Thumb Print Quotes

At last he stopped, and she stared down at the printed column of words, unable to comprehend a single one. His hand, warm and steady, wound its way around hers, wrapping it like a spider would its prey. She surrendered it to him, unable to watch even as his thumb traced the place, just above her knuckles, where he had once written his number in deep violet. Isobel ceased to breathe. Her heart pounded in her chest, her thoughts shattering into senseless fragments. All the while, her eyes remained trained and unblinking on the open page. Lines without meaning stared up at her, little more than black sticks in an otherwise white world.

I believe that what Genesis suggests is that this original self, with the print of God's thumb still upon it, is the most essential part of who we are and is buried deep in all of us as a source of wisdom and strength and healing which we can draw upon or, with our terrible freedom, not draw upon as we choose. I think that among other things all real art comes from that deepest self - painting, writing music, dance, all of it that in some way nourishes the spirit.

You live forever in your words, in hearts and memories, in your creations and connections. The seeds you sow, the child you raise, the song you sing, the story you write with your time here. You are eternal, you are forever present in your oily DNA and your unique thumb print.

The Affordable Health Care for Americans Act, passed by the House of Representatives on November 7, 2009, was 1,990 pages long. You could stand on it to paint the ceiling. The entire U.S. Constitution can be printed on eight pages. That's eight pages to run a whole country for 221 years versus four reams of government pig latin if you slam your thumb in a car door.

The economics we need is of the "seminar room" variety, not the "rule-of-thumb" kind. It is an economics that recognizes its limitations and caveats and knows that the right message depends on the context. The fine print is what economists have to contribute.

I have always preferred the folly of the passions to the wisdom of indifference. But just because my own passions are not of that sort which burst out with violence to devastate and kill, the common mind is not aware of their existence. Nevertheless, I am greatly moved by them at times, and it has more than once been my fate to lose my sleep for the sake of a few pages written by some forgotten monk or printed by some humble apprentice of Peter Schöffer. And if these fierce enthusiasms are slowly being quenched in me, it is only because I am being slowly quenched myself. Our passions are ourselves. My old books are Me. I am just as old and thumb-worn as they are.

You see you left a little thumb print, and we are rather whales on thumb prints at Scotland Yard, Fisher.

The difference between Before and After is that today we need to safeguard our inner weirdo, seal it off and protect it from being buffeted. Learn an old torch song that nobody knows; read a musty, out-of-print detective novel; photograph a honey-perfect sunset and show it to no one. We may need to build new and stronger weirdo cocoons, in which to entertain our private selves. Beyond the sharing, the commenting, the constant thumbs-upping, beyond all that distracting gilt, there are stranger things waiting to be loved.

I was sitting there, as I said, and had been for several watches, when I came to me that I was reading no longer. For some time I was hard put to say what I had been doing. When I tried, I could only think of certain odors and textures and colors that seemed to have no connection with anything discussed in the volume I held. At last I realized that instead of reading it, I had been observing it as a physical object. The red I recalled came from the ribbon sewn to the headband so that I might mark my place. The texture that tickled my fingers still was that of the paper in which the book was printed. The smell in my nostrils was old leather, still wearing the traces of birch oil. It was only then, when I saw the books themselves, when I began to understand their care.” His grip on my shoulder tightened. “We have books here bound in the hides of echidnes, krakens, and beasts so long extinct that those whose studies they are, are for the most part of the opinion that no trace of them survives unfossilized. We have books bound wholly in metals of unknown alloy, and books whose bindings are covered with the thickest gems. We have books cased in perfumed woods shipped across the inconceivable gulf between creations—books doubly precious because no one on Urth can read them.” “We have books whose papers are matted of plants from which spring curious alkaloids, so that the reader, in turning their pages, is taken unaware by bizarre fantasies and chimeric dreams. Books whose pages are not paper at all, but delicate wafers of white jade, ivory, and shell; books too who leaves are the desiccated leaves of unknown plants. Books we have also that are not books at all to the eye: scrolls and tablets and recordings on a hundred different substances. There is a cube of crystal here—though I can no longer tell you where—no larger than the ball of your thumb that contains more books than the library itself does. Though a harlot might dangle it from one ear for an ornament, there are not volumes enough in the world to counterweight the other.

Life batters and shapes us in all sorts of ways before it's done, but those original selves which we were born with, and which I believe we continue in some measure to be no matter what, are selves which still echo with the holiness of their origin. I believe that what Genesis suggests is that this original self, with the print of God's thumb still upon it, is the most essential part of who we are and is buried deep in all of us as a source of wisdom and strength and healing which we can draw upon or, with our terrible freedom, not draw upon as we choose. I think that among other things all real art comes from that deepest self – painting, writing music, dance, all of it that in some way nourishes the spirit and enriches the understanding. I think that our truest prayers come from there too, the often unspoken, unbidden prayers that can rise out of the lives of unbelievers as well as believers whether they recognize them as prayers or not. And I think that from there also come our best dreams and our times of gladdest playing and taking it easy and all those moments when we find ourselves being better or stronger or braver or wiser than we are.

And so I make my way across the room steadily, carefully. Hands shaking, I pull the string, lifting my blinds. They rise slowly, drawing more moonlight into the room with every inch And there he is, crouched low on the roof. Same leather jacket. The hair is his, the cheekbones, the perfect nose . . . the eyes: dark and mysterious . . . full of secrets. . . . My heart flutters, body light. I reach out to touch him, thinking he might disappear, my fingers disrupted by the windowpane. On the other side, Parker lifts his hand and mouths: “Hi.” I mouth “Hi” back. He holds up a single finger, signalling me to hold on. He picks up a spiral-bound notebook and flips open the cover, turning the first page to me. I recognize his neat, block print instantly: bold, black Sharpie. I know this is unexpected . . . , I read. He flips the page. . . . and strange . . . I lift an eyebrow. . . . but please hear read me out. He flips to the next page. I know I told you I never lied . . . . . . but that was (obviously) the biggest lie of all. The truth is: I’m a liar. I lied. I lied to myself . . . . . . and to you. Parker watches as I read. Our eyes meet, and he flips the page. But only because I had to. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you, Jaden . . . . . . but it happened anyway. I clear my throat, and swallow hard, but it’s squeezed shut again, tight. And it gets worse. Not only am I a liar . . . I’m selfish. Selfish enough to want it all. And I know if I don’t have you . . . I hold my breath, waiting. . . . I don’t have anything. He turns another page, and I read: I’m not Parker . . . . . . and I’m not going to give up . . . . . . until I can prove to you . . . . . . that you are the only thing that matters. He flips to the next page. So keep sending me away . . . . . . but I’ll just keep coming back to you. Again . . . He flips to the next page. . . . and again . . . And the next: . . . and again. Goose bumps rise to the surface of my skin. I shiver, hugging myself tightly. And if you can ever find it in your (heart) to forgive me . . . There’s a big, black “heart” symbol where the word should be. I will do everything it takes to make it up to you. He closes the notebook and tosses it beside him. It lands on the roof with a dull thwack. Then, lifting his index finger, he draws an X across his chest. Cross my heart. I stifle the happy laugh welling inside, hiding the smile as I reach for the metal latch to unlock my window. I slowly, carefully, raise the sash. A burst of fresh honeysuckles saturates the balmy, midnight air, sickeningly sweet, filling the room. I close my eyes, breathing it in, as a thousand sleepless nights melt, slipping away. I gather the lavender satin of my dress in my hand, climb through the open window, and stand tall on the roof, feeling the height, the warmth of the shingles beneath my bare feet, facing Parker. He touches the length of the scar on my forehead with his cool finger, tucks my hair behind my ear, traces the edge of my face with the back of his hand. My eyes close. “You know you’re beautiful? Even when you cry?” He smiles, holding my face in his hands, smearing the tears away with his thumbs. I breathe in, lungs shuddering. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, black eyes sincere. I swallow. “I know why you had to.” “Doesn’t make it right.” “Doesn’t matter anymore,” I say, shaking my head. The moon hangs suspended in the sky, stars twinkling overhead, as he leans down and kisses me softly, lips meeting mine, familiar—lips I imagined, dreamed about, memorized a mil ion hours ago. Then he wraps his arms around me, pulling me into him, quelling every doubt and fear and uncertainty in this one, perfect moment.

Jack was behind it,waiting, with the corner of his lip pulled up in not quite a smile. "What?" he demanded. "What what?" I asked. He held my note up in front of my face. "What do you remember?" Everything. But I couldn't tell him that. I shrugged and said, "Things." Then I made a move to leave,but Jack's strong arm blocked my way,his hand pressing against the locker behind my back. "No you don't.You can't leave a note like this"-he waved the paper-"and then say 'things.' I want to know what, exactly, you remember." People in the hallway stared and I could feel my face going red. Jack noticed, and put his other arm up against the lockers,blocking me in. My pulse went nuts.It had to be visible on my wrists. Jack's face was inches from mine. His breath was minty, and I could smell the rustic scent of his aftershave,and whatever strong emotion he was feeling, it tasted sweet. I breathed it in, and the inhalation was embarrassingly loud. His eyes searched mine. "This is the first opening you've given me, and I'm not letting you get out of it." He paused. "What do you remember?" I looked behind him, at the curious spectators, and squinted my eyes shut, unable to bear the scrutiny anymore. "Say something,Becks. Say anything." "You," I said. "I remember you." I kept my eyes shut,and felt his hands drop. He didn't move back. "What do you remember about me?" There was strong emotion behind his voice. Something he fought to control. With my eyes closed,I could easily picture the other side of the century. "I remember the way your hand could cover my entire shoulder. The way your lower lip stuck out when you were working out a problem in your head. And how you flick you ring finger with your thumb when you get impatient." I opened my eyes,and the words no longer got stuck in my throat on their way out. They flowed. "And when something surprises you and you don't know what to say,you get a tiny wrinkle in between your eyebrows." I reached up to touch the divot,then hesitated and lowered my hand. "It showed on the day the coach told you you'd made first-string quarterback.And it's showing now." For a moment the space between us held no tension,no questions, no accusations. Finally he leaned back, a stunned expression on his face. "Where do we go from here?" "Nowhere,really," I whispered. "It doesn't change anything." Eyebrows still drawn together, he said, "We'll see." Then he turned and left. I tucked this moment away. In the dark,dank world of the Tunnels, I would call upon this memory. And there would be a flicker of candlelight. If only for a moment. I closed my eyes,as if my eyelids were the levers of a printing press,etching the fibers into my mind.Memories were outside Cole's reach.As long as I held them,memories were mine and mine alone.

It seems to be little noticed that this yearning to dragoon and terrify all persons who happen to be lucky is at the bottom of the puerile radicalism now prevailing among us, just as it is at the bottom of Ku Kluxery. The average American radical today likes to think of himself as a profound and somber fellow, privy to arcana not open to the general; he is actually only a poor fish, with distinct overtones of the jackass. What ails him, first and last, is simply envy of his betters. Unable to make any progress against them under the rules in vogue, he proposes to fetch them below the belt by making the rules over. He is no more an altruist than J. Pierpont Morgan is an altruist, or Jim Farley, or, indeed, Al Capone. Every such rescuer of the downtrodden entertains himself with gaudy dreams of power, far beyond his natural fortunes and capacities. He sees himself at the head of an overwhelming legion of morons, marching upon the fellows he envies and hates. He thinks of himself in his private reflections (and gives it away every time he makes a speech or prints an article) as a gorgeous amalgam of Lenin, Mussolini and Genghis Khan, with the Republic under his thumb, his check for any amount good at any bank, and ten million heels clicking every time he winks his eye.

The Woman Poet // Die Dichterin You hold me now completely in your hands. My heart beats like a frightened little bird's Against your palm. Take heed! You do not think A person lives within the page you thumb. To you this book is paper, cloth, and ink, Some binding thread and glue, and thus is dumb, And cannot touch you (though the gaze be great That seeks you from the printed marks inside), And is an object with an object's fate. And yet it has been veiled like a bride, Adorned with gems, made ready to be loved, Who asks you bashfully to change your mind, To wake yourself, and feel, and to be moved. But still she trembles, whispering to the wind: "This shall not be." And smiles as if she knew. Yet she must hope. A woman always tries, Her very life is but a single "You . . ." With her black flowers and her painted eyes, With silver chains and silks of spangled blue. She knew more beauty when a child and free, But now forgets the better words she knew. A man is so much cleverer than we, Conversing with himself of truth and lie, Of death and spring and iron-work and time. But I say "you" and always "you and I." This book is but a girl's dress in rhyme, Which can be rich and red, or poor and pale, Which may be wrinkled, but with gentle hands, And only may be torn by loving nails. So then, to tell my story, here I stand. The dress's tint, though bleached in bitter lye, Has not all washed away. It still is real. I call then with a thin, ethereal cry. You hear me speak. But do you hear me feel?

Toadvine glanced at the man's forehead but the man's hat was pushed down almost to his eyes. The man smiled and forked the hat back slightly with his thumb. The print of the hatband lay on his forehead like a scar but there was no mark other. Only on the inside of his lower arm was there tattooed a number which Toadvine would see in a Chihuahua bathhouse and again when he would cut down the man's torso where it hung skewered by its heels from a treelimb in the wastes of Pimeria Alta in the fall of that year.

As a stalwart reader of printed books, I’m left to wonder what will happen to the wide, slow silty river of the their history, to the countless volumes waiting now in the abandoned silence of library stacks. Stacks: The word itself connects books to the harvest, to corn and hay. They were always earthbound. Smell the must, feel the brittle, browning pages between your thumb and forefinger. The tears, the cracked spines, the stains and folds. Even if we readers forget them, printed books will hold us in their memory.

I wanted to say that although you might be considered a good businessman, you’ve done it at the expense of being a terrible, verbally abusive father. And one day you’re going to look back on your life and regret the way you treated your children, and I hope it hurts you as much as you hurt them. So fuck you and fuck off.”  I swivel on my heel and catch Martha staring at me with a big grin and a thumbs-up. I’m sure to blow her a kiss on my way out the door while using my other hand to give Seth Kane the middle finger.

LIFE BATTERS AND shapes us in all sorts of ways before it’s done, but those original selves which we were born with and which I believe we continue in some measure to be no matter what are selves which still echo with the holiness of their origin. I believe that what Genesis suggests is that this original self, with the print of God’s thumb still upon it, is the most essential part of who we are and is buried deep in all of us as a source of wisdom and strength and healing which we can draw upon or, with our terrible freedom, not draw upon as we choose. I think that among other things all real art comes from that deepest self—painting, writing music, dance, all of it that in some way nourishes the spirit and enriches the understanding. I think that our truest prayers come from there too, the often unspoken, unbidden prayers that can rise out of the lives of unbelievers as well as believers whether they recognize them as prayers or not. And I think that from there also come our best dreams and our times of gladdest playing and taking it easy and all those moments when we find ourselves being better or stronger or braver or wiser than we are.

How did you even get in here?” I asked him. “Would you believe they leave the door open all night?” Gus asked. “Um, no,” I said. “As well you shouldn’t.” Gus smiled. “Anyway, I know it’s a bit self-aggrandizing.” “Hey, you’re stealing my eulogy,” Isaac said. “My first bit is about how you were a self-aggrandizing bastard.” I laughed. “Okay, okay,” Gus said. “At your leisure.” Isaac cleared his throat. “Augustus Waters was a self-aggrandizing bastard. But we forgive him. We forgive him not because he had a heart as figuratively good as his literal one sucked, or because he knew more about how to hold a cigarette than any nonsmoker in history, or because he got eighteen years when he should have gotten more.” “Seventeen,” Gus corrected. “I’m assuming you’ve got some time, you interrupting bastard. “I’m telling you,” Isaac continued, “Augustus Waters talked so much that he’d interrupt you at his own funeral. And he was pretentious: Sweet Jesus Christ, that kid never took a piss without pondering the abundant metaphorical resonances of human waste production. And he was vain: I do not believe I have ever met a more physically attractive person who was more acutely aware of his own physical attractiveness. “But I will say this: When the scientists of the future show up at my house with robot eyes and they tell me to try them on, I will tell the scientists to screw off, because I do not want to see a world without him.” I was kind of crying by then. “And then, having made my rhetorical point, I will put my robot eyes on, because I mean, with robot eyes you can probably see through girls’ shirts and stuff. Augustus, my friend, Godspeed.” Augustus nodded for a while, his lips pursed, and then gave Isaac a thumbs-up. After he’d recovered his composure, he added, “I would cut the bit about seeing through girls’ shirts.” Isaac was still clinging to the lectern. He started to cry. He pressed his forehead down to the podium and I watched his shoulders shake, and then finally, he said, “Goddamn it, Augustus, editing your own eulogy.” “Don’t swear in the Literal Heart of Jesus,” Gus said. “Goddamn it,” Isaac said again. He raised his head and swallowed. “Hazel, can I get a hand here?” I’d forgotten he couldn’t make his own way back to the circle. I got up, placed his hand on my arm, and walked him slowly back to the chair next to Gus where I’d been sitting. Then I walked up to the podium and unfolded the piece of paper on which I’d printed my eulogy. “My name is Hazel. Augustus Waters was the great star-crossed love of my life. Ours was an epic love story, and I won’t be able to get more than a sentence into it without disappearing into a puddle of tears. Gus knew. Gus knows. I will not tell you our love story, because—like all real love stories—it will die with us, as it should. I’d hoped that he’d be eulogizing me, because there’s no one I’d rather have…” I started crying. “Okay, how not to cry. How am I—okay. Okay.” I took a few breaths and went back to the page. “I can’t talk about our love story, so I will talk about math. I am not a mathematician, but I know this: There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There’s .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set.

Through all this relentlessly advancing technology the same brain gropes through its diminishing neurons for images and narratives that will lift lumps out of the earth and put them under the glass case of published print. With ominous frequency, I can’t think of the right word. I know there is a word; I can visualize the exact shape it occupies in the jigsaw puzzle of the English language. But the word itself, with its precise edges and unique tint of meaning, hangs on the misty rim of consciousness. Eventually, with shamefaced recourse to my well-thumbed thesaurus or to a germane encyclopedia article, I may pin the word down, only to discover that it unfortunately rhymes with the adjoining word of the sentence.

Poetry is the report of a nuance between two moments, when people say 'Listen!' and 'Did you see it?' 'Did you hear it? What was it?' Poetry is a plan for a slit in the face of a bronze fountain goat and the path of fresh drinking water. Poetry is a slipknot tightened around a time-beat of one thought, two thoughts, and a last interweaving thought there is not yet a number for. Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly the air. Poetry is any page from a sketchbook of outlines of a doorknob with thumb-prints of dust, blood, dreams. Poetry is a type-font design for an alphabet of fun, hate, love, death. Poetry is the silence and speech between a wet struggling root of a flower and a sunlit blossom of that flower. Poetry is a fresh morning spider-web telling a story of moonlit hours of weaving and waiting during a night. Poetry is a packsack of invisible keepsakes. Poetry is the establishment of a metaphorical link between white butterfly-wings and the scraps of torn-up love letters. Poetry is the achievement of the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.

Then one evening he reached the last chapter, and then the last page, the last verse. And there it was! That unforgivable and unfathomable misprint that had caused the owner of the books to order them to be pulped. Now Bosse handed a copy to each of them sitting round the table, and they thumbed through to the very last verse, and one by one burst out laughing. Bosse was happy enough to find the misprint. He had no interest in finding out how it got there. He had satisfied his curiosity, and in the process had read his first book since his schooldays, and even got a bit religious while he was at it. Not that Bosse allowed God to have any opinion about Bellringer Farm’s business enterprise, nor did he allow the Lord to be present when he filed his tax return, but – in other respects – Bosse now placed his life in the hands of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And surely none of them would worry about the fact that he set up his stall at markets on Saturdays and sold bibles with a tiny misprint in them? (‘Only ninety-nine crowns each! Jesus! What a bargain!’) But if Bosse had cared, and if, against all odds, he had managed to get to the bottom of it, then after what he had told his friends, he would have continued: A typesetter in a Rotterdam suburb had been through a personal crisis. Several years earlier, he had been recruited by Jehovah’s Witnesses but they had thrown him out when he discovered, and questioned rather too loudly, the fact that the congregation had predicted the return of Jesus on no less than fourteen occasions between 1799 and 1980 – and sensationally managed to get it wrong all fourteen times. Upon which, the typesetter had joined the Pentecostal Church; he liked their teachings about the Last Judgment, he could embrace the idea of God’s final victory over evil, the return of Jesus (without their actually naming a date) and how most of the people from the typesetter’s childhood including his own father, would burn in hell. But this new congregation sent him packing too. A whole month’s collections had gone astray while in the care of the typesetter. He had sworn by all that was holy that the disappearance had nothing to do with him. Besides, shouldn’t Christians forgive? And what choice did he have when his car broke down and he needed a new one to keep his job? As bitter as bile, the typesetter started the layout for that day’s jobs, which ironically happened to consist of printing two thousand bibles! And besides, it was an order from Sweden where as far as the typesetter knew, his father still lived after having abandoned his family when the typesetter was six years old. With tears in his eyes, the typesetter set the text of chapter upon chapter. When he came to the very last chapter – the Book of Revelation – he just lost it. How could Jesus ever want to come back to Earth? Here where Evil had once and for all conquered Good, so what was the point of anything? And the Bible… It was just a joke! So it came about that the typesetter with the shattered nerves made a little addition to the very last verse in the very last chapter in the Swedish bible that was just about to be printed. The typesetter didn’t remember much of his father’s tongue, but he could at least recall a nursery rhyme that was well suited in the context. Thus the bible’s last two verses plus the typesetter’s extra verse were printed as: 20. He who testifies to these things says, Surely I am coming quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!21. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.22. And they all lived happily ever after.

But, after one quick trace of his tongue between her lips, he abruptly pulled away and stepped back from her. She was leaning into him so hard he had to put his hands on her shoulders to steady her. Catherine’s eyes flew open. Releasing her shoulders, he pointed past her to the books he’d set on the desk. She opened her mouth to protest, but closed it again. As she followed Jim, she caught a glimpse of his profile when he picked up the books and slate. There was a smug grin on his face. He was toying with her, teaching her a lesson—that two could play at heating things up and abruptly cooling them down. Indignation and amusement competed in her as she took her seat beside him and he handed her the paper he’d written. She hadn’t set him any homework. He’d done it on his own, printed a brief description of their picnic in short sentences or single words. It was almost like a poem without rhyme. “Fish swim water. Sky. Trees. Leaves. Eat food. Drink.” She smiled at him. “Very good.” He touched his lips, puckering them in a kiss, and tapped the signing book. “Kiss,” she said and looked up the sign for it. “Fingers touching thumbs as both hands come together,” the text said. Her cheeks flushed as she read, “trembling slightly to indicate the degree of passion.” Catherine made the movement as she repeated the word aloud. “Kiss.” Jim copied the movement, shaping his lips like hers. He pointed to the slate and offered her the chalk so she could spell the word. He studied each letter as she wrote it, before printing them himself: K-i-s-s. Catherine’s cheeks flamed even hotter from seeing it written in glaring white against the black slate. Kiss. Kiss. Somehow there seemed to be no denying or hiding it now that it was written down. She glanced at Jim’s lips and her nipples tightened at the memory of his mouth sucking them.

had forced him to buy Exeltec from me for another exorbitant sum, so I came away from this in a good enough position. The CDC failed to find evidence that Panos had released any kind of pathogen, and eventually determined that the note on Panos’s computer had been an idle threat, meant to send I3 into a panic. Earlier that morning, Dion had sent me a thank-you note from him and his mother for stopping the government from burning the body. I hadn’t yet told them I’d stolen this thumb drive. It contained the key, and a . . . second file. A small text document, also encrypted. We’d stared at it for a time before realizing that the key had been printed on the outside of the thumb drive itself. Chapter nineteen

I remember asking him, 'Why did you print that stuff out, why not use thumb drives like everyone else,' and he said, 'Owning your own space company brings some perks,' " Dinah said. She found them after a few minutes' rummaging in storage bins: half a dozen three-ring binder, volumes 1 through 6 of the Arjuna Expeditions Employee Manual. The entire stack was a foot thick. Doob whistled. "Given the cost per pound of launching stuff into space, this is probably worth more than the Gutenberg Bible that showed up last week.

His thumb was pressed against my skin so hard, I’d probably be able to use the print to unlock his iPhone later—the

if you looked in a mirror. Arbinger came because he’s had a threatenin’ letter.” He explained, and had just finished when there came a tap on the door and a messenger appeared with a report from the Fingerprint department. The test had revealed two sets of prints and a smudged impression of a thumb in the top left-hand corner.

J. P. Morgan had started before the war, as the son of a banker who began selling stocks for the railroads for good commissions. During the Civil War he bought five thousand rifles for $3.50 each from an army arsenal, and sold them to a general in the field for $22 each. The rifles were defective and would shoot off the thumbs of the soldiers using them. A congressional committee noted this in the small print of an obscure report, but a federal judge upheld the deal as the fulfillment of a valid legal contract.

My grandmother brought me here with my twin sister, Alliw, when we were five years old,” Willa said. “She asked us to dip our hands into a bowl of paint she had made from berries. And then we pressed our palms right here, one beside the other, the left and the right, the Willa and Alliw, just like a thousand twins had done before us.” Trying to keep her breathing steady and strong, Willa put her left hand over the print she had made on the wall eight years before. To her surprise, Adelaide slowly leaned forward and put her right hand on the print next to hers. Willa thought Adelaide was trying to show that she was on her side, that she was her friend, and that although they were human and Faeran, they were sisters in a way. Their hands were positioned opposite to one another, their thumbs almost touching, as if a single girl was pressing her two hands to the wall. Because of the way the light was falling through the holes in the ceiling, Willa’s hand was cast in shadow, but Adelaide’s hand was bright. Left and right, dark and light, Faeran and human, green skin and white…Everything should have been different about their hands. But the more Willa looked, the more she marveled at what she was seeing. Other than the color, their hands were identical in size and shape, down to the wrinkles on their fingers. Willa’s heart began to pound in her chest. How could this be? How could their hands be so similar? She slowly turned her head and looked at Adelaide. Adelaide stared back at her, her eyes wide, as amazed as she was. And then Adelaide gazed all around at the walls of the cave and the long flow of the River of Souls. Willa watched as a trace of fear crept into Adelaide’s face. “Willa…” Adelaide whispered, her voice trembling with astonishment. “I think I’ve been here before.

She made me feel this tall." Claire shows me an inch of space between her index finger and thumb.

We have received more than a few invitations to visit friends in the country.” Lottie came beside him and sank to the carpeted floor, the skirts of her printed muslin skirts billowing around her. Their faces were nearly level as Nick reclined on the arm of the low-backed settee. “Even one from Westcliff, asking if we would stay a fortnight or so at Stony Cross Park.” Nick’s face darkened. “No doubt the earl wants to assure himself that you’re not being maltreated by your husband from hell.” Lottie couldn’t help laughing. “You must admit that you were not at your most charming then.” Nick caught at her fingers as she reached over to loosen his necktie. “I wanted you too badly to bother with charm.” The pad of his thumb stroked over the smooth tips of her fingernails. “You implied that I was interchangeable with any other woman,” she chided. “In the past I learned that the best way to get something I wanted was to pretend that I didn’t want it.” Lottie shook her head, perplexed. “That makes no sense at all.” Smiling, Nick released her hand and toyed with the lace edge of her scooped neckline. “It worked,” he pointed out. With their faces close together and his vivid blue eyes staring into hers, Lottie felt a blush climbing her face. “You were very wicked that night.” His fingertip eased into the shallow valley between her breasts. “Not nearly as wicked as I wanted to be…” -Lottie & Nick

the amount of work required to prepare the catalog for the printer makes it cost-ineffective unless you print 25,000 copies. It's only a rule of thumb, but it's a good one.

Blarney Stones—chocolate cake cut into squares, dipped in powdered sugar frosting, rolled in crushed peanuts and then frozen. Stella was known for her fancy cookies–crispy, spritz butter cookies or thumb print cookies topped with jam

That a ploughman’s turned out to be a rectangular slab of sharp-tasting cheese, a lettuce leaf, an undersized tomato with a thumb-print in it, a mound of something wet and brown that tasted like sour jam, and a small, hard, stale roll, came as a sad disappointment to Ben, who had already decided that the British treated food as some kind of punishment.

I trace her delicate fingers with my thumb before letting go.

You shouldn't listen to me. I only know half as much as I pretend to." "Well, in that case, I suppose can listen to you half the time." A small smile played at the corner of her lips. "But not about arsenic." His grin stretched, beckoning hers, and— damn, there it was again, that spark, that small absorbing heat, as though their mirrored smiles were kindling. The whisky burn once again stirred him, and he knew by the answering flare in her hazel eyes, she saw it happen. He cleared his throat, absently running his hand along his newly smooth jaw. “You shaved, I see.” Her eyes followed his fingers. “Yes.” She lowered her eyes and found a fresh page in her journal. “I’m partial to it, you know.” “The poison? Or the beard?” “Ah.” She pressed her thumb to the nib of her pen. “What fun would it be if I told you?

His thumb caresses my knuckles.

They’d spent too much time around tired folks to not recognize the same condition in themself. They were running up against a wall, and it didn’t matter whether they understood where the wall had come from, or what it was made of. The only way to get through it was to stop trying, for a while. So, they would not make tea in Stump. They would not make tea anywhere unless they really, truly felt like it. They would focus on Mosscap and let the remainder wait. That was all right, they reminded themself, even though part of them still felt as though they hadn’t earned the hot soak or the good food. Welcome comfort, they reminded themself, rubbing the little pectin-printed bear with their thumb. Without it, you cannot stay strong.

you are back in your grandmother’s attic looking at photographs of people you don’t know, ladies in floral print dresses, wearing feathered and veiled hats; men with cigarettes, leaning against automobiles, thumbs through their belt loops; an empty railroad depot, the tracks heading away to a landscape of bare trees, the rail yard littered with handcarts and piles of sooty snow, and you hear your mother calling you to lunch, but you are curious about this missing snapshot, the four triangular corner mounts forming a dark rectangle. Who removed the photo from the album and why? And who is the purloined ghost? And at that moment you realize that secrets lie all around you, that the world is so much larger than you had imagined, and that you are a part of it, and that this is a world of loss, and that all of these people whose names are penned on the borders of the photographs, whose smiles and shadows have been preserved, these people named Eustache and Marie, Walter, Pamille, Theona, Grace, Emma, Cousin Butchie, Big Fred, Little Fred, that all of them were tillers in the garden where the flower of you now blooms.

So here is a simple rule of thumb (a heuristic): to estimate the quality of research, take the caliber of the highest detractor, or the caliber of the lowest detractor whom the author answers in print—whichever is lower.

My garden aboundeth in pleasant nooks And fragrance is over it all; For sweet is the smell of my old, old books In their places against the wall. Here is a folio that's grim with age And yellow and green with mould; There's the breath of the sea on every page And the hint of a stanch ship's hold. And here is a treasure from France la belle Exhaleth a faint perfume Of wedded lily and asphodel In a garden of song abloom. And this wee little book of Puritan mien And rude, conspicuous print Hath the Yankee flavor of wintergreen, Or, may be, of peppermint. In Walton the brooks a-babbling tell Where the cheery daisy grows, And where in meadow or woodland dwell The buttercup and the rose. But best beloved of books, I ween, Are those which one perceives Are hallowed by ashes dropped between The yellow, well-thumbed leaves. For it's here a laugh and it's there a tear, Till the treasured book is read; And the ashes betwixt the pages here Tell us of one long dead. But the gracious presence reappears As we read the book again, And the fragrance of precious, distant years Filleth the hearts of men. Come, pluck with me in my garden nooks The posies that bloom for all; Oh, sweet is the smell of my old, old books In their places against the wall!

We have received more than a few invitations to visit friends in the country." Lottie came beside him and sank to the carpeted floor, the skirts of her printed muslin skirts billowing around her. Their faces were nearly level as Nick reclined on the arm of the low-backed settee. "Even one from Westcliff, asking if we would stay a fortnight or so at Stony Cross Park." Nick's face darkened. "No doubt the earl wants to assure himself that you're not being maltreated by your husband from hell." Lottie couldn't help laughing. "You must admit that you were not at your most charming then." Nick caught at her fingers as she reached over to loosen his necktie. "I wanted you too badly to bother with charm." The pad of his thumb stroked over the smooth tips of her fingernails. "You implied that I was interchangeable with any other woman," she chided. "In the past I learned that the best way to get something I wanted was to pretend that I didn't want it." Lottie shook her head, perplexed. "That makes no sense at all." Smiling, Nick released her hand and toyed the edge of her scooped neckline. "It worked," he pointed out. With their faces close together and his vivid blue eyes staring into hers, Lottie felt a blush climbing her face. "You were very wicked that night." His fingertip eased into the shallow valley between her breasts. "Not as nearly as wicked as I wanted to be...

there was something intelligent…and slightly terrifying behind those eyes. But it was the sort of terrifying that begged to be explored, like a book with an interesting title. She was one of those titles that, once you had seen it, called for you to thumb through the pages to read a paragraph here and there; before you knew it, you were marching in obedient lockstep with the lines of print as they led you to battle the demons of the writer’s tormented soul.