Epileptic Quotes & Sayings

The next day the weather was blown out, with whitecaps frosting the entire channel across to Lanai and the coconut palms whipping overhead like epileptic dust mops. — Christopher Moore

I was grinding away to the climactic moan backtrack when I caught my reflection in the club's mirror, hips rotating, booty shaking. Years later, Grace described my smooth moves as a sad epileptic white girl's imitation of a twerk. Harsh. Could anyone look sexy dancing to lyrics that include "Sucky, sucky. Me sucky, sucky"? I don't think so. — Leah Marie Brown

Because of my Marxism, I was not into myths or miracles, whether it was the virgin birth, the physical resurrection or casting out demons from an epileptic. — Lionel Blue

fossilised" dream-sequences preserved as such in the cortex, precise replicas of past experience; they appear to be mnemic images which unfold, given the initial activation (epileptic, migrainous, experimental, etc.) at the same rate as the initial perceptual experience. — Oliver Sacks

She knew my buttons and kept pressing them like an epileptic in an arcade. If it's any consolation, I gave her fair warning." "Oh, my God! — Tim Dorsey

I'd rather get eaten by an epileptic shark. — Lilith Saintcrow

The buzzing was like the eager purr of a muscle car that had just been started, but left in neutral. That was another of Cody's metaphors for it; I'd said the sensation felt like an unbalanced washing machine filled with a hundred epileptic chimpanzees. Pretty proud of that one. — Brandon Sanderson

We got there without being spotted. I pulled her in, then shut the door, pressing my back to it and exhaling like an epileptic pilot who'd just landed a cargo plane full of dynamite. — Brandon Sanderson

Howard thought, Is it not true: A move of the head, a step to the left or right, and we change from wise, decent, loyal people to conceited fools? Light changes, our eyes blink and see the world from the slightest difference of perspective and our place in it has changed infinitely: Sun catches cheap plate flaking
I am a tinker; the moon is an egg glowing in its nest of leafless trees
I am a poet; a brochure for an asylum is on the dresser
I am an epileptic, insane; the house is behind me
I am a fugitive. His despair had not come from the fact that he was a fool; he knew he was a fool. The despair came from the fact that his wife saw him as a fool, as a useless tinker, a copier of bad verses from two-penny religious magazines, an epileptic, and could find no reason to turn her head and see him as something better. — Paul Harding

With this intermarriage comes the increased risk of congenital disorders. After decades of inbreeding, Colorado City and Hildale have the world's greatest concentration of a disease called Fumarase Deficiency. The disorder has a range of symptoms, including frequent epileptic seizures, the inability to walk or sit upright, speech impediments, and severe mental retardation. There is no cure. Also known as "Polygamist Down's," this disorder is caused by a recessive gene that has been traced back to the Barlow and Jessop families. — Karen Stollznow

I have not been diagnosed with epilepsy. I did have an MRI of the brain, and they found no abnormalities in my brain. Now, there are people with epilepsy who have completely normal MRI's, too. I just think also, you know, epileptic seizures can be triggered by emotional stress, by all kinds of things, lights. — Siri Hustvedt

Electricity is life but electricity is an invisible fist punching up your spine, knocking your brains right out of your skull. — Ray Robinson

Suddenly, it seems obvious to me: Only fantasy books can make sense of the skewed reality in which I live. — David B.

I'm flattered, Vince. You and Jak seemed to have spent a lot of time talking about me." "Not you, housework brat, your meal ticket boyfriends. I reckon if I try hard enough, I can win over Dick, and according to Jak, winning over Dick is the key to winning over Shane. That's how you wheedled your way in. Dick's a nice guy, but Shane is," he gave a low whistle, "something special. I like powerful men." I flinched as he reached out and patted me condescendingly on the upper arm. "Don't worry though. I won't let them kick you out of the house straight away. I quite fancy having an epileptic sock washer at my beck and call for a while. — Gillibran Brown

How could I possibly keep my cool while getting sweaty with him? What if I screamed out something horrifying, like "I love you?" What if I had an epileptic attack and started drooling or spitting right in the middle of things? — Jeaniene Frost

Lust was a positive high-tension cable, plugged into my core, activating a near-epileptic seizure of conviction that this was the one thing I had to do in life. — Will Self

Such epileptic hallucinations or dreams, Penfield showed, are never phantasies: they are always memories, and memories of the most precise and vivid kind, accompanied by the emotions which accompanied the original experience. Their extraordinary and consistent detail, which was evoked each time the cortex was stimulated, and exceeded anything which could be recalled by ordinary memory, suggested to Penfield that the brain retained an almost perfect record of every lifetime's experience, that the total stream of consciousness was preserved in the brain, and, as such, could always be evoked or called forth, whether by the ordinary needs and circumstances of life, or by the extraordinary circumstances of an epileptic or electrical stimulation. — Oliver Sacks

It may, in its natural course, exhaust itself and end in sleep; the post-migrainous sleep is long, deep, and refreshing, like a post-epileptic sleep. Secondly, it may resolve by "lysis," a gradual abatement of the suffering accompanied by one or more secretory activities. As — Oliver Sacks

A society which allows an abominable event to burgeon from its dung heap and grow on its surface is like a man who lets a fly crawl unheeded across his face or saliva dribble from his mouth
either epileptic or dead. — Jean Baudrillard

Prince Myshkin in The Idiot:
'He was thinking, incidentally, that there was a moment or two in his epileptic condition almost before the fit itself (if it occurred in waking hours) when suddenly amid the sadness, spiritual darkness and depression, his brain seemed to catch fire at brief moments ... His sensation of being alive and his awareness increased tenfold at those moments which flashed by like lightning. His mind and heart were flooded by a dazzling light. All his agitation, doubts and worries, seemed composed in a twinkling, culminating in a great calm, full of understanding ... but these moments, these glimmerings were still but a premonition of that final second (never more than a second) with which the seizure itself began. That second was, of course, unbearable. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

You can be anywhere in the world ... under confetti, under bombs, in cellar or stratosphere, prison or embassy, on the equator in Trondhjem, you'll never go wrong, you'll get a direct response ... all they want of you is that famous Parisian vagina! la Parisienne! your man sees himself wedged between her thighs in epileptic bliss, full nuptial flight, inundating the barisienne with his enthusiasm ... — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

I'm not an epileptic but you're an arsehole. I'm important. I matter. I can do anything. I'm a sexy, strong woman that happens to have epilepsy. Do you get it? I have epilepsy but it's not who I am. — Ray Robinson

Here, the name of the game was opulence. The floors were cherrywood, the tablecloths silk, and the guests sparkling with enough diamonds to send a Christmas tree into an epileptic seizure. — Ella Summers

And then I knew that the voice
of the spirits had been let in
as intense as an epileptic aura
and that no longer would I sing
alone. — Anne Sexton

She really talks to you, doesn't she?" She asked. "it's not just you talking to her. She talks BACK."
"hel, half the time she starts it." I said, half-defensively. "I know it's weird."
"Well, yes, it's weird. Technically, I think it's insane. But who am I to judge?" Maggie shrugged. "I live in a house most people view as the setting of a horror movie waiting to happen, with an army of security ninjas and a couple dozen epileptic dogs for company. I don't think I'm qualified to pass judgement on 'weird'. — Mira Grant

In an electroencephalogram ... one of her seizures was almost identical to an orgasm ... Nothing happened during a seizure that couldn't happen outside one, except that Roselyn was not in control of it and it happened all at once. Since then, she had experienced hundreds of orgasms and dozens of seizures and, though she didn't come close to finding the latter nearly as entertaining as the former, it was always in her mind. In the midst of Dryden's often machine gun lovemaking or her own considerably more directed and soft ministrations, it was always in the back of her mind at the moment of climax - this is a tenth of a seizure, this is a fifth of one. — Thomm Quackenbush

A label is a mask life wears. We put labels on life all the time. "Right," "wrong," "success," "failure," "lucky," "unlucky," may be as limiting a way of seeing things as "diabetic," "epileptic," "manic-depressive," or even "invalid." Labeling sets up an expectation of life that is often so compelling we can no longer see things as they really are. This expectation often gives us a false sense of familiarity toward something that is really new and unprecedented. We are in relationship with our expectations and not with life itself. — Rachel Naomi Remen

His other hand finds my cheek, and he wipes away my tears with his thumb. The chocolate scent overwhelms me as he bends over and whispers in my ear, "No, Cassie. No, no, no."
I throw my arm around his neck and press his dry cheek against my wet one. I'm shaking like an epileptic, and for the first time I can feel the weight of the quilts on the top of my toes because the blinding dark sharpens your other senses.
I'm a bubbling stew of random thoughts and feelings. I'm worried my hair might smell. I want some chocolate. This guy holding me - well, it's more like I was holding him - has seen me in all my naked glory. What did he think about my body? What did I think about my body? Does God really care about promises? Do I really care about God? Are miracles something like the Red Sea parting or more like Evan Walker finding me locked in a block of ice in a wilderness of white?
"Cassie, it's going to be okay," he whispers into my ear, chocolate breath. — Rick Yancey

Even more than the depression, it was my anxiety and agitation that became the defining symptoms of my illness. Like epileptic seizures, a series of frenzied anxiety attacks would descend upon me without warning. My body was possessed by a chaotic, demonic force which led to my shaking, pacing and violently hitting myself across the chest or in the head. This self-flagellation seemed to provide a physical outlet for my invisible torment, as if I were letting steam out of a pressure cooker. — Douglas Bloch

While he attends to his rats, Persinger gives me the lowdown on the haunt theory. Why would a certain type of electromagnetic field make one hear things or sense a presence? What's the mechanism? The answer hinges on the fact that exposure to electromagnetic fields lowers melatonin levels. Melatonin, he explains, is an anti-convulsive; if you have less of it in your system, your brain - in particular, your right temporal lobe - will be more prone to tiny epileptic-esque microseizures and the subtle hallucinations these seizures can cause. — Mary Roach

The stuff of nightmare is their plain bread. They butter it with pain. They set their clocks by deathwatch beetles, and thrive the centuries. They were the men with the leather-ribbon whips who sweated up the Pyramids seasoning it with other people's salt and other people's cracked hearts. They coursed Europe on the White Horses of the Plague. They whispered to Caesar that he was mortal, then sold daggers at half-price in the grand March sale. Some must have been lazing clowns, foot props for emperors, princes, and epileptic popes. Then out on the road, Gypsies in time, their populations grew as the world grew, spread, and there was more delicious variety of pain to thrive on. The train put wheels under them and here they run down the log road out of the Gothic and baroque; look at their wagons and coaches, the carving like medieval shrines, all of it stuff once drawn by horses, mules, or, maybe, men. — Ray Bradbury

...holding your hand out and making a gesture that, in the surreal parrallel universe of the classroom would suggest that instruction, but anywhere else would be taken for a drunkard's poorly achieved impression of an epileptic spider failing to negotiate a hairpin bend. — Phil Beadle

Tamed as it may be, sexuality remains one of the demonic forces in human consciousness - pushing us at intervals close to taboo and dangerous desires, which range from the impulse to commit sudden arbitrary violence upon another person to the voluptuous yearning for the extinction of one's consciousness, for death itself. Even on the level of simple physical sensation and mood, making love surely resembles having an epileptic fit at least as much as, if not more than, it does eating a meal or conversing with someone. — Susan Sontag

Whenever somebody asks me to define what a hero is, I remember Latane and Darley's experiment, staging epileptic fits in front of one, two, or three observers. A solitary observer will help immediately if he's going to help at all, but the larger the crowd the longer the delay. It's the Bystander Effect: the wider the diffusion of responsibility, the greater the impulse to let someone else go first. The hero goes first. — Marion G. Harmon

And yet amid that tense godless calm the high bare boughs of all the trees in the yard were moving. They were twitching morbidly and spasmodically, clawing in convulsive and epileptic madness at the moonlit clouds; scratching impotently in the noxious air as if jerked by some allied and bodiless line of linkage with subterrene horrors writhing and struggling below the black roots. — H.P. Lovecraft

She touched the edge of its voluptuous field, knowing it would be lovely beyond dreams simply to submit to it; that not gravity's pull, laws of ballistics, feral ravening, promised more delight. She tested it, shivering: I am meant to remember. Each clue that comes is supposed to have its own clarity, its fine chances for permanence. But then she wondered if the gemlike "clues" were only some kind of compensation. To make up for her having lost the direct, epileptic Word, the cry that might abolish the night. — Thomas Pynchon

[Epilepsy] gave her an adversity to fight against. It had shaped her personality, the need to be careful and secretive, and the ability to see things a bit differently from the neurotypical. She granted that this feeling of having a broken brain that required her to be sensitive, to look always inward to survive, might be why she turned artist. — Thomm Quackenbush

Huysmans takes the old trope of moon-as-woman and replaces its romantic connotations with decadent ones: the moon here is woman as clamorous lunatic, as convulsive epileptic. — Charles Bernheimer

She could, at this stage of things, recognize signals like that, as the epileptic is said to - an odor, color, pure piercing grace note announcing his seizure. Afterward it is only this signal, really dross, this secular announcement, and never what is revealed during the attack, that he remembers. Oedipa wondered whether, at the end of this (if it were supposed to end), she too might not be left with only compiled memories of clues, announcements, intimations, but never the central truth itself, which must somehow each time be too bright for her memory to hold; which must always blaze out, destroying its own message irreversibly, leaving an overexposed blank when the ordinary world came back. — Thomas Pynchon

Jack Peyton is HOT!" someone from the audience yelled.
"Toby Klein is HOTTER" a male voice argued, and I almost went into an epileptic fit of disgust at both the words and the tone.
"Now, now," Jack said, raising his hands. "Don't be ridiculous. Mr. Corkin is clearly the hottest — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Upstairs, it's 18th century England, where farming out the poor meant lumping the blind, crippled, insane, epileptic, deaf and dumb in almshouses with criminals because The History of the Poor Laws was designed to discourage mendacity, wherein anyone giving alms to beggars was put in jail . . ." In other words, little has changed - many still believed there's no distinction between tolerating the suffering of others and causing it. — Philip Schultz

Hitler was known among his intimates as the carpet-eater, because he often threw himself on the floor in a kicking and screaming fit like an epileptic rage. — Joost A.M. Meerloo

[He] told me more than once that being with me is like an epileptic with a pacemaker being married to a strobe light artist. — Maggie Nelson