Together To The Top Quotes & Sayings

and THE TIGER One day, Dragon was out lounging in the shade with his best friend Tiger. The pair had been best friends ever since they were baby animals. They were the most popular animals in the entire forest and they knew it. Each year during the annual talent show, both Dragon and Tiger would perform a routine together. They performed magic tricks, balancing tricks and juggling tricks. The pair was unstoppable and each year took home the top awards. This year would not be any different, both Dragon and Tiger expected to win big at the next talent show. They had to upstage all the other animals, and this would be quite tough because most of the animals had been practicing their routines for months in order to have a chance at beating the Dragon and Tiger. — Martin Aaron

People look at my competitive spirit, and they automatically attach it to the thing that's most similar, most easily recognizable, which is Michael [Jordan's] competitive spirit. I'm different. I enjoy building. I enjoy the process of putting the puzzle together, and then the byproduct of that, the consequence of that, is beating somebody. That becomes the cherry on top, the icing on the cake. — Kobe Bryant

The book [Joyce's "Ulysses"] can just as well be read backwards, for it has no back and no front, no top and no bottom. Everything could easily have happened before, or might have happened afterwards. You can read any of the conversations just as pleasurably backwards, for you don't miss the point of the gags. Every sentence is a gag, but taken together they make no point. You can also stop in the middle of a sentence
the first half still makes sense enough to live by itself, or at least seems to. The whole work has the character of a worm cut in half, that can grow a new head or a new tail as required. — C. G. Jung

Things are either devolving toward, or evolving from, nothingness. As dusk approaches in the hinterlands, a traveler ponders shelter for the night. He notices tall rushes growing everywhere, so he bundles an armful together as they stand in the field, and knots them at the top. Presto, a living grass hut. The next morning, before embarking on another day's journey, he unknots the rushes and presto, the hut de-constructs, disappears, and becomes a virtually indistinguishable part of the larger field of rushes once again. The original wilderness seems to be restored, but minute traces of the shelter remain. A slight twist or bend in a reed here and there. There is also the memory of the hut in the mind of the traveler - and in the mind of the reader reading this description. Wabi-sabi, in its purest, most idealized form, is precisely about these delicate traces, this faint evidence, at the borders of nothingness. — Leonard Koren

Most of you will probably never really discover anything. You may not contribute anything to the great equations that describe the universe to the world. But you will have the good fortune of encountering people of exceptional intelligence. People who are much smarter than you. Never get in their way, never group together in disgruntled circles and play games. Respect talent, real talent. Worship it. Clever people will always be disliked. Don't exploit that to crawl your way to the top. By the laws of probability most of you are mediocre. Accept it. The tragedy of mediocrity is that even mediocre people shake their heads and mull over how "standards are falling". So don't mull. Just know when you've to get out of the way. Most of you will be sideshows, extras in the grand unfolding of truth. That's all right. Once you accept that and let the best brains do their jobs, you will have done your service to science and mankind. — Manu Joseph

I can't stand when girls come to me and say they want to be a model, but they can't tell me who the top three photographers are in the world. They can't tell me who the top five biggest models are or name three cosmetics companies. They can't even name the top fashion magazines! You have to get it together and know your stuff. — Kimora Lee Simmons

My purpose in life. (Her Son)
You are the making, the centre and the skin of my life. I couldn't adore anyone more.
No one in this World can say that they educated me, changed me, yield me, broke me down, rebuilt me and strengthen me the way you can and have: and did it with love.
You're the only one I can say I've had the pleasure of crying over, getting my heart stamped on by, living through the pain and recovering after it.
Everything we've been through we will and have always come out on top: it's you and me kid.
You are my Muse, my Heart, my Life and my Soul, and no matter the changes in life,
my love, my dedication, my heart and my soul will never.
Thank you for the ups and downs, thank you for my crazy smile and lets continue to face the World as we always have ... together. — Ellie Williams

then coiling his length together, roaring like thunder underground, he sped from his deep lair through its great door, out into the huge passages of the mountain-palace and up towards the Front Gate. To hunt the whole mountain till he had caught the thief and had torn and trampled him was his one thought. He issued from the Gate, the waters rose in fierce whistling steam, and up he soared blazing into the air and settled on the mountain-top in a spout of green and scarlet flame. The dwarves heard the awful rumour of his flight, and they crouched against the walls of the grassy terrace cringing under boulders, hoping somehow to escape the frightful eyes of the hunting dragon. There they would have all been killed, if it had not been for Bilbo once again. "Quick! Quick!" he gasped. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Merlin really taught me how to concentrate, that you play each play as if it were the only play. And if you put all the plays together like that, then you'll come out on top. — Jack Youngblood

Everyone would remember Peter for nineteen minutes of his life, but what about the other nine million? Lacy would be the keeper of those, because it was the only way for that part of Peter to stay alive. For every recollection of him that involved a bullet or a scream, she would have a hundred others: of a little boy splashing in a pond, or riding a bicycle for the first time, or waving from the top of a jungle gym. Of a kiss good night, or a crayoned Mother's Day card, or a voice off-key in the shower. She would string them together - the moments when her child had been just like other people's. She would wear them, precious pearls, every day of her life; because if she lost them, then the boy she had loved and raised and known would really be gone. — Jodi Picoult

If you were born as a no-mind, then the mind is just a social product. It is nothing natural, it is cultivated. It has been put together on top of you. Deep down you are still free, you can get out of it. One can never get out of nature, but one can get out of the artificial any moment one decides to. Existence — Osho

On top of whatever else I'm doing, I'm usually teaching some form of composition. The benefit of this is I get to read across disciplines. Often enough that work spills over to my creative reading/thinking, and I reach a point of saturation where I can't distinguish between texts and writers and everything starts to blur and smudge together. — Gregory Pardlo

Cam restored her clothing slowly, his strong hands lifting her from the beech. Crushing her close, he muttered something incomprehensible against her hair. Another spell to bind her, she thought hazily, her cheek pressed to his smooth, hard chest. "You're speaking in Romany," she mumbled.
Cam switched to English. "Amelia, I - " He stopped, as if the right words eluded him. "I can't stop myself from being jealous, any more than I can stop being half Roma. But I'll try not to be overbearing. Just say you'll be my wife."
"Please," Amelia whispered, her wits still scattered, "let me answer later. When I can think clearly."
"You do too much thinking." He kissed the top of her head. "I can't promise you a perfect life. But I can promise that no matter what happens, I'll give you everything I have. We'll be together. You inside me ... me inside you. — Lisa Kleypas

Three o'clock in the morning.
The highway is empty, under a malignant moon. The oil drippings make the roadway gleam like a blue-satin ribbon. The night is still but for a humming noise coming up somewhere behind a rise of ground.
Two other, fiercer, whiter moons, set close together, suddenly top the rise, shoot a fan of blinding platinum far down ahead of them. Headlights. The humming burgeons into a roar. The touring car is going so fast it sways from side to side. The road is straight. The way is long. The night is short. (Jane Brown's Body) — Cornell Woolrich

There are times when personal experience keeps us from reaching the mountain top and so we let it go because the weight of it is too heavy. And sometimes the mountain top is difficult to reach with all our resources, factual and confessional, so we are just there, collectively grasping, feeling the limitations of knowledge, longing together, yearning for a way to reach that highest point. Even this yearning is a way to know. — Bell Hooks

You are gonna shoot me," he says. "One day." He's still holding Lindsay's hand, he's looking down at where their fingers are wound together and not at Lindsay's face, but his voice is clear. "I ain't thick. I know you'll get sick of me. You can't just let me go, I know too much, you'd be freaked out forever in case I snitched. You'll get proper sick of me one day, not just annoyed, and then you'll shoot me. It's okay."
"I won't get sick of you," Lindsay says. He feels numb and far away, as if its somebody else talking, and almost like he's going to throw up, a sort of lurch in his stomach like when you're at the top of the the Angel tube station escalator and somebody a bit too eager to get on the train shoves you from behind.
"Yeah you will. I'm gonna be with you til I die, though. Least I can say that and know its true, how many people can do that? Bit romantic, really. If you squint, and look at it sideways. — Richard Rider

In your body, the gradually accumulating burden of reactive experiences is called allostatic load, which increases inflammation, weakens your immune system, and wears on your cardiovascular system. In your brain, allostatic load causes neurons to atrophy in the prefrontal cortex, the center of top-down executive control; in the hippocampus, the center of learning and memory; and in other regions. It impairs myelination, the insulating of neural fibers to speed along their signals, which can weaken the connectivity between different regions of your brain, so they don't work together as well as they should. — Rick Hanson

Nothing in the last few years has dazzled me more than Hilary Mantel's 'Wolf Hall,' which blew the top of my head straight off. I've read it three times, and I'm still trying to figure out how she put that magnificent thing together. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Generally, an indie film in the U.K. is put together much like in the states. We got a tax credit. You sell the domestic rights, which can be quite low, but it's enough to push you over the line. And you get a tax credit on top of that, and then you cobble it together with private equity or gap financing and things like that. — Noel Clarke

She's come to realize that life is a bit like doing laundry
you have to separate the darks from the lights. One's not necessarily better than the other
they're just different. They have different needs, require different levels of care. She knows plenty of customers who don't give it much thought and throw all their laundry in together, and maybe that's the chaotic part of life that just happens, that no matter how hard you try, you can't always keep things separate. A red sock gets mixed in with a load of whites, or a delicate black top gets washed in hot water by accident. These things happen. All you can do is learn from it and move on. Tell your husband to enjoy his pink underwear, give your shrunken top to your little sister or niece. But it doesn't mean that you stop sorting your laundry. You keep sorting
lights from darks, darks from lights
and hope for the best. — Darien Gee

We've spent our time together talking about everything but what matters. We've never brought to each other the heavy things we were meant to help each other carry. We've only introduced each other to our representatives, while our real selves tried to live life alone. We thought that was safer. We thought that this way our real selves wouldn't get hurt. But as I read these messages, it becomes clear that we are all hurting anyway. And we think we are alone. At our cores, we are our tender selves peeking out at a world of shiny representatives, so shame has been layered on top of our pain. We're suffocating underneath all the layers. * — Glennon Doyle Melton

Linked together as a team with one goal, we soon realized we were only as strong as our weakest link. But did we condemn the weaker
member? That wouldn't serve any purpose. Instead, the stronger guys responded by carrying more weight than the weaker teammate. Encouragement was key in reaching the top of the stadium, standing as one.
Sometimes one person on your team may not be as strong as another. Strengths usually differ. Likewise, in an encounter with another, someone may have a different set of beliefs or ideas.To accomplish any goal, embracing the strengths and weaknesses of each member and compensating where necessary are the best ways to make it to the top. — Jake Byrne

It has been an obsession of human beings to create a hierarchy that places the human species on top and lumps all the "other animals" together beneath us. The resulting "speciesism" allows us to look upon animals as less deserving of all manner of rights and considerations than humans. To support this lower status, humans have argued that animals act instinctually; don't have souls; don't feel physical pain like we do; and lack self-consciousness, cognitive intelligence, emotional feelings, morality, and ethics. — Sharon Gannon

As I ascended, I realized I didn't understand what a mountain was, or even if I was hiking up one mountain or a series of them glommed together. I'd not grown up around mountains. I'd walked on a few, but only on well-trod paths on day hikes. They'd seemed to be nothing more than really big hills. But they were not that. They were, I now realized, layered and complex, inexplicable and analogous to nothing. Each time I reached the place that I thought was the top of the mountain or the series of mountains glommed together, I was wrong. There was still more up to go, even if first there was a tiny slope that went tantalizingly down. So up I went until I reached what really was the top. I knew it was the top because there was snow. Not on the ground, but falling from the sky, in thin flakes that swirled in mad patterns, pushed by the wind. — Cheryl Strayed

He broke me down past the flesh, past the muscle, past the bone, down to my soul and in a loud provocation, he asked, "What are you made of?"
After I gathered the broken bits and pieces of my life together, I shouted at the top of my lungs, "HOPE! Unbreakable, undeniable, irrevocable hope! — Jay Grewal

Rabbi Heskel Shpilman is a deformed mountain, a giant ruined desert, a cartoon house with the windows shut and the sink left running. A little kid lumped him together, a mob of kids, blind orphans who never laid eyes on a man. They clumped the dough of his arms and legs to the dough of his body, then jammed his head down on top. A millionaire could cover a Rolls-Royce with the fine black silk-and-velvet expanse of the rebbe's frock coat and trousers. It would require the brain strength of the eighteen greatest sages in history to reason through the arguments against and in favor of classifying the rebbe's massive bottom as either a creature of the deep, a man-made structure, or an unavoidable act of God. — Michael Chabon

But this convention is about more than re-nominating President Obama. It's about Americans coming together to build one economy - not from the top down, but from the middle class out and the bottom up. — Debbie Wasserman Schultz

At the end of that week, Navin arrived to marry me. I was repulsed by the sight of him, not because I had betrayed him but because he still breathed, because he was there for me and had countless more days to live. And yet without his even realizing it, firmly but without force, Navin pulled me away from you, as the final gust of autumn wind pulls the last leaves from the trees. We were married, we were blessed, my hand was placed on top of his, and the ends of our clothing were knotted together. I felt the weight of each ritual, felt the ground once more underfoot. — Jhumpa Lahiri

On the street, men appeared to me like mad ghosts, old skeletons out of joint, whose bones, badly strung together, were falling to the pavement with a strange noise. I saw the necks turning on top of broken spinal columns, hanging upon disjointed clavicles, arms sundered from the trunks, the trunks themselves losing their shape. And all these scraps of human bodies, stripped of their flesh by death, were rushing upon one another, forever spurred on by a homicidal fever, forever driven by pleasure, and they were fighting over foul carrion. — Octave Mirbeau

Four houndred billion suns spiraling through space together. Our solar system just one grain on that galactic carousel. The carousel itself a speck in the cosmos. And here I am in this small clearing, on the surface of the heart, as transient and unnoticed to the universe as the dry blades of grass that are poking into my shirt. It's too much to comprehend up there, too enormous, and I'm so small when it's on top of me. It frightens me, like I'm being crushed. — Elizabeth Fama

On nights that I'm feeling a need to stretch personally and artistically, I tend to put together outfits that are very quirky, mismatched and over-the-top eclectic. — Esperanza Spalding

We're workers, they say. Work, they call it! That's the crummiest part of the whole business. We're down in the hold, heaving and panting, stinking and sweating our balls off, and meanwhile! Up on deck in the fresh air, what do you see?! Our masters having a fine time with beautiful pink and perfumed women on their laps. They send for us, we're brought up on deck. They put on their top hats and give us a big spiel like as follows: "You no-good swine! We're at war! Those stinkers in Country No. 2! We're going to board them and cut their livers out! Let's go! Let's go! We've got everything we need on board! All together now! Let's hear you shout so the deck trembles: 'Long live Country No. 1!' So you'll be heard for miles around. The man that shouts the loudest will get a medal and a lollipop! Let's — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Knowledge is key, without knowledge, leadership, and action plans that fit the actual challenges, all of our businesses and organizations are lost. By providing training, offering moments to come together and exchange best practices all of us can stay on top of our field. — Inge Ignatia De Waard

And so we stood together like that, at the top of that field for what seemed like ages, not saying anything, just holding each other, while the wind kept blowing and blowing at us, tugging our clothes, and for a moment, it seemed like we were holding onto each other because that was the only way to stop us from being swept away into the night. — Kazuo Ishiguro

Whether it's developers or industry veterans on the business side, top talent likes to work together. — Brendan Iribe

I like being this guy who says we're all in this together. I've gone right up to the top and said, "You might be the producer, the guy with all the money, but treat people with respect goddammit, because if you don't, you're going to hear from me. We're all equal here, from the lowliest guy to the filmmaker. We are all trying to bring our A-game here, so don't fuck with people. — Ron Perlman

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

I used to put the vocals on top and piece it together. Now I start with the vocals and the string parts I write; the drums are kind of an afterthought. And who knows, maybe that will get boring, but right now that's the most interesting way for me. — Hamilton Leithauser

Scones (flavoured with outrage, optional - see "My Story") Mix together: 2 cups flour 4 t. baking powder ¾ t. salt 2-4 T. sugar (depending on whether scones are to be sweet or savoury) Cut into the flour mixture: 1/3 cup butter When the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs, add any flavourings (handful of grated cheese with herbs, and green onions; lemon rind; dried cranberries, currents, or blueberries, etc). Beat together: ¾ cup milk or cream 1 egg Stir into the dry mixture. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead three or four times, then roll out to ¾ inch thick and cut into circles with cutter, or pat into one large circle and cut that into wedges. Bake at 400 degrees 15 minutes, or until golden. Can brush the top with egg and sprinkle with coarse sugar before baking, if desired. Some — Laurie R. King

It's time for us to join the line of your madmen all chained together.
Time to be totally free, and estranged.
Time to give up our souls, to set fire to structures and run out in the street.
Time to ferment.
How else can we leave the world-vat and go to the lip?
We must die to become true human beings.
We must turn completely upside down
like a comb in the top of a beautiful woman's hair.
Spread out your wings as a tree lifts in the orchard.
As seed scattered on the road,
as a stone melts to wax,
as a candle becomes the moth.
On a chessboard the king is blessed again with his queen.
With our faces so close to the love mirror, we must not breathe, but change to a cleared place where a building was and feel the treasure hiding inside us.
With no beginning or end,
we live in lovers as a story they know.
If you will be the key, we'll be tumblers in the lock. — Rumi

Smart creatives thrive on interacting with each other. The mixture you get when you cram them together is combustible, so a top priority must be to keep them crowded. — Eric Schmidt

Years ago, when I was (at Stanford), you had maybe one or two teams
at one time I was part of one of those teams
you didn't have to worry about, ... Now it's not that way in the conference. A lot of the teams that were once at the bottom kind of have their games together and are making their way to the top. — Tyrone Willingham

Give us privacy," James told him, his voice sharp. The man beat a hasty retreat. James shut and locked the door behind him. Handy that, a lock. He started loosening his tie. When it was untied, he hooked a finger into the hoop at my neck. He pushed my back to the wall. Or rather, the door. He reached above my head and I looked up. There was a coat hanger above me, hooked over the top of the tall door. James was tying his tie to it with swift, sure motions. He pulled my arms up and together, wrapping the tie around them, tying more swift knots around my wrists. This took longer, and I watched those skillful hands with rapt attention. "This is going to get loud, Bianca. I'm going to fuck you so hard that you scream my name. And you are going to scream so loudly that nobody will doubt just why you're screaming. Would you like to tell me what you and Roger were talking about before I'm inside of you? Or will this be a mid-fuck confession? — R.K. Lilley

And at Dack's party- it was like this. Like you had all the time in the world, and you wanted us to have it together. I loved that. It was like- well, it was like you'd climbed up that tree and found me there at the top. And we had that together. — David Levithan

A few minutes later, he said suddenly: 'Kath, can we stop? I'm sorry, I need to get out a minute.'
... I could make out in the mid-distance, near where the field began to fall away, Tommy's figure, raging, shouting, flinging his fists and kicking out. I caught a glimpse of his face in the moonlight, caked in mud and distorted with fury, then I reached for his failing arms and held on tight. He tried to shake me off, but I kept holding on, until he stopped shouting and I felt the fight go out of him. Then I realised he too had his arms around me. And so we stood together like that, at the top of the field, for what seemed like ages, not saying anything, just holding each other, while the wind kept blowing and blowing at us, tugging our clothes, and for a moment, it seemed like we were holding onto each other because that was the only way to stop us being swept away into the night. — Kazuo Ishiguro

....One dark night,
my Tudor Ford climbed the hill's skull;
I watched for love-cars. Lights turned down,
they lay together, hull to hull,
where the graveyard shelves on the town. . . .
My mind's not right.

A car radio bleats,
"Love, O careless Love. . . ." I hear
my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell,
as if my hand were at its throat. . . .
I myself am hell;
nobody's here--

only skunks, that search
in the moonlight for a bite to eat.
They march on their soles up Main Street:
white stripes, moonstruck eyes' red fire
under the chalk-dry and spar spire
of the Trinitarian Church.

I stand on top
of our back steps and breathe the rich air--
a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills the garbage pail.
She jabs her wedge-head in a cup
of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail,
and will not scare. — Robert Lowell

I have a three-legged milk stool in my office perched on top of a cabinet. It is a great symbol for how to succeed in business. There are three legs: Take care of the customer, have a little fun, make a little money. If you don't do that, it doesn't work, but if you do, it comes together easily. — Larry H. Miller

Was it possible, she wondered, to have solitude together? She tried to imagine what he would do if after dinner she went to his study back home with her book or her laptop, and sat on the couch there instead of in the living room as they had in the early years. He might glance over the top of his computer with a look of surprise and then a smile of welcome. Hey there. Or there might be a moment's hesitation. She'd sit quietly nearby, each of them feeling the weight of the other int he room and a dampening of his or her own thoughts, each looking up expectantly when the other shifted in a chair or looked off into the middle distance. She might offer a snippet of commentary about something she was reading, but it would not be easily understood out of context. After an hour or so she would stand and stretch, murmur that sh though she'd call it a night, and the following night she'd go back to the living room. It was a gift, solitude. But solitude with another person, that was an art. — Nichole Bernier

The modern world has far too little understanding of the art of keeping young. Its notion of progress has been to pile one thing on top of another, without caring if each thing was crushed in turn. People forgot that the human soul can enjoy a thing most when there is time to think about it and be thankful for it. And by crowding things together they lost the sense of surprise; and surprise is the secret of joy. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

this is real, and it is happening now, just as it happened before: We are under the big tree in my backyard, on that patch of dirt where we used to build fairy houses from moss and sticks and scraps of birch. It is late afternoon. All around us is golden light. We have been together all day, in our cutoff shorts and bare feet. It is the start of fifth grade, the start of being the oldest in the school. Next year, we will be the youngest all over again. But not yet. We are playing that hand-slapping game, the one we like to play at recess. You hold your hands out, palms up, and I place mine lightly on top. You pull yours out and try to slap mine. You hit air three times. On the fourth try, your — Ali Benjamin

He reached the top of the bank in a single, powerful leap. Hazel followed; and together they slipped away, running easily down through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom. — Richard Adams

Just a rock, a dome of snow, the deep blue sky, and a hunk of orange-painted metal from which a shredded American flag cracked in the wind. Nothing more. Except two tiny figures walking together those last few feet to the top of the Earth. — Tom Hornbein

When you're writing a book, it's rather like going on a very long walk, across valleys and mountains and things, and you get the first view of what you see and you write it down. Then you walk a bit further, maybe up onto the top of a hill, and you see something else. Then you write that and you go on like that, day after day, getting different views of the same landscape really. The highest mountain on the walk is obviously the end of the book, because it's got to be the best view of all, when everything comes together and you can look back and see that everything you've done all ties up. But it's a very, very long, slow process. — Roald Dahl

I want to go back to the format that radio started with rock n' roll, with country artists and rhythm and blues with that oldies type feeling. I want to put it all together and create a Top 40 of rhythm and blues and country and straight blues with Wolfman at the reins. — Wolfman Jack

What would you think of a person who earned $24,000 a year but spent $35,000? Suppose on top of that, he was already $170,000 in debt. You'd tell him to get his act together - stop spending so much or he'd destroy his family, impoverish his kids and wreck their future. Of course, no individual could live so irresponsibly for long. But tack on eight more zeroes to that budget and you have the checkbook for our out-of-control, big-spending federal government. — John Stossel

Time to cash in your chips
put your ideas and beliefs on the table.
See who has the bigger hand
you or the Mystery that pervades you.

Time to scrape the mind's shit
off your shoes
undo the laces
that hold your prison together
and dangle your toes into emptiness.

Once you've put everything
on the table
once all of your currency is gone
and your pockets are full of air
all you've got left to gamble with
is yourself.

Go ahead, climb up onto the velvet top
of the highest stakes table.
Place yourself as the bet.
Look God in the eyes
and finally
for once in your life
lose. — Adyashanti

Ignoring her snit, Michael reached over to clasp her hand, holding it possessively. She spoke no words, but returned his squeeze. Perhaps this cloudless, perfect afternoon would be their last day together as allies. The house on Winslow Street was becoming a curse, and she could see no way forward for them. She leaned against his side, and he responded by lowering his cheek to rest against the top of her head. — Elizabeth Camden

Humanity must work together to stop deforestation. Every minute over 160 acres of land feel the destructive effects of deforestation. Deforestation causes species to become extinct, disrupts natural habitats, and erodes the top soil of viable farming lands causing drought and famine. — Kambiz Mostofizadeh

Wear your new boots." He passed her the clothes. "They'll work well with that, and with the coat as well."
"What new boots?" Her eyebrows drew together as he took them off a shelf. "And where did they come from?"
"The boot elves, I assume."
"The boot elves are going to be pissed when they're dinged and scuffed inside a week."
"Oh, I think they're more tolerant than that."
"Those elves keep this up I'm going to need a bigger closet."
But she dressed as advised, then sat to pull on the boots while Roarke programmed breakfast for two.
They slid on like
as Peabody might say
butter. "Okay." She stood, took some strides. "They're great. Sturdy
I could definitely kick some teeth in with these."
"The elves had that as top priority. — J.D. Robb

I've used a lot of jersey, but I've also done a lot of complex pattern weaves in these fabrics in solid colors, and there are lots of little dresses for cocktail and evening. I've done a series of very important evening dresses as well, just to show that these two ideas can also work well together. Today's woman can wear an important evening dress or a simple pant and top. It's all in the personality of the woman. — Giorgio Armani

A Dr van 't Hoff of the veterinary college at Utrecht ... finds it a less arduous task to mount Pegasus (evidently borrowed from the veterinary school) and to proclaim in his La Chemie dans l' espace how, during his bold fight to the top of the chemical Parnassus, the atoms appeared to him to have grouped themselves together throughout universal space ... I should have taken no notice of this matter had not Wislicenus oddly enough written a preface to the pamphlet, and not by way of a joke but in all seriousness recommended it a worthwhile performance. — Hermann Kolbe

I really enjoyed working with Daniel [Craig], because he's a brilliant actor at the top of his game. That gave me an opportunity to learn from the best, which is what you're always looking for as a performer in order to grow and get better at your craft. It was also great because he was so nice and incredibly supportive, because it really was an intimidating experience for me. He sort of held my hand and said, "We're in this together and we'll get through it together." And he did look after me. — Naomie Harris

Her legs started to tremble and together they went down to the rug. Angie lay spread before him like an impossible offering and every thought, every memory, every consideration dissolved and there was only the need to be inside her, to lose himself in the slick warmth of her, to feel alive and to feel pleasure.
He stretched on top of her and her legs spread to accept him. He gripped himself and found her entrance. He slid inside her, into tight, wet heat. And then he really did lose his mind. — Sarah Mayberry

Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon lent their support to such interventionist measures as Medicare and the Environmental Protection Agency. Eisenhower pushed for the greatest public works project in the history of the United States - the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, which linked the nation together with four-lane (and occasionally six-lane) interstate highways covering forty thousand miles. The GOP also backed large expansion of federally supported higher education. And to many Republicans at the time, a marginal income tax rate of more than 70 percent on top incomes was not repugnant. — Robert B. Reich

I come from a family of Russian immigrant Jews who were all big storytellers, who would get together, and one would try to top the others' stories, and stories would get bigger and bigger. And the lying aspect, the exaggeration, would get large. — Philip Schultz

Many phenomena - wars, plagues, sudden audits - have been advanced as evidence for the hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of Man, but whenever students of demonology get together the M25 London orbital motorway is generally agreed to be among the top contenders for exhibit A. — Neil Gaiman

I've always wanted to do a segment on a talk show. Jay Leno has been such a good friend, and if he would allow me, I'd have to get it all together, but I'd like to go on 'The Tonight Show' and do a set with no props. Or come out with a trunk and never touch it. Or come out with a clear trunk with nothing in it. — Carrot Top

How I wish we could spend a couple of Christmas days together, for instance - I would also dearly like to have you in my studio once more.
I, too, have been toiling quite hard recently, precisely because I was full of the Christmas feeling, and feeling isn't enough, one must bring it into one's work.
So I'm now occupied with two large heads of an orphan man, with his white beard and old-fashioned, old top hat.
This chap has the sort of old, lively face that one would wish for beside a cosy Christmas fire. — Vincent Van Gogh

Furi put his hands over top of Syn's and slowly brought their hands down. He stood and wrapped his arms around Syn's neck and Syn hugged Furi tightly to him. Their mouths came together hard and hungry. Biting and licking each other, like one of them was leaving for a long journey. They kissed like it could be their last time, and it unnerved the hell out of Syn. He didn't like this feeling, he didn't like the uncertainty of this whole fucked up situation. He needed to fix this. — A.E. Via

Listening (had there been any one to listen) from the upper rooms of the empty house only gigantic chaos streaked with lightning could have been heard tumbling and tossing, as the winds and waves disported themselves like the amorphous bulks of leviathans whose brows are pierced by no light of reason, and mounted one on top of another, and lunged and plunged in the darkness or the daylight (for night and day, month and year ran shapelessly together) in idiot games, until it seemed as if the universe were battling and tumbling, in brute confusion and wanton lust aimlessly by itself. — Virginia Woolf

Yes, that resurrection does indeed give us a sure and certain hope. If that's not the case, we are of all people, as Paul says, most to be pitied.3 But when the New Testament strikes the great Easter bell, the main resonances it sets up are not simply about ourselves and about whatever future world God is ultimately going to make, when heaven and earth are joined together and renewed at last from top to bottom. Precisely because the resurrection has happened as an event within our own world, its implications and effects are to be felt within our own world, here and now. This — N. T. Wright

There was one new metallic monstrosity stacked in one corner that she hadn't seen the last time she was a visitor to his strange chamber, it appeared to be a mass of hard drives all fused together, but they looked too sophisticated to be merely hard drives.
"What on earth is that?"
"That's my Kung Fu," he said proudly, patting the top of the futuristic-looking stack.
"Is that what you wanted to show me?"
"No, but it's impressive, isn't it?"
"If you say so."
Steves sighed and shook his head, so few people could appreciate the intellectual complexity of an almost untraceable hacking device. — E.A. Bucchianeri

The flat top of the hill was scattered with the bodies of dead men in the uniforms of Sounis and Eddis. The outposts of both armies had met here. As I stood staring, I thought, These are my dead. All of them. The battle hadn't been unanticipated or forced on me, as the raid in the villa had been. I had chosen it. These men, Eddisian and Sounisian alike, had died for my decisions.
When the magus stepped from the bushes toward the back part of the hill, I was more than horrified. I was perilously close to distraught.
...
When he pulled away and looked into my face, I knew that he would tell me that I was Sounis and that I needed to pull myself together.
"Your uncle," he said, "in all the years I saw him rule, never had a moment of self-doubt. Never a regret for a single life lost. Do you understand?"
I understood that I didn't want to be my uncle. — Megan Whalen Turner

We're out of time, Payton. You said it yourself: the only way we'll make it is for us to go into this together. I know we can do this. But I need you to believe it. You need to believe ... in us."
Peyton didn't say anything for a long moment, and J.D. could literally hear his heart beating. Then she finally answered.
"It would have to be called Kendall and Jameson."
It took J.D a moment to catch on. Then he grinned. "No way. Jameson and Kendall. It's alphabetical."
"You told our boss that you banged me on top of your desk."
"Kendall and Jameson sounds great — Julie James

America's not just [about] looking out for yourself, it's not just about greed, it's not just about trying to climb to the very top and keep everybody else down ... Hard work, that's a value. Looking out for one another, that's a value. The idea that we're all in it together and [that] I'm my brother's keeper and [my] sister's keeper, that's a value. — Barack Obama

In 2008, I was in a London park when I came across a fledgling crow that had fallen from the top of an oak tree. A woman happened to be passing, and she said that she rescued animals, so she invited me back to her house. It turned out she was the wife of Jeff Beck. Jeff was there, and we ended up jamming together. — Imelda May

You were born as a no-mind. Let this sink into your heart as deeply as possible because through that, a door opens. If you were born as a no-mind, then the mind is just a social product. It is nothing natural, it is cultivated. It has been put together on top of you. Deep down you are still free, you can get out of it. One can never get out of nature, but one can get out of the artificial any moment one decides to. — Osho

In addition, there are huge benefits to communal effort in and of itself. By definition, all organizations consist of people working together. Focusing on the team leads to better results for the simple reason that well-functioning groups are stronger than individuals. Teams that work together well outperform those that don't. And success feels better when it's shared with others. So perhaps one positive result of having more women at the top is that our leaders will have been trained to care more about the well-being of others. My hope, of course, is that we won't have to play by these archaic rules forever and that eventually we can all just be ourselves. We — Sheryl Sandberg

You must ban together with other women of like mind and for the first time find fellowship, womanship, without the need to compete, without having to climb to the top over each other. — Frederick Lenz

Before the immigration crisis was declared in the summer of 2014, minors seeking immigration relief were given approximately twelve months to find a lawyer to represent their case before their first court hearing. But when the crisis was declared and Obama's administration created the priority juvenile docket, that window was reduced to twenty-one days. In real and practical terms, what the creation of that priority docket meant was that the cases involving unaccompanied minors from Central America were grouped together and moved to the top of the list of pending cases in immigration court. Being moved to the top of a list, in this context, was the least desirable thing - at least from the point of view of the children involved. Basically, the priority juvenile docket implied that deportation proceedings against them were accelerated by 94 percent, and that both they and the organizations that normally provided legal representation now had much less time to build a defense. — Valeria Luiselli

Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction begin with toddlers - a prize for the best Halloween costume, grades in school, gold stars - and on up through the university. On the job, people, teams, and divisions are ranked, reward for the top, punishment for the bottom. Management by Objectives, quotas, incentive pay, business plans, put together separately, division by division, cause further loss, unknown and unknowable. — Peter M. Senge

Jesus now spoke again. Mack, I don't want to be first among a list of values; I want to be at the center of everything. When I live in you, then together we can live through everything that happens to you. Rather than the top of a pyramid, I want to be the center of a mobile, where everything in your life - your friends, family, occupation, thoughts, activities - is connected to me but moves with the wind, in and out and back and forth, in an incredible dance of being. — Wm. Paul Young

I could never really manage to tell reality and my dream world apart, for the two of them co-existed together as they slid over top of each other. — Shvaugn Craig

My concern about Barack Obama is he ran a campaign in 2008 where he said we're going to bring people together and solve big problems. And he specifically talked about the need to reach across the aisle and deal with issues like the economy, which was obviously the top issue in 2008. It has not happened. — Rob Portman

I knew from the beginning that we'd be addicted after all." His amber eyes bore straight through me. "I just didn't know whether we'd be at a better place than we were before."
We are. I don't even have to say the words. He knows the answer too. We're at the best place we've ever been, reaching a stasis together. It's beautiful up here, and even if I fear falling, it's nice to know I've been down that road before. And I can always walk to the top again. — Krista Ritchie

He ran his hand over his chest and stopped above his heart where a black tattoo of an ornate skeleton key was inked on his skin.She had its other half-a lock in the shape of a heart with a keyhole in the center-tattooed on her lower stomach beside her right hip bone. Laying on top of her, he'd slide down to kiss her breasts and their two tattoos would come together. Lock and key. — Kelli Maine

I don't ever want to make the mistake of needing him as much as or more than he needs me. But there's no denying that sometimes, when we sleep together in the dark cavern of the bottom bunk, his big brother thrashing around on top, the white noise machine grinding out its fake rain, the green digital clock announcing every hour, Iggy's small body holds mine. — Maggie Nelson

Lovers do things together! They rent videos, they ride Ferris wheels, they go out for pizza, they play Scrabble. They ... they talk!'
'Talk?' He lifted his head and frowned, his eyes puzzled. 'We talk all the time, Raine. I've never had such talkative sex.'
'That's just it!' She wiggled, flailed, but couldn't budge him. 'Two minutes alone with you, and I'm flat on my back. Every single time!'
A slow, knowing grin spread over his face. 'Is this your way of telling me you want to be on top? — Shannon McKenna

She asked if she could sleep in my bed that night and I said yes and we went upstairs and lay close together in the narrow bed and I wondered if maybe she missed her mother, and then around halfway through the night Edmond came in saying he was lonely and he lay down too only facing in the other direction since it was the only way he could fit, and then around sunrise Isaac wandered in too wondering where everyone had gone and when he saw us he just smiled a little and went down to the kitchen and brought up the big brown teapot and some mugs on a tray and we all piled together on the bed on top of each other like puppies and drank our tea while the sun streamed in thick and yellow through the window. And — Meg Rosoff

He's got to do better than the shoddy piecing together of flimsy evidence that contradicts the briefings we have received by various agencies, .. I'm not hearing the same things at the briefings that I'm hearing from the president's top officials. — Russ Feingold

Since we're each unique, if we've shared many experiences, then it probably has something to do with power or politics, and if we unify and act together, then we can make a change. Revolutions that last don't happen from the top down. They happen from the bottom up. — Gloria Steinem

Some of us are born sensitive. And if, on top of that, we are pulled about in different directions (both emotionally and physically), we might just end up becoming writers.
No, we don't become writers in schools of creative writing. We become writers before we learn to write. The rest is simply learning how to put it all together. — Ruskin Bond

[Eddie] cried out but his cry was lost in the golden blast of some tremendous horn. It came from the top of the Tower, and seemed to fill the world. As that note of warning held and drew out over the field where he stood, blackness welled from the windows which girdled the Tower. It overspilled them and spread across the sky in flaggy streams which came together and formed a growing blotch of darkness. It did not look like a cloud; it looked like a tumor hanging over the earth. The sky was blotted out. And, he saw, it was not a cloud or a tumor but a shape, some tenebrous, cyclopean shape racing toward the place where he stood. — Stephen King

White people found that freedom was indeed indivisible. We had kept saying in the dark days of apartheid's oppression that white South Africans would never be truly free until we blacks were free as well. Many thought it was just another Tutu slogan, irresponsible as all his others had been. Today they were experiencing it as a reality. I used to refer to an intriguing old film The Defiant Ones, in which Sidney Poitier was one of the stars. Two convicts escape from a chain gang. They are manacled together, the one white, the other black. They fall into a ditch with slippery sides. The one convict claws his way nearly to the top and out of the ditch but cannot make it because he is bound to his mate, who has been left at the bottom in the ditch. The only way they can make it is together as they strive up and up and up together and eventually make their way over the side wall and out. — Desmond Tutu

I crossed the room at a run, barreled through the door to take the stairs, and crashed into Ranger. We lost balance and rolled tangled together to the fourth-floor landing. We lay there for a moment, stunned and breathless. Ranger was flat on his back, and I was on top of him. — Janet Evanovich

I'll read a recipe but then decide, 'Well, it's sort of like this, then.' Or I'll go to the fridge and think, 'I'll see what I can put together,' and I'll combine beetroot and sausage and prawns with goat's cheese sprinkled on top and think, 'I like that they're all slightly pink. It looks fine and ... actually, it is fine.' — Tamsin Greig

I came up with this idea to create an app. And the premise of the app is this: every problem in the bar business goes away when there's sales. You increase revenue and you solve every problem. It's when the revenues are low that [the business] doesn't work. So I wanted to put together an app that focused on top-line revenue, guest experience, and business management in a more organized way. — Jon Taffer

Pascal Saint-Amans, the OECD's top tax official, said the move was "very unhelpful" as it lumped jurisdictions that have signed up to global transparency initiatives together with holdouts such as Panama. He criticised the criteria as unfair, inefficient and subjective. The commission drew the "first pan-EU list of third-country non-cooperative tax jurisdictions" from blacklists provided by individual members. There were high numbers of offshore centres listed as unco-operative by some countries such as Greece and Italy, while others such as the UK, Germany and Sweden did not list any countries. — Anonymous

I lie on top of him, skin to skin. He's tall, I'm not, but when we lie like this, we fit together. All the curves of my body relax into the strength of his. — Huntley Fitzpatrick

The humorous look of children is perhaps the most endearing of all the bonds that hold the Cosmos together. Their top-heavy dignity is more touching than any humility; their solemnity gives us more hope for all things than a thousand carnivals of optimism; their large and lustrous eyes seem to hold all the stars in their astonishment; their fascinating absence of nose seems to give to us the most perfect hint of the humour that awaits us in the kingdom of heaven. — Gilbert K. Chesterton