Cringes Quotes & Sayings

I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

What can she do but shrink with terror? Soon she is only doll-size in dark doll's costume. Quivering bones and feverish blood are the stuffings of this doll, its entrails tickled by fear's funereal plume. It flies to a corner of the room and cringes within enormous shadows, sometimes dreaming there throughout the night - of carriage wheels rioting in a lavender mist or a pearly fog, of nacreous fires twitching beyond the margins of country roads, of cliffs and stars. — Thomas Ligotti

soon he'll reach for her because she's beautiful, and she's his wife. If she cringes away from him because you've convinced her he isn't good enough for her, how will that make him feel? If she submits to him out of obligation, how will that make her feel?

What if she approaches him and later is ashamed of wanting her own husband because he isn't good enough for her? It'll be hard for a marriage to last under those conditions. This isn't what you want for Susan. Forgive him. Accept him. You'll be doing your daughter a favor. — Elaine Cantrell

I don't put myself through that nauseating experience of looking at someone's face while they go through your stuff. Ugh! It's just horrible! It gives me the cringes to even think about it. — Roz Chast

Dr. Tucker Mayfield, the chief scientist at Yellowstone, glances at the clock and cringes. He had promised lunch with his brother's family, but that was before the current earthquake swarm threw a wrench into his plans. Tucker is tall and husky like his brother, and they share the same eye color, blue, but that's where the similarity ends. Tucker's hair is dark and, while Matt's skin often burns with sun exposure, Tucker's darkens to a deep tan during the summer months. — Tim Washburn

The lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life. The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched. — Ida B. Wells

The time has come,
The claws are passed.
An old owl rests,
A die's been cast.
It is a war for heart,
Gizzard and mind.
The weapons they wield,
More deadly than mine.
A blade draws blood, a fire burns.
But with the flecks, a mind unlearns.
A soul unhinges,
And then a gizzard quakes and cringes.
Senses dull,
Reason scatters.
The heart grows numb,
An owl shatters.
But these six owls are strong and bold,
And their story has not yet been told. — Kathryn Lasky

Stephanie's vaginal teeth scrape against him as she makes love to him. Kevin cringes as she presses her messy head wound against his cheek. He doesn't enjoy the sex. It feels like he's getting a really bad blowjob from a girl with big teeth and a small mouth. — Carlton Mellick III

Young people need their own private places which mothers don't belong to, even if they want mother all around the edge of that. — Dawn French

The humility that cringes in order that reproof may be escaped or favor obtained is as unchristian as it is profoundly immoral. — Dallas Willard

He cringes every time she tries to help him or even touch him, but he can't tell her to stop because it's easier for Max to cringe and suffer than speak up — Matthew Dicks

One cringes to hear scientists cooing over the universe or any part thereof like schoolgirls over-heated by their first crush. From the studies of Krafft-Ebbing onward, we know that it is possible to become excited about anything - from shins to shoehorns. But it would be nice if just one of these gushing eggheads would step back and, as a concession to objectivity, speak the truth: THERE IS NOTHING INNATELY IMPRESSIVE ABOUT THE UNIVERSE OR ANYTHING IN IT. — Thomas Ligotti

Okay?" I ask, raising my eyebrows. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, cringes at the smell of my fluids, then nods. "Okay. — Isaac Marion

When a new writer defends his "style," the teacher smiles (or cringes) because real style isn't an artifice. Real style - voice - arrives on its own, as an extension of a writer's character. When style is done self-consciously and purposefully it becomes affectation, and as transparent as any affectation - an English accent on an old college chum from New Jersey, for example. — Bill Roorbach

For any ruffian of the sky
your kingbird doesn't give a damn-
his royal warcry is I AM
and he's the soul of chivalry
in terror of whose furious beak
(as sweetly singing creatures know)
cringes the hugest heartless hawk
and veers the vast most crafty crow
your kingbird doesn't give a damn
for murderers of high estate
whose mongrel creed is Might Makes Right
-his royal warcry is I AM
true to his mate his chicks his friends
he loves because he cannot fear
(you see it in the way he stand
and looks and leaps upon the air) — E. E. Cummings

Emma, we don't have to kiss. She already knows I want to sleep with you."
He cringes as soon as he says it. He doesn't have to look up to know the sizzling sound in the kitchen is from Rachel spitting her pineapple juice into the hot skillet.
"What I mean is, I already told her I want to sleep with you. I mean, I told her i wanted to sleep with you because she already thinks I do. Want to, I mean-" If a Syrena could drown, this is what it would feel like. — Anna Banks

Mercer opens hi mouth to argue, and Bastion Banister chooses this moment to open his mouth and snap at the circling bee. To his own evident surprise, he captures it, and there's a curious little glonking noise as he swallows it whole. Mercer cringes slightly, as if expecting the dog to explode.
Nothing happens.
"All right," Polly Cradle says, and then, pro forma, "Bastion, you're a very naughty boy."
"Yes," Mercer says acidly. "The dog has consumed a possibly lethal technological device of immense sophistication, deprived us of our only piece of tangible evidence and possibly doomed us all to some sort of arcane scientific retaliative strike. By all means, chide him severely with your voice. That will solve everyone's problems. — Nick Harkaway

I couldn't hurt you if I wanted to. You are my mate. The one fate designed for me. You are a rare and precious jewel, and I plan to spend the rest of my life showing you just how special you are, — Alice Brown

When we put too much hope in a candidate or a party we set ourselves up for disappointment. When I see a poster with [Barak] Obama's image with the word "hope" under it, something in me cringes - our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, the old hymn goes, all other ground is sinking sand. — Shane Claiborne

Life eternal, this lady of thine hath a sore heart, and we cannot help her. Thou art help, O Mighty Love. Speak to her, and let her know thy will, and give her strength to do it, O Father of Jesus Christ, Amen. — George MacDonald

We could work on our English outline," I say and almost can't contain the chuckle.
"Really? That's your idea of a hot date?"
"I'm sorry, I wasn't aware we were on a 'hot date'" And this time I can't contain the chuckle when she cringes. "So, how hot would you like it? I'm capable of all levels of hotness, from Luc-warm to - and I'm being literal here - hotter than Hell. — Lisa Desrochers

Perhaps the breaking of the human spirit into submissive, thoughtless robots is the most terrible feature of Stalin's Russia. Humanity is bowed down. Every one cringes before his superiors, and those who abase themselves seek outlets in bullying and terrifying the unfortunates beneath them. Integrity, courage and charity disappear in the stifling atmosphere of cant, falsehood and terror. — Freda Utley

Leanoardo wrote that a painter should begin every canvas wit a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light. Most painters do the opposite, starting with a whitewash and adding the shadows last. But Paul, who knows Leonardo so well you'd thing the old man slept on the bottom bun, understands the value of starting with the shadows. The only things people can ever know about you are the ones you let them see. — Ian Caldwell

When I look over my shoulder, both he and Caden are staring up at me with matching looks of interest I've never seen before. — Dina Littner

We may be old, boys, but we're not dead."
"I will murder you if you ever, ever imply that my mother has sex ever again," Isaac mutters as he cringes. — Kristen Proby

If anything, we should feel sorry for the people who want us to feel bad about ourselves, because they are the ones struggling for approval. In middle school, bullies tortured other kids because they thought it would make people like them more. — Ariana Grande

But the petty thought is like a fungus: it crawls and cringes and wants to be nowhere - until the whole body is rotten and withered with little fungi. — Friedrich Nietzsche

If the Fleeting World is but a long dream, it does not matter whether one is young or old. — Bai Juyi

Crimes were committed to punish crimes, and crimes were committed to prevent crimes. The world has been filled with prisons and dungeons, with chains and whips, with crosses and gibbets, with thumbscrews and racks, with hangmen and heads-men - and yet these frightful means and instrumentalities have committed far more crimes than they have prevented ... Ignorance, filth, and poverty are the missionaries of crime. As long as dishonorable success outranks honest effort - as long as society bows and cringes before the great thieves, there will be little ones enough to fill the jails. — Robert Green Ingersoll