Quotes about top
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Laurell K. Hamilton photo
Laurell K. Hamilton photo
Margaret Mitchell photo
Margaret Atwood photo
Sarah Dessen photo

“I am wary of the whole dreary deadening structured mess we have built into such a glittering top-heavy structure that there is nothing left to see but the glitter, and the brute routines of maintaining it.”

John D. MacDonald (1916–1986) writer from the United States

Travis McGee series, The Deep Blue Good-by (1964)
Source: The Deep Blue Good-By
Context: I am wary of a lot of things, such as plastic credit cards, payroll deductions, insurance programs, retirement benefits, savings accounts, Green Stamps, time clocks, newspapers, mortgages, sermons, miracle fabrics, deodorants, check lists, time payments, political parties, lending libraries, television, actresses, junior chambers of commerce, pageants, progress, and manifest destiny. I am wary of the whole dreary deadening structured mess we have built into such a glittering top-heavy structure that there is nothing left to see but the glitter, and the brute routines of maintaining it.

Frank Herbert photo
Margaret Atwood photo
Sylvia Day photo
Charles Bukowski photo
Conan O'Brien photo
Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Rick Riordan photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Charlaine Harris photo
Margaret Atwood photo
Chetan Bhagat photo
Daniel Handler photo
Jacqueline Susann photo
Douglas Adams photo
John Irving photo
Joseph Campbell photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Robert Lipsyte photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Jon Krakauer photo
Patrick Rothfuss photo
Jodi Picoult photo
Dr. Seuss photo

“I know up on top you are seeing great sights,
But down here on the bottom,
We too should have rights.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Yertle the Turtle (1958)
Source: Yertle the Turtle and Gertrude McFuzz

Sherrilyn Kenyon photo
Jim Butcher photo
Brandon Sanderson photo
Scott Westerfeld photo
Eoin Colfer photo
Emily Brontë photo
Toni Morrison photo
Ben Carson photo

“Maybe that is the best lesson I learned in my first semester at Yale, because if I had gone to a less-demanding school and continued to sail along on the top, I am sure I would never have attained the subsequent achievements in my life.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

Rick Riordan photo

“When in doubt, start from the top.
-Jason Grace”

Source: The Lost Hero

John Wooden photo

“Being average means you are as close to the bottom as you are to the top.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Source: Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

Sylvia Plath photo

“I wish to cry. Yet, I laugh, and my lipstick leaves a red stain like a bloody crescent moon on the top of the beer can.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Markus Zusak photo
Anna Quindlen photo
Stephen King photo
Tom Robbins photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…
Robert M. Pirsig photo

“It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top.”

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

A.A. Milne photo

“Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.”

Source: The House at Pooh Corner (1928)
Context: Then Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh walked hand in hand down the forest path and they said goodbye. So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing.

Julia Quinn photo

“No. really, what was the point? She could hardly top Version Fifteen, which had featured both vivisection and wild boar.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: What Happens in London

Susanna Clarke photo

“It's only adults who read the top layers most of the time. I think children read the internal meanings of everything.”

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) American illustrator and writer of children's books

Source: The Art of Maurice Sendak: 1980 to Present

George MacDonald photo
Rick Riordan photo
Anton Chekhov photo
Winston S. Churchill photo
Eliezer Yudkowsky photo
Simon Hill photo

“I think Ramos has sorted their (Tottenham Hotspur) defense out and if he can hold of Berbatov then i can see them threatening the top four next season.”

Simon Hill (1967) Australian television presenter

January 2008, Tottenham Hotspur Subsequently lost Dimitar Berbatov and made their worst start for 53 years in the 2008/09 Premier League season
Quotes from His time at Foxsports

Phillip Blond photo
Ben Croshaw photo
Sally Ride photo

“For me, I have seen worlds and people begin and end, actually and metaphorically, and it will always be the same. It’s always fire and water.
No matter what your scientific background, emotionally you’re an alchemist. You live in a world of liquids, solids, gases and heat-transfer effects that accompany their changes of state. These are the things you perceive, the things you feel. Whatever you know about their true natures is rafted on top of that. So, when it comes to the day-to-day sensations of living, from mixing a cup of coffee to flying a kite, you treat with the four ideal elements of the old philosophers: earth, air, fire, water.
Let’s face it, air isn’t very glamorous, no matter how you look at it. I mean, I’d hate to be without it, but it’s invisible and so long as it behaves itself it can be taken for granted and pretty much ignored. Earth? The trouble with earth is that it endures. Solid objects tend to persist with a monotonous regularity.
Not so fire and water, however. They’re formless, colorful, and they’re always doing something. While suggesting you repent, prophets very seldom predict the wrath of the gods in terms of landslides and hurricanes. No. Floods and fires are what you get for the rottenness of your ways. Primitive man was really on his way when he learned to kindle the one and had enough of the other nearby to put it out. It is coincidence that we’ve filled hells with fires and oceans with monsters? I don’t think so. Both principles are mobile, which is generally a sign of life. Both are mysterious and possess the power to hurt or kill. It is no wonder that intelligent creatures the universe over have reacted to them in a similar fashion. It is the alchemical response.”

Source: Isle of the Dead (1969), Chapter 6 (pp. 137-138)

Neil Young photo

“In my little box
At the top of the stair
With my Indian rug
And a pipe to share.”

Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter

Pocahontas
Song lyrics, Rust Never Sleeps (1978)

Jeremy Clarkson photo
Patrick Stump photo
Lily Tomlin photo

“Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?”

Lily Tomlin (1939) American actress, comedian, writer, and producer

Saturday Night Live (1975)

Janeane Garofalo photo

“Red flag of the eating disorder: the muffin. Keep your eye on the ladies with the muffins…and sometimes I'll just eat the muffin top.”

Janeane Garofalo (1964) comedian, actress, political activist, writer

self-titled TV comedy special, 1997
Standup routines

Neal Stephenson photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Jeff Flake photo
David Berg photo
Walt Whitman photo

“Lo! the moon ascending!
Up from the East, the silvery round moon;
Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon;
Immense and silent moon.”

Drum-Taps. Dirge for Two Veterans
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

William H. Starbuck photo
Jeremy Clarkson photo

“Menzies was the first - and maybe the only - national leader of whom it could be safely said that he was capable of rising to the top of almost any ladder he dared to climb.”

Geoffrey Blainey (1930) Australian historian

The Story of Australia's People: The Rise and Rise of a New Australia (2016)

Ward Cunningham photo
Benjamin Graham photo

“Whenever the investor sold out in an upswing as soon as the top level of the previous well-recognized bull market was reached, he had a chance in the next bear market to buy back at one third (or better) below his selling price.”

Benjamin Graham (1894–1976) American investor

Source: The Intelligent Investor: The Classic Text on Value Investing (1949), Chapter II, The Investor and Stock-Market Fluctuations, p. 35

Sania Mirza photo

“One win and you’re on top of the world. Lose in the first round of the next tournament; you’re back to reality.”

Sania Mirza (1986) Indian tennis player

Source: Sharmistha Chaudhuri "Successful people are targeted; I’m more careful now: Sania Mirza"