Then, as quickly as it started, the entire system crumbled.
His childhood home had crumbled, and he was too ashamed to face old friends.
Roads have crumbled away, the rail service has all but collapsed, ports are clogged and some have even closed.
It was Napoleon, the immense somnambulist of this dream which had crumbled, essaying once more to advance.
The Windows of larger buildings were smashed and the tile roofs of houses had crumbled to the ground, while old concrete-block walls were reduced to rubble.
All the leaves of the plants that had grown sparsely and with difficulty in the desert withered and became so dry that they crumbled between one's fingers, and the wind stripped the leaves off their branches in no time.
Dust gathered; the mosaics crumbled.
Look at us now: The crumbled relic of a once-glorious party.
A utility pole fell onto his legs as the buildings around him crumbled and the cars shook like toys.
The earthquake crumbled the mountainsides surrounding Beichuan's county seat, burying a third of it in a wave of boulders that crushed buses and burst holes through buildings.
He crumbled his bread.
Its pensions crumbled as the value of the stock plan shares plunged.
In Punjab an alliance between his party and the opposition has crumbled, a sign that parties may be preparing for an early national election.
One by one, the pillars of his regime have crumbled.
A widespread perception that public security has crumbled, especially in the poor east, was one of Jobbik's strongest sources of support.
She crumbled an empty snail shell in her fingers.
When the Soviet Union crumbled and withdrew its aid to Cuba, triggering the so-called "special period" that began in the early 1990s, times became even harder and the joke changed.
When the Soviet Union crumbled two years later, America was caught unprepared and scrambling for a policy.
As the self-control of this skillful actor crumbled, he started to babble in sudden outbursts and heard imaginary phones ringing and people knocking at the door.
