Topsy Turvy Quotes

Jay showed up after school with a bouquet of flowers and an armful of DVDs, although Violet couldn't have cared less about either . . . he was all she wanted. She couldn't help the electric thrill of excitement she felt when he came strolling in, grinning at her foolishly as if he hadn't seen her in weeks rather than hours. He scooped her up from the couch and dropped her onto his lap as he sat down where she had been just a moment before. He was careful to arrange her ankle on a neatly stacked pile of pillows beside him.
He stubbornly refused to hide his affection for her, and if Violet hadn't known better she would have sword that he was going out of his way to make her self-conscious in her own home. Fortunately her parents were giving them some space for the time being, and they were left by themselves most of the time.
"Did you miss me?" he asked arrogantly as he gently brushed his lips over hers, not bothering to wait for an answer.
She smiled while she kissed him back, loving the topsy-turvy feeling that her stomach always got when he was so close to her. She wound her arms around his neck, forgetting that she was in the middle of the family room and not hidden away in the privacy of her bedroom.
He pulled away from her, suddenly serious. "You know, we didn't get much time alone yesterday. And I didn't get a chance to tell you . . ."
Violet was mesmerized by the thick timbre of his deep voice. She barely heard his words but rather concentrated ~ Kimberly Derting

There you go, being human again,' said the Doctor. He put an arm around Rose, and hugged her to him. 'It's not fair, is it, when we're forced into pitying someone we hate. Feels lik the world's turned topsy-turvy. But it's all right. You're still allowed to hate them. As long as you don't gloat at their downfall, that's all. ~ Jacqueline Rayner

Caroline was slightly taken aback (shocked would be much too strong a word to describe her feelings). It was difficult to know what to say to Widgeon. The whole affair seemed so topsy turvy, so typical of the topsy turvy conditions of modern life. She had tried to help her country by Growing More Food, and all she had got for the trouble involved was more trouble. She had received countless forms to fill up; she had been visited by inspectors who seemed to think it was within their province to be rude to her, and who treated her as if she were trying to defraud the authorities of their just and lawful due, and she had been fined quite heavily for doing something she did not know was wrong. Somewhat naturally Caroline felt annoyed and the opportunity to break the law without any risk at all tempted her considerably. ~ D.E. Stevenson

A year jammed full of adventure and misadventure, strides forward and many steps backward, another year in my topsy-turvy, Jekyll-and-Hyde existence. ~ Anthony Kiedis

[My advice] will one day be found
With other relics of 'a former world,'
When this world shall be former, underground,
Thrown topsy-turvy, twisted, crisped, and curled,
Baked, fried or burnt, turned inside-out, or drowned,
Like all the worlds before, which have been hurled
First out of, and then back again to Chaos,
The Superstratum which will overlay us. ~ Lord Byron

During periods of root expansion things have always looked as confused and topsy-turvy and purposeless as they do now. The whole Renaissance is supposed to have resulted from the topsy-turvy feeling caused by Columbus' discovery of a new world. It just shook people up. The topsy-turviness of that time is recorded everywhere. There was nothing in the flat-earth views of the Old and New Testaments that predicted it. Yet people couldn't deny it. The only way they could assimilate it was to abandon the entire medieval outlook and enter into a new expansion of reason. ~ Robert M. Pirsig

The sound principle of a topsy-turvy lifestyle in the framework of an upside-down world order has stood every test. ~ Karl Kraus

Men's activities are occupied into ways
in grappling with external circumstances and in striving to set things at one in their own topsy-turvy mind. ~ William James

She had several books she'd been wanting to read, but instead she sprawled out on the couch surrounded by pillows and blankets, and spent the hours flipping channels between Judge Judy, The People's Court, Maury, and Jerry Springer, and rounded out her afternoon with Dr. Phil and Oprah. All in all, it was a complete waste of a day. At least until school got out.
Jay showed up after school with a bouquet of flowers and an armful of DVDs, although Violet couldn't have card less about either...he was all she wanted. She couldn't help the electric thrill of excitement she felt when he came strolling in, grinning at her foolishly as if he hadn't seen her in weeks rather than hours. He scooped her up from the couch and dropped her onto his lap as he sat down where she had been just a moment before. He was careful to arrange her ankle on a neatly stacked pile of pillows beside him.
He stubbornly refused to hide his affection for her, and if Violet hadn't known better she would have sworn that he was going out of his way to make her self-conscious in her own home. Fortunately her parents were giving them some space for the time being, and they were left by themselves most of the time.
"Did you miss me?" he asked arrogantly as he gently brushed his lips over hers, not bothering to wait for an answer.
She smiled while she kissed him back, loving the topsy-turvy feeling that her stomach always got when he was so close to her. She wound her arms around his neck, forge ~ Kimberly Derting

A totally new kind of education is needed in the world. The person who is born to be a poet is proving himself stupid in mathematics and the person who could have been a great mathematician is just cramming history and feeling lost. Everything is topsy-turvy because education is not according to your nature: it does not pay any respect to the individual. It forces everybody into a certain pattern. ~ Osho

Yes, as we travel through this topsy-turvy, sinful world, filled with temptations and problems, we are humbled by the expectancy of death, the uncertainty of life, and the power and love of God. Sadness comes to all of us in the loss of loved ones.
But there is gratitude also. Gratitude for the assurance we have that life is eternal. Gratitude for the great gospel plan, given freely to all of us. Gratitude for the life, teachings, and sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose resurrection we will commemorate in the immediate days ahead ~ Ezra Taft Benson

The fountains of sacred rivers flow upwards (i.e., everything is turned topsy turvy.) ~ Euripides

A rising tide of desire threatened to swamp her like a tidal wave, washing away fear and doubt and leaving behind it the knowledge that in her topsy turvy life, she was certain of only one thing: she wanted this man, right now, and she'd deal with the consequences later....
"I want to make love to you," he said, his voice low and thrumming through her veins as if it were a music only she could hear. ~ Deborah Blake

Then we were at the fountain - we stop and look up at the many illuminated windows of number 2.
"This is as far as you can walk me," she says. "Thanks for taking me home."
I bowed, not daring to say a word. I doffed my hat and stood bareheaded. I wondered if she would give me her hand.
"Why don't you ask me to walk back with you part of the way?" She says playfully. But she looks down at the tip of her shoe.
"Gee," I answer, "if only you would!"
"Sure, but only a little way."
And we turned around.
I was utterly bewildered, I didn't know which way was up anymore; this person turned all my thinking topsy-turvy. I was enchanted, wonderfully glad; I felt as though I were dying from happiness. She had expressly wanted to go back with me, it wasn't my idea, it was her own wish. I gaze and gaze at her, growing more and more cocky, and she encourages me, drawing me toward her by every word she speaks. I forget for a moment my poverty, my humble self, my whole miserable existence, I feel the blood coursing warmly through my body as in the old days, before I broke down. ~ Knut Hamsun

Where are the stars on this dark, dark, night?
Where is there tiny twinkling light?
Where is the music?
Where is the song?
Where are the colors?
Something is wrong.

Sometimes stars hide in the clouds,
and their light seems far away.
Sometimes voices are hushed and still,
and the rainbow fades to gray.

Sometimes the world is topsy-turvy,
and nobody really knows why;
Sometimes sad things happen,
and even grown-ups cry.

But always, my child, always,
you are safe here in my arms.
The world may be topsy-turvy,
but I will shelter you from harm.

Always the stars are twinkling,
even when clouds hide their light.
I promise you voices will sing again,
and colors will again shine bright.

I promise there is always tomorrow
for starlight and rainbows and song;
My love will always surround you
unchanged, unbroken, and strong. ~ Ann E. Burg

We still don't have a good word to describe what is missing in Cameroon, indeed in poor countries across the world. But we are starting to understand what it is. Some people call it 'social capital, or maybe 'trust'. Others call it 'the rule of law', or 'institutions'. But these are just labels. The problem is that Cameroon, like other poor countries, is a topsy-turvy world in which it's in most people's interest to take action that directly or indirectly damages everyone else. ~ Tim Harford

Half done, she left her establishment topsy-turvy ~ Louisa May Alcott

For Kitty Gilbert in 'Topsy-Turvy,' I had to get to the point where I could improvise in the style of 1880, which is difficult. The research for that was huge. ~ Lesley Manville

What a queer topsy turvy world it was. It used to be the man who went to the wars, the woman who stayed at home. But here the positions were reversed. ~ Agatha Christie

The whites who administered Native American subjugation claimed to be recruiting the Indians to join them in a truer, more coherent worldview - but whether it was about spirituality and the afterlife, the role of women, the nature of glaciers, the age of the world, or the theory of evolution, these white Victorians were in a world topsy-turvy with change, uncertainty and controversy. Deference was paid to Christianity and honest agricultural toil, but more than few questioned the former, and most, as the gold rushes, confidence men, and lionized millionaires proved, would gladly escape the latter. So the attempt to make Indians into Christian agriculturists was akin to those contemporary efforts whereby charities send cast-off clothing to impoverished regions: the Indians were being handed a system that was worn out ... ~ Rebecca Solnit

Like writing, paintings seem to hint at a topsy-turvy world in which, so to speak, time's arrow moves the other way. ~ Martin Amis

So far as Emma was concerned she did not ask herself whether she was in love. Love, she thought, was something that must come suddenly, with a great display of thunder and lightning, descending on one's life like a tempest from above, turning it topsy-turvy, whirling away one's resolutions like leaves and bearing one onward, heart and soul, towards the abyss. She never bethought herself how on the terrace of a house the rain forms itself into little lakes when the gutters are choked, and she was going on quite unaware of her peril, when all of a sudden she discovered
a crack in the wall! ~ Gustave Flaubert

People seem to be looking for discipline in a topsy-turvy world. ~ Gordon B. Hinckley

My book came out; and people began to think that topsy-turvy Louisa would amount to something after all. ~ Louisa May Alcott

Human vice is proof that biological adaption is, speaking literally, a thing of the past. Our minds are adapted to the small foraging bands in which our family spent ninety-nine percent of its existence, not the topsy-turvy contingencies we have created since the agricultural and industrial revolutions.
[...]
People do not divine what is adaptive for them or their genes; their genes give them thoughts and feelings that were adaptive in the environment in which the genes were selected. ~ Steven Pinker

The scream lasted for about a heartbeat, and then recognition flooded in - and relief.
"Oliver?" Great. She was relieved to see Oliver. The world was officially topsy-turvy, cats
were living with dogs, and life as she knew it was probably over. ~ Rachel Caine

Let pessimism once take hold of the mind, and life is all topsy-turvy, all vanity and vexation of spirit. There is no cure for individual or social disorder, except in forgetfulness and annihilation. ~ Helen Keller

It's a topsy-turvy world in which a country can import the same amount of ice-cream, toilet paper and other goods to trading partners as it exports, and where top bankers are paid millions for destroying economic value, while hospital cleaners create value many times their pay ~ Andrew Simms

Love works in miracles every day: such as weakening the strong, and stretching the weak; making fools of the wise, and wise men of fools; favouring the passions, destroying reason, and in a word, turning everything topsy-turvy. ~ Margaret Of Valois

As for the topsy-turvy tangle known as soixante-neuf, personally I have always felt it to be madly confusing, like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. ~ Helen Lawrenson

They tried picturing leaving Uncle Monty and living by themselves, trying to find jobs and take care of each other. It was a very lonely prospect. The Baudelaire children sat in sad silence awhile, and they were each thinking the same thing: They wished that their parents had never been killed in the fire, and that their lives had never been turned topsy-turvy the way they had. If only the Baudelaire parents were still alive, the youngsters wouldn't even have heard of Count Olaf, let alone have him settling into their home and undoubtedly making evil plants ~ Lemony Snicket

What has happened to create this doubt is that a problem (such as a deep conflict or a bad experience) has been allowed to usurp God's place and become the controlling principle of life. Instead of viewing the problem from the vantage point of faith, the doubter views faith from the vantage point of the problem. Instead of faith sizing up the problem, the situation ends with the problem scaling down faith. The world of faith is upside down, and in the topsy-turvy reality of doubt, a problem has become god and God has become a problem. ~ Os Guinness

He had appeared beside her because she had wanted him to. She had called him to her, and was calling him still. Even when she fell asleep, she dreamed of water, as if the world were topsy-turvy and everything she cared about had been lost in the deep. She plunged through the green waves with her eyes wide open, searching for the world as she'd known it, but that world no longer existed; everything that had once been solid was liquid now, and the birds swam alongside the fish. ~ Alice Hoffman

As long as hope does not embrace and transform the thought and action of men, it remains topsy-turvy and ineffective. ~ Jurgen Moltmann

It was the saying of a great man, that if we could trace our descents, we should find all slaves to come from princes, and all princes from slaves; and fortune has turned all things topsy-turvy in a long series of revolutions; beside, for a man to spend his life in pursuit of a title, that serves only when he dies to furnish out an epitaph, is below a wise man's business. ~ Seneca The Younger

That poverty is no disaster is understood by everyone who has not yet succumbed to the madness of greed and luxury that turns everything topsy-turvy. ~ Seneca The Younger

Spirituality is a mixed-up, topsy-turvy, helter-skelter godliness that turns our lives into an upside-down toboggan ride of unexpected turns, surprise bumps and bone shattering crashes ... a life ruined by a Jesus who loves us right into his arms. ~ Mike Yaconelli

If we look through a piece of glass, irregularities and impurities may distort and discolor the impression of what we see. If we regard something through a convex lens, it appears to be upside down. But if we place a concave lens in front of the convex lens, we correct the distortion in the convex lens and things no longer appear topsy-turvy. Each one of us regards the world through his own lens, his own glasses. The effect of those glasses is that, even though we may be looking at the same thing, not all of us actually see the same thing. The lenses are ground by each individual's upbringing, disposition and other factors. ~ Inge Hegeler

A friend at school was always being laughed at because his father emptied dustbins for a living. But those who laughed worshipped famous footballers. This is an example of our topsy-turvy view of 'success.' Who would we miss most if they did not work for a month, the footballer or the garbage collector? ~ David Icke

If you think the reason you exist or go to school is just to satisfy your selfish ambitions, then you are of all men most miserable ~ Topsy Gift

A hero is one who can never stop fighting for truth no matter the oppression ~ Topsy Gift

«Couldn't never be nothin' but a nigger, if I was ever so good,» said Topsy. «If I could be skinned, and come white, I'd try then.» ~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

A life well spent is one lived for the fulfilment of purpose ~ Topsy Gift

A small mind can never have a big result, for whatever you cannot see, you cannot have ~ Topsy Gift

One of the greatest help you can give to yourself is to kill distraction ~ Topsy Gift

Do not allow anybody to put you down or write you off because you are a woman; you are completely human and have everything it takes to be a nation builder ~ Topsy Gift

what you do today is the foundation upon which your future will stand ~ Topsy Gift

The people you stay around with can either make or mar you ~ Topsy Gift

The building blocks that form the foundation of your great and successful future, are the actions you take today ~ Topsy Gift

Don't spend your time fetching water with a basket for it will never get filled up ~ Topsy Gift

Self discipline is the mother of success ~ Topsy Gift

Success doesn't come to procrastinators, but only to men of action ~ Topsy Gift

Many women all over the world are confused about their real identity and do not seem to know if being a woman is of any value to society ~ Topsy Gift

Before you reprimand or condemn people on a particular act, make sure you have worked on yourself overtime such that you can't be found guilty of such act; if not you will be a victim of your own laws and rules ~ Topsy Gift

Show me a man who is a time investor, I will show you a successful man ~ Topsy Gift

Planning is like a roadmap that leads you to your destination ~ Topsy Gift

Besides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It wouldn't allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it wouldn't hear of accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it would lean forward with a drunken air and dribble, a very Idiot of a kettle, on the hearth. It was quarrelsome, and hissed and spluttered morosely at the fire. To sum up all, the lid, resisting Mrs. Peerybingle's fingers, first of all turned topsy-turvey, and then with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a better cause, dived sideways in - down to the very bottom of the kettle. And the hull of the Royal George has never made half the monstrous resistance to coming out of the water, which the lid of that kettle employed against Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it up again.
It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then: carrying its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle as if it said, I won't boil. Nothing shall induce me! ~ Charles Dickens

Planning helps you to avoid potholes in the journey of life ~ Topsy Gift

When there is life and you are not working towards your hope, then that hope will produce no result ~ Topsy Gift

A plan not implemented is as good as a plan not written ~ Topsy Gift

To improve their sense of balance," Mr. Foster explained. "Doing repairs on the outside of a rocket in mid-air is a ticklish job. We slacken off the circulation when they're right way up, so that they're half starved, and double the flow of surrogate when they're upside down. They learn to associate topsy-turvydom with well-being; in fact, they're only truly happy when they're standing on their heads. ~ Aldous Huxley

A man of principles is a man of his word ~ Topsy Gift

A woman is not less a human. There is no piece of literature or institution that can prove otherwise. It does not matter, the skin color, the economic status, or country of origin, a woman is a human. ~ Topsy Gift

The greatest tragedies in life is not untimely death, but to live a life for emptiness ~ Topsy Gift

Rather than condemning people for their wrong deeds, love and pray for them because everyone has their shortcomings ~ Topsy Gift

Everything you dare in life reveals the giant in you ~ Topsy Gift

Until you shut down the doors to distractions you are not yet ready to succeed ~ Topsy Gift

Truth is hidden only to the masses who are not inquisitive ~ Topsy Gift

Sentimentalising is anathema, as far as I am concerned. It leads you into ethical problems about violence and killing and eating meat. The whole world becomes topsy-survy if you impose moralities that were evolved within human society on what a blowfly or what a parasite does ... there are lots of emotions you can deduce from an animal's behaviour that are correct, but when you start saying it's feeling guilty or thinking or a loved one or mourning, you must be very careful of those feelings. ~ David Attenborough

Sometimes changes come to make you better and even take you to a better place ~ Topsy Gift

One of the greatest lies ever told to women is that it is only when they make up that they become beautiful ~ Topsy Gift

Distraction is a killer of dreams, visions and goals ~ Topsy Gift

Life is a school, be opened to learn from it, but sometimes it might teach you through the hard way ~ Topsy Gift

Time is deceptive, it gives you an impression that its with you but passes away without your knowledge ~ Topsy Gift

Adequate planning will rescue you from the shame of tomorrow ~ Topsy Gift

Why did you come in to-night with your heads in the air? 'Make way, we are coming! Give us every right and don't you dare breathe a word before us. Pay us every sort of respect, such as no one's ever heard of, and we shall treat you worse than the lowest lackey!' They strive for justice, they stand on their rights, and yet they've slandered him like infidels in their article. We demand, we don't ask, and you will get no gratitude from us, because you are acting for the satisfaction of your own conscience! Queer sort of reasoning!... He has not borrowed money from you, he doesn't owe you anything, so what are you reckoning on, if not his gratitude? So how can you repudiate it? Lunatics! They regard society as savage and inhuman, because it cries shame on the seduced girl; but if you think society inhuman, you must think that the girl suffers from the censure of society, and if she does, how is it you expose her to society in the newspapers and expect her not to suffer? Lunatics! Vain creatures! They don't believe in God, they don't believe in Christ! Why, you are so eaten up with pride and vanity that you'll end by eating up one another, that's what I prophesy. Isn't that topsy-turvydom, isn't it infamy? ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Greatness can only be procured with the currency of time and discipline ~ Topsy Gift