Top Us Quotes & Sayings

I think it's all a facade. I think you wear a mask to show us, the media and the public, how you want to be perceived, but behind closed doors and deep down inside lies the real Shin Shaojin. A man who is so egotistical, maniacal, and so power driven that he would sell his soul to the highest bidder if it meant getting to the top. — Justin Bienvenue

Then he pointed to the top of the fire, where the snapping yellow flames dissolved into an invisible shimmery heat that made the desert beyond seem to waver, like a mirage. Dad told us that zone was known in physics as the boundary between turbulence and order. "It's a place where no rules apply, or at least they haven't figured 'em out yet," he said. "You-all got a little too close to it today. — Jeannette Walls

We are in the entertainment business and we all know if you are top of the tree you get the big money. Those of us who have been in it are the fortunate ones but we understand that we probably don't deserve it as much as the nurses or teachers. — Gary Lineker

Jesus was showing them that not dealing with anger can lead to hatred. Hatred not dealt with would put them in danger of hell. Then He said that if they remembered their brother was offended with them, they were to make it top priority to find him and seek to be reconciled. Why should we seek with such urgency to be reconciled - for our sake or for our brother's sake? We should go for his sake that we might be a catalyst to help him out of the offense. Even if we are not offended with him, the love of God does not let him remain angry without attempting to reach out and restore. We may have done nothing wrong. Right or wrong doesn't matter. It is more important for us to help this stumbling brother than to prove ourselves correct. — John Bevere

[Donald] Trump and all the Republicans believe in the theory of trickle down economics which is a theory discredited even by the author himself David Stockton. The theory suggests that if we take care of the people at the top, if we cut taxes for the wealthy, if we make sure they are doing really well, then the investments that they make in the economy and the jobs that will create, will make everything grow and it will have a trickle down effect on the rest of us. — Debbie Wasserman Schultz

I don't believe in very many things, but art is definitely one of them. And at the top of that list, film and art influence our world's culture much more than many of us understand and fully respect. — Megan Ellison

By cultivating rich social networks, by cultivating weak ties, not just close ties but the weak ties, by becoming connectors and by connecting others so that they connect us, we create a world in which these self-amplifying feedback loops feed on top of each other. — Jason Silva

I have a showroom where we experiment with twelve cakes. We develop sketches and ideas for cakes for the next season. We work with the top fashion designers to see what type of lace they are using or work with the top florist for us to be able to make various sugar roses or flowers. — Ron Ben-Israel

I want you to think of two different situations. First, remember times when you've felt your best, at the top of your game, alive and vibrant. Pay attention to your posture, the muscles in your face, your breathing. Then, I want you to think of occasions where you've felt sick or anxious. Don't just think of people. Think of activities. This will help us reveal what makes you happy. Pay attention to how your body responds to these scenarios - it will serve as your biggest indicator in the future when you're actually doing things." This woman was damn brilliant. "And remember, it's okay to feel sad, but just try to limit your bouts with it to an hour a day. Let it all out, give yourself that time to heal, nurture and comfort yourself. You won't heal unless you grieve. Grieving is good."
"Good grief?"
"Yes. It takes courage to grieve. — Stephanie Klein

She had been to her Great-Aunt Willoughby's before, and she knew exactly what to expect. She would be asked about her lessons, and how many marks she had, and whether she had been a good girl. I can't think why grownup people don't see how impertinent these questions are. Suppose you were to answer:
"I'm the top of my class, auntie, thank you, and I am very good. And now let us have a little talk about you, aunt, dear. How much money have you got, and have you been scolding the servants again, or have you tried to be good and patient, as a properly brought up aunt should be, eh, dear?"
Try this method with one of your aunts next time she begins asking you questions, and write and tell me what she says. — E. Nesbit

In the vaults of our hearts and brains, danger waits. All the chambers are not lovely, light and high. There are holes in the floor of the mind, like those in a medieval dungeon floor - the stinking oubliettes, named for forgetting, bottle-shaped cells in solid rock with the trapdoor in the top. Nothing escapes from them quietly to ease us. A quake, some betrayal by our safeguards, and sparks of memory fire the noxious gases - things trapped for years fly free, ready to explode in pain and drive us to dangerous behavior ... — Thomas Harris

It is rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top, but rather a profound mastery of what may well be a basic skill set. — Joshua Waitzkin

And thus she made it impossible for me to roll out my sonorous phrases about 'elemental feelings,' the 'common stuff of humanity,' 'depths of the human heart,' and all those other phrases which support us in our belief that, however clever we may be on top, we are very serious, very profound and very humane underneath. — Virginia Woolf

We learn that CONTROL IS UP because we experience fights in which the victor ends up on top, that GOALS ARE DESTINATIONS because we walk toward something we want, and that TIME IS A MOVING OBJECT because things that approach us get closer and closer as time elapses. — Steven Pinker

I see companies these days where thoughts of "exits" are foremost in the minds of top management and board, and it is so clear that this value will infect the decision making down to the smallest choice by the most junior employee. Do we create something that is good, or just that seems good and might get us acquired or funded? — Brad Stone

[Spielberg] surrounds himself with great crew members who are at the top of their game and know their stuff. He motivates us by liking what we do, and he doesn't get paralyzed by the process or by new ideas. He embraces them and uses them. — Janusz Kaminski

The skull sat on top of an old Stop sign. Someone had painted the surface of the octagon white and written KEEP OUT across it in large jagged letters. A reddish-brown splatter stained the bottom edge, looking suspiciously like dried blood. I leaned closer. Yep, blood. Some hair, too. Human hair.
Curran frowned at the sign. "Do you think he's trying to tell us something?"
"I don't know. He's being so subtle about it. — Ilona Andrews

Perhaps when we die our names are taken
from us by a divine magnet and are free
to flutter here and there within the bodies of birds.
I'll be a simple crow
who can reach the top of Antelope Butte.
(From: Hard Times) — Jim Harrison

THIS TORTURE
Why should we tell you our love stories
when you spill them together like blood in the dirt?
Love is a pearl lost on the ocean floor,
or a fire we can't see,
but how does saying that
push us through the top of the head into
the light above the head?
Love is not
an iron pot, so this boiling energy
won't help.
Soul, heart, self.
Beyond and within those
is one saying,
How long before I'm free of this torture! — Rumi

We look up. For weeks, for months, that is all we have done. Look up. And there it is-the top of Everest. Only it is different now: so near, so close, only a little more than a thousand feet above us. It is no longer just a dream, a high dream in the sky, but a real and solid thing, a thing of rock and snow, that men can climb. We make ready. We will climb it. This time, with God's help, we will climb on to the end. — Tenzing Norgay

We should go to Vegas," I announced. "We're on a streak."
His brows drew together. "Babe, not sure you're payin' attention but, shit that's flyin' around us does not say 'winning streak'."
"I've got a naked hot guy bad boy on top of my that proves you wrong. — Kristen Ashley

We have quite a large area, and that makes it more fun for us - certainly more satisfying, because it doesn't restrict us to one particular idea or one particular style. The result, I think, is pretty interesting ... we don't expect to make a fortune at it or ever be popular or famous or worshipped or hit The Ed Sullivan Show or the circuses or the big top. As long as we can play, we'll play, regardless of what it's for, who it's for or anything. It's fun for us - that's the important thing. — Jerry Garcia

For all of us, the time is short and the span of life is brief On top of that, our real human problem, the Stoic philosopher Seneca said in a direct rebuke to the modern illusion, is not just that life is short but that we waste so much of it-so that life ceases for us "just when we are getting ready for it."35
But — Os Guinness

I tend to avoid the shows that focus on politics, just to get a break from it all, i tried watching the first couple episodes of 'House of Cards,' but I thought it was way over the top. Members of Congress aren't anything like Frank Underwood. Most of us are far less interesting. — Paul Ryan

Many of us place top priority not on becoming Christ like in the middle of our problems but on finding happiness ... I must firmly and consciously by an act of my will reject the goal of becoming happy and adopt the goal of becoming more like the Lord ... — Larry Crabb

We are already perilously close to killing off the top of the oceanic food chain - with catastrophic consequences that we can't begin to imagine. Let us not, in the heat of anger, reduce the already devastated population of great white sharks by one more member. — Peter Benchley

Libertarianism is neither of the left nor of the right. It is unique. It is sui generis. It is apart from left and right. The left right political spectrum simply has no room for libertarianism. Think of an equilateral triangle, with libertarianism at one corner, the left at a second corner and the right at the third corner. We are equally distant from both of those misbegotten political economic philosophies. No, better yet, think in terms of an isosceles triangle, with us at the top and the two of them at the bottom, indicating they have more in common with each other than with us. — Walter Block

I imagined two leather chairs near a fire in a paneled room, where two old soldiers could drink and talk. But she took us into the kitchen. She had put two straight-backed chairs at a kitchen table with a white porcelain top. That table top was screaming with reflected light from a two-hundred-watt bulb overhead. Mary had prepared an operating room. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I need someone I can count on. Until recently, you were the most reliable of us all. I sincerely hope that hasn't changed for good." "Don't go there, brother."
"Over some male not worthy of you."
He went there! — G.A. Aiken

On top of the good was a hideously ugly bronze statue in the modern style. The statue was of a couple, dressed in togas, wrapped in an embrace. Cupped in their hands was a piece of fruit. I couldn't be sure, because realism did not appear to be the artist's specialty, but it looked to me like a pomegranate.
"Good God," Frank, who'd trailed after us, said when he saw the statue. "Rector's even sicker than any of us thought. I've never wished I was blind before, like Graves, but I do now, because then I'd never have to look at that again."
"Frank," John said, his gaze on my face. "Be quiet."
"But what do they do in here?" Frank wanted to know. "Have picnics with their dead relatives and admire their ugly art? — Meg Cabot

... it is the public sector I find more interesting, because governments and other non-market institutions have long suffered from the innovation malaise of top-heavy bureaucracies. Today, these institutions have an opportunity to fundamentally alter the way they cultivate and promote good ideas. The more the government thinks of itself as an open platform instead of a centralized bureaucracy, the better it will be for all of us, citizens and activists, and entrepreneurs alike. — Steven Johnson

Nutrition matters for everybody, but you can't major in it at Harvard. Most top scientists go into other fields. Most of the big studies were done 30 or 40 years ago, and most are seriously flawed. The food pyramid that told us to eat low fat and enormous amounts of grains was probably more a product of lobbying by Big Food than real science; its chief impact has been to aggravate our obesity epidemic. There's plenty more to learn: we know more about the physics of faraway stars than we know about human nutrition. It won't be easy, but it's not obviously impossible: exactly the kind of field that could yield secrets. — Peter Thiel

Obama does not believe in individual upward mobility. He would penalize it, tax it, regulate it, inveigh against it and disincentivize it. We will be like salmon swimming upstream to mate. We will overcome the currents, the waterfall, the rocks and the predators, and will grapple our way up the stream. Then, at the top of the waterfall will stand Obama the Bear, waiting to scoop us up and have us for dinner. The taxman cometh. — Dick Morris

Repeatedly comparing our situation with that of others is a kind of sickness of the mind that brings much unnecessary discontent and frustration. When we have a new source of enjoyment or a new car, we get excited and feel that we are at the top of our game. But we soon get used to it and our excitement subsides; when a new model comes out we become unhappy with the one we have and feel that we can only be satisfied if we get the new one, especially if other people around us have it. We are caught on the "hedonic treadmill" - a concept coined by P. Brinkman and D. T. Campbell.7 While jogging on a treadmill, we need to keep running simply to remain in the same spot. In this case, we need to keep running toward acquiring more things and new sources of excitement simply to maintain our current level of satisfaction. — Matthieu Ricard

Our steel-tipped step-ladder arrows will let us rescue that injured stork that settled down on top of the obelisk and can't fly away! — Robert Bernstein

Each of us has his or her own distinct personality. But overlaid on top of that are tendencies and assumptions and reflexes handed down to us by the history of the community we grew up in, and those differences are extraordinarily specific. — Malcolm Gladwell

I shan't be a minute," said Pridmore. Matilda knew better. She settled herself to wait, and swung her legs miserably. She had been to her Great-Aunt Willoughby's before, and she knew exactly what to expect. She would be asked about her lessons, and how many marks she had, and whether she had been a good girl. I can't think why grown-up people don't see how impertinent these questions are. Suppose you were to answer: "I'm the top of my class, auntie, thank you, and I am very good. And now let us have a little talk about you, aunt, dear. How much money have you got, and have you been scolding the servants again, or have you tried to be good and patient, as a properly brought up aunt should be, eh, dear?" Try this method with one of your aunts next time she begins asking you questions, and write and tell me what she says. Matilda — Neil Gaiman

I want it to go on, but I want us to go out on top. — Matt Groening

We are not grand because we are at the top of the food chain or because we can alter our environment - the environment will outlast us with its unfathomable forces and unyielding powers. But rather than be bound and defeated by our insignificance, we are bold because we exercise our will anyway, despite the ephemeral and delicate presence we have in this desert, on this planet, in this universe. — Aron Ralston

The creepiest thing is the silence.
The Hum is gone.
You remember the Hum.
Unless you grew up on top of a mountain or lived in a cave your whole life, the Hum was always around you. That's what life was. It was the sea we swam in. The constant sound of all the things we built to make life easy and a little less boring. The mechanical song. The electronic symphony. The Hum of all our things and all of us. Gone.
This is the sound of the Earth before we conquered it. — Rick Yancey

Naturally, the top does not automatically make us better. Like the samurai frequented ordinary cutthroat, so sometimes extreme mountaineer can be self-centered, mythomaniac or crook to each yourself and the environment. — Wojciech Kurtyka

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

And John Kearns whispered into my ear: "Do you see it now? *You* are the nest. *You* are the hatchling. *You* are the chrysalis. *You* are the progeny. *You* are the rot that falls from the stars. All of us
you and I and poor, dear Pellinore. Behold the face of the magnificum, child. And despair."
Though I was sickened by the sight, I looked. In the bower of the beast at the top of the world, I beheld the face of the magnificum, and I did not turn away. — Rick Yancey

Grace always runs downhill, meeting us at the bottom, not the top. — Tullian Tchividjian

A relationship with God simply cannot grow when money, sins, activities, favorite sports teams, addictions, or commitments are piled up on top of it.
Most of us have too much in our lives. As David Goetz writes, "Too much of the good life ends up being toxic, deforming us spiritually." A lot of things are good by themselves, but all of it together keeps us from living healthy, fruitful lives for God ... Has your relationship with God actually changed the way you live? — Francis Chan

It is God who gives us the spirit of worship (Psalm 133:3), and it is what we know of God that produces this spirit of worship. We might say that worship is simply theology, doctrine, what we think about God, going into top gear! Instead of merely thinking about Him, we tell Him, in prayer and praise and song, how great and glorious we believe Him to be! — Sinclair B. Ferguson

To those of us accustomed to newspaper headlines, 'PIZZAS' in inverted commas suggests these might be pizzas, but nobody's promising anything, and if they turn out to be cardboard with a bit of cheese on top, you can't say you weren't warned. — Lynne Truss

Sophie dear,' I said. 'Are you in love with him - with this spider-man?'
'Oh, don't call him that - please - we can't any of us help being what we are. His name's Gordon. He's kind to me, David. He's fond of me. You've got to have as little as I have to know how much that means. You've never known loneliness. You can't understand the awful emptiness that's waiting all round us here. I'd have given him babies gladly, if I could ... I - oh, why do they do that to us? Why didn't they kill me? It would have been kinder than this ... '
She sat without a sound. The tears squeezed out from under the closed lids and ran down her face. I took her hand between my own.
I remembered watching. The man with his arm linked in the woman's, the small figure on top of the pack-horse waving back to me as they disappeared into the trees. Myself desolate, a kiss still damp on my
cheek, a lock tied with a yellow ribbon in my hand. I looked at her now, and my heart ached. — John Wyndham

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

Cordyceps." "That's a fungus? Never heard of it." "Says here it does something to an ant's brain, reprograms it like it's a machine, makes it climb to the top of a plant before it dies - " "An invisible machine that reprograms brains? I'm fairly certain that's not a random entry." "Yeah? So what does it mean, then?" "It means ... It means we aren't free. None of us are. — Hugh Howey

For years, President Obama and his top officials vehemently denounced China for using its surveillance capabilities for economic advantage while insisting that the United States and its allies never do any such thing. The Washington Post quoted an NSA spokesperson saying that the Department of Defense, of which the agency is a part, " 'does engage' in computer network exploitation," but "does ***not*** engage in economic espionage in any domain, including 'cyber' " [emphatic asterisks in the original]. That the NSA spies for precisely the economic motive it has denied is proven by its own documents. The agency acts for the benefit of what it calls its "customers," a list that includes not only the White House, the State Department, and the CIA, but also primarily economic agencies, such as the US Trade Representative and the Departments of Agriculture, Treasury, and Commerce: — Glenn Greenwald

We have over 500,000 illegal immigrants living in Arizona. And we simply cannot sustain it. It costs us a tremendous amount of money of course in health care, in education, and then, on top of it all, in incarceration. And the federal government doesn't reimburse us on any of these things. — Jan Brewer

Silly me, here I was thinking we needed big neon signs that said Here We Are, Shoot Us Please on top of the roof. — Julie Kagawa

Willpower is that thing CEOs and professional athletes tell us they used to make it to the top. — Joyce Meyer

Here then are the choices we all face moment by moment: Will we aim to be impressive? Will we expect to be in complete control? Will we ensure that we always come out on top as winners? Or will we be happy for the power of Christ to rest upon us in our endless weakness? 'No man can give at once the impressions that he himself is clever and that Jesus Christ is mighty to save.' Neither can any church. — Raymond C. Ortlund Jr.

The assignment was a two-page essay, in Greek, on any epigram of Callimachus that we chose. I'd done only a page and I started to hurry through the rest in impatient and slightly dishonest fashion, writing out the English and translating word by word. It was something Julian asked us not to do. The value of Greek prose composition, he said, was not that it gave one any particular facility in the language that could not be gained as easily by other methods but that if done properly, off the top of one's head, it taught one to think in Greek. One's thought patterns become different, he said, when forced into the confines of a rigid and unfamiliar tongue. Certain common ideas become inexpressible; other, previously undreamt-of ones spring to life, finding miraculous new articulation. — Donna Tartt

The news may encourage us to imagine that the roots of a nation's problems have their fundamental origins in criminality at the top and yet, though there is clearly a role for targeting individual rotten apples, there is an equally vital task in directing attention to the colourless yet far larger institutional failures that lie concealed within our political and social arrangements. — Alain De Botton

One by one the angels had come to the top of Har Megiddo where I sat, holding her body close to mine after she'd died. I'd fought alongside them in battle, but up close, when they stood quietly watching us, they looked as beautiful as they looked unreal. the angels weren't supposed to feel emotions, but they were all weeping. All of them. Their tear stained their flawless faces like rain running in rivulets across stone. Azrael was the only one of then who came to me, knelt in front of me and took her from my arms. He was the angel of death come to carry his sister home. I din't want to give her up, knowing it would be the last time I ever saw her face. I had died on that wretched hill with her. — Courtney Allison Moulton

Typical comments from younger and "top talent" employees: "I want to know immediately if I need to change what I'm doing. I prefer managers who just walk in and tell what I need to do differently." "I can't believe that some managers wait for performance review to let people know they aren't good in a particular area. What's the holdup?" "Just lay it on me. I don't want to wait for feedback. And I want a manager who's open to my feedback, too." "I was hired in as a manager, a role I'd never had before. I'm lucky my boss pushes us to give more feedback to everyone - I get feedback on my feedback. My team is like a hungry beast. I feed them and they keep asking for more! — Anna Carroll

In the US, first of all, the electoral system has been almost totally shredded. For a long time it's been pretty much run by private concentrated spending but now it's over the top. Elections increasingly over the years have been [public relations] extravaganzas. — Noam Chomsky

The value decade is upon us. If you can't sell a top-quality product at the world's lowest price, you're going to be out of the game. — Jack Welch

if the trees are arms that hold up the sky, when we have cut the last trees, the sky will fall on top of us.
..old indios song — Lucia Giovannini

Everyone has got their own ideas and they push them and say to hell with everyone else. That's the history of the human race. It got us on top, only now it is pushing us off. The thing is that people will put up with any kind of discomfort, and dying babies, and old age at thirty as long as it has always been that way. Try to get them to change and they fight you, even while they're dying, saying it was good enough for grandpa so it's good enough for me. Bango, dead. — Harry Harrison

The weak and the poor are for us a source of unity. Jesus came into the world to change and transform society from a "pyramid" in which the strong and clever dominate at the top, into a "body", where each member of society has a place, is respected and is important. — Jean Vanier

He wanted to know if the master sergeant had read Auden, the twentieth century's most influential Christian poet, "English majors in the army, not many of them, not many of us, am I right, Top." Burnette, nonplussed, wondered if he should mention Eliot or the eccentric religious impulses of JD Salinger, but instead mumbled the only line he could recall from Auden's work, "We must love one another or die." Bingo, said the colonel. Son of a bitch had the wrong conjunction. — Bob Shacochis

I saw a huge steam roller,
It blotted out the sun.
The people all lay down, lay down;
They did not try to run.
My love and I, we looked amazed
Upon the gory mystery.
"Lie down, lie down!" the people cried.
"The great machine is history!"
My love and I, we ran away,
The engine did not find us.
We ran up to a mountain top,
Left history far behind us.
Perhaps we should have stayed and died,
But somehow we don't think so.
We went to see where history'd been,
And my, the dead did stink so. — Kurt Vonnegut

Our love could change the orbit of the earth. So, if a meteor ever comes hurtling towards earth with the guarantee of destruction, top scientists may call on us to, well, you know, do it like crazy for the sake of humankind. — Dalai Lama

I wanted everything for him. I wanted to see him achieve every dream, embrace every desire. I wanted to protect him from anyone who would cause him harm or a moments pain, tear them apart with my bare hands. Never let him out of my sight, even as I wanted him to stretch out his wings as far as they could go and soar. And at the bottom, top and middle of it all, I just wanted to stand there, just that way forever. Not disturb him. Just look at him and love him. Do nothing but simply love him for everything he is, a creation too perfect to be anything but God's gift to the rest of us. — Joey W. Hill

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

The devil takes us to the top of an exceeding high mountain and makes us dizzy; but God lets us look at the mountain. — G.K. Chesterton

The Government honoring our treaties and sovereignty is first and foremost. These issues are still the top priority which [Barak] Obama, if elected, has promised us. For us, we should implement the most impor-tant programs right now: they are programs to teach the children a positive sense of dignity, self-worth, and the importance of sustaining their culture, history, language and honor as a people. — Leonard Peltier

Everybody wants to be on the mountaintop, but if you'll remember, mountaintops are rocky and cold. There is no growth on the top of a mountain. Sure, the view is great, but what's a view for? A view just gives us a glimpse of our next destination-our next target. But to hit that target, we must come off the mountain, go through the valley, and begin to climb the next slope. It is in the valley that we slog through the lush grass and rich soil, learning and becoming what enables us to summit life's next peak. — Andy Andrews

We fight our way through the massed and leveled collective safe taste of the Top 40, just looking for a little something we can call our own. But when we find it and jam the radio to hear it again it isn't just ours
it is a link to thousands of others who are sharing it with us. As a matter of a single song this might mean very little; as culture, as a way of life, you can't beat it. — Greil Marcus

My memory plays me odd tricks these days [...] Age spares us nothing, old friend. Like ancient trees, we die from the top. — Gore Vidal

I want you to start a brand-new section in your notebooks and call it Mr. Browne's Precepts." He kept talking as we did what he was telling us to do. "Put today's date at the top of the first page. And from now on, at the beginning of every month, I'm going to write a new Mr. Browne precept on the chalkboard and you're going to write it down in your notebook. Then we're going to discuss that precept and what it means. And at the end of the month, you're going to write an essay about it, about what it means to you. So by the end of the year, you'll all have your own list of precepts to take away with you. — R.J. Palacio

They always tell us it's getting to the top that's hard. Climbing's the easy part. Sliding down the other side, that's the hard part. — Susan Dunlap

Maybe we need to look upon technologies and social networks as things that come out of us, not things that lead us. We can be on top of these things instead of them bein' on top of us as human beings. — Chuck D

Well, Nero," Genghis said, "I just wanted to give you this rose-a small gift of congratulations for the wonderful concert you gave us last night!"
"Oh, thank you," Nero said, taking the rose out of Genghis's hand and giving it a good smell. "I was wonderful, wasn't I?"
"You were perfection!" Genghis said. "The first time you played your sonata, I was deeply moved. The second time, I had tears in my eyes. The third time, I was sobbing. The fourth time, I had an uncontrollable emotional attack. The fifth time-" The Baudelaires did not hear about the fifth time because Nero's door swung shut behind them. — Lemony Snicket

We humans always seem to take a manipulative posture. No matter what the particulars of the situation, or the subject matter, we prepare ourselves to say whatever we want in order to prevail in the conversation. Each of us seeks to find some way to control and thus to remain on top in the encounter. If we are successful, or our viewpoint prevails, then rather than feel weak, we receive a psychological boost. — James Redfield

Deep caring about each other's fate does seem to be on the decline, but I do not believe that New Age narcissism is much to blame. The external causes of our moral indifference are a fragmented mass society that leaves us isolated and afraid, an economic system that puts the rights of capital before the rights of people, and a political process that makes citizens into ciphers.

These are the forces that allow, even encourage, unbridled competition, social irresponsibility, and the survival of the financially fittest. The executives who brought down the major corporations by taking indecent sums off the top while wage earners of modest means lost their retirement accounts were clearly more influenced by capitalist amorality than by some New Age guru. — Parker J. Palmer

Well," Nick said as Alan gave him a stern look over the top of his glasses and Nick rolled his eyes and buckled his seat belt. "Let's examine the events of the past twenty-four hours in Exeter. Ravens in the kitchen, snakes in the living room, demon marks on you, magicians sending us stupid messages, and at the end of it all you got was the boy's telephone number. — Sarah Rees Brennan

On top of everything else," he said immediately, "we've got 'Wise Child' complexes. We've never really got off the goddam air. Not one of us. We don't talk, we hold forth. We don't converse, we expound. At least I do ... it's impossible for me to keep my mouth shut. — J.D. Salinger

Webster and I are very aloof. The two of us go and sit there by ourselves. I sit by myself in the corner with my book and the newspaper. He kind of runs around a little bit, and then he goes and sits on top of the picnic table. He never plays with other little dogs. — Calista Flockhart

I think England are probably not as streetwise as plenty of other teams. The other top teams know how to keep a victory or do certain things to hang on to leads or get back in games. They're a lot more streetwise than us. I think as a nation we are very honest, we try to win the right way. — Michael Owen

This kind of inequality - a level we haven't seen since the Great Depression - hurts us all. When middle-class families can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that businesses are selling, it drags down the entire economy, from top to bottom. America was built on the idea of broad-based prosperity - that's why a CEO like Henry Ford made it his mission to pay his workers enough so that they could buy the cars they made. It's also why a recent study showed that countries with less inequality tend to have stronger and steadier economic growth over the long run. — Barack Obama

I know that government doesn't have the all solutions that real solutions do not come from the top down. Instead, the ways to end poverty come from all of us. We are part of the solution. — Kathleen Blanco

Take it one step at a time - inarguably wise advice. And yet we all take a running leap, hoping the wind will catch us on its wings and lift us clear to the top of the beanstalk. Those few Jacks who have reached new heights in this manner inevitably wish they'd had more time to prepare for the overbearing giant who greeted them. — Richelle E. Goodrich

If our style is masterful, if it is fluid and at the same time complete, then we can re-create ourselves, or rather, we can re-create the Infinite Goof within us. We can live on top of content, float above the predictable responses, social programming and hereditary circuitry, letting the bits of color and electricity and light filter up to us, where we may incorporate them at will into our actions. That's what the voices said. They said that content is what a man harbors but does not parade. And I love a parade. — Tom Robbins

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

A window looks outside, but a painting should do the opposite - it should look inside of us. When I put them in the middle of the room, I attach the paintings at the top to the ceiling and on the bottom to the floor. I prefer this to just hanging them from the ceiling because it creates a place in a space, like a wall. — Pierre Soulages

Mr. Glass kept complaining about having to drive up to the hotel with that bag on top of the car, but the people didn't even glance at us. My father says Los Angeles is full of lunatics, so I guess they thought we were normal. — Keith Robertson

What is it that you ever wanted in life?
Who cares about you?
Who laughs with you?
Who shared your hopes and dreams?
To top it all, maybe just maybe,
When you are near your death,
All that you ever wanted is to ask forgiveness to whom you have sinned,
to tell them that they should take care of themselves, wish them to be safe, and to ask mercy from God to let you enter His Kingdom.
And barely wouldn't even care what will happen with your facebook account.
Well maybe we can start with start living simple
And could stop living like a pro,
Because nothing in this world is worth of value to the One up above.
Don't you know that none of us is born perfect,
And no one else will be? — The Eldest

I am Emir Dynamite!" he shouted, swaying on top of the tall camelback. "If within two days we don't get any decent food, I'll incite the tribes to revolt! I swear! I will appoint myself the Prophet's representative and declare holy war, jihad. On Denmark, for example. Why did the Danes torment their Prince Hamlet? Considering the current political situation, a casus beli like this would satisfy even the League of Nations. No, seriously, I'll buy a million worth of rifles from the British
they love to sell firearms to the tribes
and onward to Denmark. Germany will let us through
in lieu of war reparations. Imagine the tribes invading Copenhagen! I'll lead the charge on a white camel. — Ilya Ilf

(Dad) could not abide us feeling sorry for ourselves. Life was far too good for us to whine about small things. It was selfish, and on top of that, it was boring. — Jean Kennedy Smith

You notice it with any organization that's had a lot of success: you will start to reach thinking, 'That's the player, that's the method, that's the mechanism, that's the coach, that's the thing that's going to put us over the top.' — Jeffrey Lurie

All the gang of those who rule us Hope our quarrels never stop Helping them to split and fool us So they can remain on top. — Bertolt Brecht

As adults, if our top priorities are constantly directed toward the acquisition of more and better worldly goods, it will not take long to increase our love in those directions. The purchase of a larger house or a nicer car or a more expensive boat may cause us to sacrifice our resources and develop an unwise love for these symbols of success and pleasure. We learn to love that which we serve, and we serve that which we love. — Marvin J. Ashton

20. The day she graduated from college, Keegan told her mother that she was especially proud of her Yale Daily News article "Even Artichokes Have Doubts," which went on to be adapted for the New York Times and discussed on NPR. When The Opposite of Loneliness was first published in April 2014, columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote, "Keegan was right to prod us all to reflect on what we seek from life, to ask these questions, to recognize the importance of passions as well as paychecks - even if there are no easy answers." As Keegan reminds other young people that "we can do something really cool to this world" (p. 200), what points does she emphasize? What counterarguments might she have considered more specifically? Do you share her concern about where so many top young graduates take their first jobs? Do you worry that you need to compromise your own dreams for practical concerns? Why or why not? — Marina Keegan

The United Nations research states that men with the longest life expectancy are from Japan, followed by Switzerland. I am rather surprised at this result as since time immemorial we have been doing the Karva Chauth fast to make sure our men have long lives, and the results should have definitely shown by now. I scan the list, confident that in this chart of life expectancy, the Indian man must definitely be in the top 5. Nope! There are 146 countries above us where the men have longer lifespans, and the biggest blow is that even with four wives who don't fast for them, the Arab men outlive our good old Indian dudes. — Twinkle Khanna

In the last recession, 99 percent of us have lost wealth, but did you know that the top 1 percent increased their wealth five times? It tells you they create recessions so they get wealthier. — Jesse Ventura