Gasp For Air Quotes & Sayings

I gasp for air if I don't get to breathe Italian air once a year. — Danny Meyer

He splashed into the water, his whole body, not with the reverent attitude of prayer, but with a desperate thirst; he buried his head under the water and drank deep, with his cheek against the cold stone of the riverbed, the water tumbling over his back, his calves. He drank and drank, lifted his head and shoulders above the water to gasp in the evening air, and then collapsed into the water again, to drink as greedily as before.
It was a kind of prayer, though, he realized as he emerged, freezing cold as the water evaporated from his skin in the breeze of the dark morning.
I am with you, he said to the Oversoul. I'll do whatever you ask, because I long for you to accomplish your purpose here. — Orson Scott Card

Oh, it doesn't work at all. That's the problem! It's an endless, halting parade of inspections, bribes, and nonsense - but if you're aboard a Texas vessel, you'll find less inconvenience along the way."
"It's because of their guns!" declared Mr. Henderson, once more escaping his reverie, bobbing out of it as if to gasp for air.
"Concise, my love." Mrs. Henderson gave him a smile. "And correct. Texans are heavily armed and often impatient. They don't need to be transporting arms and gunpowder to create a great nuisance for anyone who stops them, so they tend to be stopped ... less often. — Cherie Priest

I knew they weren't brown. I didn't know you were studying Light Manipulation. I'm impressed. But it takes concentration." He leans forward slowly until his mouth is inches from my ear. My eyes flutter and I know he heard the gasp of air I took no matter how quiet it was. "You got distracted," he whispers, then grabs his backpack from behind me and leaves. — Kasie West

It's not because we knew" Lukas said, sucking a gasp of air. "It's because we did it. — Hugh Howey

If you swim effortlessly in the deep oceans, ride the waves to and from the shore, if you can breathe under water and dine on the deep treasures of the seas; mark my words, those who dwell on the rocks carrying nets will try to reel you into their catch. The last thing they want is for you to thrive in your habitat because they stand in their atmosphere where they beg and gasp for some air. — C. JoyBell C.

I think one of my favorite pieces I've ever done on the show which was about Hezbollah Israel conflict in 2006 and it was very pointed. It was a beautifully crafted piece of satire and it's a weird thing to say but it had a joke in there about 9/11 and I remember the audience sort of laughing but also kind of not knowing how to respond to that joke and it was just so - and I remember the tension after we did this joke on the air and there was this palpable gasp in the audience, but they were also laughing. And I thought oh, wow, that is something that is not being said in the Zeitgeist. — Aasif Mandvi

I'm not sure which came first, the phone call or the sense of being strangled in my sleep. The choking sensation, as if all breathing on my part must cease, is still vivid in my mind. The feeling engulfs me and I am lying in bed all over again. I feel my throat constricting, intense pressure bearing down on me that I cannot escape. I push away at nothing. I flail and scream, but no sound escapes as my throat is squeezed shut, not by some actual physical hands clasped around my neck but from some nameless danger lurking just as real around me. I gasp for air, seeking somehow to gulp in one long breath that might see me through until I can breathe again. But that breath won't come, and I feel certain that I will perish in an instant, without even a cry on my part. — Mary Ellen Bramwell

Fuck was the best word. The most dangerous word. You couldn't whisper it. Fuck was always too loud, too late to stop it, it burst in the air above you and fell slowly right over your head. There was total silence, nothing but Fuck floating down. For a few seconds you were dead, waiting for Henno to look up and see Fuck landing on top of you. They were thrilling seconds-when he didn't look up. It was a word you couldn't say anywhere. It wouldn't come out unless you pushed it. It made you feel caught and grabbed you the minute you said it. When it escaped it was like an electric laugh, a soundless gasp followed by the kind of laughing only forbidden things could make, an inside tickle that became a brilliant pain, bashing at your mouth to be let out. It was agony. We didn't waste it. — Roddy Doyle

Help me. Please?"
She gave him an abashed nod (but not nearly so
abashed as she ought) and turned to Harriet. "I think that Lord Winstead refers to the rhyming qualities of the title." Harriet blinked a few times. "It doesn't rhyme."
"Oh, for heaven's sake," Elizabeth burst out. " Finstead Winstead?"
Harriet's gasp very nearly sucked the air from the room. "I never noticed!" she exclaimed.
"Obviously," her sister drawled.
"I must have been thinking about you when I wrote
the play," Harriet said to Daniel. From her expression, he gathered he was meant to feel flattered, so he tried to smile. — Julia Quinn

I can't stop thinking about you," he whispers.
He moves in, closer, lips pausing inches from mine. Wraps his arms around me, pulling me into him. I let out a quick gasp of air.
"I dream about you," he murmurs, eyes grasping mine.
"You don't sleep," I choke, feeling a delirious passion coursing through my veins.
"I dream about your smile. About touching you. I dream about being with you. Like this. — Katie Klein

The sign of our time is that the dignity of the human personality has no place: the age is, as are its laws, impersonal, its heart as of stone ... Yet on arrest, in the name of these laws, we die like dogs, neither executioner nor victim making a sound. Because he has to gasp for air all his life, panting for breath is the man of today's only way out. — Sadegh Hedayat

As my body recalled my soul, I began to quiver with pain and gasp for air. — Nancy B. Brewer

I grip the edge of a sidewalk cafe table to keep from falling. The diners stare in alarm, but I don't care. I'm reeling, and I gasp for air. How can I have been so stupid? How could I have ever for a moment believed I wasn't in love with him? — Stephanie Perkins

hear him breathing behind me, loud and fast. "Are you all right, Four?"

"Are you human, Tris? Being up this high..." He gulps for air. "It doesn't scare you at all?"

I look over my shoulder at the ground. If I fall now, I will die. But I don't think I will fall. A gust of air presses against my left side, throwing my body weight to the right. I gasp and cling to the rungs, my balance shifting. Four's cold hand clamps around one of my hips, one of his fingers finding a strip of bare skin just under the hem of my T-shirt. He squeezes, steading me and pushing me gently to the left, restoring my balance. Now I can't breathe. I pause, staring at my hands, my mouth dry. I feel the ghost of where his hand was, his fingers long and narrow.

"You okay?" he asks quietly.

"Yes," I say, my voice strained. — Veronica Roth

I grip Colin harder, kissing him longer, unwilling to let him go. This is what I want; this is what I've wanted since his damn phone interrupted us this morning, his mouth, his body claiming mine. I'm on fire, every muscle in my body attuned to his, my groin clenching with delicious need. When the voices grow louder his hold loosens.
"Don't stop, please," I beg into his mouth. Diving into me once more his tongue slays me, erases every thought of the outside world until the passion has left us breathless and we have to break away if only to live. His forehead presses to mine as we gasp together, the cold air barely cooling the heat raging between us.
-Midnight, A McKenna Chronicle — Elizabeth Miller

Take what's yours and get the fuck out. I can't deal with this right now." "Fine," he bellowed back and rushed me. "I'll take what's mine and go." For a second I had no idea what was happening, but then realisation hit me. This motherfucker was trying to lift my pregnant arse up. "Kane!" I screeched when he hooked his arm behind my knees and slid his arms around my waist and lifted me. My arms instinctively went up into the air then tightly wrapped around Kane's neck. "What the hell do you think you're doin'?" I asked on a gasp. He walked towards the door of our apartment. "You said to take what's mine and get the fuck out. I'm doing exactly that. — L.A. Casey

A red-tailed hawk rose high on an air current, calling out shrill, sequential rasps of raptor joy. She scanned the sky for another one. Usually when they spoke like that, they were mating. Once she'd seen a pair of them coupling on the wing, grappling and clutching each other and tumbling curve-winged through the air in hundred-foot death dives that made her gasp, though always they uncoupled and sailed outward and up again just before they were bashed to death in senseless passion. — Barbara Kingsolver

...the world is full of ghosts .... And the longer you live, the more haunted you become.... the ghosts are there to remind us that we still live, that we still have hearts that beat, flesh that burns, lungs that gasp for air.... Never forget that ..... or those deaths have no meaning. — James Rollins

Before I even had the chance to try, a current of energy washed through me, pulling a gasp from my lips. Strength and familiarity tripled through the air between us. The powerful sensation swarmed over me like a thousand little teeth nibbling on my skin, and shook me to the core. — A.K. Morgen

It is the sound of the crowd that can be heard in the second, crescendoing rush of the orchestra that follows the final verse, rising from a hum to a gasp to a shout... fusing at last to a shriek (its similarity to the sound of the crowds at Beatle concerts is surely no accident). The onrushing sound of the orchestra at the end of "A Day in the Life" has transcended more than the conventions of Sgt. Pepper's Band. It is the nightmare resolution of the Beatles' show within a show. It is the sound in the eras of the high-wire artist as the ground rushes up from below. There is a blinding flash of silence, then the stunning impact of a tremendous E major piano chord that hangs in the air for a small eternity, slowly fading away, a forty-second meditation on finality that leaves each member if the audience listening with a new kind of attention and awareness to the sound of nothing at all. — Jonathan Gould

You ever taunt me with Tasha again," she said in a harsh whisper when they broke the kiss to gasp for air, "and I will geld you."
Raphael winced. "That would take at least a day to repair. Are you sure you want to lose my ... attributes for that long? — Nalini Singh

You're my lifeline, he whispers and kisses my knuckles before pressing my palm against his. With his eyes wide and full of fear, he gently tugs my hand and places it on his chest over his heart- in the forbidden zone. His breathing quickens, his heart is beating a frantic pounding tattoo beneath my fingers. He doesn't take his eyes off mine; his jaw tense, his teeth clenched.
I gasp. Oh my Fifty! He's letting me touch him. And it's like all the air in my lungs has vaporized- gone. — E.L. James

Her mouth was on his with such ferocity, it knocked him back a step. He managed to haul her back so he could gasp for air and answers. "Not that I'm complaining." "Then don't. Shut up and put out Savoie." "You are so romantic, detective." She chained rough kisses about his neck. "What if I can't perform under this unexpected pressure?" Her hand dropped below his belt for an assessing fondle. "Just my luck. Appears to be high performance all the way." He chuckled and began to nuzzle and nip at her rather roughly, his attention supercharged by her aggression. "And what kind of handling are you looking for?" "Fast and reckless — Nancy Gideon

His breath was a sucking gasp that sounded more like a draining tub than a man filling his lungs with air. Then she heard him form the words "Play dead."
So Livia did. She closed her eyes as much as she dared. She could still see outlines through her lashes. She squeezed her hands against Blake's chest. Hold on, Blake. Stay with me. — Debra Anastasia

I can feel it in the rotten air tonight/ In the tips of my fingers, in the skin on my face/ In the weak last gasp of the evening's dying light/ In the way those eyes I've always loved illuminate this place/ Like a trashcan fire in a prison cell/ Like the searchlights in the parking lots of hell/ I will walk down to the end with you/ If you will come all the way down with me — John Darnielle

I'd loved for five long years, where pain had mingled with kisses and Michael's hugs suffocated me so much that I wasn't sure I could wriggle away enough to gasp for air. It was purple love, ugly and endearing, passionate and bruising like the tiny plum marks one left from sucking on a lover's neck. After loving like that, one needed a break ... — Kenya Wright

It is hopeless, I cannot say it. I give a little whooping cough and raise my eyes to his face. I cannot help myself, I hate him like an enemy, I cannot stop myself dreaming of his enemy, I cannot say his name, I cannot possibly marry him. But Henry, prosaic and real, understands exactly what is happening, and gives me a sharp corrective pinch with his fingers in the soft palm of my hand. He uses his nails, he digs into my flesh, I yelp at the pain, and his hard brown gaze emerges from the mist and I see his scowl. I snatch at a gasp of air. "Say it!" he mutters furiously. I master myself and say again, correctly this time, "I, Elizabeth, take thee, Henry . . . — Philippa Gregory

Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet, allowing the woman beneath her to gasp for air and reinflate. She did not enjoy sitting on people, but every so often it was necessary, and in this case it was entirely justified by self-defence. If people came at you and started to scratch you, then of course you had the right to sit on them. Even Nelson Mandela, she told herself, who was a good and gentle man, would have agreed with that. — Alexander McCall Smith

I seek you like the waves seek the shore. I cannot stay, and too, I cannot stay away from you. When I push against the drift, I choke! I gasp for air! I drown within my love for you. So I will ebb and I will flow and let the tide direct my course and see where it will go. — Kate McGahan

Living without personal boundaries is like trying to hold my breath and gasp for air, at the same time, it doesn't work. My introverted nature requires solitary sanctuary, to breathe. My internal batteries need time to recharge if i am to give from a place of abundance. — Jaeda DeWalt

Feeling the Wind in Your Hair

The peak of the cliff sits tantalizingly close. Your hands rest on your knees as you gasp, willing more oxygen into your lungs. You look back with pride down the way you've come. Just a little farther and you'll be there. Your energy now partially restored, you step on and on. The light wind lifts the closer you get to the peak. A plateau soon falls away abruptly down to the sea, and the sweeping air collects and whips into your face. The view is sublime but the payoff comes as you stand--arms stretched wide in triumph--with your eyes closed as the raging wind buffets your face. This wind, collected and grown above oceans, flitting and crashing its way across the waves, finally reaches the shore and clasps itself around you in a fleeting embrace. The crack of its passing meets your ears and slowly it absorbs you--a streaming current of air caressing your rejoicing face. — Dan Kieran

A woman stood, smiling with adoration at the baby in her arms. Suddenly, she turned, showing her angelic face. Her eyes were large, beautiful, brown eyes, but terror displayed across her face.
Elizabeth felt a deep, sharp ache penetrate her heart, as she reached deep for air and it came in a low gasp. Her hands flew to her chest. She soon realized the window in front of her was the same one in the vision. — Beth Bares