Quotes & Sayings About Flinching

You've been following me around."
"No", he denied, without flinching.
"Gosh", I scoffed, "I had no idea the woods were rigged with TV cameras. My bad."
One of the corners of his mouth twitched. — Ramona Wray

She put a hit on her boyfriend, so it's not like she hasn't murdered someone."
"And you know that how?" Sam asks.
I'm trying really hard to be honest, but telling the whole thing to Sam seems beyond me. Still, the fragments sound ridiculous on their own. "She said so. In the park."
He rolls his eyes. "Because the two of you were so friendly."
"I guess she mistook me for someone else." I sound so much like Philip that it scares me. I can hear the menace in my tone.
"Who?" Sam asks, not flinching.
I force my voice back to normal. "Uh, the person who killed him. — Holly Black

A bolt of warmth, fierce with joy and pride and gratitude, flashed through me like sudden lightning. I don't care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching - they are your family. And they were my heroes. — Jim Butcher

Life is flinching in the midst of breathing, gasping at the thought of dying. It's climbing ropeless up sheer rock faces, groping for the next finger-hole of hope. Steady on! Only a thousand feet to go and after that a jungle, a minefield, a rapids. (Can I stop smiling now?)
Once, not long ago, I was flung off the cliff of the moment, thrust into an illicit relationship with destiny, an affair not of my making. Was I making love or being raped? The lines were fuzzy. — Chila Woychik

But that's the Way, and there is no other. And once his mind's made up, the trembling and aimless walking stops, and he can look doom in the face without flinching. ("Jane Brown's Body") — Cornell Woolrich

America has faced much more difficult times, including potential national extinction, without flinching. — Nick Clooney

Her hand fluttered over her heart. "Did you just say the word shopping without flinching?"
"I did. So?"
"So, that's gotta be a record. It's a worldwide fact men hate shopping."
"How can I hate it when I've never done it?"
Her lips curled into a slow, beautiful smile. "If you weren't already an angel, I'd dub you a saint. Poor guy. You have no idea what you're in for. — Gena Showalter

Strength with which President Kennedy dispatched his enemies" - a tribute couched in rather remarkable words: Johnson described Kennedy "when he looks you straight in the eye and puts that knife into you without flinching. — Robert A. Caro

When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching
they are your family. — Jim Butcher

So that, logically, in the brief time allotted to us, we should be as kind to one another as is humanly possible and face the harsh facts of reality without fear or flinching. — Michael Swanwick

Such men knew their worth, but did not flaunt it. Such men could look anybody in the eye without flinching; even a poor man, a man with nothing, could stand upright in the presence of those who had wealth or power. People did not know, Mma Ramotswe felt, just how much we had in those days - those days when we seemed to have so little, we had so much. She — Alexander McCall Smith

Damn it! Are you so stupid you don't know what I'm going to do to you?"
Her eyes bore into his without flinching.
"Are you so stupid you haven't figured out yet that it doesn't matter? — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Are you healed? One sure way to tell if you've healed from your past pain is to be aware of how you feel when someone brings it up. Are you anxious, sad, emotional? If you are, the wound has not completely healed. But if you can hear a name from your past, recall a memory without flinching, then you know that your scar tissue is protecting you and that inside you're healthy and strong again. It's a wonderful feeling to feel nothing at all when your hurtful past doesn't hurt anymore. — Toni Sorenson

I don't care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching - they are your family. And — Jim Butcher

It is impossible to feel calm in cities, he believes, because we so rarely hear birdsong there. Our ears evolved to be our warning systems. We are on high alert in places where no birds sing. To live in a city is to be forever flinching. — Jenny Offill

Alix bore the blow without flinching. A block of marble. Her gaze was piercing and blank, her nose nobly arched. But one cheek was flaking. A hint of strange green and pink vegetation was invading her chin. Another winter perhaps would lay her low. — Marcel Proust

If you want to understand any woman you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully. Stories about food show a strong connection. Wistful silences demonstrate unfinished business. The more a daughter knows about the details of her mother's life - without flinching or whining - the stronger the daughter. — Anita Diamant

I'm pretty sure Mom and Dad didn't see me coming, either: the kid with the black moods, the kid whose mind was always elsewhere, flinching from real life as from a bruise. Who wanted to lay a fiction-filter on top of everything and pretend it was something else just to keep the sheer disappointment of it all bearable: this limited, empirical experience of ours, trapped inside a decaying shell of meat, mainly able to perceive that nothing lasts, even in our most pleasurable moments. — Gemma Files

On one occasion during the salaat, I was restless and fidgety. Out of nowhere, I felt a swift spank on my behind. I turned around to see who it was, but there was no one behind me. I surmised it was my uncle, who was standing next to me, so after finishing the salaat, I tearfully accused him of the spanking. Without flinching, he pointed up to the sky and said, "No, it was Allah." My eyes went wide, and I thought, "If only I had turned around faster, I would have seen the hand of Allah!" Twenty years later, he confessed it was him, but in the meantime, I was honored to have been spanked by God Himself. — Nabeel Qureshi

I can't just take it.'
'You can. I'm giving it to you.' She affirms, glimpsing quickly up at me and then down to the floor, moving her foot once and then back again. Still her hand is offered to me, still flinching with the ring in her palm.
'What do you want for it?'
'Nothing.'
'You must want something.'
'I... got what I wanted.' She smiles, such a light, smooth movement of her lips, but it dies out so quickly, like a candle light being blown in the wind.
'What's that?'
'I got to see you again, to give it to you. — Charlotte Munro

His whole face was soft now. He brushed the tears from my cheek with his lips. "That doesn't mean anything to me," he breathed against my skin. "You will always be the most beautiful thing in my world. Ofcourse ... " He hesitated, flinching slightly ... — Stephenie Meyer

I threw the notebook at his head; he didn't even have the courtesy of flinching at the tiny pissed-off human. — Ashlan Thomas

For the only safe harbour in this life's tossing, troubled sea is to refuse to be bothered about what the future will bring and to stand ready and confident, squaring the breast to take without skulking or flinching whatever fortune hurls at us. — Seneca.

I keep getting these people at my shows who only know me from television. I can always tell when they're, like, emotionally flinching when I start doing my jokes. — Dave Attell

And then I did something really stupid: I reached back and smacked him across the face with as much strength as I was capable of, which wasn't much, but enough to leave a red mark. The sound of my hand hitting his face seemed to echo inside the large room. "I'm not entirely human either," I hissed without flinching away from him. — D.T. Dyllin

I have spent much of my adult life flinching with pain as I tried to pull out the threads that bound the shadows of my past to me. — Lorna Luft

Buddhism advises you not to implant feelings that you don't really have or avoid feelings that you do have. If you are miserable you are miserable; that is the reality, that is what is happening, so confront that. Look it square in the eye without flinching. When you are having a bad time, examine that experience, observe it mindfully, study the phenomenon and learn its mechanics. The way out of a trap is to study the trap itself, learn how it is built. You do this by taking the thing apart piece by piece. The trap can't trap you if it has been taken to pieces. The result is freedom. — Henepola Gunaratana

Everyone thinks that courage is about facing death without flinching. But almost anyone can do that. Almost anyone can hold their breath and not scream for as long as it takes to die.

True courage is about facing life without flinching. I don't mean the times when the right path is hard, but glorious at the end. I'm talking about enduring the boredom, the messiness, and the inconvenience of doing what is right. — Robin Hobb

His gaze held hers, and his voice was tender and rough. "Love me, Elizabeth."
Elizabeth felt a tremor run through her entire body, but she looked at him without flinching. "I do. — Judith McNaught

Evil exists," he says, not flinching at the word. "I believe that what the rich have done to the poor people in this city is something that a preacher would call evil. Somebody has power. Pretending that they don't so they don't need to use it to help people-that is my idea of evil. — Jonathan Kozol

PRIMAL TEARS is a novel of tremendous power. Passionate and erotic, at times tenderly lyrical, it confronts head-on, without flinching, brutal environmental and feminist politics. Its protagonist, Sage, is unique, magical, and haunting. — Kate Wilhelm

That's what our training is for, we practice not panicking, we practice breathing, we practice looking directly at the thing that scares us until we stop flinching, we practice overriding our Can't. — Kristin Armstrong

He sighed heavily and lifted his chin stubbornly, meeting Zane's eyes without flinching. "I didn't just say it to get you to jump. I'm in love with you Zane," he admitted in a calm,clear voice.
"I have been for a while. — Abigail Roux

Tying the laces. The bottom line was that Grandpa would have been willing to risk his life on the gamble that the shadows of Tanu and Coulter meant to offer meaningful assistance. He would have followed them if he could have done so alone. He simply was not willing to risk Seth's life. To Seth, this proved that the risk was worth taking. If Grandpa loved him too much to let him take a worthwhile risk, then he would bypass Grandpa. Shoes secure, Seth slid his emergency kit out from under the bed. Then he tiptoed down the attic stairs, flinching at every creak. At the bottom of the steps the house remained dark and quiet. Seth hurried along the hall and down the stairs to the entry hall. He stole into Grandpa's study, tugged a chain to turn on a desk lamp, and rummaged through Tanu's bag of potions. After examining several bottles, Seth found the one he wanted, grabbed it, and closed the bag. — Brandon Mull

And in every detail of your life, if no ultimate purpose redeemed it, there was a quality of greyness, of desolation, that could never be described, but which you could feel like a physical pang at your heart. Life, if the grave really ends it, is monstrous and dreadful. No use trying to argue it away. Think of life as it really is, think of the details of life; and then think that there is no meaning in it, no purpose, no goal except the grave. Surely only fools or self-deceivers, or those whose lives are exceptionally fortunate, can face that thought without flinching? — George Orwell

Raymond continued circling me, and I looked back at him. "Anyway, I know Lilith hates your guts, and she would have killed you yesterday if you hadn't managed to escape."
He stopped and stepped closer, I didn't back away. His gaze traveled the length of my body and fixed on my face, he seemed to like what he saw. I barely kept myself from flinching. "If I were king, things would be different. I could make you my queen."
Eew. I left my face blank, and raised an eyebrow. "Thanks for the offer, but no thanks. I'm not really into necrophilia. — Natalie Herzer

True courage is facing life without flinching. I don't mean the times when the right path is hard, but glorious at the end. I'm talking about enduring the boredom, and the messiness, and the inconvenience of doing what is right.' She — Robin Hobb

Men with no faith can still fear the faith of men with more faith than fear," Hari chorused toward the raiders. Flinching at the first musket fired above his head, Hari collected himself and continued to berate the men retreating before him. — Chris Paton

Danger: if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never! — Winston S. Churchill

You make faces when you read, you know. I can always tell when you're reading something happy or suspenseful, or upsetting. Your face shows everything ... whenever you read, it's all reflected there in your face. Like that time you came over, and Andrew was busy studying, so you read In Cold Blood. You were grimacing and flinching through the whole book, as though it was happening personally to you. — Alicia Thompson

I really hate Squires. (Syra)
(She pulled another flat bolt out and loaded it, then shot it at Otto. Moving so fast he could hardly be seen, the Squire turned around and caught it without flinching. He held the bolt up to his nose and inhaled it lovingly.)
Mmm. Rose. My favorite. (Otto)
Perhaps we should leave you two alone. (Jess)
Yeah, this does remind me a bit of the mating rites of the mean and the surly. (Allen) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

It's only at this age that I can say the word 'art' without flinching. — Mira Nair

You need to learn to write on demand, and to get critiqued without flinching. When someone can rip your work to shreds without it feeling as though your arm has been hacked off, you're ready to send your novel off to an agent. — Jodi Picoult

The feel of her, soft and small and alive, caused him to groan with tortured relief. His hands raked over her, his mouth dragging hungrily over her hair, skin, clothes, as if he would devour her whole.
"Grant," she gasped, flinching from the force of his kisses.
He gave an animal growl of pleasure and need, crushing his lips hard over hers. — Lisa Kleypas

An army's bravest men are its cowards. The death which they would not meet at the hands of the enemy they will meet at the hands of their officers, with never a flinching. — Ambrose Bierce

Not that pain is the worst thing in the universe. Interesting things happen when you adapt pain for your own. This thing you were prepared to spend your life flinching from is suddenly just another piece of information. — Shelley Jackson

Something about this made Reynie uneasy. Had he done so badly? Was this meant to test his courage? He did as he was told, closing his eyes and bracing himself as best he could.
"Why are you flinching?" the pencil woman asked.
"I don't know. I thought maybe you were going to slap me."
"Don't be ridiculous. I could slap you perfectly well with your eyes open. I'm only going to blindfold you. — Trenton Lee Stewart

There was a moment of hesitation in which Joe looked into her eyes, and she looked back without flinching. Many a time, he had been at the same game with her, and she had always crumbled, bowing to his will. Now, he must have realized he was looking into the eyes of a stranger. She was someone he could not recognize, a foreigner inhabiting the body of that old Clairey, the girl he had abused, intimidated, and broken. Clairey decided then and there she would no longer cower before him. It was almost as if she were daring him to strike her in their unspoken exchange. — Tracy Winegar

One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. — Winston S. Churchill

Sweetie, in our world, fair's got nothing to do with anything. He who has the greatest power wins. It's why we're all willing to kill each other off without flinching. (Solin) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

What are the stars telling you?" I asked.
Max pushed up on his elbows and pretended to strain his ear toward the sky. "They say...They say...you're allowed to forgive yourself."
I rolled sideways...and he did the same.
"For what?" I asked.
"Living."
"I'm not very good at that," I admitted.
"Well, you kissed someone without flinching. Maybe you're getting better."
"Maybe it's just you."
He didn't argue. — Courtney C. Stevens

My response came without thinking. I made a gesture that said, I know. I believe you. And when he held out his hand to help me up the bank, I took it without flinching, as I had done once before in a torrential downpour, when that hand had been my only grip on reality in a flight from death. I trusted him. He was a Briton, and I trusted him. — Juliet Marillier

His were the kind of eyes that held secrets. The kind that lied without flinching. The kind that once you looked into them, it was hard to break away. — Becca Fitzpatrick

You need to understand that truth is stranger than fiction. Listen: people are willing to swallow any old tripe as long as you say it without flinching. They want to be told stuff. And they don't want to doubt you either. It's too hard. — Craig Silvey

Sam woke to a feeling of utter, profound, incredible relief.
He closed his eyes as soon as he opened them, afraid that being awake would just invite something terrible to appear.
Astrid was back. And she was asleep with her head on his arm. His arm was asleep, completely numb, but as long as that blond head was right there his arm could stay numb.
She smelled like pine trees and campfire smoke.
He opened his eyes, cautious, almost flinching, because the FAYZ didn't make a habit of allowing him pure, undiluted happiness. The FAYZ made a habit of stomping on anything that looked even a little bit like happiness. And this level of happiness was surely tempting retaliation. From this high up the fall could be a long, long one. — Michael Grant

Perhaps it is only the light. Perhaps it is the power of the realms at work through me. Or perhaps it is some combination of spirit and desire, love and hope, some alchemy that we each possess and can put to use, if first we know were to look without flinching. — Libba Bray

I watched him as he lay there, taking the needle without flinching and knowing that even
the relief it brought was temporary, that his end was coming and he could not stop it
and knowing, too, that he was not afraid, and that he would do this the right way, as he
had done everything else in his life the right way. And I knew this, too: Harry understood
me. No one else ever had, and no one else ever would, through all time in all the world.
Only Harry. The only reason I ever thought about being human was to be more like him. — Jeff Lindsay

Its quietness was the quietness of strength. And the eyes were those of one who had walked through many a dark valley without flinching. — Madeleine Brent

Admit at least one painful truth to yourself every day. Teach yourself to feel that life would still be worth living even if you were not immeasurably superior to all your friends. Exercises of this sort, prolonged through several years, will at last enable you to admit facts without flinching, and will, in so doing, free you from the empire of fear over a very large field. — Bertrand Russell

She knew what she looked like - someone at the edge of catastrophe, someone already flinching from a blow that had not yet been delivered. — Josephine Humphreys

You're crying?" he said.
"No, I- " I tore my gaze away. "Just dust. From the path. Simon's that way."
I tried to pass him, but he stooped, trying to get a loom of my face. When I wouldn't let him, he caught my chin. I jerked back, flinching at his touch, heart thudding at it, too.
I told myself Simon was wrong. I'd never be dumb enough to fall for Derek. But I had. With him so close, my stomach kept doing weird flips. It wasn't fear. It hadn't been fear for awhile.
"You have been crying," he said, voice softer. — Kelley Armstrong

What are you doing, Alys?" He'd turned to watch her, and his expression was disbelieving.
She'd emerged from the winding staircase to stand in the open, but she hadn't yet been able to make her feet move further. "Facing my fears," she said in a wobbly voice.
"Courting death?"
"Are you going to kill me?"
"The lightning might."
"Are you you going to kill me?" she persisted, flinching when the thunder rumbled again.
"Would you ride a horse for me?" he countered.
"Yes."
"Would you walk across this parapet to come to me?"
"Yes." And shes started forward, shivering as the rain lashed down around them.
She halted just out of reach, lifting her head and throwing back her shoulders with quiet determination.
"Would you come to me?" she asked him.
"Yes," he said. And he crossed the last few feet of the parapet and pulled her into his arms, kissing her mouth. — Anne Stuart

Whenever a person strives, by the help of dialectic, to start in pursuit of every reality by a simple process of reason, independent of all sensuous information - never flinching, until by an act of the pure intelligence he has grasped the real nature of good - he arrives at the very end of the intellectual world. — Plato

He leaned down until his lips brushed her ear. "I told you to stop flinching." And then he bit her. A slow, painless nip but there were definitely teeth involved. — Nalini Singh

I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer. My bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music. It is a fire that solitude presses against my lips. — Violette Leduc

Or perhaps it is some combination of spirit and desire, love and hope, some alchemy that we each possess and can put to use, if we first know where to look without flinching. — Libba Bray

A man who leaves his wife is also a kind of immigrant. He rejects the home he's always known for another. Is it a surprise that Americans have the highest divorce rate in the world? If ditched lovers are also counted, then our rate of betrayal becomes truly stratospheric. To start over and advance or save ourselves, if only in our minds, we're willing to destroy everything. Soaked in a depthless, sampling culture, we're also expert at forgetting. Not only do we have no historical memory, but our personal past can be willfully and instantly erased, with hardly a ripple in its wake, and there's no one around, no community, to remind us of our shames. Extreme narcissists, we cling to bizarre narratives that allow us to make the most preposterous statements without flinching, or indulge in the most perverse and damaging behaviors. — Linh Dinh

True sincerity reveals a powerful form of clarity and discernment that is necessary in order to perceive yourself honestly without flinching or being held captive by your conditioned mind's judgments and defensiveness. — Adyashanti

The only real danger is flinching, seeming to notice your own nakedness. If you don't flinch, you're merely nude, which is a classically recognized form of beauty. — David Thomson

We need courage to take ourselves seriously, to look closely and without flinching, to regard the things that frighten us in life and art with wonder. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God — Henry Kissinger

The guard was named Subcaptain Xu, and when Vai brought her into Justiran's house, Paris couldn't help flinching, because she was the guard who had questioned him and Romeo after they chased the revenant through the streets.

She raised an eyebrow. "Vai, why am I not surprised that he was involved with you?"

"He might not have been, when you met him," Vai said cheerfully.

"Why am I not surprised that he ended up involved with you? — Rosamund Hodge

It is not easy to overcome our natural love of ease, our indisposition to self-denying devotedness, and our false tenderness in flinching from the declaration of unpalatable truths. — Charles Bridges

There is the satisfaction of being able to look at the image without flinching. There is the pleasure of flinching. — Sontag, Susan

In summer, waiting for night, we'd pose against the afterglow on corners, watching traffic cruise through the neighborhood. Sometimes, a car would go by without its headlights on and we'd all yell, "Lights!"
"Lights!" we'd keep on yelling until the beams flashed on. It was usually immediate - the driver honking back thanks, or flinching embarrassed behind the steering wheel, or gunning past, and we'd see his red taillights blink on.
But there were times - who knows why? - when drunk or high, stubborn, or simply lost in that glide to somewhere else, the driver just kept driving in the dark, and all down the block we'd hear yelling from doorways and storefronts, front steps, and other corners, voices winking on like fireflies: "Lights! Your lights! Hey, lights! — Stuart Dybek