Top Speed Quotes & Sayings

To those who hadn't been around Violet long, nothing would have seemed unusual, but those who knew her well knew that when she tied her hair up in a ribbon to keep it out of her eyes, it meant that the gears and levers of her inventing brain were whirring at top speed. — Lemony Snicket

Many organizations help businesses to stay on top of what's changing or likely to change. It's important for executives and managers who focus on a company's health coverage to stay up-to-speed on what's happening, and it's important for those in the C-suite to understand the changes to factor these new variables into their strategic planning calculus. — John E. McDonough

The most important thing for a forward is speed of thought. Top players read the game. — Samuel Eto'o

I think about pinball, and how being a kid's like being shot up the firing lane and there's no veering left or right; or you're just sort of propelled. But once you clear the top, like when you're sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen, suddenly there's a thousand different paths you can take, some amazing, others not. Tiny little differences in angles and speed'll totally alter what happens to you later, so a fraction of an inch to the right, and the ball'll just hit a pinger and a dinger and fly down between your flippers, no messing, a waste of 10 p. But a fraction to the left and it's action in the play zone, bumpers and kickers, ramps and slingshots and fame on the high-score table. — David Mitchell

She went from angry to calm so fast that he wondered if she wasn't the Ferrari of moms. Her top speed had to be .65 nanoseconds.' (Nick) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

You know, that idea could be developed into a first-rate little article. Six hundred to seven hundred words, about. The Tyranny of the Wheel, you could call it, with a colored margin of trains and airplanes and ocean liners at top speed - of course liners don't have wheels, but you could do something about that - if I could persuade you, Mr. Wolfe - — Rex Stout

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

Piper decided to jump off the roof. It wasn't a rash decision on her part. This was her plan: Climb to the top of the roof, pick up speed by running from one end all the way to the other. Jump off. Finally, and most importantly, don't fall. She didn't make plans in the event she did fall, because if you jump off the roof of your house and land on your head, you really don't need any plans from that point on. Even Piper knew that. So that's what she did. She jumped clean off her roof. But before we get to what happens next, you'll probably need to know a thing or two about a thing or two ... — Victoria Forester

It is possible to become world-class, enter the top 5% of performers in the world, in almost any subject within 6-12 months, or even 6-12 weeks. — Timothy Ferriss

The dream clung to her. Her sleep had been full of Jupiter ever since the survey last week: that overwhelming, unstoppable girth; the swirling patterns of the atmosphere, dark belts and light stripes rolling in circular rivers of ammonia crystal clouds; every shade of orange in the spectrum, from soft, sand-coloured regions to vivid streams of molten vermilion; the breathtaking speed of a ten-hour orbit, whipping around and around the planet like a spinning top; the opaque surface, simmering and roaring in century-old tempests. And the moons! The ancient, pockmarked skin of Callisto and the icy crust of Ganymede. The rusty cracks of Europa's subterranean oceans. The volcanoes of Io, magma fireworks leaping up from the surface. — Lily Brooks-Dalton

You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.
You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you'll be best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don't.
Because, sometimes, you won't. — Dr. Seuss

Biking is about rhythm and flow. It's the wind in you face and the challenge of hammering up along hill. It's the reward at the top and the thrill of a high-speed descent. Biking lets you come alive in both body and spirit. After awhile the bike disappears beneath you and you feel as if you're suspended in midair. — Gary Klein

Fourth of July picnic. And by the way, that picnic, like everything else in this land, is a model of efficiency: you drive at top speed, set up in a previously reserved space, spread out the baskets, bolt your food, kick the ball, and rush home to avoid the traffic. In Chile, a similar project would take three days. — Isabel Allende

So there's that change of general consciousness, and then there's this boom after the war, this expansion into the West. It was like the 1950s. The American economy was pumping at top speed. The kinds of people who would move into these communities and organize their lives around a utopian dream now had dreams about the West. — Christine Jennings

Once I realized that Australia's top highway speed of 110 kilometers per hour was the same as going 65 in the U.S., all my hardened American enthusiasm for speed went limp until it felt like the car was hardly moving at all. Even worse, most stretches of the highway are restricted to 60 kilometers per hour, which is how fast Americans go when we're, like, passing a stopped school bus disembarking small children, or driving through a herd of puppies in the road. — Elle Lothlorien

If for a moment you are inclined to regard these taluses as mere draggled, chaotic dumps, climb to the top of one of them, and run down without any haggling, puttering hesitation, boldly jumping from boulder to boulder with even speed. You will then find your feet playing a tune, and quickly discover the music and poetry of these magnificent rock piles
a fine lesson; and all Nature's wildness tells the same story
the shocks and outbursts of earthquakes, volcanoes, geysers, roaring, thundering waves and floods, the silent uprush of sap in plants, storms of every sort
each and all are the orderly beauty-making love-beats of Nature's heart. — John Muir

They would set their course toward it, seeing it grow bigger silently and imperceptibly, a motionless growth
and then, when they were at it, when they were about to bang their noses with a shock against its seeming solid mass, the sun would dim. Wraiths of mist suddenly moving like serpents of the air would coil about them for a second. Grey damp would be around them, and the sun, a copper penny, would fade away. The wings next to their own wings would shade into vacancy, until each bird was a lonely sound in cold annihilation, a presence after uncreation. And there they would hang in chartless nothing, seemingly without speed or left or right or top or bottom, until as suddenly as ever the copper penny glowed and the serpents writhed. — T.H. White

No other evil we know is faster than Rumor, thriving on speed and becoming stronger by running. Small and timid at first, then borne on a light air, she flits over ground while hiding her head on a cloud-top. — Virgil

Stanton closed the top drawer, opened the second one. "Maybe I'm new, maybe I'll get more jaded. But the law cleared this guy. Period, the end. If you don't like that, change the law. We in law enforcement need to be impartial referees. If the speed limit is fifty-five miles per hour, then you ticket a guy going fifty-six. If you think, nah, don't ticket until he's going sixty-five, then change the law to sixty-five. And it works the other way too. Following the rules, the judge freed Dan Mercer. If you don't like that, change the law. Don't bend the rules. Legally change them." Walker — Harlan Coben

Back in 1995, Munger had given a talk at Harvard Business School called "The Psychology of Human Misjudgment." If you wanted to predict how people would behave, Munger said, you only had to look at their incentives. FedEx couldn't get its night shift to finish on time; they tried everything to speed it up but nothing worked - until they stopped paying night shift workers by the hour and started to pay them by the shift. Xerox created a new, better machine only to have it sell less well than the inferior older ones - until they figured out the salesmen got a bigger commission for selling the older one. "Well, you can say, 'Everybody knows that,'" said Munger. "I think I've been in the top five percent of my age cohort all my life in understanding the power of incentives, and all my life I've underestimated it. And never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes my limit a little farther." Munger's — Michael Lewis

She knew it was crazy. That was a given. She had a balloon-sized head covered by a scarf while rocking a uniboob. Her cat was orbiting her, while hissing, at top speed.
It just figures at this point. There's a rain cloud fucking me up the ass. Don't panic, she told herself.
Her brain ran around, scraping at her skull and trying to get out of the horror instead.
Be someone else!
The two men stood, stunned stupid by her elaborate costume. Both jumped when
Dove opened her mouth to speak.
"I'm Lotsa Vampersex!" She'd increased her volume and cranked up the pitch of her voice in an effort to disguise herself.
Duke recovered first. "Hey, are you, like, hosting Voldemort's half-dead body or are you just into freakier stuff than I thought? — Debra Anastasia

Most families have increased the speed of their lives and the number of their activities gradually--even unconsciously--over time. They realize that there are costs to a consistently fast-paced, hectic schedule, but they've adjusted. And looking around, there always seems to be another family that does everything you do, and more, managing to squeeze in skiing, or Space Camp, or French horn lessons on top of everything else. How do they do it?
They do it by never asking 'Why?' Why do our kids need to be busy all of the time? Why does our son, age twelve, need to explore the possibility of space travel? Why do we feel we must offer everything? Why must it all happen now? Why does tomorrow always seem a bit late? Why would we rather squeeze more things into our schedules than to see what happens over time? What happens when we stop, when we have free time? — Kim John Payne

There may indeed have been an order from the top, but when the time came nothing so direct as an order would have been necessary. Everything had been laid so carefully in place, responsibility had already been dispersed across so many different departments, commands and individuals, that no words were necessary. Jakarta's silence was the command. In Timor, the army knew what to do and once the thing had started it gathered speed and power and continued until it had exhausted itself. This was the strangest and most fearful aspect of the violence in East Timor: that it could be so meticulous and methodical, and at the same time so completely out of control. — Richard Lloyd Parry

It's not magic! It's physics. The speed of the turn is what keeps you upright. It's like a spinning top. — Deborah Bull

Focus on a few key objectives ... I only have three things to do. I have to choose the right people, allocate the right number of dollars, and transmit ideas from one division to another with the speed of light. So I'm really in the business of being the gatekeeper and the transmitter of ideas. — Jack Welch

I have to use my strengths, which [are] my speed, my quickness and my movements. If I do that, I really believe that I will come out on top. — Manny Pacquiao

Driving at high speed where safe and legal is part of my life. As well as a higher top speed I wanted even better stability in my FX and that meant work on the aerodynamics. — Sebastian Vettel

In Mendrisio I felt it - the exhilaration of what the bike has to offer. It's a simple machine that conjures a vast mix of emotions. It can evoke the senses and raise the spirits of people who watch. For those who ride it can seem like the perfect vehicle for transport. For those who race, there's no better sensation than being on top of your gear making mountains feel like flat roads. Cycling throws up plenty of obstacles, unknown territory, high speed split-second considerations. Where to next? What's around the next corner? Who cares? You're flyin'! — Cadel Evans

I was thinking; my mind was running at top speed, scanning and sorting my options. They ranged all the way from Dumb and Dangerous to Crazy, Evil, and utterly wrong from the start. — Hunter S. Thompson

Top-down leaders, by withholding power from those in the ranks, deprive them of the ability to use the expertise and information vested in them to respond directly and with speed to customer concerns. — Sally Helgesen

When he's at the top of his game, there's not a team in the world that can handle Giggs' speed and penetration — Alex Ferguson

When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed. — Kurt Vonnegut

Enthusiasm is the electric current that keeps the engine of life going at top speed. — W. Clement Stone

I am the most tired woman in the world. I am tired when I get up. Life requires an effort I cannot make. Please give me that heavy book. I need to put something heavy like that on top of my head. I have to place my feet under the pillows always, so as to be able to stay on earth. Otherwise I feel myself going away, going away at a tremendous speed, on account of my lightness. I know that I am dead. As soon as I utter a phrase my sincerity dies, becomes a lie whose coldness chills me. Don't say anything, because I see that you understand me, and I am afraid of your understanding. I have such a fear of finding another like myself, and such a desire to find one! I am so utterly lonely, but I also have such a fear that my isolation be broken through, and I no longer be the head and ruler of my universe. I am in great terror of your understanding by which you penetrate into my world; and then I stand revealed and I have to share my kingdom with you. — Anais Nin

Hermione recited at top speed: "Golpalott's-Third-Law-states-that-the-antidote-for-a-blended-poison-will-be-equal-to-more-than-the-sum-of-the-antidotes-for-each-of-the-separate-components. — J.K. Rowling

He'd figured out the body, so now it was on to the brain. Specifically: How do you make anyone actually want to do any of this stuff? How do you flip the internal switch that changes us all back into the Natural Born Runners we once were? Not just in history, but in our own lifetimes. Remember? Back when you were a kid and you had to be yelled at to slow down? Every game you played, you played at top speed, sprinting like crazy as you kicked cans, freed all, and attacked jungle outposts in your neighbors' backyards. Half the fun of doing anything was doing it at record pace, making it probably the last time in your life you'd ever be hassled for going too fast. — Christopher McDougall

I've built something valuable here. But valuable things also have a way of being misunderstood in their own time. Everyone wants a quick fix. We're tired of being afraid, tired of being sad, tired of feeling overwhelmed, tired of feeling tired. We want the old day back, and we don't even remember them, and we want to push into the future, paradoxically, at top speed. Patience and forbearance become the first casualties of progress. — Dennis Lehane

Daydreaming defeats practice; those of us who browse TV while working out will never reach the top ranks. Paying full attention seems to boost the mind's processing speed, strengthen synaptic connections, and expand or create neural networks for what we are practicing. — Daniel Goleman

This, I suppose, constitutes one of the greatest dangers of retiring, the sudden cutting off of motive power while the mechanism is still running at top speed. It would be so much better and easier, if it were possible, to cut off the motive power gradually; in other words to retire by slow and easy stages, instead of being in full production one day, crying "Come on! Come on!" and turning aimlessly around the next still saying "Come on!" but for no reason. — Franklin Lushington

Roan looked at Paris and wondered where they would go from here and if there would be any light at the end of the tunnel before it collapsed on top of them. Too bad there was really no such thing as a happy ending. — Andrea Speed

I like the sprints so much because it's very explosive, very aggressive, and quite physical sometimes as well. On top of that you've got the speed, so it's a big adrenaline rush coming into the sprints all the time. I love that bit! — Magnus Backstedt

She wanted an extra advantage today, more than she'd had in training with Raoul or knights like Jerel. When the trumpet blared, she told Peachblossom, "Charge."
Muscles bunched under her. The gelding flew at his top speed down the dirt lane, hooves thundering in packed dust. For those brief seconds Kel felt like an army of one. She loved no one so much as her horse. — Tamora Pierce

Jobs and Clow agreed that Apple was one of the great brands of the world, probably in the top five based on emotional appeal, but they needed to remind folks what was distinctive about it. So they wanted a brand image campaign, not a set of advertisements featuring products. It was designed to celebrate not what the computers could do, but what creative people could do with the computers. " This wasn't about processor speed or memory," Jobs recalled. " It was about creativity." It was directed not only at potential customers, but also at Apple's own employees: " We at Apple had forgotten who we were. One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are. That was the genesis of that campaign. — Walter Isaacson

Would to Heaven we had never approached them at all, but had run back at top speed out of that blasphemous tunnel with the greasily smooth floors and the degenerate murals aping and mocking the things they had superseded-run back, before we had seen what we did see, and before our minds were burned with something which will never let us breathe easily again! — H.P. Lovecraft

Now the Fox Moth 83 was by no means an aeroplane designed for passenger comfort. It only had enough room for two seats, a stretcher and the doctor. What's more, it was held together with little more than wood, cloth, string and wire. So they set off at top speed, which was about 80 miles an hour, in the old money; about a four-hour trip it was. — Bill Marsh

I remember that one day, when we were in a car tooling along at top speed,we crashed into a cyclist, an apparently very young and very pretty girl. Her head was almost totally ripped off by the wheels. For a long time, we were parked a few yards beyond without getting out, fully absorbed in the sight of the corpse. The horror and despair at so much bloody flesh, nauseating in part, and in part very beautiful, was fairly equivalent to our usual impression upon seeing one another. — Georges Bataille

Roan looked down at the pathetic little fur ball with a pink ribbon clipped to the top of its head and growled at it. It came from deep in his throat, and while it was unintentional, it wasn't precisely a human noise. He could feel it in his throat, vibrating his vocal chords, and the dog's ears rotated briefly in as much alarm as a dog could express, and then it whimpered and cringed, pissing on the sidewalk in submission.
The woman took a couple steps backward, eyes wide and horrified, and dragged her dog past them as she hurried off, the Pom more than happy to leave.
Paris looked at him, an eyebrow raised and the corner of his mouth quirked up in a half smile. "I love it when you get defensive."
"I'm the king of the jungle.I'm not taking any shit from a living dust mop. — Andrea Speed

I bought my first electric car in 1970. Its top speed was 15 mph and it had just a 15 mile range - it was essentially a golf cart with a windshield wiper and a horn. — Ed Begley Jr.

Alec cleared his throat. He felt dizzy, but he also felt alive - blood rushing through his veins like traffic at top speed, everything seemingly almost too brightly colored. As he stepped through the door, he turned and looked at Magnus, who was watching him bemusedly. He reached forward and took hold of the front of Magnus' t-shirt and dragged the warlock toward him. Magnus stumbled against him, and Alec kissed him, hard and fast and messy and unpracticed, but with everything he had. He pulled Magnus against him, his own hand between them, and felt Magnus' heart stutter in his chest.
He broke off the kiss, and drew back.
"Friday," he said, and let Magnus go. He backed away, down the landing, Magnus looking after him. The warlock crossed his arms over his shirt - wrinkled where Alec had grabbed it - and shook his head, grinning. — Cassandra Clare

The Romans formed a line of mantlets and constructed a siege terrace. When they began to erect a siege tower at some distance, the defenders on the wall at first made abusive remarks and ridiculed the idea of setting up such a huge apparatus so far away. Did those pygmy Romans, they asked, with their feeble hands and muscles, imagine that they could mount such a heavy tower on top of a wall? (All the Gauls are inclined to be contemptuous of our short stature, contrasting it with their own great height.) 31. But when they saw the tower in motion and approaching the fortress walls, the strange, unfamiliar spectacle frightened them into sending envoys to ask Caesar for peace. The envoys said they were forced to the conclusion that the Romans had divine aid in their warlike operations, since they could move up apparatus of such height at such a speed. — Gaius Iulius Caesar

Sentences spoken by writers, unless they have been written out first, rarely say what writers wish to say. Writers are unlucky speakers, by and large, which accounts for their being in a profession which encourages them to stay at their desk for years, if necessary, pondering what to say next and how best to say it. Interviewers propose to speed up this process
by trepanning writers, so to speak, and fishing around in their brains for unused ideas which otherwise might never get out of there. Not a single idea has ever been discovered by means of this brutal method
and still the trepanning of authors goes on every day.
I now refuse all those who wish to take the top off my skull yet again. The only way to get anything out of a writer's brains is to leave him or her alone until he or she is damn well ready to write it down. — Kurt Vonnegut

There, gleaming in the glow, was that ten-horsepower rotary engine under a seat. A key glistening in the ignition. I imagine the top speed for that old mower was five miles per hour. It might have taken an hour and a half or more for me to get to the liquor store, but get there I did. — George Jones