High Above Quotes

And these men, for whom life has no repose, live at times in their rare moments of happiness with such strength and indescribable beauty, the spray of their moment's happiness is flung so high and dazzling over the wide sea of suffering, that the light of it, spreading its radiance, touches others too with its enchantment. Thus, like a precious, fleeting foam over the sea of suffering arise all those works of art, in which a single individual lifts himself for an hour so high above his personal destiny that his happiness shines like a star and appears to all who see it as something eternal and as a happiness of their own. ~ Hermann Hesse

As he left, he saw the streets were just as deserted and quiet as before, but now he knew it was an illusion. There were ninjas, darker than a starless night, watching their territory and his every move from the rooftops high above. ~ Anam Iqbal

Rejoice, Micayon. Yours is a prophet's dream. The Great Nostalgia has made your world too small, and made you a stranger in that world. It has unloosed your imagination from the grip of
the despotic senses; and imagination has brought you forth your Faith.
And Faith shall lift you high above the stagnant, stifling world and carry you across the dreary emptiness and up the Rugged Mountains where every faith must needs be tried and purified of
the last dregs of Doubt.

And Faith so purified and triumphant shall lead you to the boundaries of the eternally green summit and there deliver you into the hands of Understanding.

Having discharged its task, Faith shall retire, and Understanding shall guide your steps to the unutterable Freedom of the
Summit which is the true, the boundless, and all-including home of God and the Overcoming
Man. ~ Mikhail Naimy

Perfection is perception..my perception views I'm perfect.. perfect to achieve the best of my abilities..my abilities shoot high above the sky beyond the rainbow ~ Alicia Holt

The thing she valued high above the rest, was his strength of character. Stephen Nicolson had the courage of his convictions: he would never let his lover bend his will, and Dorothy liked that; there was a danger, she thought, in the sort of loving that made people act against type. ~ Kate Morton

The sensation burst over her, flames and sparks, stars, and all that was holy. She clung to him, blinded by the sun above her, feeling like the light had entered her veins to sing through her book, lift her high above the earth. ~ Lecia Cornwall

This stretch through the fogbound forest gradually lulled Grange into his favorite daydream; in it he saw an image of his life: all that he had he carried with him; twenty feet away, the world grew dark, perspectives blurred, and there was nothing near him but this close halo of warm consciousness, this nest perched high above the vague earth. ~ Julien Gracq

Rashid did not give in. "Look how his hands move on the contols," he told her. "In those worlds left-handedness does not impede him. Amazingly, he is almost ambidextrous." Soraya snorted with annoyance. "Have you seen his handwriting?" she said. "Will his hedgehogs and plumbers help with that? Will his 'pisps' and 'wees' get him through school? Such names! They sound like going to the bathroom or what." Rashid began to smile placatingly. "The term is consoles," he began but Soraya turned on her heel and walked away, waving one hand high above her head. "Do not speak to me of such things," she said over her shoulder, speaking in her grandest voice. "I am in-console-able. ~ Salman Rushdie

Sometimes while you are so passionately busy building, there will be others as busy destroying. Do not stop. One day you will notice how high above you get, and how down below they end up ~ Sameh Elsayed

I'm up high above them all, pinned against this window with a stranger's cock buried inside me. ~ Jodi Ellen Malpas

Still holding my breath, I worked the dull point inside and slowly, slowly drew back the stopper, plunged it back in, and exhaled. At last, my grateful spirit eased out of the fetid bag of humanity crumpled in that Japanese car, eased out and drifted overhead, until it floated high over the San Fernando Valley, far away from all these people who just didn't understand, far away and high above the awful circumstance of what now passed for my life. ~ Jerry Stahl

High above our heads the owl hoots under the lost moon. A pre-dawn wind comes sifting and sighing through the cottonwood trees; the sound of their dry, papery leaves is like the murmur of distant water, or like the whispering of ghosts in an ancient, empty, condemned cathedral. ~ Edward Abbey

It was autumn, the time for traveling, he had gotten used to it, as storks do. The swallows had already flown south; soon wild geese would begin honking high above, flying their courses, and he would look into the sky at their formations and imagine the strange pleasures of his wanderings. He was kept from one love by another. ~ Mesa Selimovic

But for a moment I had sat on the turf somewhere high above the flow of the sea and the sound of the woods, had seen the house, the garden, and the waves breaking. The old nurse who turns the pages of the picture book had stopped and had said, 'Look. This is the truth. ~ Virginia Woolf

The peerless cup afloat
Of the lake-lily is an urn some nymph
Swims bearing high above her head. ~ Robert Browning

Her hand stopped only as the sun rose high above the lighthouse tower. ~ Ashley McLeo

At the end, you flip over and start again because now you are not isolated. They have gone to work so that you can go home. High above, the day turns pink and you feel your feet lift above the ground as new roads open up in front of you. In this town, the jury is always rigged but the people know. They always know the truth. Believe. Belief. Beyond. Their morning glory. ~ Noel Gallagher

Down below the broad, roaring waves of the sea break against the deep foundation of the rock. But high above the mountain, the sea, and the peaks of rock the eternal ornamentation blooms silently from the dark depths of the universe. ~ Rudolf Otto

The boy knelt, shoulders bowed, on the sand in the grey of morning, moaning softly, fearfully. Glowing tendrils of energy streamed across the agitated sky, converging high above him in a vortex of brightness. He flung his hands heavenward and a sheet of blinding brilliance descended from the vortex. It enveloped him and from its core a pulsing sphere of light fell, entering his body and almost tearing him apart. He went rigid, screaming to shatter the heavens, his dark eyes bulging from their sockets, his mouth wide in a rictus of agony. Sirius exploded in a burst of silver-blue radiance, as his howl rose to a shriek beyond hearing and endurance. Out of the light and the sound and the anguish, two names imprinted themselves on his mind. One of them, he knew, was his own.
The other floated for an instant above his consciousness like a fugitive white dove in the morning. ~ J. Valor

From so high above it, the world seems ordered and deliberate.

But I know it's more than that. And less. It is structured and chaotic. Beautiful and strange. ~ Nicola Yoon

And perhaps she loved him all the more because he was not soaring high above her, like all her previous divinities, but walking side by side with her. Yes, she loved him; by the time he had asked her for the third dance she loved him. ~ F.M. Mayor

Grace is what picks me up and lifts my wings high above and I fly! Grace always conquers! Be graceful in everything; in anger, in sadness, in joy, in kindness, in unkindness, retain grace with you! ~ C. JoyBell C.

Glanced up and saw a pair of kites, red with long blue tails, soaring in the sky. They danced high above the trees on the west end of the park, over the windmills, floating side by side like a pair of eyes looking down on San Francisco, the city I now call home. ~ Khaled Hosseini

High above the noise and fear mongering of critics and cynics softly speaks your true self. ~ Mollie Marti

All this time he was sitting up in bed and looking at the woman who was lying beside him and holding his hand in her sleep. He felt an ineffable love for her. Her sleep must have been very light at the moment because she opened her eyes and gazed up at him questioningly.
"What are you looking at?" she asked.
He knew that instead of waking her he should lull her back to sleep, so he tried to come up with an answer that would plant the image of a new dream in her mind.
"I'm looking at the stars," he said.
"Don't say you're looking at the stars. That's a lie. You're looking down."
"That's because we're on an airplane. The stars are below us."
"Oh, in an airplane," said Tereza, squeezing his hand even tighter and falling asleep again. And Tomas knew that Tereza was looking out of the round window of an airplane flying high above the stars. ~ Milan Kundera

Don't give up; try again. Be still and work it out till your good becomes the best! Dream high above the sky! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

There's more ways to stop a man then with an arrow in the heart!" the first shaft struck Drale in the shoulder and the moon blossomed red through the dust suddenly swirling in murky streams. Drale cleared his head and charged into his enemies sword raised high above his head, then a cloud covered the moon and the forest went black. ~ Elizabeth Novak

... the same kind of answers the stars are always trying to give us, she thought, when we look up and up at them. So high above, speaking in gradual whispers about time, about their own flaming hearts and the endless cold that lies between ... ~ Eileen Wilks

As the missile flew high above the moat-lake, there was a small, almost inaudible explosion, like that of a fire cracker meant for a child.

Lakshman's awe was quickly replaced by disappointment. He frowned. 'That's it? Is that the famed Asuraastra? ~ Amish Tripathi

The balance is the penalty of being human: the danger of allowing yourself to feel. For this we walk a narrow path high above rocky ground. On one side we have the descent into animalism, on the other a godhead delusion. Both pulling at us, both tempting. But without these forces tugging at your psyche, stirring it into conflict, you can never love. They awaken us, you see, these warring sides, they arouse our passion. ~ Peter F. Hamilton

The day waned, and dusk was twined about the boles of the trees. At last the hobbits saw, rising dimly before them, a steep dark land: they had come to the feet of the mountains, and to the green roots of tall Methedras. Down the hillside the young Entwash, leaping from its springs high above, ran noisily from step to step to meet them. On the right of the stream there was a long slope, clad with grass, now grey in the twilight. No trees grew there and it was open to the sky; stars were shining already in lakes between shores of cloud. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Street Ballad

From high above the birds look down and sing because
they see
the monstrous comedies they miss, living several storeys
higher:
the dirty degradations and the gross humiliations,
they, like the gods, without pity, look down upon from a
telephone wire.

but as they sit there high above and gaze down upon our
brutal
short and messy circumstances, they do not see the one
who stands behind a cardboard tree examining them
coldly
with one eye closed and the other staring along the barrel
of a gun. ~ George Barker

A ring-whorled prow rode in the harbour,
ice-clad, outbound, a craft for a prince.
They stretched their beloved lord in his boat,
laid out by the mast, amidships,
the great ring-giver. Far fetched treasures
were piled upon him, and precious gear.
I have never heard before of a ship so well furbished
with battle tackle, bladed weapons
and coats of mail. The massed treasure
was loaded on top of him: it would travel far
on out into the ocean's sway.
They decked his body no less bountifully
with offerings than those first ones did
who cast him away when he was a child
and launched him alone over the waves.
And they set a gold standard up
high above his head and let him drift
to wind and tide, bewailing him
and mourning their loss. No man can tell,
no wise man in hall or weathered veteran
knows for certain who salvaged that load. ~ Seamus Heaney

It was evening. The sun was below the horizon; but his rosy beams yet illuminated a feathery cloud, that floated high above the world. I arose, I reached the cloud; and, throwing myself upon it, floated with it in sight of the sinking sun. He sank, and the cloud grew gray; but the grayness touched not my heart. It carried its rose-hue within; for now I could love without needing to be loved again. ~ George MacDonald

Heaven and God are not high above us, far away; they are deep within us. Heaven is not a distant country where there are trees and houses and other objects; it is a plane of consciousness within us. Seekers of the eternal Truth will realise their eternal Heaven within their aspiring hearts. ~ Sri Chinmoy

To the one in the skies, this city must look like a scintillating pattern of speckled glows in all directions, like a firecracker going off amid thick darkness. Right now the urban pattern glowing here is in hues of orange, ginger, and ochre. It is a configuration of sparkles, each dot a light lit by someone awake at this hour. From where the Celestial Gaze is situated, from that high above, all these sporadically lit bulbs must seem in perfect harmony, constantly flickering, as if coding a cryptic message to God. ~ Elif Shafak

Our Lord Jesus Christ added nothing to God in his essential being and glory, either by what He did or suffered. True, blessedly and gloriously true. He manifested the glory of God to us, but he added nought to God ... Christ's goodness and rightousness reached unto His saints in the earth but God was high above and beyond it all ... ~ Arthur W. Pink

Never dream of Charlie Dimmock, while relaxing on a hammock.
And don't compare coconuts of love, when there's a monkey swinging high above. ~ Jermanica Jones

Whose best and most fruitful gift was the power of admiration, which made it possible for me to learn. Now, as in my youth, I am looking up to the truly great creations of the past, which I see high above my own and which alone deserve the name of greatness. ~ Thomas E. Mann

In vain we search the heavens high above, The God of love is kneeling at our feet. Though we betray him, though it is the night, He meets us here and loves us into light. ~ Malcolm Guite

The value the world sets upon motives is often grossly unjust and inaccurate. Consider, for example, two of them: mere insatiable curiosity and the desire to do good. The latter is put high above the former, and yet it is the former that moves one of the most useful men the human race has yet produced: the scientific investigator. What actually urges him on is not some brummagem idea of Service, but a boundless, almost pathological thirst to penetrate the unknown, to uncover the secret, to find out what has not been found out before. His prototype is not the liberator releasing slaves, the good Samaritan lifting up the fallen, but a dog sniffing tremendously at an infinite series of rat-holes. ~ H.L. Mencken

Man is more disposed to domination than freedom; and a structure of dominion not only gladdens the eye of the master who rears and protects it, but even its servants are uplifted by the thought that they are members of a whole, which rises high above the life and strength of single generations. ~ Wilhelm Von Humboldt

When we meditate with love we go very, very high , above thought, above form. Your love will cause you to have a union. ~ Frederick Lenz

But the soul, the spirit that made her Livvy was no longer there: It was something that had gone away to a far and untouchable place, even as Julian ran his hands over her hair again and again and begged her to wake up and look at him just one more time.

High above the Council Hall, the golden clock began to chime the hour. ~ Cassandra Clare

Was she Minh Thuy, finally, or was she Jenny? But the time when there had been a meaningful difference between the two would come to seem like a tiny neighborhood where you couldn't decide which house was yours. Which felt important when you were high above, you thought, in the foothills, but not so much at the truer remove of a continent, where the lives you'd lived and the places you'd come from, dwindled to a single point on the horizon, in the incorrigibly distant past. ~ Garth Risk Hallberg

First, we should be aware that in a sick or even mildly mediocre society such as exists today, it is a badge of honor to be possessed of an anti-social streak. It will keep you safe and high above the trash and poison of the milieu– right from birth– where no amount of "proper education", "good background", "upbringing", etc., could. ~ James N. Mason

Tyrants are willing to commit to anything ... including mass murder to maintain their domination over every human being alive. They abuse the lives of the people they are entrusted with by the perverse dictates that they, themselves, would never live by. And they feel justified in this by their own self-righteous elite morality, which sets them high above everyone else in their own minds.
You and I, however, are made of quite different stuff. Our words are filled with our true beliefs and backed by the honesty of our actions. We take great pride in not only who we are ... but overcoming the struggle it took to make us this way. We are men and women of character ... principles ... and courage! ~ R.G. Risch

Souls soar high above reach,
Hands extend but never touch,
Words exchanged in dulcet tones,
Tis a fated moment to understand one's truth,
Time to let go. ~ Truth Devour

The leaves had edges of silver that trembled and rippled like a river of green and fire flowing high above us. ~ Ayn Rand

Nelson, do you remember the spring day when we climbed the barn gable so we could see the seagulls that mysteriously blew into our clay hills
swept from an ocean neither of us had ever seen though it was scarcely a hundred miles away, each bird a genuine miracle high above the green barley? The time we saw that panther in the sycamore tree and Maw said it was the sign of war? Nelson, I am sixty-three years old, the same age that both Maw and Daddy were when they died. I have written this in testimony. With this book, I presume to be done now with such remembrance. But somehow I suspect it will go on, this peering down old wells, this excavation of memory and its shades. ~ Joe Bageant

I dreamed my shoulders held up the sky for a thousand hawks that squawked and cawed and beat their feathered wings against the hotness of the day. I supported their flight, watching and marveling, until sweat dripped from my body, and groans crossed my lips over fatiguing muscles.
Choosing to let the sky fall, I awoke.
My eyes opened to a cast of hawks gripping me in their talons. They supported my weight, hauling me high above the clouds through a blue expanse of heaven. And though they struggled - squawking and flapping wearily - never once did a single bird release its hold. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

We have been waiting for an hour when we see a squad of German soldiers line up on the roadbed alongside the train. Next comes a column of people in civilian clothes. Surely they are Jews. All of them are rather well dressed, with suitcases in their hands as if departing peacefully on vacation. They climb aboard the train while a sergeant major keeps them moving along, "Schnell, schnell." There are men and women of all ages, even children. Among them I see one of my former students, Jeanine Crémieux. She got married in 1941 and had a baby last spring. She is holding the infant in her left arm and a suitcase in her right hand. The first step is very high above the rocky roadbed. She puts the suitcase on the step and holds on with one hand to the doorjamb, but she can't quite hoist herself up. The sergeant major comes running, hollers, and kicks her in the rear. Losing her balance, she screams as her baby falls to the ground, a pathetic little white wailing heap. I will never know if it was hurt, because my friends pulled me back and grabbed my hand just as I was about to shoot.

Today I know what hate is, real hate, and I swear to myself that these acts will be paid for. ~ Lucie Aubrac

Twenty minutes into our walk away from the wall put us deep in a forest of fir, pine, cottonwood, and aspen trees. The lush forest floor was alive and danced with shadows cast from an endless parade of swaying trees. As we approached early evening it was cool and peaceful. The sound of the trees moving in the wind high above seemed like a friendly traveling companion, calling us farther and farther into the depths of the forest. ~ Patrick Carman

Surely if we all try hard, we can all lift ourselves up high above the average. It looks a little difficult mathematically, but that's nothing. ~ Stephen Leacock

The sovereignty of the state as the power that protects the individual and that defines the mutual relationships among the visible spheres, rises high above them by its right to command and compel. But within these spheres ... another authority rules, an authority that descends directly from God apart from the state. This authority the state does not confer but acknowledges. ~ Abraham Kuyper

And it was always the stories that needed the telling that gave us the rope we could cross any river with. They balanced us high above any crevasse. They made us be natural acrobats. They made us brave. They met us well. They changed us. It was in their nature to. ~ Ali Smith

I felt somehow happy to be so high above the world - a childish feeling, I grant, but we can't help becoming children as we leave social conventions behind and come nearer to nature. All life's experience is shed from us and the soul becomes anew what it once was and will surely be again ~ Mikhail Lermontov

I was a she was a he was a we were a girl and a girl and a boy and a boy, we were blades, were a knife that could cut through myth, were two knives thrown by a magician, were arrows fired by a god, we hit heart, we hit home, we were the tail of a fish were the reck of a cat were the beack of a bird were the feather that mastered gravity were high above every landscape then down deep in the purple haze of the heather were roamin in a gloamin in a brash unending Scottish piece of perfect jiggling reeling reel can we really keep this up? this fast? this high? this happy? ~ Ali Smith

And there in the middle, high above Prechistensky Boulevard, amidst a scattering of stars on every side but catching the eye through its closeness to the earth, its pure white light and the long uplift of its tail, shone the comet, the huge, brilliant comet of 1812, that popular harbinger of untold horrors and the end of the world. But this bright comet with its long, shiny tail held no fears for Pierre. Quite the reverse: Pierre's eyes glittered with tears of rapture as he gazed up at this radiant star, which must have traced its parabola through infinite space at speeds unimaginable and now suddenly seemed to have picked its spot in the black sky and impaled itself like an arrow piercing the earth, and stuck there, with its strong upthrusting tail and its brilliant display of whiteness amidst the infinity of scintillating stars. This heavenly body seemed perfectly attuned to Pierre's newly melted heart, as it gathered reassurance and blossomed into new life. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Was that not the way it ought to be? The beauty of Bruges lay in being dead. From the top of the belfry it appeared completely dead to Borluut. He did not want to go back down ever again. His love for the town was greater, was endless. From now on it was a kind of frenzy, his final sensual pleasure. Constantly climbing high above the world, he started to enjoy death. There is danger in rising too high, into the unbreathable air of the summits. Disdain for the world, for life itself brings its own punishment. ~ Georges Rodenbach

Give Me Strength This is my prayer to thee, my lord
strike, strike at the root of penury in my heart. Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows. Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service. Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might. Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles. And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

It was almost a mystical experience. I do not know how else to put it. My mind outran time as he neared, and it was as though I had an eternity to ponder the approach of this man who was my brother. His garments were filthy, his face blackened, the stump of his right arm raised, gesturing anywhere. The great beast that he rode was striped, black and red, with a wild red mane and tail. But it really was a horse, and its eyes rolled and there was foam at its mouth and its breathing was painful to hear. I saw then that he wore his blade slung across his back, for its haft protruded high above his right shoulder. Still slowing, eyes fixed upon me, he departed the road, bearing slightly toward my left, jerked the reins once and released them, keeping control of the horse with his knees. His left hand went up in a salute-like movement that passed above his head and seized the hilt of his weapon. It came free without a sound, describing a beautiful arc above him and coming to rest in a lethal position out from his left shoulder and slanting back, like a single wing of dull steel with a minuscule line of edge that gleamed like a filament of mirror. The picture he presented was burned into my mind with a kind of magnificence, a certain splendor that was strangely moving. The blade was a long, scythe like affair that I had seen him use before. Only then we had stood as allies against a mutual foe I had begun to believe unbeatable. Benedict had proved otherwise that night. Now that I sa ~ Roger Zelazny

I'm around a lot of good people who keep me grounded and don't let me get too high above my raisings. I have some good friends who don't talk about my job, and that's nice. Those are the friends who are my favorites. That helps a lot. ~ Clay Aiken

Imagine a vast and glittering ocean seen from a great height. It stretches to the clear curved limit of every angle of horizon, the sun burning on a billion tiny wavelets. Now imagine a smooth blanket of cloud above the ocean, a shell of black velvet suspended high above the water and also extending to the horizon, but keep the sparkle of the sea despite the lack of sun. Add to the cloud many sharp and tiny lights, scattered on the base of the inky overcast like glinting eyes: singly, in pairs or in larger groups, each positioned far, far away from any other set. ~ Iain M. Banks

He floated into the air high above the sleeping forest, his green hat spinning a few feet above his head. In his hand was the open suitcase and out of it spilled a whole sky of stars. ~ Jandy Nelson

Her grief was unbearable, a weight pressing down from high above and settling on her shoulders, in her gut, in her soul, but she knew she had to bear it, and so she knew that she would ~ Meg Mitchell Moore

searching the sky from high above to below the horizon, gradually working around until he reached the right and the rear. ~ Jonathan Falconer

I remembered all the Christmases we'd celebrated, always with a huge tree, situated next to the staircase where I now sat. As a child, I'd sat upon that same step, huddled up against the balus- ters, studying the tree, its shape and decorations; enthralled by the magical light and shadows upon the walls around me. Dancing. Over Christmas the only light in the hallway had come from the silver candelabra burning on the hallway table. But on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day night small candles were attached to the branches of the tree, their soft light reflected in the vast chande- lier suspended high above and thrown back across the walls like stars across the universe. I remembered the smell, that mingling of pine and wax and burning logs: the smell of home, the smell of happiness. I'd sat there in my nightgown, listening to the chime of crystal; the laughter, music and voices emanating from another room, an adult world I could only imagine. And always hoping for a glimpse of Mama, as she whooshed across the marble floor, beautiful, resplendent . . . invincible. ~ Judith Kinghorn

And this, she saw, her dream had done. She had built against that fear a vision of power not wholly selfish - power to protect not only herself, but others. And that vision - however partial it had been in those days - was worth following. For it led not away from the fear, as a dream of rule might do, but back into it. The pattern of her life - as she saw it then, clear and far away and painted in bright colors - the pattern of her life was like an intricate song, or the way the Kuakgan talked of the grove's interlacing trees. There below were the dream's roots, tangled in fear and despair, nourished in the death of friends, the bones of the strong, the blood of the living, and there high above were the dream's images, bright in the sun like banners or the flowering trees of spring. And to be that banner, or that flowering branch, meant being nourished by the same fears: meant encompassing them, not rejecting them. ~ Elizabeth Moon

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the fluttering banner high above, flashing Potter for President over the crowd. His heart skipped. He felt braver. ~ J.K. Rowling

The remaining chain swung down, he wrenched the door out and he was free. The last thing he heard behind him was the oncoming stomp of running feet.

Now began flight, that excruciating accompaniment to both the sleep-dream and the drug-dream as well. Down endless flights of stairs that seemed to have increased decimally since he had come up them so many days before. Four, fourteen, forty - there seemed no end to them, no bottom. Round and round he went, hand slapping at the worn guard-rail only at the turns to keep from bulleting head-on into the wall each time. The clamor had come out onto a landing high above him now, endless miles above him; a thin voice came shouting down the stair-well, "There he is! See him down there?" raising the hue and cry to the rest of the pack. Footsteps started cannonading down after him, like avenging thunder from on high. They only added wings to his effortless, almost cascading waterlike flight.

Like a drunk, he was incapable of hurting himself. At one turning he went off his feet and rippled down the whole succeeding flight of stair-ribs like a wriggling snake. Then he got up again and plunged ahead, without consciousness of pain or smart. The whole staircase-structure seemed to hitch crazily from side to side with the velocity of his descent, but it was really he that was hitching. But behind him the oncoming thunder kept gaining.

Then suddenly, after they'd kept on for hours, the stairs suddenly ended, he'd ~ Cornell Woolrich

This found its classic expression in Homer's Iliad, in which Glaucus says to Diomedes that he still hears his father's urgings ringing in his ears: Always be the best, my boy, the bravest, and hold your head high above the others. ~ Anthony Everitt

Jake opened one eye and blinked confusedly at the sunlight pouring through the window high above. Disoriented, he rolled over on a lumpy, unfamiliar bed and found himself staring up at an enormous black animal who flattened his ears, bared his teeth, and tried to bite him through the slats of his stall. "You damned cannibal!" he swore at the evil-tempered horse. "Spawn of Lucifer!" Jake added, and for good measure he aimed a hard kick at the wooden slats by way of retaliation for the attempted bite. "Ouch, dammit!" he swore as his bootless foot hit the board.
Shoving himself to a sitting position, he raked his hands through his thick red hair and grimaced at the hay that stuck between his fingers. His foot hurt, and his head ached from the bottle of wine he'd drunk last night.
Heaving himself to his feet, he pulled on his boots and brushed off his woolen shirt, shivering in the damp chill. Fifteen years ago, when he'd come to work on the little farm, he'd slept in this barn every night. Now, with Ian successfully investing the money Jake made when they sailed together, he'd learned to appreciate the comforts of feather mattresses and satin covers, and he missed them sorely.
"From palaces to a damned cowshed," he grumbled, walking out of the empty stall he'd slept in. As he passed Attila's stall, a hoof punched out with deadly aim, narrowly missing Jake's thigh. "That'll cost you an early breakfast, you miserable piece of living glue," he spat, and then he took ~ Judith McNaught

He looked at the sky and saw the white cumulus built like friendly piles of ice cream and high above were the thin feathers of the cirrus against the high September sky. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

Mum bought me �kite for my sixth birthday. It was beautiful. Snowy white with � long tail of ribbons. She
held the string, and I� ran and ran as fast as I �could, but it kept dropping to� clumsy heap on the ground. When� I got
tired Mum took over, holding it high above her head and
running and running until, all at once, �sudden wonderful gust of wind took the kite soaring high, high into the sky, so� I had to squint to see it.
"Hold on, Rosie!" Mum had called. "Hold tight!"
And �I did, gripping the string with all my might as the kite danced high up above, gleaming bright white
against the blue sky, its ribbons sparkling in the sunlight as it flew, soaring and dipping like �bird, forever pulling at the string in my hand - higher, higher - tugging to get
free.
Then� I let go.The string snapped from my grip and was gone.
Mum raced after it,but it was too fast,soaring up,up and away, higher than the trees. She scooped me up in �hug and told me it was all right, she'd buy me another one. But� I didn't want another one. That was my kite,and
it was free. I'd let it go.It'd wanted so much to be free that I just couldn't hold on, couldn't hold it down.� I smiled as I� watched it whirl away - above the trees, above the birds, above the clouds, sparkling into the heavens, dancing free.
It was the most beautiful thing I �have ever seen. ~ Katie Dale

She'd always heard that Paris was elegant but had struggled to imagine how. She'd assumed it would be rigid; the demanding intolerance of perfection. But, being here, she was struck by the easy naturalness of everything. From the tall, slender trees, their leaves rustling high above her, to the chalky gravel that crunched beneath her feet or the classically proportioned buildings that rose, uniformly constructed from the same blonde stone, it was all orchestrated to hold the light. The entire city was enveloped in a halo of glowing softness. ~ Kathleen Tessaro

If you want to catch a dream
That lifts you high above the ground
You must break free of the things
That are intent to hold you down.
Because the secret to success,
The only way to ever grow,
Is to learn what to hold on to
And what things you must let go. ~ Emily Hanson

Suddenly the clouds seem high above us. They're moving over us in an arch, circling the planet. They have seen abysmal oceans and charred, scorched islands. They have seen how we destroyed the world. If I could see everything, as the clouds do, would I swirl around this remaining continent, still so full of color and life and seasons, wanting to protect it? Or would I just laugh at the futility of it all, and meander onward, down the earth's sloping atmosphere? ~ Lauren DeStefano

Everett's approach, which he described as "objectively deterministic" with probability "reappearing at the subjective level," resonated with this strategy. And he was thrilled by the direction. As he noted in the 1956 draft of his dissertation, the framework offered to bridge the position of Einstein (who famously believed that a fundamental theory of physics should not involve probability) and the position of Bohr (who was perfectly happy with a fundamental theory that did). According to Everett, the Many Worlds approach accommodated both positions, the difference between them merely being one of perspective. Einstein's perspective is the mathematical one in which the grand probability wave of all particles relentlessly evolves by the Schrodinger equation, with chance playing absolutely no role. I like to picture Einstein soaring high above the many worlds of Many Worlds, watching as Schrodinger's equation fully dictates how the entire panorama unfolds, and happily concluding that even though quantum mechanics is correct, God doesn't play dice. Bohr's perspective is that of an inhabitant in one of the worlds, also happy, using probabilities to explain, with stupendous precision, those observations to which his limited perspective gives him access. ~ Brian Greene

queen herself noted that Silverwing "does not like this Wall." Though it was summer and the Wall was weeping, the chill of the ice could still be felt whenever the wind blew, and every gust would make the dragon hiss and snap. "Thrice I flew Silverwing high above Castle Black, and thrice I tried to take her north beyond the Wall," Alysanne wrote to Jaehaerys, "but every time she veered back south again and refused to go. Never before has she refused to take me where I wished to go. I laughed about it when I came down again, so the black brothers would not realize anything was amiss, but it troubled me then and it troubles me still. ~ George R.R. Martin

A night of exhilaration, of boredom and terror, in which the merest of sounds took on other forms - grew large in the expanse of darkness. After several hours the sheep gradually stopped calling to each other from accross the river banks, and a brittle quiet descended. I desperately wanted to walk down to the water's edge. To see the black river in the moonlight. But a mixture of reason and fear kept me locked along the safe paths high above. ~ Richard Skelton

Silver

The liquid ebony stretches out
and mingles with the midnight sky
where high above,
as on a throne,
is perched that perfect sphere of silver.
She looks upon the lapping waves,
the calm, all serene;
She looks upon the rocky shore,
watching dark nothing
break in two and become
tiny globs of light.
The soft white foam creeps
upon the smooth beige land
to darken it but for a moment,
only to retreat back to its
blackened home
and hide among the vastness.
The silver moon smiles openly,
casting a healthy grin
upon the rippled water below,
sending gifts of silver
to float on seas of woe. ~ Rebecca Harris

They were still quite near the ship; she saw its green side towering high above them, and people looking at her from the deck. Then, as one might have expected, Eustace clutched at her in a panic and down they both went.
When they came up again she saw a white figure diving off the ship's side. Edmund was close beside her now, treading water, and had caught the arms of the howling Eustace. Then someone else, whose face was vaguely familiar, slipped an arm under her from the other side. There was a lot of shouting going on from the ship, heads crowding together above the bulwarks, ropes being thrown. Edmund and the stranger were fastening ropes round her. After that followed what seemed a very long delay during which her face got blue and her teeth began chattering. In reality the delay was not very long; they were waiting till the moment when she could be got on board the ship without being dashed against its side. Even with all their best endeavors she had a bruised knee when she finally stood, dripping and shivering, on the deck. After her Edmund was heaved up, and then the miserable Eustace. Last of all came the stranger--a golden-headed boy some years older than herself.
"Ca--Ca--Caspian!" gasped Lucy as soon as she had breath enough. For Caspian it was; Caspian, the boy king of Narnia whom they had helped to set on the throne during their last visit. Immediately Edmund recognized him too. All three shook hands and clapped one another on the back with great del ~ C.S. Lewis

Catching sight of the rotund Levaedet Ringmaster striding through the crowds, high above them on his disproportionately long legs, she allows herself a moment to imagine the smell of Candyfloss mingling with toffee apples and salted popcorn; the screams of laughter from the carousel and Ferris wheel... ~ Trevor Alan Foris

To Seek Glory in Battle is Glorious emerged high above the planet's southern continent, almost two thirds of the way to the pole. ~ Craig Alanson

I'm passing the bar
Where you first got in my car
I'm not ashamed to admit
That it's you I won't forget

I saved your cigarettes and
Bad habits I regret
But the hours flew by like clouds
Whenever I had you around

Parachute lover
Take me away
From the plane that went crashing
And the earth that's in flames

Saving you is saving me
High above the redwood trees
But down below I see shadows
And parachute debris

We're drifting like children
Along for the ride
Each time we find love
Another parachute arrives

Our madness will burn
As bright as the sun
And I'll keep finding lovers
But you were the one ~ Crystal Woods

Would he as well neglect the perishing person, wouldn't he help to get up, would he turn away? I think I know the answer is obvious. He was flying so high above each of us that after falling down he got below everybody else. To be precise, he was simply knocked down. And we, none of us, just did nothing. Thus, with everybody's silent acquiescence, the best of us were eliminated in order to let others decay. ~ Igor Eliseev

There is the moment when the silence of the countryside gathers in the ear and breaks into a myriad of sounds:a croaking and squeaking, a swift rustle in the grass, a plop in the water, a pattering on earth and pebbles, and high above all, the call of the cicada, The sounds follow one another, and the ear eventually discerns more and more of them -just as fingers unwinding a ball of wool feel each fiber interwoven with progressively thinner and less palpable threads, The frogs continue croaking in the background without changing the flow of sounds, just as light does not vary from the continues winking of stars, But at every rise or fall of the wind every sound changes and is renewed. All that remains in the inner recess of the ear is a vague murmur: the sea. ~ Italo Calvino

You are not a lost cause. You are a hawk who has had her wings clipped for so long that she had forgotten to fly. But when they fully heal and you are let out of the cage, you are going to soar, Alyssa, so high above everyone else that we will be just dots below, forever forgotten. ~Caleb ~ Kristi Strong

I would rather face the devil himself than that man," Elizabeth said with a repressed shudder.
"I daresay," Lucinda agreed, clutching her umbrella with one hand and the side of the cart with her other.
The nearer the time came, the more angry and confused Elizabeth became about this meeting. For the first four days of their journey, her tension had been greatly allayed by the scenic grandeur of Scotland with its rolling hills and deep valleys carpeted in bluebells and hawthorne. Now, however, as the hour of confronting him drew near, not even the sight of the mountains decked out in spring flowers or the bright blue lakes below could calm her mounting tension. "Furthermore, I cannot believe he has the slightest desire to see me."
"We shall soon find out."
In the hills above the high, winding track that passed for a road, a shepherd paused to gape at an old wooden wagon making its laborious way along the road below. "Lookee there, Will," he told his brother. "Do you see what I see?"
The brother looked down and gaped, his lips parting in a toothless grin of glee at the comical sight of two ladies-bonnets, gloves, and all-who were perched primly and precariously on the back of Sean MacLaesh's haywagon, their backs ramrod-stiff, their feet sticking straight out beyond the wagon.
"Don't that beat all," Will laughed, and high above the haywagon he swept off his cap in a mocking salute to the ladies. "I heered in the village Ian Thornton was acomin' ho ~ Judith McNaught

After Game Six of the Finals, as Paxson's shot went through the net, Michael Jordan raced to the basket to get the ball. He held it up high above his head, and his teammates thought he was going to say something about a prospective trip to Disneyland. Instead, he yelled out, Thunder Dan Majerle-my fucking ass! ~ David Halberstam

The stars twinkled high above and reflected onto the cold window. I blew on the frosty glass and watched my breath fog up. I traced my initials across the cold glass, the condensation trickling down the pane. ~ Erica Sehyun Song

Wars are generally fought for material things; they're not fought over ideals. After we get into them, we are told we are fighting for ideals. We are fighting for oil and tin and rubber and markets, and as long as we insist on a standard of life that is so high above all the rest of the world, we're going to have to pay for our standard of living with a lot of blood. I think we ought to re-examine the fact that Jesus was a pauper, and we should be committing ourselves to a very humble, simple way of life. ~ Clarence Jordan

The well bottom is like the bottom of the sea. Things down here stay very still, keeping their original forms, as if under tremendous pressure, unchanged from day to day.

A round slice of light floats high above me: the evening sky. Looking up at it, I think about the October evening world, where "people" must be going about their lives. Beneath
that pale autumn light, they must be walking down streets, going to the store for things,
preparing dinner, boarding trains for home. And they think - if they think at all - that these
things are too obvious to think about, just as I used to do (or not do). They are the vaguely
defined "people," and I used to be a nameless one among them. Accepting and accepted, they live with one another beneath that light, and whether it lasts forever or for a moment, there must be a kind of closeness while they are enveloped in the light. I am no longer one of them, however. They are up there, on the face of the earth; I am down here, in the bottom of a well. They possess the light, while I am in the process of losing it. Sometimes I feel that I may never find my way back to that world, that I may never again be able to feel the peace of being enveloped in the light, that I may never again be able to hold the cat's soft body in my arms. And then I feel a dull ache in the chest, as if something inside there is being squeezed to death. ~ Haruki Murakami

She would have an adventure. For herself. This one time. She would see her homeland, and smell it and breathe it in. See it from high above, see it racing as fast as the wind. She owed herself that much. ~ Sarah J. Maas

Always be the best, my boy, the bravest, and hold your head up high above all the others. Never disgrace the generation of your fathers. They were the bravest champions ... ~ Homer

Heaven above was blue, and earth beneath was green; the river glistened like a path of diamonds in the sun; the birds poured forth their songs from the shady trees; the lark soared high above the waving corn; and the deep buzz of insects filled the air. ~ Charles Dickens

The star of revolution will rise high above the streets of Moscow, from a sea of blood and fire, and turn into a lodestar to lead a liberated humanity ~ Mikhail Bakunin

You have been tried by twelve good men and true, not of your peers but as high above you as heaven is of hell, and they have said you are guilty. ~ Roy Bean

High above hate I dwell, O storms! farewell. ~ Louise Imogen Guiney