinned. "You're sort of welcome. — Stephenie Meyer

The Sun Dagger appeared on the rock face directly above the Shaman's shadowed head. It dazzled within the shade as the sunlight slipped through a gap in the overhead slabs. The dagger cut slowly down the rock, slicing through the very center of the etched spiral.
"The middle of time," Chaco whispered to himself. — P.J. Parker

There is, in every event, whether lived or told, always a hole or a gap, often more than one. If we allow ourselves to get caught in it, we find it opening onto a void that, once we have slipped into it, we can never escape. — Brian Evenson

Her nostrils found the scent of her womanly wetness, wafting from the seat below her. Maybe she'd climb in the back As she did, she slipped off her jeans and her white cotton panties, slightly damp white cotton panties now. She couldn't resist a little sniff. Now her ample soft, round buttocks would enjoy the cool — A.M. Ball

Am I hot now?" he asked, his voice low and rumbling with arousal as his fingers slipped beneath my panties.
I arched into his touch, bracing my hands on his chest. "Baby, you don't know how to be anything else. — Samantha Young

I smell guilt. There is a stench of guilt upon the air.
I see you all, whole and healthy, with your powers intact - such prompt appearances! - and I ask myself ... why did this band of wizards never come to the aid of their master, to whom they swore eternal loyalty? And I answer myself, they must have believed me broken, they thought I was gone. They slipped back among my enemies, and they pleaded innocence, and ignorance, and bewitchment ...
And then I ask myself, but how could they have believed I would not rise again? They, who knew the steps I took, long ago, to guard myself against mortal death? They, who had seen proofs of the immensity of my power in the times when I was mightier than any wizard living? And I answer myself, perhaps they believed a still greater power could exist, one that could vanquish even Lord Voldemort ... perhaps they now pay allegiance to another ... — J.K. Rowling

Time and tide. Love had its own circadian rhythms, and it was beginning to look like he and Max had missed their chance, that they'd slipped into a comfortable somnolence. Perhaps they would continue on indefinitely, but it was all too likely one of these days they were simply going to drift gently, quietly apart. — Josh Lanyon

And then I screwed up and the Colonel screwed up and Takumi screwed up and she slipped through our fingers. — John Green

All his elaborated arguments and beautiful sentences turned, under the influence of alcohol, into dust and slipped between his nicotine-stained fingers. — Ole H.

He wouldn't give up, but if i am strict and force myself now to decide upon the precise moment in this whole story when my heart irreparably broke, it was the moment when I saw the weariness and the doubt creep into my son's small muscles as his fingers slipped, for the tenth time, from the pale oak lid. — Chris Cleave

You have beautiful hair ... and she reached out to touch it, her bejeweled fingers gently caressing my head. A tear slipped down my cheek. I knew how the lepers felt when Jesus touched them and made them whole again. — Lynn Austin

Elizabeth's fingers slipped around my arm. She stepped forward, her fangs flashing. My breath caught, but not in fear.
Damn Tiffany and her vampire-bite addiction. I shoved the reaction away just in time for Elizabeth's fangs to break skin.
Warmth rushed up my arm, the blaze filling my body, my mind. On my other side, Tatius's hand on my arm was like a cool oasis. I groped for his fingers, locking mine around his, pressing the long side of my body along his, and the fire in my body calmed enough I could still see, still think.
Cool. — Kalayna Price

The instant he knew he loved her, she slipped down his body and out of his arms. — Don DeLillo

Forgive me. I didn't mean to kill you, Polonius. The blade slipped out of the sheath, and it struck you. — Osamu Dazai

Here again, it occurred to me, was the unique problem that faces my generation, the generation of those who had been, say, seven or eight years old during the mid-1960s, the generation of the grandchildren of those who'd been adults when it all happened; a problem that will face no other generation in history. We are just close enough to those who were there that we feel an obligation to the facts as we know them; but we are also just far enough away, at this point, to worry about our own role in the transmission of those facts, now that the people to whom those facts happened have mostly slipped away. — Daniel Mendelsohn

I slipped into the shop, wanting to curl up and disappear, wanting the world to blow away until there was nothing left. But before I got my wish, Mama came in after me, slamming the door on Dempsey, on all the prying eyes, on all the swirl of hope and despair and want, and I knew that the world would never go away, but would pull me down right along with it. — Eden Butler

The memory brought back the timbre of her voice and the tickle of her hair on my chin as I put her to bed that night and the feeling of belonging to someone, mattering to someone, having someone whose first smile in the morning was for you. Someone who slipped their hand into yours when they were scared and trusted you to make them feel better. Someone who knew you, the important things about you, and loved you anyway. — Michele Jaffe

Pansy rolled over and went to sleep, but Petunia stayed awake long after Olga left, and long after Oliver crawled out from under the bed, grabbed some sandwiches, and slipped out the door. She hoped that he was going to Galen and Rose's room, and she hoped, too that he hadn't known she was awake when he had leaned over and kissed her hair. She wanted to savor that touch forever. — Jessica Day George

Trull watched Cotillion walk through the archway, and the Tiste Edur's gaze fell once more on the body of Ahlrada Ahn. As Shadowthrone approached Quick Ben, Trull climbed to his feet and made his way to where his friend was lying. Ahlrada Ahn. I do not understand you - I have never understood you - but I thank you nonetheless. I thank you ...
He stepped to the entranceway, looked out, and saw Cotillion, the Patron of Assassins, the god, sitting on a shelf of stone that had slipped down from one wall, sitting, alone, with his head in his hands. — Steven Erikson

I tried to think what I had loved knives for, but my mind slipped from the noose of the thought and swung, like a bird, in the centre of empty air. — Sylvia Plath

I can't believe you're still mad at me," Ed says.
"You grabbed my arse."
"You broke my nose."
"You broke his nose?" Jazz asks. "You grabbed her arse?"
"It was two years ago-"
"Two years, four months, and eight days," I tell him.
"-and I was fifteen, and I slipped and she broke my nose."
"Wait a minute. How do you slip onto someone's arse?"
Jazz asks.
"I meant slipped up. I slipped up and she broke my nose."
"You're lucky that's all I broke," I say.
"You're lucky I didn't call the police."
Leo, Dylan, and Daisy slid into the booth. "Did you guys know that Lucy broke Ed's nose? Jazz asks.
Ed closes his eyes silently and bangs his head on the wall. — Cath Crowley

Will turned away, wordless. There was no use to argue. The wind was moving. It cut right through him. He went to the tree, a vaulting grey-green sentinel, and began to climb. Soon his hands were sticky with sap, and he was lost among the needles. Fear filled his gut like a meal he could not digest. He whispered a prayer to the nameless gods of the wood, and slipped his dirk free of its sheath. He put it between his teeth to keep both hands free for climbing. The taste of cold iron in his mouth gave him comfort. Down — George R R Martin

His dark gaze searched her face. "Aren't you curious, inspector? A kiss - and only a kiss."
Only a kiss ... from someone who wanted her. Longing slipped through her, tugging at hopes best kept buried. Yes, Mina wanted to know. But she couldn't afford it.
"No," she said.
He smiled. "Liar. — Meljean Brook

Finally, the water level topped off, leaving him with no more air to breathe. He drew his last breath and slipped down deep into the darkness that claimed his soul. — Wyatt Michael

I returned Zack's hug, and he slipped something into my pocket that felt like one of the vials I'd just bought. He stepped back, looked me earnestly in the eye, and said, "To protect you from the nudge."
Darryl high-fived him as he stepped out on the porch. It made Adam laugh. — Patricia Briggs

Her mother stared in quiet awe of this more artful rearrangement of her genetic code, and slipped into a contentedness that usually appeared only after the red wine had fallen below the bottle label. — Anthony Marra

Stop complainin." Jess climbed up to the cab and leaned down to pull me up beside him. "I'm not complaining." His fingers clung to my wrists as the soles on my gray, canvas shoes slipped up the worn steps. "It's hot. I'm sweatin'. I don't want to go campin'," his voiced pitched high to mock me. — S.D. Hendrickson

Savannah, darlin'?" "Yes, Mama. Come in." Her mother opened the door a crack, then slipped into the room, carrying the largest, most extravagant bouquet of wildflowers Savannah had ever seen. Wildflowers that smelled of lilac and honeysuckle and the outdoors. She breathed deeply and sighed, looking at her mother in question. "Asher Lee," she said, "is downstairs." Savannah felt her mouth tilt up into an involuntary smile and her eyes flood with tears. Her mother set the bouquet on her vanity and put her arm around Savannah. "Whatever he did, he's awful sorry, button." "He yelled at me and made me cry." "Guessing he didn't mean whatever it is he said." "He thinks I want him to change." "Well, of course you do," said her mother matter-of-factly, swiping at Savannah's tears with the corner of her sunflower apron. "We all want to change the men we love. Leave our mark on them." "Oh, I don't lov - " "Of course you don't. I was just makin' conversation. — Katy Regnery

My intentions toward you are definitely ... dirty." "How dirty?" she whispered. Fiery need jolted straight to his groin. He leaned closer to speak right into her ear. "Very. I want to strip you naked and lick you all over. I want to taste you ... everywhere. I want to feed you my cock and feel your teeth on me, and then I want to fuck you blind." Her eyelids drooped, her mouth went soft, and more heat built between them as they stared at each other. His other hand found her knee and slipped over silky skin to the inside of her thigh beneath her coat. "That's pretty dirty," she agreed breathlessly. — Kelly Jamieson

You have slipped under my skin, invaded my blood, and seized my heart. You have poisoned me. — Maria V. Snyder

I was a hunter and fisherman, and many a time I have slipped out into the woods and prairies at 4 a.m. and brought home plenty of game, or have gone in a canoe to the cove and brought back a good supply of fresh fish. — Jay Cooke

He kissed me tenderly as my heart thumped out of control. My fingers slipped into his thick, black hair and held tightly. He paused, not wanting to pull away. I didn't let him. I was going to say goodbye properly. I held tightly, pressing my lips to his, soft at first then hard with desire. — Leigh Goff

The whole incident could not have taken as much as half a minute. Not to let one's feelings appear in one's face was a habit that had acquired the status of an instinct, and in any case they had been standing straight in front of a telescreen when the thing happened. Nevertheless it had been very difficult not to betray a momentary surprise, for in the two or three seconds while he was helping her up the girl had slipped something into his hand. — George Orwell

Time to wake up." Rick muted the TV when a commercial came on. He slipped on his reading glasses and asked, "What is the groundnut better known as?" Lydia carefully rolled onto her back so the cat wouldn't be disturbed. "The peanut. — Karin Slaughter

In the specific case of abortion, the matter is particularly easy in that no woman wants a late abortion. Once abortion was made legal, the age of the aborted fetus went down. The slope slipped in the other direction. If we legalize RU-486 and other similar new drugs, the age will fall to one week or less and start approaching zero. The slippery slope will slide in the other direction. The only reason we have late abortions is because we make early abortion difficult. — Garrett Hardin

Not nearly enough. Not recently, anyway." And she was sad about that.
"I know," he said, and kissed the back of her hand. "We'll fix it. Get some sleep."
"Night," she said, and watched him walk toward the door. "Hey. How'd you get in?"
He wiggled his fingers at her in a spooky oogie-boogie pantomime. "I'm a vampire. I have secret powers ," he said with a full-on fake Transylvanian accent, which he dropped to say, "Actually, your mom let me in."
"Seriously? My mom? Let you in my room? In the middle of the night?"
He shrugged. "Moms like me."
He gave her a full-on Hollywood grin, and slipped out the door. — Rachel Caine

Gideon grinned down at me. "Ready?" he whispered.
"Ready when you are," I replied automatically. It just slipped out — Kerstin Gier

When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you; but when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it's your laugh. So you become the hero rather than the victim of the joke. — Nora Ephron

What's the sense in having an eclipse if you can't look at it? Somebody in production sure slipped up this time! — Charles M. Schulz

For a while I didn't want to look at the men and their hawks any more and my eyes slipped to the white panels of cut light in the branches behind them. Then I walked to the hedge where the hawk had made her kill. Peered inside. Deep in the muddled darkness six copper pheasant feathers glowed in a cradle of blackthorn. Reaching through the thorns I picked them free, one by one, tucked the hand that held them into my pocket, and cupped the feathers in my closed fist as if I were holding a moment tight inside itself. It was death I had seen. — Helen Macdonald

God is dead. Let us not understand by this that he does not exist or even that he no longer exists. He is dead. He spoke to us and is silent. We no longer have anything but his cadaver. Perhaps he
slipped out of the world, somewhere else like the soul of a dead man. Perhaps he was only a dream ... God is dead. — Jean-Paul Sartre

It gave me a feeling of temporary acceptance into that elite community, to stroll across the quad at his side. It also gave me my first faint quiver of sexual belonging, the elusive feeling that if I slipped my hand into his as we walked along, a door would fall open somewhere in the long wall of reality as I knew it, never to be closed again. — Elizabeth Kostova

Sometimes I thought of the Peace Corps as a reverse refugee organization, displacing all of us lost Midwesterners, and it was probably the only government entity that taught Americans to abandon key national characteristics. Pride, ambition, impatience, the instinct to control, the desire to accumulate, the missionary impulse - all of it slipped away. — Peter Hessler

I've only have time for one last lesson...
"I have you," Demandred finally growled, breathing heavily. "Who ever you are, I have you. You cannot win."
"You didn't listen to me," Lan whispered.
One last lesson. The hardest...
Demandred struck, and Lan saw his opening. Lan lunged forward, placing Demandred's sword point against his ow side and ramming himself forward onto it.
"I did not come here to win", Lan whispered, smiling, "I came here to kill you. Death is lighter that a feather."
Demandred's eyes opened wide, and he tried to pull back. Too late. Lan's sword took him straight through the throat.
The world grew dark as Lan slipped backward off the sword. He felt Nynaeve's fear and pain as he did, and he sent his love to her. — Robert Jordan

In a single week I had lost the two most important men in my life. Yet the word "lost" was misleading. Neither had died and it had been years since either had played any outwardly discernible role in my life. Internally, however, they have been pivotal, at the centre of everything. Now that centre, my centre, had slipped. — Claire Holden Rothman

When you get to my age, you'll find it's fatally easy to forget to hate all your enemies all the time; and once you've slipped up and not hated one of them, it makes it almost impossibly hard to hate the rest of them. — K.J. Parker

Are you afraid in there?" she said softly, as the men called out for them.
"No," he said. "I'm not afraid. You lock me in. They won't get me."
She closed the door on the little white face, turned the key in the lock. Then she slipped the key into her pocket. The lock was hidden by a pivoting device shaped like a light switch. It was impossible to see the outline of the cupboard in the paneling of the wall. Yes, he'd be safe there. She was sure of it.
The girl murmured his name and laid her palm flat on the wooden panel.
"I'll come back for you later. I promise. — Tatiana De Rosnay

I shared a bed with my sister, Grace, until I was seventeen years old. She was afraid to sleep alone and would begin asking me around 5:00 P.M. every day whether she could sleep with me. I put on a big show of saying no, taking pleasure in watching her beg and sulk, but eventually I always relented. Her sticky, muscly little body thrashed beside me every night as I read Anne Sexton, watched reruns of SNL, sometimes even as I slipped my hand into my underwear to figure some stuff out. — Lena Dunham

It was at that point Ginny felt a presence and turning to look into his eyes she knew destiny was waiting, just around the corner, over the hill. His dark limpid pools, full of hope and wonder, gazed longingly at her and slowly, as his stare captured her heart, a hush descended. All that surrounded them slipped away into darkness until she could see only him. What happened next was a blur. — Virginia Alison

He watched as I slipped one of the shoes on. "You have a guardian angel."
"I don't believe in angels," I told him. "I believe in what I can do for myself."
Well then, you have an amazing body." I glanced up at him with a questioning look. "For healing, I mean. I heard about the accident ... — Richelle Mead

Once upon a time ... the only autonomous intelligences we humans knew of were us humans. We thought then that if humankind ever devised another intelligence that it would be the result of a huge project ... a great mass of silicon and ancient transistors and chips and circuit boards ... a machine with lots of networking circuits, in other words, aping-if you will pardon the expression-the human brain in form and function. Of course, AIs did not evolve that way. They sort of slipped into existence when we humans were looking the other way. — Dan Simmons

A wedge of sunlight slipped over the edge of the desk and fell noiselessly to the carpet. — Raymond Chandler

What the hell are you doing up there?'
So he slipped, of course, because he was startled, and because fate, having been so kind to him as to award him this ecstasy, retributively was going to kill him now. He lost his footing and grabbed for the chimney but missed. Head over thighs he rolled out like a child's toy, smashed into the poking branches of the damn pear tree, which probably saved his life, breaking his fall. He landed with a thud on a bed of lettuces, and the wind was knocked out of him, mortifyingly so, through all available orifices.
Oh, brilliant,' said the voice. 'The trees are dropping their fruits early this year. — Gregory Maguire

Keep your arms dow." He let go of the shirt and slipped his arms around me. A second later, his agile fingers unclasped my bra.
"What are you doing?"
He laughed as the straps slid down my arms, making me shiver. "Like I said before, get your mind out of the gutter. Your virtue is safe with me."
"My virtue?" I wasn't sure if I wanted it to be safe with him.
He peeked up. "For now. — J. Lynn

Eddie got in. Roland paused for a moment to tap his throat three times. Eddie had seen him perform this ritual before when about to cross open water, and reminded himself to ask about it. He never got the chance; before the question occurred to him again, death had slipped between them. — Stephen King

No returning smile from Ullman. He slipped Jack's application back into a file. The file went into a drawer. The desk top was now completely bare except for a blotter, a telephone, a Tensor lamp, and an in/out basket. Both sides of the in/out were empty, too. — Stephen King

Once information slipped the bonds of gravity and friction, it tended to gather where it was most valuable. — H.W. Brands

I thought calming thoughts and visualized serene places. Eventually, i found myself drifting along the frenetic edges of my mind. The Sandman was nowhere to be found, as i slipped further away from sleep. — Jaeda DeWalt

Gareth's eyes slipped open. "You make me nervous when you do that."
"Do what?"
"Brood. Your brooding is rather loud."
"Oh please. I was hardly - "
His eyebrow rose.
"Fine. I was brooding. It's not like you don't."
"Mine is inherent to my romantic nature. Cloaks and castles."
Adele threw up her hands. "That's it. You are forbidden to look at any more cheap books about yourself. — Clay Griffith

Without another word he slid toward me, slipped his arms around me, and drew me forward into a kiss. Our lips met and the jolt of electricity I felt in my stomach dwarfed every kiss I'd imagined us having. My willpower broke, swept away by the force of my feelings. For one moment, nothing was real beyond that kiss. — Jennifer Quintenz

And each time, he slipped a little deeper into my bones. — A.L. Jackson

Possibly everyone now dead considered his own death as a freak accident, a mistake. Some bad luck caused it. Every enterprising man jack of them, and every sunlit vigorous woman and child, too, who had seemed so alive and pleased, was cold as a meat hook, and new chattering people trampled their bones unregarding, and rubbed their hands together and got to work improving their prospects till their own feet slipped and they went under themselves ... Every place was a tilting edge. — Annie Dillard

Lili lili birdbath
sitting on a dirtpath
minnow sat on the rim and drank
slipped and in the water she sank — Khaled Hosseini

This ring tells the world you're mine and no one else's," Sed said, then he slipped the ring onto Jessica's finger.
"This ring tells horny bitches that you're off-limits," she countered. — Olivia Cunning

Jesus Christ. He was wearing a suit for once, a dark gray ensemble that looked tailored to fit his wide shoulders, full arms, slim hips, and muscular thighs. How the hell did he go through the day without getting slipped a Rohypnol by every woman he came in contact with? — Mariana Zapata

But as the sun slipped even further, his eyes weren't drawn to the horizon. He watched Lily as she stood on the dock, glorying in the golden ritual, her russet hair slipping free from its ponytail to frame her face with messy abandon.
This is the view I need to be happy, she'd said.
The irony was exquisite. Because that was what he whispered to himself every time he saw her too.
And there wasn't a damn thing he could ever do about it. — Elyse Mady

You're beautiful he whispered as he scattered kisses along the incision line and over to her bellybutton. When he heard her release the breath she'd been holding, he slipped his tongue inside the well of her navel. He heard her gasp again, but this time in a different way, an excited way. — M. Leighton

...She did what she should never have done. For a second time, she drew close, took hold of his shoulders, and gave him a kiss, only this time on the ...cheek.
His mouth curved up wickedly, his eyes showing the same heated expression, right before he slipped his arms around her and pulled her tight against his body -- his already aroused body -- and kissed her. Hot, hard, in charge, possessive, filled with want and need and so much more. — Terry Spear

All the intervening layers slipped away, and I lost myself in the game within the game. — Ernest Cline

Now he felt the despair his father had felt as the familiar world slipped from around him, the valleys gashed and ugly, the woods disappearing. Daddy was right, he thought, the hills were dying, and I was so stupid to believe the hills were eternal, that a father could stay forever young. If only I had talked to him. If only he had let me get close to him. — Rohinton Mistry

When my fingers began, involuntarily, to loose their hold on Hella, I realized that I was dangling from a high place and that I had been clinging to her for my very life. With each moment, as my fingers slipped, I felt the roaring air beneath me and felt everything in me bitterly contracting, crawling furiously upward against that long fall. — James Baldwin

And what a story. The first thing that drew me in was disbelief. What? Humanity sins but it's God's Son who pays the price? I tried to imagine Father saying to me, 'Piscine, a lion slipped into the llama pen today and killed two llamas. Yesterday another one killed a black buck. Last week two of them ate a camel. The situation has become intolerable. Something must be done. I have decided that the only way the lions can atone for their sins is if I feed them you.' ... 'Yes, Father, that would be the right and logical thing to do. Give me a moment to wash up'. What a downright weird story. What a peculiar psychology. — Yann Martel

Sicarius padded toward the exit, his soft black boots silent on the tile floor. He paused in the doorway and glanced at the backs of the two older men.
The emperor emitted a nervous chuckle. "You trained him too well, Hollow. The man bothers me."
"He is loyal."
"I know. You did a good job. I ought to give you Sespian to work with. The boy is disappointing."
"He does seem soft," Hollowcrest said.
"Did you hear that scream? I would've been fascinated by severed heads at that age."
"You're fascinated with them now, Sire."
"True enough."
They shared a laugh and headed for the door. Sicarius slipped away before they noticed him. — Lindsay Buroker

You said they were friends, Mr Worthington. Sometimes third parties become intermediaries in these affairs.' On the word affair, he looked up and found himself staring directly into Peter Worthington's honest, abject eyes: and for a moment the two masks slipped simultaneously. Was Smiley observing? Or was he being observed? — John Le Carre

I've fallen. I must have slipped. Hit my head on something. I think I'm going to be sick. Everything is red. I can't get up. One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl . . . Three for a girl. I'm stuck on three, I just can't get any further. My head is thick with sounds, my mouth thick with blood. Three for a girl. I can hear the magpies - they're laughing, mocking me, a raucous cackling. A tiding. Bad tidings. I can see them now, black against the sun. Not the birds, something else. Someone's coming. Someone is speaking to me. Now look. Now look what you made me do. — Paula Hawkins

Fair Fatality, you are the most unusual female I have encountered in all my thirty-eight years!" "You can't think how deeply flattered I am!" she assured him. "I daresay my head would be quite turned if I didn't suspect that amongst so many a dozen or so may have slipped from your memory. — Georgette Heyer

She hesitated a moment then slipped her arm through his. "Just remember, I lead, you follow."
"Okay, but when we're dancing at the wedding, I lead, you follow."
She sighed dramatically. "I guess I can agree to that."
He chuckled. "See? I have a feeling this the beginning of a beautiful fake relationship."
She worried her bottom lip as they walked toward the kitchen together. "I'm sure glad one of us feels that way. — Jennifer Shirk

I turned, gaze sweeping the restaurant until I'd zeroed in on my sweet yellow Lab all crouched under a table, chewing on a shiny gold stiletto a diner had slipped off her foot. — Alyson Noel

I slipped the envelope into it, there in the wide lower corridor of the Arts Building with people passing me on the way to classes, on the way to have a smoke and maybe a game of bridge in the Common Room. On their way to deeds they didn't know they had in them. — Alice Munro

His name was Anderson and he had little gift for communication. Like most technicians, he had a
terror and a contempt for speculation. The inductive leap was not for him. He dug a step and pulled himself up one single step, the way a man climbs the last shoulder of a mountain. He had great contempt, born of fear, for the Hamiltons, for they all half believed they had wings - and they got some bad falls that way.
Anderson never fell, never slipped back, never flew. His steps moved slowly, slowly upward, and in the end, it is said, he found what he wanted - color film. He married Una, perhaps, because she had little humor, and this reassured him. Una wrote bleak letters without joy but also without self-pity. She was well and she hoped her family was well. — John Steinbeck

Opening the door quietly, I slipped in without switching on the light. From the entrance hall, I
could see the dining room at the end of the corridor, the table still decked out for the party. The cake was there, untouched, and the crockery still waited for the meal. I could make out the motionless silhouette of my father in his armchair, as he observed the scene from the window. He was awake and still wearing his best suit. Wreaths of smoke rose lazily from a cigarette he held between his index and ring
fingers, as if it were a pen. I hadn't seen my father smoke for years. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

She slid open the box, extracted a match, and struck it with a flourish. The flame flared up in the gloom of the unlit room, a tiny golden beacon. For a moment, Oma Kristel held it aloft, then the unthinkable happened. The match slipped out of her fingers and fell straight onto her pink mohair bosom. With a whooomph! like the sounds of a gas furnace firing up, the hairspray with which Oma Kristel had doused herself ignited, obliterating her in a column of flames. — Helen Grant

You are burnt beyond recognition, he added, looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage. She held up her hands, strong, shapely hands, and surveyed them critically, drawing up her fawn sleeves above the wrists. Looking at them reminded her of her rings, which she had given to her husband before leaving for the beach. She silently reached out to him, and he, understanding, took the rings from his vest pocket and dropped them into her open palm. She slipped them upon her fingers; then clasping her knees, she looked across at Robert and began to laugh. The rings sparkled upon her fingers. He sent back an answering smile. — Kate Chopin

A shrill cry rang out in the night; and he felt a pain like a dart of poisoned ice pierce his left shoulder. Even as he swooned he caught, as through a swirling mist, a glimpse of Strider leaping out of the darkness with a flaming brand of wood in either hand. With a last effort Frodo, dropping his sword, slipped the Ring from his finger and closed his right hand tight upon it. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Do you know my best quality?" she asks.
"Of your many, I could not say, my darling."
"I see the best in people. I fall in love with people when I see a window into their beings, their shining moments. I've fallen in love with so many people but the trouble is I fall out of love so quickly too. I see the worst in them just as easily.
"Do you know I fell in love with you right away? That day at the Trotters' I had noted you because you were new, of course, and then you sat down at the piano, and you played a few notes, but you played them so well, with no self consciousness, and no idea that anyone might be listening. It was in that room off the garden and you were the only one there. I was passing through on the way to the ladies' room and saw you there. I fell in love with you right then, and so I slipped my drink all over myself so I could meet you." — Janice Y.K. Lee

The certainty that she would find what it was she sought just slipped away, until one night she knew there was nothing, no one waiting for her. That no matter how far she walked, how carefully she searched, how much she wanted to find the person she was looking for, she was alone - The Forgotten Garden — Kate Morton

In the fatal course of the most painful ailments, sometimes [ ... ], sometimes there occur sweet mornings of perfect repose- and that not owning to some blessed pill or potion [ ... ] or at least without our knowing that the loving hand of despair slipped us the drug. — Vladimir Nabokov

He slipped on the floor and this time his — David Baldacci

This light-shouldered boy could jitterbug, old style, and would; he was more precious than gold, yea, than much fine gold. We jitterbugged ... Only the strenth in our fingertips kept us alive. If they weakened or slipped, his fingertips or mine, we'd fall spinning backward across the length of the room and out through the glass French doors to the snowy terrace, and if we were any good we'd make sure we fell on the downbeat, snow or no snow. — Annie Dillard

Emily just knew that the grocery store clerk's cousin had slipped on a bath mat and fallen out a second-story open window only to be saved because the woman landed on a discarded mattress.
But what interested Emily most about the incident was how the cousin had subsequently met a man in physical therapy who introduced her to his half brother who she ended up marrying and then running over with her car a year later after a heated argument. And that man, it was discovered, had been the one to dump the mattress in her yard.
He'd saved her so that she could later cripple him.
Emily found that not ironic but intriguing.
Because everything, she believed, was connected. — Holly Goldberg Sloan

You must be Sara." Lucas extended his hand.
Sara slipped her hand into Lucas's. "That's me. And you are?"
"Lucas Parker, Kylie's boyfriend."
Boyfriend? Kylie's breath caught. The water slipping down her throat went down the wrong pipe. She started coughing so hard, the sound bounced around the high beams of the dining hall. If that wasn't bad enough, her mom, who'd been sipping on a diet soda, did the same thing.
Crap! If there was one person in the dining hall who hadn't already stared at them, they did now. — C.C. Hunter

shut and slipped into — Sarah Flint

I'm not skilled enough to explain properly how we feel. Not only me, but I'm sure Tony and Tim and Pop feel the same way. Last year was a tough one for all of us. We felt like we had the trophy, that we were touching it, and it slipped away. We all felt guilty. We got to this spot, and we didn't let it go. — Manu Ginobili

Did he hurt you? The emotion I was trying to suppress clawed at my throat, unleashed by the gentleness in Philip's voice. Without warning, a tear slipped down my cheek. I swiped it away. — Julianne Donaldson

Sasha groaned from beside her as he struggled with his belt. "I think I'm going to barf a hairball."
Jess let out a frustrated breath as he tried to loosen himself. "You can't. You're canine."
"Tell that to the hairball in my stomach."
Jess cursed as his hand slipped while he was trying to get loose. "Bet you're glad I made you fasten that seat belt now, aren't you, Mr. I-can-flash-myself-out-if-we-get-hit?"
Sasha groaned. "Shut up, asshole." He glared at Jess. "And I would have flashed out of the car, but because we were rolling, I didn't want to get hit by it. Damn those Rytis laws. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

[Rick] "Tara."
The sound of his voice snapped her away from the memories. His command brooked no argument as he looked up from between her spread thighs.
"Eyes on me."
His voice told her not to think, dominated every part of her soul, until she couldn't fight him, and she slipped firmly back into the present. — Jennifer Probst

He was dead again when I got home that day. His corpse was in the kitchen, near the counter, where it appeared he'd been chopping vegetables when the urge to stab himself through the wrist had struck. I slipped on the blood coming in, which annoyed me because that meant it was all over the kitchen floor. — N.K. Jemisin

Sarah, though, was still sometimes ruled by stark pain, lost to everything else. Grief slipped away, only to attack from behind. It changed shape endlessly. It lacerated her, numbed her, stalked her, startled her, caught her by the throat. It deceived her eye with glimpses of Charles, her ear with the sound of his voice. She would turn and turn, expecting him, and find him gone. Again. Each time Sarah escaped her sorrow, forgetful amid other things, she lost him anew the instant she remembered he was gone. — Kate Maloy

Freedom is too enormous to be slipped under a closet door. — Harvey Milk

He was the only one interested in me."
"Of course he isn't," Steve said. "Practically every boy in the school would want a chance to ... ow, Maisy!"
"Sorry, my elbow slipped. — Kailin Gow