Quotes & Sayings About Cringing

Be happy to, I said, cringing to hear such a dumb, folksy locution escape my lips, then launched into my well-rehearsed precis. The fact that humankind now finds itself in a post-Darwinian epistemological condition, I explained, need not trouble us from an ethical perspective. — James K. Morrow

I did come up with the term "sack" to describe the devastation I was bringing on the poor, cringing quarterbacks in the NFL. "Sack the quarterback." That was nice. I thought it was lots better than saying, "Jones tackles the QB behind the line for another loss of yardage ... " It had a ring to it, and it caught on with the sports writers. But I tell you, doing it was a lot more fun than talking about it. — Deacon Jones

then coiling his length together, roaring like thunder underground, he sped from his deep lair through its great door, out into the huge passages of the mountain-palace and up towards the Front Gate. To hunt the whole mountain till he had caught the thief and had torn and trampled him was his one thought. He issued from the Gate, the waters rose in fierce whistling steam, and up he soared blazing into the air and settled on the mountain-top in a spout of green and scarlet flame. The dwarves heard the awful rumour of his flight, and they crouched against the walls of the grassy terrace cringing under boulders, hoping somehow to escape the frightful eyes of the hunting dragon. There they would have all been killed, if it had not been for Bilbo once again. "Quick! Quick!" he gasped. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Anyone in command feigns ease when death is near. We do it for those around us, and we do it for ourselves. We do it because the sole alternative is to die cringing. The difference between an experienced leader and an untested one is that only the untested one is shocked at how well they can pretend when their hand is forced. — Scott Lynch

Whites would accuse you of causing trouble when all you were doing was acting like a normal human being instead of cringing. — Rosa Parks

Nothing is more despicable than to reach fame by crawling, position by cringing. — Robert Green Ingersoll

That's not cruel. This is. You come here in the middle of the night, expecting me to be awake, and ask - no, demand - me to give you things that belong to me as much as they belong to you. Never mind what it does to me. Never mind that each time I see you, I wonder if I'll ever hold you in my arms again, or be able to touch you without you cringing away like I'm a monster. I think it's fair to ask if there's an 'us,' my dear, because I suspect you're trying to use me just now. Tell me that's not cruel, and I'll let you go. — Nenia Campbell

The Supreme Grand Master raised his arms. 'Brethren,' he said, 'let us begin . . .' It was so easy. All you had to do was channel that great septic reservoir of jealousy and cringing resentment that the Brothers had in such abundance, harness their dreadful mundane unpleasantness which had a force greater in its way than roaring evil, and then open your own mind . . . . — Terry Pratchett

Ravelle, anyone in command feigns ease when death is near. We do it for those around us, and we do it for ourselves. We do it because the sole alternative is to die cringing. — Scott Lynch

I saw the most frightening, most depressing sight I had ever seen - a row of stores with Stars of David and the word 'Jude' painted on them, and inside, behind half-empty counters, people in a daze, cringing like they didn't know what hit them and didn't know where the next blow would come from. Hitler had been in power only six months, and his boycott was already in full effect. I hadn't been so wholly conscious of being a Jew since my bar mitzvah, and it was the first time since I'd had the measles that I was too sick to eat. — Harpo Marx

Bryn looked from Halt to Horace and back again. He saw no pity in either face.
"I don't want to," he said in a very small voice. Horace found it hard to reconcile this cringing figure with the sneering bully who had been making his life hell for the past few months. Halt appeared to consider Bryn's statement.
"We'll note your protest," he said cheerfully. "Now continue, please. — John Flanagan

I didn't want this man touching me in those places. It wasn't that he was being inappropriate, it was just more that he obviously didn't view me as a person, let alone a scared person with actual feelings. He just saw me as yet another scientific specimen there for his own experimenting. I squeezed my eyes shut, cringing the entire time. — Jessica Verdi

We can learn to be pilgrims again, uneasy in American culture, as we should have been all along. But we are not pilgrims cringing in protective silos, waiting for the sound of trumpets in the sky. We are part of a kingdom, a kingdom we see from afar (Heb. 11:13) and a kingdom we see assembling itself all around us in miniature, in these little outposts of the future called the church. — Russell D. Moore

She came into the room, carrying a kerosene lantern this time, and Steven couldn't help cringing when he thought of the damage that could do. But — Linda Lael Miller

It was a surprise party, Parker," America said softly.
"Oh," Parker said, cringing.
"You're throwing me a surprise party?" I asked America.
She shrugged. "It was Trav's idea. It's at Brazil's on Sunday. Six o'clock. — Jamie McGuire

You're like one of those dogs, the unwanted ones that have been mistreated all their lives. You can kick them and kick them, but they'll still come back to you, cringing and wagging their tails. Begging. Hoping that this time it'll be different, that this time they'll do something right and you'll love them. — Paula Hawkins

The referee jumped in too late in my opinion. He's the champion and he's got to be given every chance, but a lot of people was wincing and cringing seeing the finish cos his head is bouncing all over the place. — Carl Froch

Oh, how an animal that is hurt looks up at you, John! An animal's actions can inform you if it is in pain. It don't hop and jump around as usual. No. You find a sad, crouching, cringing, small bunch of fur or hair, whining, and plainly asking you to aid it. It isn't hard to find out what is wrong, John; any man or woman who would pass by such a sight, just isn't worth knowing. I just can't withstand it! Why, I think that not only animals, but plants can know pain. I carry a drink to many a poor, thirsty growing thing; or, if it is torn up I put it kindly back, and fix its soil up as comfortably as I can. Anything that is living, John, is worthy of Man's aid. — Ernest Vincent Wright

Their first free and frantic caresses had been preceded by a brief period of strange craftiness, of cringing stealth. — Vladimir Nabokov

The Saga of Dharmapuri is one of the great works of modern Indian literature. ( ... ) Set against Vijayan's heroic and scatological Candide
originally written in Malayalam and finely translated into English by the author
the timidity of our own English talent for political satire is embarrassingly laid bare. For this is dangerous stuff, and cut close to the bone. ( ... ) Fiercest of all is Vijayan's Voltairean recoil from Indian cringing to power. — David Selbourne

It's really good to be able to think about past loves without having a pit in my stomach, or cringing or feeling heart-broken, or like they hate you. Don't you think? — Winona Ryder

Peace without Justice is a low estate,- A coward cringing to an iron Fate! But Peace through Justice is the great ideal,- We'll pay the price of war to make it real. — Henry Van Dyke

Strictly by accident, Scott stumbled upon the most advanced weapon in the ultrarunner's arsenal: instead of cringing from fatigue, you embrace it. You refuse to let it go. You get to know it so well, you're not afraid of it anymore. — Christopher McDougall

Sing!" Grandpa Smedry yelled, his voice echoing down a hallway to the right."Sing!" If he breaks into song I think I might have to strangle myself ... I thought, cringing. — Brandon Sanderson

All of the creatures were staring fixedly at Boots. She was standing on the back of her loyal cockroach friend, Temp, smack in the middle of the octagon, singing "The Itsy-Bisty Spider" at the top of her lungs. The green spider, to whom the song principially was directed, seemed to be cringing. Boots was somewhat off-key, but Gregor was pretty sure it was the loudness that was making the arachnid hunch down and contract.
"She has been going on like this for hours," whispered Nerissa. "Days more like it," said Ripred in disgust.
"Next I will sing one for you!" announced Boots, pointing at the bat, who actually flinched. — Suzanne Collins

There is in the clergy of all Christian denominations a time-serving, cringing, subservient morality, as wide from the spirit of the gospel as it is from the intrepid assertion and vindication of truth. — John Quincy Adams

But if I am not a criminal, I beg to be permitted to go abroad with my wife temporarily, for at least one year, with the right to return as soon as it becomes possible in our country to serve great ideas in literature without cringing before little men, as soon as there is at least a partial change in the prevailing view concerning the role of the literary artist. ("Letter To Stalin") — Yevgeny Zamyatin

It is a truism to say that the dog is largely what his master makes of him: he can be savage and dangerous, untrustworthy, cringing and fearful; or he can be faithful and loyal, courageous and the best of companions and allies. — Ranulph Fiennes

Rhoda comes now, having slipped in while we were not looking. She must have made a tortuous course, taking cover now behind a waiter, now behind some ornamental pillar, so as to put off as long as possible the shock of recognition, so as to be secure for one more moment to rock her petals in her basin. We wake her. We torture her. She dreads us, she despises us, yet she comes cringing to our sides because for al our cruelty there is always some name, some face which sheds a radiance, which lights up her pavements and makes it possible for her to replenish her dreams. — Virginia Woolf

The first time I did a reading/signing thing at Cody's, the woman who did the introduction said something like that, and I wasn't the only one cringing. I remember looking out into the audience and seeing people's faces and people whispering to each other, and thinking like "Ugh, can we just cancel the whole thing? I can't go out there after she said that." — Adrian Tomine

Only one advantage still remained to Mandred, an edge that Vrrmik could never take from him. The soldiers who marched behind his banner were men and it was the hearts of men that beat within their breasts, hearts that could be moved to selflessness, could be stirred to valour and fired with courage. However numerous Vrrmik's horde, they were skaven, they were cringing beasts driven by fear and greed, incapable of believing in anything more vital than their own skins. Terror and avarice were the forces that drove them on, but such things could only stretch so far, overcome only so much. Mandred's troops could endure more than Vrrmik's monsters. That was the one strength the skaven could never equal. — C.L. Werner

He had a cringing manner, but a very harsh voice; and his blandest smiles were so extremely forbidding, that to have had his company under the least repulsive circumstances, one would have wished him to be out of temper that he might only scowl. — Charles Dickens

Now remember courage, go to the door,Open it and see whether coiled on the bedOr cringing by the wall, a savage beastMaybe with golden hair, with deep eyesLike a bearded spider on a sunlit floorWill snarl-and man can never be alone. — Allen Tate

Eggie?" from the backdoor had him cringing. Darla walked in, her gaze glancing at the three males before she walked over to Eggie. She gazed up at him and he waited for it. Lord, she must be mad. Her being a feminist and all. Not that he blamed her. He deserved it. "Why are you standing here naked, with your brothers, and smelling like blood?" "I'm not sure explaining it would make it any better." "Okay. I need your car," she said, surprising him "Sure. Told you to take it whenever you need it." "Yeah, I know. But I thought I should let you know I'm not just taking it out. I need to race it." "Race it? Against who?" "Cats." "You need to race cats?" "Yeah. I don't have a choice. Janie Mae bet on us winning and if we lose, we can't get what we need to make the pies we promised everyone because that's the money she used. So we race the cats, we win, we make pie.". — Shelly Laurenston

Occasionally, especially at celebratory times, the whole gang of us would launch into a spontaneous mental game. For example, my mother used to send me to the back porch (a room containing no furniture but a simply incredible mass of Stuff) to get flour for holiday cakes or pies. I often returned to the kitchen, cringing with disgust, to announce that the flour was full of worms. No matter how sick this made me, I knew it wuoldn't bother my mother. She always just sifted the worms out, saying that even if she missed a few and they got into the food, they would simply be an excellent source of protein. Just as we were all beginning to feel thoroughly downtrodden, my father would save the day. "Everyone come up with a literary reference about worms!" he would shout. — Martha N. Beck

I think damage to the eye or damage to the teeth is one of the most universally cringing things you can do in a movie and these are very fragile sounds. — Guillermo Del Toro

Desi, Desi, Desi what am I going to do with you? (Kyrian)
Don't you dare take that flippant tone with me! (Desiderius)
Why ever not? (Kyrian)
Because I am not some scared little Daimon to run cringing from you. I am your worst nightmare. (Desiderius)
Must you resort to cliches? C'mon, Desidisastrous, couldn't you think of anything more original than that B-movie dialogue staple? (Kyrian) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Look, I play all these tough guys and thugs and strong, complex characters. In real life, I am a cringing, neurotic Jewish mess. Can't I for once play that on stage? — Jason Isaacs

Let's get up off our knees, stop cringing before bogeymen and virtual fathers, face reality, and help science to do something constructive about human suffering. — Richard Dawkins

Man, this angel crap ... it's so fucking hard to influence anything. I've never had a problem with free will before, but for shit's sake, I wish I could just I Dream of Jeannie you to where you need to be." As Tohr winced, the angel muttered, "It's okay, though. We'll get you there somehow - "
"Actually, I'm cringing at the vision of you in a pink harem costume."
"Hey, I have a great ass, I'll have you know. — J.R. Ward

The history of man proves that religion perverts man's concept of life and the universe, and has made him a cringing coward before the blind forces of nature.
If you believe that there is a God; that man was 'created'; that he was forbidden to eat of the fruit of the 'tree of knowledge'; that he disobeyed; that he is a 'fallen angel'; that he is paying the penalty for his 'sins,' then you devote your time praying to appease an angry and jealous God.
If, on the other hand, you believe that the universe is a great mystery; that man is the product of evolution; that he is born without knowledge; that intelligence comes from experience, then you devote your time and energies to improving his condition with the hope of securing a little happiness here for yourself and your fellow man.
That is the difference.
If man was 'created,' then someone made a grievous mistake. — Joseph Lewis

Don't look back until you've written an entire draft, just begin each day from the last sentence you wrote the preceding day. This prevents those cringing feelings, and means that you have a substantial body of work before you get down to the real work which is all in ... the edit.
[Ten rules for writing fiction (part two), The Guardian, 20 February 2010] — Will Self

There must be no fear, no begging, but demanding - demanding the Highest. The true devotees of the Mother are as hard, as adamant and as fearless as lions. They are not in the least upset if the whole universe suddenly crumbles into dust at their feet. Make Her listen to you. None of that cringing to Mother! Remember, She is all-powerful; She can make heroes out of stones. — Swami Vivekananda

My existence from day to day has become a matter of averting my eyes, of cringing. Death is the only truth left. Death is what I cannot bear to think. At every moment when I am thinking of something else, I am not thinking death, am not thinking the truth. — J.M. Coetzee

What are you doing here, anyway? You don't strike me as the speed dating type.'
'I lost a bet with Alfie,' he says. 'You met him at The Cow that day . . .?' Waistcoat Guy, I think, nodding. 'I said to him that if you didn't text me back then I'd try speed dating, because I'm officially the worst single man in London.'
'You're not!' I say. 'I mean, it wasn't a bad date. I was just . . .'
'Don't say you were drunk! It's the biggest post-sex insult ever.'
'. . . drunk, I mean drinking, a bit more than I ought, and I was, uh, cringing at the thought that I'd been a nightmare date.'
'No. You were great,' says Mark/Skinny Jeans.
'Actually, the biggest post-sex insult is "we did?"' says Robert. 'But that's another story. — Gemma Burgess

Some midnight-of-all or other [apocalypse] was predicted every few days or nights. Most came to nothing, leaving relevant prophets cringing with a unique embarrassment as the sum rose. It was a very particular shame, that of now ex-worshippers avoiding each other's eyes in the unexpected aftermath of 'final' acts
crimes, admissions, debaucheries and abandon. — China Mieville

He knew how to handle pain. You had to lie down with pain, not draw back away from it. You let yourself sort of move around the outside edge of pain like with cold water until you finally got up your nerve to take yourself in hand. Then you took a deep breath and dove in and let yourself sink down it clear to the bottom. And after you had been down inside pain a while you found that like with cold water it was not nearly as cold as you had thought it was when your muscles were cringing themselves away from the outside edge of it as you moved around it trying to get up your nerve. He knew pain. — James Jones

I don't go back and look at my early work, because the last time I did, many years ago, it left me cringing. If one publishes, then one is creating a public record of Learning to Write. — Lorrie Moore

Let me encourage you, if someone has wronged you, and you still get that cringing feeling on the inside when you see or think about that person, take it to God and allow Him to keep your heart soft and sensitive. — Victoria Osteen

I like films that are so funny, dramatic and lifelike simultaneously, that you are laughing and cringing simultaneously all throughout the film. — Mike Birbiglia

Go round cringing like a dog, Matt," he said, "and folks will treat you like one. Stand up like a man, and they'll treat you like a man." That was fine for Weaver, but I wondered sometimes, How exactly do you stand up like a man when you're a girl? — Jennifer Donnelly

Here she was trying to teach him the Peasant Shuffle. He could not hope to master it all in a night, of course; at the Peasants' School in Zug they had spent an entire semester on Cringing alone. — Robert Sheckley

The woman had a humble, cringing manner. Of course, she had discovered that, having neither money nor virtue, she had better be humble if she knew what was good for her. — Jean Rhys

I'd like to work with some of the videogame companies for the simple fact that they obviously need some sort of writer's help. I play videogames, and lately it's hard for me to enjoy them because I'm spending all my time cringing at the corny dialogue, thin characters, and glaring plot holes. — Patrick Rothfuss

those dogs, the unwanted ones that have been mistreated all their lives. You can kick them and kick them, but they'll still come back to you, cringing and wagging their tails. Begging. Hoping — Paula Hawkins

In a swordfight, a man's surest defense is the swift stroke that slays his foe, not cringing behind a shield. — George R R Martin

Uh huh, I said, cringing and sipping at the wine. Okay, I gulped. Sue me, I was about to get my hoo-ha ripped to shreds; I was a wee bit nervous. — Christine Zolendz

If your coping mechanism to date has been to ignore your weight, don't feel badly. You're in good company. I've done my share of standing on the doctor's scale backwards, cringing as the nurse scribbled on the clipboard, anxious when the doctor came in glancing over my record. I scrutinized his face for any semblance of judgment. Whether or not I faced the scale or the doctor skipped a pep talk, it didn't change the truth and it still pervaded every hour of my waking thoughts. I knew what I needed to do and just agonizingly prolonged it. What about you?

We want our lies to be true--desperately. We think it means less work, less pain. But aren't we experiencing work and pain every day when we are obese? We don't escape it, we just reallocate it, attach it to different problems.

The sooner we face the numbers and start to deal with them, the sooner we can resolve them. — Shannon Sorrels

Unlike an envied and admirable few, I separate my friends and almost never dare mingle one group with another. When I do, it is usually a social disaster, like mixing drinks. I love good beer and I love good wine, but you cannot drink both on the same evening without suffering. I love the friends with whom I play or once daily played snooker and tooted quantities of high-grade pulverized Andean flake; I love the friends with whom I dine at preposterously expensive restaurants; I love the friends with whom I'm film-making or mincing on the stage. I love and value them all equally and don't think of them as stratified or in tiers, one group in some way higher or more important than the rest, but the thought of introducing them to each other makes me shiver and shudder with cringing embarrassment. — Stephen Fry

Laughter is binary: It either happens or it doesn't. As each joke arrives in the course of a film, the cavernous space of the theater is either filled with joy and laughter or with the quiet of cringing embarrassment. Every time you step to the plate to make a joke, you're going to experience one or the other. — David Dobkin

Ye have to be bold, lad. We're told that ladies want cringing politeness from a gentleman, but what they really want is a bit of forwardness, even carnality. It's exciting for them. — Jennifer Ashley

Her eyes, however, were every bit as hard and shiny as the varnish on Dad's desk.
"Sophie, there you are! Where have you been the past few days? We've hardly seen you."
"A-around?" I stuttered, inwardly cringing. Oh,that was an awesome alibi. — Rachel Hawkins

You are the sweetest man, Savannah inserted softly, her voice brushing at him. Echoing.
Gregori frowned. Echoing? Close. He swung around, cursing in French, an eloquent dissertation that had Gary cringing. Savannah,however, simply took Gregori's arm and smiled up at him, the stars in her eyes dancing. She was like that.Distracting him and then slamming him sideways with her smile. With her blue-violet eyes with their accursed star centers. She didn't even have the decency to look repentant.
Don't be angry, Gregori.I was lonesome in the house all by myself. Are you really,really angry? Or just a little angry? Her voice was soft, a siren's whisper, made of silk sheets and candlelight. Her long lashes were thick and heavy, a sweep of magic that caught his eye and held it there.
It is impossible for you to be lonely when you are always running around in my head. — Christine Feehan

Look on the bee upon the wing 'mong flowers;
How brave, how bright his life! then mark, him hiv'd,
Cramp'd, cringing in his self-built, social cell,
Thus it is in the world-hive; most where men
Lie deep in cities as in drifts. — Philip James Bailey

Maybe this is wrong, but I feel like I craft my songs carefully enough that I still find that fifteen years after having written one, it still works for me - I'm not cringing. — Ben Folds

Thigpen gave her that cringing, sly feeling incompetents in denial always engendered. In government service, she'd felt it enough times to trust her instincts. Randy — Nevada Barr

The idea that it is funny to see wild animals coerced into acting like clumsy humans, or thrilling to see powerful beasts reduced to cringing cowards by a whip-cracking trainer is primitive and medieval. It stems from the old idea that we are superior to other species and have the right to hold dominion over them. — Desmond Morris

I love when I'm writing and I'm cringing because I know I'm doing something right. — Zoe Cassavetes

Wes!" Riley snapped, glaring back at the elevator. "Get out here. The shooting has stopped so you can stop cringing now."
"Oh, well, pardon me for actually having the sense to get out of sight when bullets start flying through the bloody air," Wes snarled back, coming out of the elevator tube. "I don't have scales or armor or the testosterone God gave a gorilla, so you're all going to have to calm your tits until it's safe. — Julie Kagawa

I am made of death. I am the Great Leveller. I am the storm in the High Places." The Bloody-Nine's voice, but it came from his own throat. The hall was strewn with fallen men and fallen statues, scattered with bits of both. "You." Shivers pointed his bloody axe at the last of them, cringing at the far end of the dusty hallway. "I see you there, fucker. No one gets away." He realised he was talking in Northern. The man couldn't understand a word he said. Hardly mattered, though. He reckoned he got the gist. — Joe Abercrombie

If I was talking to someone face-to-face I would always be clear, but with something like Snapchat, you need to keep the flirty banter going;otherwise you'll be staring at an empty red arrow, cringing. — Holly Carpenter

Why, you boggle-eyed, flap-tongued, drag-bellied offspring of unmentionable algae! You seething little leprous blotch of bat-nibbled fungus! You cringing parasite on the underside of a dwarfish and ignoble worm! — Lewis Padgett

The Jewish nation dares to display an irreconcilable hatred toward all nations, and revolts against all masters; always superstitious, always greedy for the well-being enjoyed by others, always barbarous - cringing in misfortune and insolent in prosperity. — Voltaire

For the last twenty years of his life the tenants gave him a stuffed thrix every New Year's."
"Quite an honor," Serdica remarked.
"Indeed. The thrix is the local pride, of course. There's even one in the baronial coat of arms. Sir Craspedo is hitting the nightlurker with it." Glevum pointed to an ornate carving over the entrance to the reception room. Sure enough, a giant besk posed dramatically, preparing to bring down a large fish on the cringing shadow at his feet. I took a picture of it. — Juniper Shore

I do not want to see any of the people cringing supplicants for the favor of the Government, when they should all be independent masters of their own destiny. — Calvin Coolidge

History teaches us no race, no people, no nation has ever been freed through cowardice, through cringing, through bowing and scraping, but all that has been achieved to the glory of mankind, to the glory and honour of races and nations was through the manly determination and effort of those who lead and those who are led. — Marcus Garvey

Forget the cringing selves you sometimes are and remember, instead, the magic essence of your own being that sings even now through your fingertips. That is the reality which you are seeking. Experience it fully. — Seth

My nose is Gargantuan! You little Pig-snout, you tiny Monkey-Nostrils, you virtually invisible Pekinese-Puss, don't you realize that a nose like mine is both scepter and orb, a monument to me superiority? A great nose is the banner of a great man, a generous heart, a towering spirit, an expansive soul
such as I unmistakably am, and such as you dare not to dream of being, with your bilious weasel's eyes and no nose to keep them apart! With your face as lacking in all distinction
as lacking, I say, in interest, as lacking in pride, in imagination, in honesty, in lyricism
in a word, as lacking in nose as that other offensively bland expanse at the opposite end of your cringing spine
which I now remove from my sight by stringent application of my boot! — Edmond Rostand

It seems strange that the Mother of the race should be made the Slave of the Fruits of her Womb. It appears peculiar that she should have no privileges except those received through her son. It seems illogical that the God Principle of the Universe, in its infinite wisdom, should endanger the existence of the Race by making the Mother of it the weak, cringing underling of her husband. — Hilton Hotema