Top Of The Morning Quotes & Sayings

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

So she spends until about eleven A.M. reading, re-reading, and understanding the new changes in the Project. There are many of these, because this is a Monday morning and Marietta and her higher-ups spent the whole weekend closeted on the top floor, having a — Neal Stephenson

[I love my work] intensely - I wouldn't be in it if I ever stopped loving it, I would shift it and go over into something else. ... I don't think life is worth living unless you're doing something you love completely, so that you get out of bed in the morning and want to rush to do it. If you're doing something mediocre, if you're doing something to fill in time, life really isn't worth living. ... I can't understand people not living at the top of their emotions constantly, living with their enthusiasms, living with some sense of joy, some sense of creativity - I don't care how small a level it is. ... I don't care what field it is though, and there's gotta be a field for everyone, doesn't there? — Ray Bradbury

The perfect Librarian is calm, cool, collected, intelligent, multilingual, a crack shot, a martial artist, an Olympic-level runner (at both the sprint and marathon), a good swimmer, an expert thief, and a genius con artist. They can steal a dozen books from a top-security strongbox in the morning, discuss literature all afternoon, have dinner with the cream of society in the evening, and then stay up until midnight dancing, before stealing some more interesting tomes at three a.m. That's what a perfect Librarian would do. In practice, most Librarians would rather spend their time reading a good book. — Genevieve Cogman

He walked to the top of a rise and crouched and watched the day accrue. The chary dawn, the cold illucid world. — Cormac McCarthy

On Christmas morning, our joy or our happiness can be at a very high level, not because of our anticipation of what we might receive but, rather, in anticipation of watching our loved ones open our gifts to them. In fact, if we're not careful, we can fail to register sufficient excitement and joy upon opening the gifts we receive from others. We must remember that they are happiest at that time and to give them top billing, to stretch their happiness to its full length. — Earl Nightingale

I? What am I?" roared the President, and he rose slowly to an incredible height, like some enormous wave about to arch above them and break. "You want to know what I am, do you? Bull, you are a man of science. Grub in the roots of those trees and find out the truth about them. Syme, you are a poet. Stare at those morning clouds. But I tell you this, that you will have found out the truth of the last tree and the top-most cloud before the truth about me. You will understand the sea, and I shall be still a riddle; you shall know what the stars are, and not know what I am. Since the beginning of the world all men have hunted me like a wolf - kings and sages, and poets and lawgivers, all the churches, and all the philosophies. But I have never been caught yet, and the skies will fall in the time I turn to bay. I have given them a good run for their money, and I will now. — G.K. Chesterton

Zooey was in dreamy top form. The announcer had them off on the subject of housing developments, and the little Burke girl said she hated houses that all look alike-meaning a long row of identical 'development' houses. Zooey said they were 'nice.' He said it would be very nice to come home and be in the wrong house. To eat dinner with the wrong people by mistake, sleep in the wrong bed by mistake, and kiss everybody goodbye in the morning thinking they were your own family. He said he even wished everybody in the world looked exactly alike. He said you'd keep thinking everybody you met was your wife or your mother or father, and people would always be throwing their arms around each other wherever they went, and it would look 'very nice. — J.D. Salinger

The three of them set out every morning on adventures of their own kind. Once, an elderly professor of literature, Mrs. Taggart's friend, saw them on top of a pile in a junk yard, dismantling the carcass of an automobile. He stopped, shook his head and said to Francisco, 'A young man of your position ought to spend his time in libraries, absorbing the culture of the world.' 'What do you think I'm doing?' asked Francisco. — Ayn Rand

But what sent his face clear down off his skull and broke him in two, though, was he said when he saw the Pam-shiny empty biscuit pan on top of the stove and the plastic rind of the peanut butter's safety-seal wrap on top of the wastebasket's tall pile. The little locket-picture in the back of his head swelled and became a sharp-focused scene of his wife and little girl and little unborn child eating what he now could see they must have eaten, last night and this morning, while he was out ingesting their groceries and rent. This was his cliff-edge, his personal intersection of choice, standing there loose-faced in the kitchen, running his finger around a shiny pan with not one little crumb of biscuit left in it. He sat down on the kitchen tile with his scary eyes shut tight but still seeing his little girl's face. They'd ate some charity peanut butter on biscuits washed down with tapwater and a grimace. — David Foster Wallace

The lightning bugs are back. They fly low to the ground as the lawn dissolves from green to black in the dusk. Seeing them, I can reconstruct a childhood: a hot night under tall trees; the Good Humor man, in his square white truck, the freezer smoky when he reaches inside for an ice cream.
The lightning bugs trapped in empty jars with holes on top. "Let them out," our mother said, "or they will die in there." We were careless. We always
forgot to open the jars. The bugs would be there in the morning, their yellow tails dim in the white light of the summer sun, pathetic as they lay on
their backs. We were always horrified by what we had done. As night fell we shook them out and caught more.
I relive the magic of the yellow light without the bright white of hindsight. The little flares in the darkness, a distillation of the kind of life we think we had, we wish we had, we want again. — Anna Quindlen

Eva knows I'm terra incognita and explores me unhurriedly, like you did. Because she's lean as a boy. Because her scent is almonds, meadow grass. Because if I smile at her ambition to be an Egyptologist, she kicks my shin under the table. Because she makes me think about something other than myself. Because even when serious she shines. Because she prefers travelogues to Sir Walter Scott, prefers Billy Mayerl to Mozart, and couldn't tell a C major from a sergeant major. Because I, only I, see her smile a fraction before it reaches her face. Because Emperor Robert is not a good man - his best part is commandeered by his unperformed music - but she gives me that rarest smile, anyway. Because we listened to nightjars. Because her laughter spurts through a blowhole in the top of her head and sprays all over the morning. Because a man like me has no business with this substance "beauty," yet here she is, in these soundproof chambers of my heart. — David Mitchell

The Beatles were bubblegum cards and Help at the Saturday morning cinema and toy plastic guitars and singing 'Yellow Submarine' at the top of my voice in the back row of the coach on school trips. They belong to me, not to me and Laura, or me and Charlie, or me and Alison Ashworth, and though they'll make me feel something, they won't make me feel anything bad. — Nick Hornby

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

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

He turned his head, kissed the top of her head. "I love you."
"It sounds lovely in bed, in the dark, when everything's quiet."
"Because it's true. And it'll be true in the morning. — Nora Roberts

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 [competitors are] in the shower in the morning, they're thinking about how they're going to get ahead of one of their top competitors. Here in the shower, we're thinking about how we are going to invent something on behalf of a customer. — Jeff Bezos

Every morning he comes to the top of the stairs and looks down over the club and he stands there, so big and powerful and beautiful and ... " She swallows hard like her mouth just went totally dry. "Sexy. God, so unbelievably sexy." Her eyes get a weird, intense look like she's remembering something, then she makes a soft noise and doesn't say anything for a second. — Karen Marie Moning

Birds are and always have been reincarnated old men with Tourette's syndrome having somehow managed to dupe the reproductive saga. They fuck each other and tend to their home repairs and children while never missing their true mission. To scream at the top of their lungs in horrified hellish rage every morning at daybreak to warn us all of the truth. They know the truth. Screaming bloody murder all over the world in our ears, but sadly we don't speak bird. — Kurt Cobain

Everybody who plays top-level sport, whether it's golf or football, or whatever, needs to get into 'The Zone' ... For me personally, on the morning of a round, preparation is always about getting into the zone. The less I communicate with other people, the better. I'm trying to rehearse in my mind what I am working on in my game: going through my swing keys, going through my putting keys. When I get to the course I get the pin positions for the day and I'll analyze those. I'll make a strategy for the golf course and look how I'm going to play it — Paul McGinley

I'm glad you feel that way." His breath tickled my jaw line before he ran his tongue along it. "But I'm sorry about your back."
"What about my back?" I murmured, lost in the trance of where his tongue was going to go next.
He shoved my back against the mattress, pulling my arms above my head before he crawled on top of me, straddling my hips. "I'm sorry that it might be sore in the morning. — Magan Vernon

The next morning, when Thomasin withdrew the curtains of her bedroom window, there stood the Maypole in the middle of the greek, its top cutting into the sky. It had sprung up in the night. or rather early morning, like Jack's bean-stalk. She opened the casement to get a better view of the garlands and posies that adored it. The sweet perfume of the flowers had already spread into the surrounding air, which being free from every taint, conducted to her lips a full measure of the fragrance received from the spire of blossom in its midst. At the top of the pole were crossed hoops decked with small flowers; beneath these came a milk-white zone of Maybloom;then a zone of bluebells, then of cowslips, then of lilacs, then of ragged-rosins, daffodils and so on, till the lowest stage was reached.Thomasin noticed all these, and was delighted that the May revel was to be so near. — Thomas Hardy

Recuerdo
We were very tired, we were very merry
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.
We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares. — Edna St. Vincent Millay

It is the custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtinesses and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on. — J.M. Barrie

After Russell left her house that morning, Claire was a cooking fool. She finished making fig and pepper bread, and started in on soup. Simmering soup on a cold day was like filling a house with cotton batting. The comforting scent of it plumped and muffled and cuddled. She went on to make egg custard tarts for dessert, longing for pansies to place on top to decorate them. — Sarah Addison Allen

Every morning, I get up, get out of bed, and get on my knees and thank God for waking up in America ... (She is) the light of the world ... A nation of heroes ... The real stars are wearing body armor on top of their battle dress uniforms in 130 degree heat and they do not have stunt doubles to come in for them when the going gets rough and the bullets and the shrapnel start flying. They are the real stars, fighting terrorism and trying to free a nation. — Ben Stein

Maybe I fell in love with the idea of love, but I'm a teenage girl. This morning I fell in love with raspberry jam and a puppy in a tiny raincoat. I'm not exactly Earth's top authority on the subject. — Leah Raeder

Most of the top actors and actresses may be working in ten or twelve films at the same time, so they will give one director two hours and maybe shoot in Bombay in the morning and Madras in the evening. It happens. — Satyajit Ray

Mr. Wodehouse is a prose stylist of such startling talent that Frankie nearly skipped around with glee when she first read some of his phrases. Until her discovery of Something Fresh on the top shelf of Ruth's bookshelf one bored summer morning, Frankie's leisure reading had consister primarily of paperback mysteries she found on the spinning racks at the public library down the block from her house, and the short stories of Dorothy Parker. Wodehouse's jubilant wordplay bore itself into her synapses like a worm into a fresh ear of corn. — E. Lockhart

Techno-systems Inc. occupies the top thee floors of a building so modern it looks like it must have been finished this morning. Yet compared to the interior of their offices, the rest of the building looks like a prewar colonial. Techno clearly wants to convey the impression that they are on the cutting edge, and for all I know, they may be. I wouldn't recognize the cutting edge if I sliced my finger on it. — David Rosenfelt

There's mornings where I have to clear my mind and think, "OK, why am I doing this? Why am I putting myself through this kind of training every day?" I can literally see myself standing on top of a medal podium winning a gold medal next to my teammates, something I've never accomplished. It reminds me: That's why I do what I do. That's why I love it. Let's get in the gym and have a good workout. — Jonathan Horton

Feelings that would not have disgraced a leader who, now that the snow has begun to fall and the mountain-top is covered in mist, knows that he must lay himself down and die before morning comes, stole upon him, paling the colour of his eyes, giving him, even in the two minutes of his turn on the terrace, the bleached look of withered old age. Yet he would not die lying down; he would find some crag of rock, and there, his eyes fixed on the storm, trying to the end to pierce the darkness, he would die standing. He would never reach R. — Virginia Woolf

Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She's walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug. All right. Now she's out of her mind, drunk. — Bill O'Reilly

Ah," Gary said dreamily. " 'Free time.' I've heard about that. Don't fool yourself, Fire-Top. What with extra hours of lessons for punishments, and the extra work you get every day, free time is an illusion. It's what you get when you die and the gods reward you for a life spent working from dawn until midnight. We all face up to it sooner or later
the only real free time you get here is what my honored sire chooses to give you, when he thinks you have earned it."
"And he doesn't give it to you at night," Alex put in. "He gives it to you when you've been here awhile, on Market Day and sometimes a morning or afternoon all to yourself. But never at night. At night you study. During the day you study. In your sleep
— Tamora Pierce

I think it's probably best to work out in the morning to get it out of the way. My ultimate top tip is to drag yourself, even if you have to roll yourself out of your bed and in to a sit-up - it's really not that bad once you start. — Lily James

Every morning, the Omori POWs were assembled and ordered to call out their number in Japanese. After November 1, 1944, the man assigned number twenty-nine would sing out "Niju ku!" at the top of his lungs. — Laura Hillenbrand

In order to get nearer to Heaven, he set off to climb to the top of Notre Dame on a Wednesday morning, but owing to the gargoyles catching his trousers & meeting a party of American Schoolmistresses in a state of comparative nudity, he was forced to hide behind a Devil, & there stopped for the present. God being beyond him.
N.B. his trousers were torn, not the American achoolmistresses. — Virginia Woolf

The Wall is hundreds of years old too; or over a hundred, at least. Like the sidewalks, it's red brick, and must once have been plain but handsome. Now the gates have sentries and there are ugly new floodlights mounted on metal posts above it, and barbed wire along the bottom and broken glass set in concrete along the top. No one goes through those gates willingly. The precautions are for those trying to get out, though to make it even as far as the Wall, from the inside, past the electronic alarm system, would be next to impossible. Beside the main gateway there are six more bodies hanging, by the necks, their hands tied in front of them, their heads in white bags tipped sideways onto their shoulders. There must have been a Men's Salvaging early this morning. I didn't hear the bells. Perhaps I've become used to them. We — Margaret Atwood

There are some of you here today who feel like dead people. It is as if you are already six feet under, staring up at the top of your own locked coffin. This morning Jesus wants to set you free. You simply have to let go of the key and pass it through the little hole, where you see a tiny shaft of light. — Sheila Walsh

The sand was smooth. The damp morning fog had hardened its top layer and the heat of the day had set it so that with every footstep the surface cracked, the crunch almost audible. The heels and balls of their shoes made a path of shallow divots, but it was far easier to walk on than the usual loose and gritty beach.
In minutes, the wind worked to sweep their footprints clean and offer a flat, clear expanse all the way to the ocean where the sand became wet and sparkled invitingly with seawater. — Victoria Kahler

He returned with the tissue-restorer. I loosed it down the hatch, and after undergoing the passing discomfort, unavoidable when you drink Jeeves's patent morning revivers, of having the top of the skull fly up to the ceiling and the eyes shoot out of their sockets and rebound from the opposite wall like racquet balls, felt better. It — P.G. Wodehouse

I'm so determined to keep you where you are - with me - because for the past four years I've gone nothing but crazy with wanting you." He grabbed my chin and forced my gaze up. "I came back for you. I did. I was in a bad place walking into that club, but then I saw you - the drunk doncellita dancing on top of the bar. I can't put into words what holding you this morning did to me." A slow, easy smile grew on his lips. "Though, I'm sure you know exactly what it did to me. — Nadege Richards

He stretched his arm above my head, and my heart skipped a beat. "I've been thinking about this a lot." "This?" David toyed with the hair on top of my head. "This." "K-kissing?" He pressed his body against mine, and I stopped breathing. "Speaking of which." "I haven't brushed my teeth," I blurted, then realized what an extremely stupid thing that was to say. His eyes crinkled. "Hmmm, did you brush them this morning?" "Yes," I croaked. "Good." He tilted his head. "Bu - — Shannon Greenland

The next morning, the thrush had cleared up almost completely. No pain. No swearing. No gnashing my teeth. I was fit for my own page in the nursing book. I was so proud of my new skill, I wanted to share it with everyone. I told my letter carrier about how my nipples were in top form again. He was thrilled for me, really. That day, I was such a show-off I had to resist the urge to lie down on the supermarket floor and squirt my milk into the air like fountains. I thought I had such a choice piece of entertainment, I imagined spending my spring afternoons in the park collecting tips in a cup for my milk-producing excellence. — Jennifer Coburn

Though he'd treated me like crap, I fell asleep thinking of how his bottom lip was slightly plumper than the top - perfect for kissing - and how those onyx eyes glittered when he first glanced at me. I knew he wouldn't be there in the morning, but I still hoped that I'd see him again. — Inger Iversen

I switched the light out again. The room was totally dark, not even the starlight showing while my eyes adjusted. Perhaps I would ask for one of those LED alarm radios, though I'm very fond of my old brass alarm clock. Once I tied a wasp tot the striking-surface of each of the copper-coloured bells on top, where the little hammer would hit them in the morning when the alarm went off.
I always wake up before the alarm goes, so I got to watch. — Iain Banks

She was a Victorian girl; a girl of the days when men were hard and top-hatted and masculine and ruthless and girls were gentle and meek and did a great deal of sewing and looked after the poor and laid their tender napes beneath a husband's booted foot, and even if he brought home cabfuls of half-naked chorus girls and had them dance on the rich round mahogany dining-table (rosily reflecting great pearly hams and bums in its polished depths). Or, drunk to a frenzy, raped the kitchen-maid before the morning assembly of servants and children and her black silk-dressed self (gathered for prayers). Or forced her to stitch, on shirts, her fingers to rags to pay his gambling debts.
Husbands were a force of nature or an act of God; like an earthquake or the dreaded consumption, to be borne with, to be meekly acquiesced to, to be impregnated by as frequently as Nature would allow. It took the mindless persistence, the dogged imbecility of the grey tides, to love a husband. — Angela Carter

Have peace now,' she said, 'until the morning! Heed no nightly noises! For nothing passes door and window here save moonlight and starlight and the wind off the hill-top. Good night!' She passed out of the room with a glimmer and a rustle. The sound of her footsteps was like a stream falling gently away downhill over cool stones in the quiet of night. Tom — J.R.R. Tolkien

It's like the smell of burned toast. You made the toast. You looked forward to it. You even enjoyed making it, but it burned. What were you doing? Was it your fault? It doesn't matter anymore. You open the window, but only the very top layer of the smell goes away. The rest remains around you. It's the walls. You leave the room, but it's on your clothes. You change your clothes, but it's in your hair. It's on the thin skin on the tops of your hand. And in the morning, it's still there. — Elliot Perlman

My life is nothing but pressure. All pressure. This pressure is like a heaviness. It's always on top of me, this heaviness. It's always there since I'm a kid. Other people wake up in the morning, 'A new day! Ah, up and at 'em!' I wake up, the heaviness is waiting for me nice. Sometimes I even talk to it. I say [adopts cheerful voice] 'Hi, heaviness!' and the heaviness looks back at me, [in an ominous growl] 'Today you're gonna get it good. You'll be drinking early today.' — Rodney Dangerfield

The sun appeared between the twin spires of the cathedral as its light reflected off the crescent and star that rose out of the dome on top of the mosque. It was beautiful, and surreal. In one instant, the bells rang out from the cathedral and if I closed my eyes then I could easily imagine that I was back home in Europe, but in the next, the call to morning prayer sounded from the mosque, and it was a stark reminder of how far away I actually was from my true home. — Tucker Elliot

... It's just so' - she frowned, hunting for the right word - 'relentless. You think you're getting on top of it. You scoop up a few villains, get a result or two, make a night of it in the bar, then next morning you wake up and start all over again. It never bloody stops...
She described the pressures from headquarters, and from her own divisional Superintendent. The never-ending demands to beat performance target after performance target. The blizzards of paperwork. The fact that no one really knew what their political masters were after. They claimed to have priorities, lots of priorities, but in the end you got to realise there were so many that absolutely nothing got to the top of the heap. When it came to working out what politicians wanted, really wanted, she'd finally sussed the truth: that they were all equally clueless.
pg 157 — Graham Hurley

The ship's surgeon was a spotty unshaven little man whose clothes, arrayed with smudges, drippings, and cigarette burns, were held about him by an extensive network of knotted string, The buttons down the front of those duck trousers had originally been made, with all of false economy's ingenious drear deception, of coated cardboard. After many launderings they persisted as a row of gray stumps posted along the gaping portals of his fly. Though a boutoniere sometimes appeared through some vacancy in his shirt-front, its petals, too, proved to be of paper, and he looked like the kind of man who scrapes foam from the top of a glass of beer with the spine of a dirty pocket comb, and cleans his nails at table with the tines of his salad fork, which things, indeed, he did. He diagnosed Camilla's difficulty as indigestion, and locked himself in his cabin. that was the morning. — William Gaddis

Not all deceptions are palatable. Untruths are too easy to come by, too quickly exploded, too cheap and ephemeral to give lasting comfort. Mundus vult decipi, but there is a hierarchy of deceptions.
Near the bottom of the ladder is journalism: a steady stream of irresponsible distortions that most people find refreshing although on the morning after, or at least within a week, it will be stale and flat.
On a higher level we find fictions that men eagerly believe, regardless of the evidence, because they gratify some wish.
Near the top of the ladder we encounter curious mixtures of untruth and truth that exert a lasting fascination on the intellectual community. — Walter Kaufmann

A man once told me that you step out of your door in the morning, and you are already in trouble. The only question is are you on top of that trouble or not? — Denzel Washington

Birds scream at the top of their lungs in horrified hellish rage every morning at daybreak to warn us all of the truth, but sadly we don't speak bird. — Kurt Cobain

Morning breath here. 'A dirty mouth you say,' clean it up with Orbit." Maya chuckled. "Unless you have gum, I'm not letting you near me." She reached for a pillow and plopped it over her face.
"Ha-ha! Good one. No gum on me, but I'll settle for kissing your belly." Alex whisked her pajama top up and knelt down to kiss the roundest part of her tummy. — Melisa M. Hamling

I returned to the courtyard and saw that the sun had grown weaker. Beautiful and clear as it had been, the morning (as the day approached the completion of its first half) was becoming damp and misty. Heavy clouds moved from the north and were invading the top of the mountain, covering it with a light brume. It seemed to be fog, and perhaps fog was also rising from the ground, but at that altitude it was difficult to distinguish the mists that rose from below and those that come down from above. It was becoming hard to discern the bulk of the more distant buildings. — Umberto Eco

In April of 1976, Epic Records was flying out to sign us when I tripped over a light case after a gig and broke my arm. We called the next morning and said, 'Don't go to the airport - Bun E. broke his arm.' They thought Mercury or someone was trying to sign us, so they offered us, like, $25,000 more on top of the deal. — Bun E. Carlos

Wake every morning with the same feeling. Live up high and fly on top of the ceiling. I just know that I'm on my way. It doesn't matter to me if I'm chasing the clouds away. North or South, East or West I live my life to the fullest. — Ana Claudia Antunes

Jacob remembered it distinctly because it was his twenty-second birthday, and he was annoyed at being awakened by his uncle at 1:17 in the morning. But Avi had no time to be sentimental. He ordered Jacob to hightail it with him through a bone-chilling winter night to get to some safe house they'd never been to before and make it there by the top of the hour. Jacob had been hoping to sleep in a little and maybe eat a half-decent meal before sitting down to plan the sabotage of a radio tower near Antwerp, an operation scheduled for the coming weekend. But none of that was to be. — Joel C. Rosenberg

When you wake in the morning, the naughtinesses and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on. I — J.M. Barrie

IN the morning we went up to the village and bought a wire rat-trap and fetched it down, and unstopped the best rat-hole, and in about an hour we had fifteen of the bulliest kind of ones; and then we took it and put it in a safe place under Aunt Sally's bed. But while we was gone for spiders little Thomas Franklin Benjamin Jefferson Elexander Phelps found it there, and opened the door of it to see if the rats would come out, and they did; and Aunt Sally she come in, and when we got back she was a- standing on top of the bed raising Cain, and the rats was doing what they could to keep off the dull times for her. So she took and dusted us both with the hickry, and we was as much as two hours catching another fifteen or sixteen, drat that meddlesome cub, and they warn't the likeliest, nuther, because the first haul was the pick of the flock. I never see a likelier lot of rats than what that first haul was. — Mark Twain

There was the sun, letting down great glowing masses of heat; there was life, active and snarling, moving about them like a fly swarm - the dark pants of smoke from the engine, a crisp "all aboard!" and a bell ringing. Confusedly Maury saw eyes in the milk train staring curiously up at him, heard Gloria and Anthony in quick controversy as to whether he should go to the city with her, then another clamor and she was gone and the three men, pale as ghosts, were standing alone upon the platform while a grimy coal-heaver went down the road on top of a motor truck, carolling hoarsely at the summer morning. CHAPTER — F Scott Fitzgerald

They seem to keep a specially cutting east wind, waiting for me, when I go to bathe in the early morning; and they pick out all the three-cornered stones, and put them on the top, and they sharpen up the rocks and cover the points over with a bit of sand so that I can't see them, and they take the sea and put it two miles out, so that I have to huddle myself up in my arms and hop, shivering, through six inches of water. And when I do get to the sea, it is rough and quite insulting. — Jerome K. Jerome

She serves me a piece of it a few minutes
out of the oven. A little steam rises
from the slits on top. Sugar and spice -
cinnamon - burned into the crust.
But she's wearing these dark glasses
in the kitchen at ten o'clock
in the morning - everything nice -
as she watches me break off
a piece, bring it to my mouth,
and blow on it. My daughter's kitchen,
in winter. I fork the pie in
and tell myself to stay out of it.
She says she loves him. No way
could it be worse. — Raymond Carver

I don't read all the junk. I joke if I did, I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. But, Sometimes the comments over the top - really ugly. Many of them are critical of my looks, like the one that criticized my "thunder thighs." I get that a lot. Some of the tweets are too vulgar to repeat. — Gretchen Carlson

You been forgetting Who's in charge and who ain't. So here's what I'm gone do: I'm gone send a storm so big it rips the roof off the shed where you keep that mule you so proud of. Then I'm gone send hail big as walnuts down on that mule, making it break its leg trying to bust out of there. Then, just so you know for sure it's Me you dealing with, the next morning after you put that mule down and buried it and you up on the ladder trying to nail the roof back onto the shed I'm gone to let that weak top rung, the one you ain't got around to fixing yet, I'm gone let it rot all the way through so you fall off and break your own leg, and I'm gone to send Florence and Lilly Mae to a birthing and the twins out to the far end of the field so you laying there half the day. That'll give you time to think real hard on what I been trying to tell you. — Hillary Jordan

Because her laughter spurts through a blowhole in the top of her head and sprays all over the morning. — David Mitchell

Sometimes I feel like I'm on top of the world, and other mornings I feel like crap. — Victoria Chang

He encouraged me to take one more deep puff and hold it in, so I did, and the smoke traveled down on top of my esophagus and then did a U-turn up into where my brain was supposed to be. At first it felt like fireworks, and then I began to feel like I was floating down a stream. I liked it. And I took another puff and studied my ass off. The next morning, however, I would fail my very first Spanish exam, because I would not remember how to conjugate anything except Abraham. — Terry McMillan

When I reached C Company lines, which were at the top of the hill, I paused and looked back at the camp, just coming into full view below me through the grey mist of early morning. — Evelyn Waugh

Why are you all buttoned up like that?" Cameron ran his gaze down the blackberry-shaped buttons of her bodice.[ ... ] "You were happy to bare all last night," Cameron said. He let his mallet handler hover an inch from her chest. "Your bodice was down here."
Ainsley cleared her throat. "Low neckline for evening, high for morning."[ ... ]
"This doesn't suit you," Cameron said.
"I can't help the fashion, Lord Cameron."
Cameron poked the top button with his gloved finder. "Undo this."
Ainsley jumped. "What?"
"Unbutton your damned frock."
She nearly choked. "Why?"
"Because I want you to." Cameron's smile spread across his face, slow and sinful, and his voice went low. Dangerous. "Tell me, Mrs. Douglas. How many buttons will you undo for me? — Jennifer Ashley

Wow," Christian exclaimed. "Your hair first thing in the morning is a sight to behold. It's like a Smurf blew up on the top of your head. — Alexa Land

With a room of his own, a room at the top, he could proffer a temporary refuge to some lovely, fatigued, world-weary, sophisticated, black-turtlenecked, heavily-eyelinered girl he might lure up the stairs into his newspaper-strewn boudoir and onto his Indian-bedspreaded bed with the promise of artistic talk about the craft of writing, and the throes and torments of creation, and the need for integrity, and the temptations of selling out, and the nobility of resisting such temptations, and so forth. A promise offered with a hint of self-mockery in case such a girl might think he was pompous and cocksure and full of himself. Which he was, because at that age you have to be that way in order to crawl out of bed in the morning and sustain your faith in your own illusory potential for the next twelve hours of being awake. — Margaret Atwood

Say I Am You
I am dust particles in sunlight.
I am the round sun.
To the bits of dust I say, Stay.
To the sun, Keep moving.
I am morning mist, and the breathing of evening.
I am wind in the top of a grove, and surf on the cliff.
Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.
I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.
The musical air coming through a flute,
a spark of a stone, a flickering in metal.
Both candle and the moth crazy around it.
Rose, and the nightingale lost in the fragrance.
I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy,
the evolutionary intelligence, the lift,
and the falling away. What is, and what isn't.
You who know Jelaluddin, You the one in all,
say who I am. Say I am You. — Rumi

She prowled the city on moonlit nights, and OK, there was the occasional chicken, but she always remembered where she'd been and went round the next day to shove some money under the door. It was hard to be a vegetarian who had to pick bits of meat out of her teeth in the morning. She was definately on top of it, though. It was easy to be a vegetarian by day. It was preventing yourself from becoming a humanitarian at night that took the real effort. — Terry Pratchett

On Saturday morning, one of the two teams still unbeaten in the Premiership occupied a modest seventh place. It is an illustration of the relentless pace being set at the top of the league in which every stumble is a serious fall and draws usually constitute two dropped points. — Pete Gill

I created 'America's Next Top Model' one-hundred percent. I was in my kitchen making tea one morning, and I looked out the window, and the idea popped into my head. I wanted it to be 'American Idol' meets 'Ford Supermodel of the Year' meets 'The Real World.' — Tyra Banks

The Top Ten Reasons Why Virgin Val Sucks
10. She called me a one-hit-wonder.
9. She doesn't appreciate the endearing nickname I gave her.
8. She makes me write stupid blogs about her at four in the morning.
7. She's encouraging people not to have sex.
6. She blew me off when I asked her out.
5. She has a crush on a douche bag.
4. She won't answer any of my calls.
3. She's such a tease with her look-but-don't-touch policy.
2. I played a whole effing concert just for her and she didn't come even though she told me she would. (You're such a liar!)
And the #1 reason why Virgin Val sucks?
I still want her anyway. — Kelly Oram

I go to the window of my top floor hotel room and gaze out, not at the glittering city, but at the stars fully awake in the early morning sky. And I see her, Izabel, Sarai, in every single one of them. And this is how I know, that because of her, because I see her in everything, I am not only a monster, but a man. — J.A. Redmerski

of my face. Diane laid her dripping coat on a chair and searched for candles or a flashlight. Finally locating both in the basket on top of the fridge, she thanked me again. For what, I wasn't certain. "Listen, if the power is out tomorrow morning, come over and shower at my — Daisy Prescott

Gust of British wind tousles my hair. (Top of the morning! Oh, no, wait, that's Irish.) It's — Patrick Ness

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read President Can't Swim. — Lyndon B. Johnson

(It's worth noting that the traditional Irish phrase to wish someone well, "Top o' the morning to you," has its origin in the dairy world; "the top" refers to the richest, loveliest part, as cream is at the top of milk.) — Elaine Khosrova

The next morning, I woke up to hear Becky moaning and rustling around in her bed covers.
"I'm so itchy!" she cried.
"So scratch!" I said, groggily, but suddenly, I felt itchy too.
So, I started scratching my legs. They felt better until I stopped scratching. Then, it started to burn. I threw back the covers and saw that my legs were covered in red bumps.
"My legs!" I yelled.
Becky looked over at me. Then, she pulled back her covers. Her legs were even worse. She gasped.
"Mom!" I cried.
Mom came in. She was ready for work, wearing her dress shirt and gym shorts. She only had to dress up the top half of her body in case she had to use her webcam to talk to her boss.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Look!" I said, showing her our legs.
"Oh no! That's poison ivy!" she cried, "Where were you guys playing yesterday?"
"The woods," I said.
"You must have been sitting in it," she said.

- The Castle Park Kids — Laura Smith

The first information I consume in the morning is probably 'The New York Times' and then my Twitter feed. I think Twitter is a really fascinating, easy way to stay on top of what stories are out there. — Uzo Aduba

Was awakened abruptly just after dawn by a tiny stinging sensation on top of my head. I blinked and put up a hand to investigate. The movement startled a large gray jay who had been pulling hairs out of my head, and he shot up into a nearby pine tree, screeching hysterically. "Serve you right, mate," I muttered, rubbing the top of my head, but couldn't help smiling. I had been told often enough that my hair looked like a bird's nest first thing in the morning; perhaps there was something to it, after all. — Diana Gabaldon

She'd started swimming early in the morning, when the kids were asleep, when she thought he was asleep. She didn't know her absence woke him, that the shift in the bed was an earthquake. When she climbed back in, she smelled like salt and seaweed. Sometimes her hair would still be knotted on top of her head. She tried to keep it dry. She didn't want him to know. The problem with marrying the mermaid girl from the carnival was knowing that one day she'd swim away. — Erika Swyler

Not me. I like my first jolt of caffeine to come from a Coke. And from a can, not a two liter bottle or fountain drink. There's a giddy pleasure in popping the top and hearing the fizzing sound. And that initial bite of caffeine from the morning's first swallow. For me, that's heaven. — Kelly Miller

So you open your mouth and listen to yourself say, "I want eight thousand a day. Plus expenses."
This is the polite, industry-standard way of saying "piss off, I'm not interested." You did the math over your morning coffee: You want to earn 100K a year, what with those bonuses you've been pulling on top of your salary. (Besides, a euro doesn't buy what it used to.) There are 250 working days in a year, and a contractor works for roughly 40 per cent of the time, so you need to charge yourself out at 2.5 times your payroll rate, or 1000 a day in order to meet your target. Not interested in the job? Pitch unrealistically high. You never know ...
"Done," says Mr. Pin-Stripe, staring at you expressionlessly. And it is at that point that you realize you are well and truly fucked. — Charles Stross

And the smoke rose slowly, slowly,
Through the tranquil air of morning,
First a single line of darkness,
Then a denser, bluer vapor,
Then a snow-white cloud unfolding,
Like the tree-tops of the forest,
Ever rising, rising, rising,
Till it touched the top of heaven,
Till it broke against the heaven,
And rolled outward all around it. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow