Tom Thumb Quotes

There's a great power of imagination about these little creatures, and a creative fancy and belief that is very curious to watch . . . I am sure that horrid matter-of-fact child-rearers . . . do away with the child's most beautiful privilege. I am determined that Anny shall have a very extensive and instructive store of learning in Tom Thumbs, Jack-the-Giant-Killers, etc.

Never would I allow my size to define me. Instead I would define it.

Clocks are the enemies of time... they are the gaolers of day and the turnkeys of night." Tom Thumb

That's just it, don't you see? I don't want to be taken care of! I don't want be hidden away, a burden! I want to make my own way! To have a greater purpose!'

...'it's not that you are too small, my little chick,but rather that the world is too big.

For I can think of no fate drearier than sitting at home...for the rest of my life, watching all of you go off one by one.

Never before had I imagined leaving home, but that wasn't because of lack of desire, only lack of possibility.

Despite all that I had taught, I had learned nothing about the world.

My dear, simple little sister! Every mood so fleeting, yet so obvious; there was no mystery to Minnie, none at all. She loved whom she knew, distrusted everyone else, and shared her emotions, her thoughts, as freely as they occurred to her.

Where has he gone, my meadow mouse, My thumb of a child that nuzzled in my palm? -- To run under the hawk's wing, Under the eye of the great owl watching from the elm-tree, To live by courtesy of the shrike, the snake, the tom-cat. (from "The Meadow Mouse")

I did not want to be forgotten. More than that, I wanted, desperately—I fell to my knees and began to tear out the weeds, the vines, by their very roots—to be remembered.

I am not your friend, not your doll, not your playmate. I am your teacher and will expect every consideration, every show of respect, that my position demands.

The most unbelievable scene in any action movie was the part where Tom Cruise jammed the thumb drive into the slot and it slid in on the first try.

Then there was no end to the rage and disappointment of Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca.

Never would I allow my size to define me. Instead, I would define it. My size may have been the first thing people noticed about me but never, I vowed at that moment, would it be the last.

When I was younger, before this layoff which has nearly finished me, I hitchhiked one hundred and twenty-seven hours without stopping, without food or sleep, crossed the continent twice in six days, cooled my thumbs in both oceans and caught rides after midnight on unlighted highways, such was my skill, persuasion, rhythm. I set records and immediately cracked them; went farther, faster than any hitchhiker before or since.

In school you learn that it is the thumb that separates human beings from the lower primates. The thumb is an evolutionary triumph. Because of his thumbs, man can use tools; because he can use tools he can extend his senses, control his environment and increase in sophistication and power. The thumb is the cornerstone of civilization!

We are in receipt of numerous communications concerning the Harper's Ferry affair, and the various topics connected with it... We must decline to publish them all,-simply because we see no possible good which they could accomplish.

Just when had I become so self-absorbed? I was a form of self-preservation, I realized now; I had resolved that...I could survive Colonel Wood's cruelty if my heart, my mind, had shrunk to a size designed to absorb my own troubles only.

dressed like a policeman!" BUT the nurse said: "I will set a mouse-trap!" SO that is the story of the two Bad Mice. But they were not so very, very naughty after all, because Tom Thumb paid for everything he broke. He found a crooked sixpence

Forever, Tom thought. Maybe he’d never go back to the States. It was not so much Europe itself as the evenings he had spent alone, here and in Rome, that made him feel that way. Evenings by himself simply looking at maps, or lying around on sofas thumbing through guidebooks. Evenings looking at his clothes - his clothes and Dickie’s - and feeling Dickie’s rings between his palms, and running his fingers over the antelope suitcase he had bought at Gucci’s. He had polished the suitcase with a special English leather dressing, not that it needed polishing because he took such good care of it, but for its protection. He loved possessions, not masses of them, but a select few that he did not part with. They gave a man self-respect. Not ostentation but quality, and the love that cherished the quality. Possessions reminded him that he existed, and made him enjoy his existence. It was as simple as that. And wasn’t that worth something? He existed. Not many people in the world knew how to, even if they had the money. It really didn’t take money, masses of money, it took a certain security. He had been on the road to it, even with Marc Priminger. He had appreciated Marc’s possessions, and they were what had attracted him to the house, but they were not his own, and it had been impossible to make a beginning at acquiring anything of his own on forty dollars a week. It would have taken him the best years of his life, even if he had economised stringently, to buy the things he wanted. Dickie’s money had given him only an added momentum on the road he had been travelling. The money gave him the leisure to see Greece, to collect Etruscan pottery if he wanted (he had recently read an interesting book on that subject by an American living in Rome), to join art societies if he cared to and to donate to their work. It gave him the leisure, for instance, to read his Malraux tonight as late as he pleased, because he did not have to go to a job in the morning. He had just bought a two-volume edition of Malraux’s Psychologic de I’art which he was now reading, with great pleasure, in French with the aid of a dictionary.

Of course," Tom said softly, "you could leave in your wedding dress, and go with me straight to the railway carriage... where I could help you remove it." A quicksilver shiver chased through her. "Would you prefer that?" His palm smoothed over the satin of her upper sleeve, and then he rubbed an edge of the fabric gently between his thumb and forefinger. "As a man who likes to unwrap his own presents... yes.

Allen Leech is Tom Branson: The car I drive is a 1920 Renault and it is an absolute nightmare with all the double declutching. The owner drives it first, then I get in and the gears start clunking. Once I heard a massive clunk and I looked back and a huge piece of metal had fallen out into the road - he had to go back and get it. He'd driven that car to France and back, so I blame the owner for losing half the gearbox, not my gear changing! It's a hand-crank start and you have to be careful how you do it because once it starts spinning you can lose your thumb.

Sissy dear. Your thumbs. HOLLYWOOD SPECTACULAR. LAS VEGAS. THE ROSE BOWL. Larger than any one man's desire.

Revising a Novel When you think you’re done revising a novel, set it aside for three months. Then read through it again to see if it’s ready to send out. —David Malki, filmmaker and cartoonist conversation and body language

Whether you need the solace of normality more than you need your unique power is a personal matter, which only you may decide. But Sissy, don't let people such as Julian Gitche influence your decision. Julian needs your thumbs, huge and murmuring like the mouths of unexplored rivers – just the way nature made them – even if he isn't wise enough to understand that he needs them.

Finally, he slipped his arms around her too. Her eyes closed in relief. “I was thinking,” His voice rumbled against her ear. “That I’ve brought you so much trouble after everything you’ve done for me. Maybe it’s not too late to fix it. If I leave…” “No!” She pulled away and looked up into his face. It was swollen red around one eye and his nose. Brown flecks of paint marred the blue swirls. “That’s not going to solve anything.” He stroked the side of her face, his thumb lingering across her lips. “If I leave, it will be better.” “Not for me.” Tears welled at the corners of her eyes and she blinked them away. He gathered her close again, kissing the top of her head and rubbing his hand on her back. “Don’t cry. ” When Sarah thought about it later, she would realize that he had never added, “I’ll stay.

No little Gradgrind had ever seen a face in the moon; it was up in the moon before it could speak distinctly.  No little Gradgrind had ever learnt the silly jingle, Twinkle, twinkle, little star; how I wonder what you are!  No little Gradgrind had ever known wonder on the subject, each little Gradgrind having at five years old dissected the Great Bear like a Professor Owen, and driven Charles’s Wain like a locomotive engine-driver.  No little Gradgrind had ever associated a cow in a field with that famous cow with the crumpled horn who tossed the dog who worried the cat who killed the rat who ate the malt, or with that yet more famous cow who swallowed Tom Thumb: it had never heard of those celebrities, and had only been introduced to a cow as a graminivorous ruminating quadruped with several stomachs.   To

I spent the rest of the film miserable, hardly seeing it. Or, rather, I was seeing it but in a wholly different way: not the ecstatic prodigy; not the mystic, the solitary, heroically quitting the concert stage at the height of his fame to retreat into the snows of Canada - but the hypochondriac, the recluse, the isolate. The paranoiac. The pill popper. No: the drug addict. The obsessive: glove-wearing, germ-phobic, bundled year round with scarves, twitching and racked with compulsions. The hunched nocturnal weirdo so unsure how to conduct even the most basic relations with people that (in an interview which I was suddenly finding torturous) he had asked a recording engineer if they couldn't go to a lawyer and legally be declared brothers - sort of the tragic, late-genius version of Tom Cable and me pressing cut thumbs in the darkened back-yard of his house, or - even more strangely - Boris seizing my hand, bloody at the knuckles where I'd punched him on the playground, and pressing it to his own bloodied mouth.

Can you send stuff out from Nepal by air, John?’ ‘Ooh! No. No. I can’t do anything like that. No. No. No. Now, I know a man. He knows a man who might know.’ ‘How much would it cost?’ ‘Well, money is the thing, and they always do things for a fair and honest price, I promise you.’ ‘What’s a fair price, John?’ ‘You will tell me, I’m quite sure.’ ‘What will you want out of it, John?’ ‘If I help you do business, I’m sure you will give me a drink.’ ‘A drink?’ ‘Yes. If a man does something for you, you give him a drink. Please, if everything goes well, give me a drink.’ ‘Can you check that the quality will be all right?’ ‘I only smoke Tom Thumb, but I know a man who has a knife.’ I took this as a yes. ‘Can you make it smell-proof?’ ‘Not if God made it smell.’ ‘Do you know a man who can?’ ‘No. But if you do, let him come and do it, or give me instructions.’ ‘How much can they send?’ ‘I should think it depends on when you want to do it by.’ ‘Well, John, the Americans will want to do a ton as soon as possible.’ ‘Now I was in America once, and the thing is that Americans will always want more, and there is no end to their madness. Lovely people, for sure, but you have to keep them in line. When my visa ran out, the Immigration asked me why I wanted to extend it, and I said it was because I hadn’t run out of money. He stamped it and said, “Have a nice day.” So, if the Americans ask for a ton tomorrow, say you will do half a ton when Wales win the Triple Crown. That will deal with their madness, and everyone can get on with their lives. It saves all that tidding.’ ‘Tidding?’ ‘Talking Imaginary Deals.’ Accurately conveying the contents of my conversation with Old John to Ernie wasn’t easy. I told Ernie hashish could be exported from Nepal for about the same price as Robert Crimball charged in Bangkok, but 500 kilos was the most they could do at one time, and someone would have to be sent out to ensure the consignment was smell-proof. Ernie sent his right-hand man, Tom Sunde, with money, instructions, and smell-proof know-how. Tom came to London first before going to Kathmandu to meet Old John. He had been authorised by Ernie to keep nothing from me regarding the intricacies of the New York scam.

She felt sweat bead on her forehead, and dug a fingernail into her thumb to stop herself from weeping. She thought about her husband, John, and her two girls. She cursed herself for agreeing to visit the hospital and for not heeding the advice of the deputy director and Tom Dupree. But she still had the presence of mind to know that that wouldn’t help her now, so she did her best to concentrate on counting her breaths. Two minutes later, she decided to survive by whatever means and fought to focus on something more positive to assuage her escalating fear. She told herself that her people would be looking for her, that roadblocks had been set up. They could follow her, after all, at US Air Force bases, via drones, or whatever else they had that even she didn’t know about. Then she did her best to remember what Tom had told her about how to respond if she were ever kidnapped. Do not resist them, she thought. Act upon all reasonable instructions without complaint. Refrain from making retaliatory threats or unrealistic promises. Attempt to build up a rapport, but slowly to avoid it being considered contrived. But then she began to waver again. For now she was in the hands of men with no humanity, who had snuffed out life as most people sprayed mosquitoes or swatted bugs. She knew her see-saw emotions were reasonable in the circumstances. But she had to survive. For John. For her girls. Oh, God, hear my prayer. Help me.

I couldn't help staring at him, slurping up every atom and utterance and whistle in his voice. He'd become more relaxed in the kitchen, relaxed yet assertive. He bit his thumb in thought and the contrast between his big, strong hands and this adorable, boyish habit made me woozy. "Well... what are we doing with this dish?" "Let me think," I said, letting my exhalations calm me down yet again. "I think the dish needs something more to ground it. Something earthy." "That's the lovage," he said, now looking in the fridge, his jean-clad butt poking out. "No, the lovage is the wild card," I said, as steadily as I could, even though I was intensely distracted and slightly astonished that a man's butt excited me so much. "That flavor remains suspended in your mouth," I continued. "You need something that goes deeper." As I said it, he slowly approached me. I lifted my hand to make way for him but he caught it in midair. "I need something?" he asked, tightening his grip with a little smile and a little threat. He walked one inch closer and that inch set my heart fluttering again, the air between us compressed and tickling. "Yes. Um, I mean..." Still holding my hand, he grabbed a bowl of toasted almonds. "Like this?" He dropped one in my mouth with his free hand, his fingers barely touching my lips. I didn't feel like eating it. I felt like either running back to my apartment and hiding under the covers, or maybe just pretending I was someone else and kissing him right then and there. But I ate the almond and resigned myself to imagining his lips on mine. His hand was still around my wrist... his finger on my lips... "Or, maybe this." He gripped me tighter and, with his other hand, picked up a frond of dehydrated kale, as big and light as a feather. He touched the end of my lips, but when I opened my mouth, he pulled it away. "Careful," he said. "It crumbles." He placed it on my lips once more and I took a bite, little flakes of kale falling like green fairy dust.

He [my cousin] was by profession manger of a museum in the days when a museum meant a great deal to the general public. I had some idea of what a city museum was: staid, stuffy, and wearisome, visited by everybody that was anybody and all the nobodies as well. But this museum was a novelty, a 'floating palace of curiosities' on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

Among the leanest, most muscular people in the world, 1 gram per pound of body weight per day has been a rule of thumb for years. The science suggests they’re right.

That world that had beckoned to me for so long—it was not bigger than me, after all. I would conquer it by seeing every corner of it; I felt sorry for the women who had to content themselves with gazing at the globe while they dusted it, dutifully, trapped in the houses of their husbands.

explained that I represented “an excellent example of Nature’s Occasional Mistakes.

Who, when having been already blessed with three children, still has the time or interest to pay much attention to the fourth?

Why won't you be friends with me?" To Cassandra's chagrin, the question came out plaintive, almost childish. She looked down and rearranged the folds of her skirts, fidgeting with the crystal beads. "My lady," he murmured, but she refused to look at him. One of his hands came to the side of her face to angle it upward. It was the first time he'd ever touched her. His fingers were strong but gentle, slightly cool against her hot cheek, and it felt so amazingly good that she trembled. She couldn't move or speak, only stared up into his lean, slightly wolfish face. A trick of moonlight had turned his blue-green eyes iridescent. "That you'd even ask..." His thumb brushed over her skin in a slow stroke, and her breath stopped and started too fast, sounding like a tiny hiccup. There was no mistaking the experience in his touch, sending pleasure-chills down the back of her neck and all along her spine. "Do you really want to be friends?" His voice had softened into dark velvet. "Yes," she managed to say. "No, you don't.

Tom!” said Tom. “Tom!” exclaimed the doctor, as if he was about to have guessed it. He wrote down the next two letters. “So what do they call you? Thomas? Tommy? Big Tom? Little Tom? Tom Thumb?” “Tom,” replied Tom wearily. Tom had already said his name was Tom. “Do you have a surname?

Relaxing in the commonplace Asian insanity, the world became mine.

They weren't bad guys, just products of a society run by men and infused with rules to leave everyone sexually frustrated. Even in marriage sex in India is often just a brief, clumsy fumble in the dark, trying not to wake up grandma who's sleeping in the same bed.  

Most religions seem to have decided pretty early on 'You know, we've go to do take action about that sex thing'. Somehow India too forgot the age of the Kama Sutra, Tantra and erotic carvings on temple walls. Even the Hare Krishnas try to tell us that Krishna was only spiritually making love to hundreds of cow girls at a time.   Nowadays it works like this: no one ever tells you the first thing

about sex or where babies come from, you marry someone you've never really talked to and then you live in a house so stuffed with family members that you never get to spend a moment with your spouse alone. Many children in India are conceived in bathrooms.   I

People who know nothing about India like to raise the subject of the holy cow as an example of the mysterious and inexplicable ways of the Mystic East. Because in America and Europe cows are seen as little more than milk factories and soon-to-be-steak-dinners; How typically superstitious for a country suffering from ,malnutrition and famine to prohibit the consumption of such an obvious food source.   The belief in reincarnation perhaps goes some way to explain the general vegetarianism of the Hindu (after all one could be eating one's own grandparents born again further down the food chain) but the real answer is far more practical: The cow is the only available animal to pull the plough in the countryside. To eat it would be suicide. Without the cow the field cannot be ploughed, nothing will then be able to be planted and the family loses its only source of income. Unless there be a passing purveyor of spare kidneys.   Most anthropologists now accept that most myth has its birth in a cradle of practicality. As such the vital role of the cow was elevated to the status of sacred. Drape a few garlands of marigolds around her neck and write her into a few adventures of the gods and Abracadabra - You've got a holy cow.   But

But logic never seems to get more than a few steps down the road in India before it stumbles into a pothole. While Vijay was happy enough to write off hundreds of millions of Muslims as sadists, he didn't seem to care enough to lift one finger to help the cow standing in front of us. She was busy spoiling potential clown acts by eating all the dropped banana skins on the street. But then while Vijay pontificated, she began to apply herself to the consumption of a plastic bag that had been dumped in the gutter. For some time the cows in Delhi and other Indian cities were found dead without any apparent cause of death. Upon investigative surgery it was found that their digestive systems had been clogged up with up to thirty kilos of plastic. Tens of thousands of evolution never required the cow to understand the difference between cabbage leaves and polythene. Until now.   But few Indian seem to see the incongruity of venerating the cow as the Holy Giver of Life and yet allowing her to die in pain by the roadside. Such a step would involve taking responsibility for the world around them. Perhaps it would even involve getting their hands dirty in work suitable only for the lower castes.

Tom gripped him tightly as he tongued him, his fingers digging into Prophet’s skin as the rimming intensified, both sensations sparking nerve endings. Prophet fought like hell to keep his legs from trembling as Tom speared his tongue to work him harder. And then Tom pulled back, causing Prophet to groan. Tom chuckled softly, then pressed a thumb inside him, which made Prophet go up on his toes. Tom tugged him back down by a hip. And then he worked his other thumb inside, and Prophet stilled completely. Tom slid his thumbs in and out of him, pressing, then stretching, and Prophet flushed with embarrassment and pleasure all at once at the exploration. Finally, Tom took his thumbs out, then licked him again before burying his face in Prophet’s ass and holy motherfucking hell. His cock was leaking, begging for him to touch it, but somehow he knew Tom wouldn’t want that. And somehow, he complied with Tom’s rules. As Tom worked him, Prophet couldn’t help that his upper body slid lower, so his fists were touching the seat cushions. He made sure his cock wasn’t touching the back of the couch, because any friction would send him over the edge. True

Aye, Da,” said the first mate with a small nod. “Ye know I would.” “Then, how are you not my slave, if you obey me so?” asked Baltsaros, stroking his thumb along Tom’s cheek. “Why, when I set you free, did you decide to pledge your body and soul to my happiness? You bind yourself to me… Tom, I need you, but why do you need me?

Jon spat on Tom, thumbing the thin saliva into him before spitting again, this time into his hand to stroke his cock with. When he pushed himself into Tom’s body, it was with a low moan of pleasure, and he moved slowly for a few strokes, letting Tom’s passion catch up as the first mate jerked the thick cock between his legs. Jon fell forward with one arm locked around Tom’s neck, the other around his torso, and his forehead pressed to the scars and tattoos on the first mate’s back as he slid his length into Tom’s heat. He brought himself close twice, three times, four… stopping each time on the very brink to rest shaking and panting against Tom. Jon could feel the first mate’s heart beating hard and fast, his tanned skin slick as he also held himself back. Finally, even the slightest movement became too much, and Jon pushed himself up off Tom to pound quickly into him, his hands tight around the first mate’s narrow hips. With a strangled cry, Jon spilled over, his cock throbbing as the hot, liquid current crackled through him, and he shuddered, blind and deaf to anything but his fevered, breathless climax.

Thank you, Tom. Truly. I owe you my life,” said the captain. He reached for the first mate’s hand and realized, as he did so, that though he often held or touched Jon’s hands out of simple affection, he had never really done so with Tom. The brawny young man looked away, and Baltsaros thought he detected a flush in his face. Curious, Baltsaros turned Tom’s hand over in his. The back of the first mate’s hand was covered in a smattering of small scars—old burns and wounds acquired from his life of servitude and from working aboard the old pirate ship. His knuckles were crisscrossed with raised, white lines where the skin had split and healed over and over from his penchant of using his fists to get his point across. Even now they were red, and on the first two there were fresh scabs. The third knuckle had a squashed look to it, and Baltsaros remembered when the first mate had broken it in a fight the first year he was aboard. They were hands that he knew almost as well as his own. He rubbed his thumb softly over the scarred skin before lifting Tom’s hand to his mouth. He kissed Tom’s battered knuckles gently, one by one, before turning the man’s hand over in his to press his lips to the deeply lined palm. When he looked up, Tom was staring at him, a glimmer of wetness in his eyes. The sight made Baltsaros hurt. “I’m sorry, Tom,” he whispered. “You’ve put up with too much.

In response, Tom’s cock grazed Jon’s bare stomach and left behind a slick streak. Jon grinned and sat back on his own heels, grasping his cock in one hand to rub it against the head of Tom’s. The first mate let out another low sound, closing his eyes as he thrust his hips further forward. Jon obliged him for a moment; taking the wide head in one hand, he thumbed along the underside, teasing Tom as he stroked his own cock. They’d been at this for the better part of an hour.

All timidity left Tom as he opened his mouth to the kiss; breathing into it, he curled his hands under Baltsaros’s head, the long strands of his hair snagging on his rough fingers in his fervour to deepen the kiss. Baltsaros groaned into his mouth and Tom quested out with his tongue; finding his eagerness matched, he let out a small sound of his own. They didn’t often kiss this way, and it made him feel both wanted and desperate for more at once. However, when Baltsaros tensed, he quickly pulled back, breathless. Tom saw that he had an almost pained expression on his face and turned to see that Jon was slowly running his tongue along the scarred skin of his cock. Baltsaros let out a shaky breath. “The scarring makes me more sensitive than I’m used to,” he said with a tight smile. “Pair that with the fact that I haven’t ejaculated in a very long time. Ahh…” Baltsaros closed his eyes, his body trembling. Panting a few short breaths, he lifted his head and looked past Tom to where Jon had begun to slide his hand along his shaft while his mouth worked the head of his cock. “Well, I’m afraid it won’t take much.” “That’s fine, Da,” said Tom with a grin and shifted his hand so he could run a thumb along the older man’s cheek. “Just relax and let Jon make ye cum. Then, we’re all gonna sleep right here like old times, and in the mornin’ we’ll do it again. If yer up to it.” Baltsaros let out a chuckle that ended on a low, needy gasp. In reply, he just nodded his head. Tom leaned in to kiss him again, slowly and deeply until the body beneath him shuddered. When Baltsaros came, he turned his head to cry out, but his arms held Tom against him, possessive and thankful.

Tom ran his thumb over the head, circling lightly, unable to resist leaning down to suck the tip into his mouth. Prophet inhaled sharply, threaded his fingers into Tom’s hair. He closed his eyes and groaned when Tom stroked in earnest, lifting his hips off the bed in a big cat-like stretch, letting Tom take control of him again. “Think I didn’t get enough?” “Think you need sleep.” Prophet’s eyes opened as he studied Tom’s face. “You’re going to put me to sleep this way.” “Gonna try,” Tom told him, his hand pumping Prophet’s cock slowly, then faster when the man refused to tear his gaze away. He couldn’t read the man’s expression, not until his mouth dropped and his eyes glazed. “Yeah, like that.” Prophet’s voice was hoarse, body tense. His casted hand reached out to hold on to Tom’s biceps, the one with the dreamcatcher. Tom caught him staring at it when he came.

[Dylan's friend] Zack's girlfriend, Devon, made a book for us.... There was Dylan--grinning while pushing Zack's dad into the pool; sporting a Hawaiian shirt and a bunch of leis at a costume party Devon had thrown; clowning around with Zack and making a hokey thumbs-up sign for the camera. I spent hours poring over these artifacts, desperate for confirmation that the sensitive, fun-loving kid Tom and I remembered had been real

No exterior sounds were audible to dilute the glorious music that emanated from the Rolls-Royce’s top of the range sound system. The London Philharmonic Orchestra Choir were performing a stirring rendition of Thomas Tallis’s Gaude gloriosa Dei Mater. Leeson sipped twenty-four-year-old single malt and sang along in Latin. As the anthem finished he dabbed his watery eyes with an Egyptian cotton handkerchief and thumbed a button on the console to mute the speakers before he was enraptured by more beauteous sound. Tallis made Mozart and Beethoven seem like amateurs.

Some people who helped lead that movement—including me—were very much like Hunka Munka and Tom Thumb. We lived lives informed by beliefs that were not based on fact and that led to deep-seated resentments that couldn’t be cured because what we resented never actually happened. We took it as a personal insult that the real world didn’t conform to the imagined religious “facts” that we’d been indoctrinated to believe in, and so we did our share of smashing.

Alan Beaumont stepped through the automatic door of his office building and down the broad steps to the pavement. The sky above DC was a monochrome of grey cloud. A light rain fell, but a few drops of water were not going to bother him. Damp clothes? Whatever. Messed-up hair? He had no hair to ruin. That was long gone. Nothing had helped retain those once-magnificent curls. Not pills. Not potions. Nada. He used a thumb and middle finger to snap open his Zippo lighter and lit the cigarette perched between his lips. Smoking was perhaps the only real pleasure he had. He watched the downtown traffic and the pedestrians pass by, all miserable. Good. He didn’t like anyone to be happy but himself. It wasn’t pure selfishness. Joy was a zero sum game. There just wasn’t enough to go around.

Tom Thumb’s Blues” paints a picture of bluffing and loss, of being in over your head, of fearing that you can never return home. When one has strayed so far away from the road, the only recourse is to go all the way back, as north and east as Juarez is south and west. “I’m going back to New York City, I do believe I’ve had enough,

Tom blinked, confused and wholly distracted by Burke’s thumb on his mouth. “I don’t understand—” “You are Tom. My Tom. You are all fucking mine.

I’m going to ask you one more time. Okay?” She frowned. “Are you buying?” “Yes, Tom. I’m buying.” “Pinkie-swear?” She closed her eyes and sucked in a deep breath through her nose. “Ah, shit.” Rachette smiled at Wolf, gave him a thumbs-up and followed her out the door.

how long to keep the receipts and other tax records. In the United States, the rule of thumb is seven years.

Racing at four and a half times the speed of any other conveyance, Tom Thumb was both a marvel and a mystery. The train’s owners and occupants first questioned whether the human body could endure such speed. Many of the passengers on Tom Thumb’s first run were human guinea pigs who brought along paper and pencil to test whether cogent thought was possible at such speed.47

Well,” said the boy, “most philosophies assume that you’re free, you’ve got all these possibilities, and it’s like you can design your own life any way you want.” The boy hesitated; so Charlie gave him a little encouragement. “Go ahead.” “The Stoics, they assumed the opposite. They said that in fact you have very few choices. You’re probably trapped in some situation, everything from being under somebody’s thumb to being a slave to disease to actually being in jail. They assumed that in all likelihood you weren’t free.

Until man had tools, tools to save him labor as well as to give him the predatory edge over other animals, he hadn't the leisure to develop language or to refine his psychic and physical capabilities. You, Thumb, gave man the ability to use tools. If nothing else, you started him down the path to civilization.

Would intelligent life evolve again on this planet, and if so would it have the means—like opposable thumbs or a way to store knowledge outside of brains—to build technology? Dolphins could have lived for eternity and never developed the capability to annihilate their species or the world, much less colonize another.

Prophet downed the shot and let Tom tug him through the crowded club and into one of the back rooms, where Ray waited. He pointed to the lone chair in the room, and Tom pushed Prophet toward it. Prophet walked to it as slowly as he could. He could do the act of the petulant child better than anyone when he wanted to. And right now? He wanted to. But he did finally lower himself into the seat. Ray stood next to the chair while Tommy came over and took Prophet’s shirt off, tossing it aside. Tommy took Prophet’s left nipple in between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed, then flicked the tip with his nail, making Prophet jump. “Told you that if you were mine, I’d make you pierce it,” Tom murmured as Ray started taking out equipment that looked like . . . piercing equipment. “This.” Prophet pointed a stabbing finger at each of them. Twice. “This was a setup.” “And you fell for it,” Tom said calmly. “I thought you were drunk.” “You definitely are,” Tom observed. “And you weren’t hitting on me?” Prophet asked Ray. “Technically no, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re cute.” Ray smirked, and then gave him a once-over.

I'll stay if you'll tell me about the time you broke your nose.” Bronson's smile lingered as he touched the angled bridge of his nose reflectively. “I got this while sparring with Tom Crib, the former coal porter they called the ‘Black Diamond.’ He had fists as big as hams and a left hook that made you see stars.” “Who won?” Holly asked, unable to resist. “I outlasted Crib after twenty rounds and finally knocked him down. It was after that fight that I got my name—‘ Bronson the Butcher.’” The obvious masculine pride he took in the name made Holly feel slightly queasy. “How charming,” she murmured in a dry tone that made him laugh. “It didn't improve my looks much, having Crib smash my beak,” he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “I wasn't a pretty sort to begin with. Now I'll definitely never be mistaken for an aristocrat.” “You wouldn't have anyway.” Bronson pretended to wince. “That's as painful a jab as any I received in the rope ring, my lady. So you don't exactly fancy my beat-up mug, is that what you're saying?” “You know very well that you're an attractive man, Mr. Bronson. Just not in an aristocratic way. For one thing, you have too many… that is, you're too… muscular.” She gestured to his bulging coat sleeves and shoulders. “Pampered noblemen don't have arms like that.” “So my tailor tells me.” “Isn't there any way to make them, well… smaller?” “Not that I'm aware of. But just to satisfy my curiosity, how much would I have to shrivel to pass for a gentleman?” Holly laughed and shook her head. “Physical appearance is the least of your worries, sir. You need to acquire a proper air of dignity. You're far too irreverent.” “But attractive,” he countered. “You did say I was attractive.” “Did I? I'm certain I meant to use the word ‘incorrigible.

Prevention powders,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re so little, Vinnie, I don’t know what to tell you to do so that it don’t hurt. But you oughtn’t to be havin’ babies, so use these.

For nowhere else on earth had there ever been such an assemblage of novelties, animals, music, culture, science, and entertainment all in one place.

But when we were introduced as “General and Mrs. Tom Thumb, those beloved Lilliputians!” we were not alone; this was not our show.

Happy Family,” where, in the same cage, a lion, a tiger, a lamb, and assorted birds all lived together in apparent harmony. (Although Mr. Barnum confessed that the exhibit could continue only as long as he had a fresh supply of lambs and birds!)

Mr. Charles Stratton himself. Or as you may know him, Tom Thumb,

so tall I couldn’t see the tops of some of them—four and five stories tall, imagine!

I had an intense desire for him not to see me as just another woman

I could not bear to think that there was somewhere I had never been, someone who might not know my name.

In 1885 she remarried—to another little person, Count Primo Magri of Italy

She lifted me up so that my face was level with hers. And then we turned to look at the world.

Yet for all I could see, nothing was as grand as how I’d imagined it. Nothing was as big as my dreams.

Half running, with my thumb out, I eventually got to the bridge crossing the Raritan River. Starting across it, I saw a stake-sided farm truck pulling over, and then stop ahead of me. “Where you go’n, sailor?” the driver asked. When I told him “Toms River,” he said that he was going right through there. The truck driver had a rough look about him, but he seemed friendly enough when he asked if I was in the Coast Guard, knowing that USCG sailors travel this way to their Boot Camp in Cape May. “No Sir,” I answered and explained that I was late getting back to Admiral Farragut Academy. “No problem,” he answered. “I’ll get you there!” It wasn’t the nicest truck, or the fastest, but it was a ride. We rumbled through Toms River and Beachwood and then on to Pine Beach, with only minutes to spare. Thanking him, I jumped out of the truck and ran towards Dupont Hall to check in. “Who was that?” one of the cadets asked, as I opened the door. “Oh… Just an Uncle who came to see me,” was the answer I gave as casually as I could….

she might be just one example of God’s unexplainable whims, or fancies.

You’re not looking at it right, Vinnie. It’s as beautiful as a fairy, all green and shimmery.