Contorted Quotes & Sayings

I've always been one of those people who romanticized cooking, but the few attempts I'd made in my life resulted in friends' contorted faces as they desperately tried to say something nice about the "dish" they were eating. — Drew Barrymore

Redd's face contorted with a sudden realization. "How could I have been so stupid?"
The Cat was trying to decide if this was a rhetorical question when she roared, "It's a construct!"
With a dismiissive swing of Redd's arm, Alyss and her army began to shimmer, the billon points of engery that formed them monentarily visible before exploding apart into nothing. Redd scoped the queendom with her imagination's eye. "Where are you, Alyss? Where is my dear little niece? — Frank Beddor

I started to fire back, but Tink suddenly appeared in the open doorway, and what the? He had one of those skillets just large enough to cook an egg in, and he was holding it over his head like a battle-axe. I was kind of surprised that he could carry the pan, but Tink was buff for a little guy. He had a six-pack - a brownie six-pack. His face was contorted in a silent battle cry as he started into the room.
Wide-eyed, I shook my head. As much as I appreciated the effort, his interference would not end well. That small as hell frying panwas not going to do any damage. Thankfully, Tink froze and lowered the pan. A second passed then he zoomed out of the doorway. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

I know what it's like to have someone coming home who looks at you not in the way they used to in the old days, and I've seen my own face contorted with sadness and rage in the mirror. — Jane Birkin

We must in imagination sweep off the drifted matter that clogs the surface of the ground; we must suppose all the covering of moss and heath and wood to be torn away from the sides of the mountains, and the green mantle that lies near their feet to be lifted up; we may then see the muscular integuments, and sinews, and bones of our mother Earth, and so judge of the part played by each of them during those old convulsive movements whereby her limbs were contorted and drawn up into their present posture. — Adam Sedgwick

Warren could see humans further up the street, that had appeared to be dead, now rising to their feet and swaying drunkenly. One man had a huge chunk of flesh bitten from his face and another from his neck, yet he moved forward even though he appeared to be in enormous pain. Many of the newly changed screamed and contorted their limbs and faces in anguish. They moaned in pain almost continuously. — Joseph M. Chiron

Even years from now, once I've stopped drinking, I will never stop trusting extremes. I will always believe that anything worth having is worth having in excess. The good things are worth hoarding until you have a cookie-fat ass, sex-aching loins, joy that fires through you like popping popcorn, or love, the weakness at the sight of some boy who makes your chest ache like indigestion. If it's good for you, it ought to be good for you in any amount, and you should track down every available bit of it. And if it's toxic, if it turns your liver into a hard little rock of scar tissue, or curls your memory at the edges like something burned in a fire, or makes your stomach flop, or your mind ache, or your personality contorted, you shouldn't buy into the bullshit about temperance. — Koren Zailckas

I don't know what most people mean when they use the word love. If they haven't contorted their lives around a hope sharp enough to bleed them empty, then I think they're just kidding. A hope undoes what tiny pride you have, and makes you thankful for the undoing, so long as it promises another hour with the person who is now the world. Maybe people mean attractiveness, or affection, or pleasantness, or security. Like the nonbelievers in church who enjoy the hymns or go for the sens of community, but avert their eyes from the cross. I feel sorry for them. They are dead before their time. — Adam Haslett

The rather blurred background to the face that formed over the vid plate seemed faintly familiar - ah yes, the Security Ops room at Ryoval Biologicals. Baron Ryoval had arrived personally on that scene as promised. It took only one glance at the dusky, contorted expression on Ryoval's youthful face to fill in the rest of the scenario. Miles folded his hands and smiled innocently. "Good morning, Baron. What can I do for you?" "Die, you little mutant!" Ryoval spat. "You! There isn't going to be a bunker deep enough for you to burrow in. I'll put a price on your head that will have every bounty hunter in the galaxy all over you like a second skin - you'll not eat or sleep - I'll have you - " Yes, — Lois McMaster Bujold

He shook his head, staring at her like a condemned man who beheld the face of his executioner. "Aline," he whispered, "Do you know what hell is?"
"Yes." Her eyes overflowed. "Trying to exist with your heart living somewhere outside your body."
"No. It's knowing that you have so little faith in my love, you would have condemned me to a lifetime of agony." His face contorted suddenly. "To something worse than death. — Lisa Kleypas

I blink a few times and focus as hard as I can on the only face I can see. It is contorted with anger. His eyes are dark blue.

"Four," I croak. — Veronica Roth

Their faces were contorted with a horror only known to those who have silenced their consciences. — Chris Nicolaisen

A brother," she said, her voice soft.
The baby started to cry, a weak, garbled sound that worried the nurse. Lada's scowl deepened. She slapped a dimpled hand over his mouth. The nurse pulled him away quickly, and Lada looked up, face contorted in rage.
"Mine!" she shouted.
It was her first word.
The nurse laughed, shocked, and lowered the baby once more. Lada glared at him until he stopped crying. Then, apparently satisfied, she toddled out of the room. — Kiersten White

We must make believe that we are not what we are - contradictory beings whose continuance only worsens our plight as mutants who embody the contorted logic of a paradox. — Thomas Ligotti

Before him and since he'd gone away, she'd either contracted or ever-so-subtly contorted her very being to accommodate nearly everybody else. She was only ever wholly herself with him. — Julie Anne Long

My dignified weeping gives way to full-on ugliness, my mouth open and my face contorted and sounds like a dying animal coming from my throat. — Veronica Roth

More and more we are finding that mythology in general though greatly contorted very often has some historic base. — Michael Lake

There was another reason. The main one."
"Reason?" I said stupidly.
"Why I married you."
"Which was?" I don't know what I expected him to say, perhaps some further revelation of his family's contorted affairs. What he did say was more of a shock, in its way.
"Because I wanted you." He turned from the window to face me. "More than I ever wanted anything in my life," he added softly. — Diana Gabaldon

Gray Donohue was a fierce and hungry beast.His hair was wild,his eyes narrowed,his face contorted into a mask of diabolical intensity.And then that face descended on hers and his mouth claimed her in a ravenous kiss.As his cock worked in and out of her pussy,as his tongue fucked the inside of her mouth,Dillon knew this was something beyond what she was capable of,beyond what her tiny scrap of an unbeating heart could ever hold on to. — Laura Wright

And Gat did shut up, but his face contorted. He stood abruptly, picked up a rock from the sand, and threw it with all his force. He pulled off his sweatshirt and kicked off his shoes. Then he walked into the sea in his jeans. Angry. — E. Lockhart

The serpent hissing between the lips of Envy is so huge, and so completely fills her wide-opened mouth that the muscles of her face are strained and contorted, ... — Marcel Proust

In nature, nothing is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways and they're still beautiful. — Alice Walker

All I have to do is shoot! In my excitement, I throw the ball down with more force than ever, feeling bad-ass. It ricochets off the floor at an angle and slams right into my crotch.
All around me, the room goes, "Ohhhh!"
I look up. Every face is staring at me, contorted into winces. Right. Ball in crotch equals excruciating pain. I'm such an idiot! Too late, I double over in pain.
"Ouch!" I yell. I sneak a glance around. Nobody looks convinced, so I add, "My balls! — Jody Gehrman

The world of Islam is a world completely distinct from ours. Muslims have a different set of values. They look at the world through the contorted mirror of Islam and everything they see is warped. That is the only reality they know. Islam is their only point of reference. Therefore when they commit the most dastardly acts such as murder of school children, they genuinely don't know that what they are doing is evil. — Ali Sina

I knew there was no point in debating a man such as this. The world bent and contorted itself to fit his understanding, not the other way around. I could not make him see reason, could not make him regret his actions. It would be a mistake to try. — David Liss

You still know that boy. He was very angry at fourteen, fifteen, in summer and winter, at home or in the world. So angry that his face contorted in photos. The camera was a question and his face did not know the answer. — Dave Eggers

In the world that we live in - purity and innocence are the true strengths. It is strength to live in a world like this and remain pure of heart, it is strength to live in a world like this and retain innocence. These are things that the world wants to take away from you, that experiences tend to alter and attempt to redefine. The wild ones aren't the defiled ones - the wild ones are the pure ones, the innocent ones. It takes a true wildness to retain these things through the fire and through the storms. It takes a real wildness to remain in the wild - not contorted and maligned by circumstance and experiences. And it takes power to stand up and to choose what experiences we allow to take root or to even come into our lives. — C. JoyBell C.

Next time she'd have to ask him to keep the light on while he did it, so she could watch his face. That was the best part of the whole thing as far as she was concerned, the way a guy's face contorted so violently and then relaxed, as if some terrible mystery had just been solved. — Tom Perrotta

A sob racks my body again, and he wraps his arms around me so tightly I find it difficult to breathe, but it doesn't matter. My dignified weeping gives way to full-on ugliness, my mouth open and my face contorted and sounds like a dying animal coming from my throat. If this continues I will break apart, and maybe that would be better, maybe it would be better to shatter and bear nothing. — Veronica Roth

Then Lyra gave a cry so passionate that even in that muffled, mist-hung world it raised an echo, but of course it wasn't an echo, it was the other part of her crying in turn from the land of the living as Lyra moved away into the land of the dead. "My heart, Will ... " she groaned, and clung to him, her wet face contorted with pain. And thus the prophecy that the Master of Jordan College had made to the Librarian, that Lyra would make a great betrayal and it would hurt her terribly, was fulfilled. — Philip Pullman

The recruit was screaming. Veins bulged in his neck. His mouth contorted as he summoned all of his strength to roar one, single word. Joana. — Ruta Sepetys

Face after face contorted in hate, men, women, children. Whatever lies had been voiced against me had clearly gained near-universal acceptance. I knew then that, regardless of what transpired here, my home was now lost to me. It wasn't just that these people would never accept me, more that I would never forgive their gullibility. — Anthony Ryan

A woman's greatest and most perduring failure will be her failure to love. It is certainly not without significance that so many women presently pressing for power on the political, sociological or ecclesial scene are unbeautiful in their unsmilling press for dominance. Contorted faces and clenched fists are particularly repellant in woman, who is gifted with unique powers to radiate love and extend healing hands. — Mother Mary Francis P.C.C.

At first I was glad for the help. My freshmen English class, "Mythology and Archetypal Experience," confounded me.
I didn't understand why we couldn't just read books without forcing contorted interpretations on then — Alison Bechdel

Surely the vogue of those twisted and contorted human figures must be as short as it is artificial. — Harriet Monroe

I am the beast with a contorted grin, contracting down to illusion and dilating toward infinity, both growing and dying, delightfully suspended between hope for nothing and despair of everything, brought up among perfumes and poisons, consumed with love and hatred, killed by lights and shadows. My symbol is death of light and the flame of death. Sparks die in me only to be reborn as thunder and lightning. Darkness itself glows in me. — Emil Cioran

There's never been a safer time to go for a ride. Sadly, though, there's a problem. You see, cycling is seen now not as something that might be exhilarating or even useful but as a frontline propaganda weapon in the war on capitalism, banking, freedom, McDonald's, injustice, Swiss drug companies, rape and progress. Every morning London is chock-full of little individually wrapped Twiglets, their wizened faces contorted with hatred for all that they see. Fat people. Cars. Chain stores. It's all fascism. Fascism, d'you hear? From what they see as the moral high ground, they sneer at pedestrians, howl at buses, bang on cars, scream at taxi drivers and charge through every convention that defines society with their walnutty bottoms in the air and their stupid legs going nineteen to the dozen. — Jeremy Clarkson

About time," Brianna said.
"Hey, sorry, we were kind of busy," Quinn snapped. "And I didn't exactly realize I was on a schedule."
"I don't like what I have to do here," Brianna said. She handed Quinn the note.
He read it. Read it again.
"Is this some kind of joke?" he demanded.
"Albert's dead," Brianna said. "Murdered."
"What?"
"He's dead. Sam and Dekka are off in the wilderness somewhere. Edilio's got the flu, he might die, a lot of kids have. A lot. And there are these, these monsters, these kind of bugs . . . no one knows what to call them . . . heading toward town." Her face contorted in a mix of rage and sorrow and fear. She blurted, "And I can't stop them!"
Quinn stared at her. Then back at the note.
He felt his contented little universe tilt and go sliding away.
There were just two words on the paper: "Get Caine. — Michael Grant

Under the trees several pheasants lay about, their rich plumage dabbled with blood; some were dead, some feebly twitching a wing, some staring up at the sky, some pulsating quickly, some contorted, some stretched out - all of them writhing in agony except the fortunate ones whose tortures had ended during the night by the inability of nature to bear more. With the impulse of a soul who could feel for kindred sufferers as much as for herself, Tess's first thought was to put the still living birds out of their torture, and to this end with her own hands she broke the necks of as many as she could find, leaving them to lie where she had found them till the gamekeepers should come, as they probably would come, to look for them a second time. "Poor darlings - to suppose myself the most miserable being on earth in the sight o' such misery as yours!" she exclaimed, her tears running down as she killed the birds tenderly. — Thomas Hardy

Choose the one you want," he told her.

She giggled as the puppy contorted itself in an effort to lick her hand without rolling off its back. "Oh, you are silly, aren't you? Just the silliest little ..." Her hand stilled on the puppy. Her eyes shot to his. "What did you just say?"

"Choose which pup you'd like as your own."

"My own?"

"You wanted a hound," he reminded her.

"Yes, I ..." She looked at the dogs, then back at him. "Are you giving me a dog?"

"For the sake of propriety, we are to say it is a gift from your brother, but ..."

"But it's from you. You're giving me a dog," she said, and there was a notable catch in her voice.

"Well ... More or less." For reasons that baffled him, he suddenly felt equal parts embarrassed and pleased. "It was my idea." He cleared his throat, fought off the urge to shift his feet. — Alissa Johnson

There they lay, but not in the forgetfulness of the previous night. She was seeking and he was seeking, they raged and contorted their faces and bored their heads into each others bosom in the urgency of seeking something, and their embraces and their tossing limbs did not avail to make them forget, but only reminded them of what they sought — Franz Kafka

Nathaniel's trying to get hold of it right now.
All very well, but could he use - Wait a minute! The radiant features of the boy contorted, slipped out of true, as if the condoling intelligence had drawn back in shock; an instant later they were as perfect as before. Let's get this straight. He told you his name?
Yes. Now
I like that ... I like that! He's been giving me gyp for years, simply because I could have spilled the beans, and now he's telling any old broad he meets, free of charge! Who else knows? Faquarl? Nouda? Did he deck his name out in neon lights and parade it round the town? I ask you! And I never told anyone!
You let it slip last time I summoned you.
Well, apart from that.
But you could have told his enemies, couldn't you, Bartimaeus? You'd have found a way to harm him if you'd really wished it. And Nathaniel knows that too, I think. I had a talk with him. — Jonathan Stroud

Izzy," said Jace, as they neared the pond, and she jumped up and spun around. Her smile was dazzling.
"Jace!" She flew at him and hugged him. Now that was the way sisters were supposed to act, Clary thought. Not all stiff and weird and peculiar, but happy and loving. Watching Jace hug Isabelle, she tried to school her features into a happy and loving expression.
"Are you all right?" Simon asked, with some concern. "Your eyes are crossing."
"I'm fine." Clary abandoned the attempt.
"Are you sure? You looked sort of ... contorted. — Cassandra Clare

... a waitress came out and plonked in front of each of us a small standard terra-cotta flowerpot in which had been baked a little loaf of bread.
"What's this?" I asked.
"It's bread," she replied.
"But it's in a flowerpot?" She gave me a look that I was beginning to think of as the Darwin stare. It was a look that said, "Yeah? So?"
"Well, isn't that kind of unusual?"
She considered for a moment. "Is a bit, I suppose." "And will we be following a horticultural theme throughout the meal?" Her expression contorted in a deeply pained look, as if she were trying to suck her face into the back of her head. "What?"
"Will the main course arrive in a wheelbarrow?" I elaborated helpfully. "Will you be serving the salad with a pitchfork?"
"Oh, no. It's just the bread that's special."
"I'm so pleased to hear it. — Bill Bryson

The desert at night was black and a strange madder-tinted silver; the sky was black, and the great contorted cliffs, and the vast expanses of sand that stretched out in all directions. But the red moon cast a pale crimson-tinged luminescence over everything, and far above the stars were glittering points of silver. — Rachel Neumeier

The coming and going of the seasons give us more than the springtimes, summers, autumns, and winters of our lives. It reflects the coming and going of the circumstances of our lives like the glassy surface of a pond that shows our faces radiant with joy or contorted with pain. — Gary Zukav

Sometimes when I'm at my desk, I'll realize that I have contorted myself completely, and I haven't moved for hours, and that my legs have fallen asleep. I am elsewhere, not in my body, not in the room, not in my house. — Dani Shapiro

HOW DO YOU FIND THE RIGHT POSITION
TO LIE DOWN WITH PEOPLE
OR EVEN ANIMALS?
OFTEN ONE OF THE PARTNERS IS
SMOTHERED OR CONTORTED.
WHEN DONE PROPERLY, THOUGH,
EVERYONE IS HAPPY. — Jenny Holzer

The whole glittering nebula of shapes was framed by midnight colors - black, bruised blue, indigo, all textured into intricacy by clouds and the reachless vaults between them. Here, darkness was not simple; it hinted at structures and meanings, hidden activity and watchful eyes. Beacons flickered, miles away, then disappeared behind fog banks. Half-glimpsed ropes twisted and contorted their way up, down, and to every side, synapses reaching to contact the outlier towns and factories of Sere's hinterland. One or two of those ropes, if you followed them far enough, would emerge into sunlight at other nations' borders. — Karl Schroeder

He updated his report, doing his best to tune out the two men who staggered into the police station, dragging each other.
"I want you to arrest this idiot bastard," the taller one shouted, face contorted with rage. "He shit on my front porch!"
Your dog shits all over my yard every day," the other one countered shoving.
Calm down, please," Leila said when they reached reception.
The tall one thumped a fist on the counter. "I want to make a police report. I stepped in that shit!"
Chase checked out the floor behind them, the questionable footprints. Made a mental note to walk around them when he left. — Dana Marton

And in the horror of his realization over Simone was the knowledge that he'd never really loved Satara. He'd wanted to know love so badly that he'd contorted the concept of it to fit a relationship that it had no part in. This time love had come up behind him and clubbed him on the head when he hadn't been expecting it. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Nothing is clear now. Something must be the matter with my way of viewing things. I have no middle view. Either I fix on a detail and see it as thought it were magnified
a leaf with all its veins perceived, the fine hairs on a man's hands
or else the world recedes and becomes blurred, artificial, indefinite, an abstract painting of a world. The darkening sky is hugely blue, gashed with rose, blood, flame from the volcano or wound or flower of the lowering sun. The wavering green, the sea of grass, piercingly bright. Black tree trunks, contorted, arching over the river. — Margaret Laurence

At the Uffizi, I experienced a moment that was touching, painful, and almost embarrassing. We stopped in front of the famous Botticelli painting, The Birth of Venus. I gazed wistfully at her incomparably lovely, yet, as Vasari described, oddly distorted form emerging from the waves in a seashell, her long red-golden tresses blown by Zephyrs. No woman ever had so elongated a neck or such sinuous limbs. Botticelli contorted, and some might say deformed, the human shape to give us a glimpse of the sublime. — Gary Inbinder

Bethany." His quiet voice intruded.
Her heart turned over heavily. "This is real right?"
His face contorted as if he were in pain. "Yes, it's real."
Crazy people probably did things like this all the time. Asked their imaginary alien friends if they were real, and of course, they'd say yes. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Why on earth do you carry a mirror around with you?"
"It's purely a defensive device. We seldom quarrel, and this is one of the reasons. Can you imagine yourself getting all worked up and contorted and illogical and then coming face to face with yourself, looking at yourself exactly as you look to everyone else? — Theodore Sturgeon

For his part, Jazz knew he was handsome. It had nothing to do with looking in the mirror, which he rarely did. It had everything to do with the way the girls at school looked at him, the way they became satellites when he walked by, their orbits contorted by his own mysterious gravity. If attention could be measured like the Doppler effect, girls would show a massive blue shift in his presence. In the last year or so, he had even remarked the scrutiny of older women - teachers, cashiers at stores, the woman who delivered UPS packages to his house. What had once been a maternal flavor in their glances had taken on a lingering, cool sort of appraisal. He could almost hear them thinking, Not yet. But soon.
Despite his upbringing, despite the infamy of his father, they still watched him. Or maybe because of it. Maybe Howie was right about bad boys. — Barry Lyga