My Nerves Quotes & Sayings

What fortune teller would ever have had the nerve to predict that the best years of my life would turn out to be my old age? — Helene Hanff

I took theatre and stuff in college, then I took a bunch of different acting classes here in L.A. Sometimes when I have a hard audition, I'll call my acting coach and he'll come help me. I actually get more nervous in acting class than I do at an actual audition. It's actually a really great way to get over your nerves. — Melissa Ordway

I am not interested in a hermeneutics, or an erotics, or a metaphorics, of my anus. I am interested in ass-fucking. I am interested in the fact that the clitoris, disguised as a discrete button, sweeps over the entire area like a manta ray, impossible to tell where its eight thousand nerves begin and end. I am interested in the fact that the human anus is one of the most innervated parts of the body, — Maggie Nelson

He grabs my hands and lifts them up in the air. I grip the railing on the top of the bed.
"Don't move those hands," he whispers into my nape. I nod and lick my lips. I'm on my tiptoes. My breath is catching and coming out spurts of rough air. His hands run down my arms. I shiver and pant. His lips brush the back of my neck. He sweeps my hair to one side, kissing down my shoulder blade. Heat and nerves battle low in my belly as his hands grip my hips, pulling me back to him.
"Don't let go of that railing, Sarah." His words are growled between kisses and licks. I hear the menacing threat in them. — Tara Brown

No, I'm afraid they might slip and hit a nerve and I'd end up with one side of my face hanging down or something. I'll just stick with this one for a while and take my chances. I'll be brave. — Lauren Bacall

My main weakness is nerves. — Megan Fox

I was not wounded in any part of my body, but I had never experienced such intense pain, such a ripping of the nerves, such an ache of the heart. — Yann Martel

Why don't you cut the shit and hand over my money, Killian cut in, feeling his nerves reaching their maximum bullshit quota. Agitation — Airicka Phoenix

My nerves did a jitter dance, stuck between two wolves. — Jazz Feylynn

I won't let him hurt you again." His breath makes me shiver. A strange sensation, when surrounded with such blazing warmth. "I believe you," I tell him, lying. Because I am weak, I turn in his arms. Because I am weak, I press my lips to his, searching for something to make me stop running, to make me forget. We are both weak, it seems. As his hands run over my skin, I feel a different sort of pain. Worse than Maven's machine, deeper than my nerves. It aches like a hollow, like an empty weight. I am a sword, born of lightning, of this fire - and of Maven's. One already betrayed me, and the other might leave at any moment. But I do not fear a broken heart. I do not fear pain. — Victoria Aveyard

All of your quotes are getting on my nerves. — Peter Burke

Interesting choice," Sullivan said. He slid his gaze over to Paul, who was drumming his fingers on the table in a manic, caffeine-inspired way and blinking a lot. Paul wasn't out-and-out singing along with the king of the dead, but he might as well have put out a big neon sign saying "How's My Driving? Ask Me About My Nerves: 1-800-WIG-N-OUT."
James — Maggie Stiefvater

I should consent to breed under pressure, if I were convinced in any way of the reasonableness of reproducing the species. But my nerves and the nerves of any woman I could live with three months, would produce only a victim ... lacking in impulse, a mere bundle of discriminations. If I were wealthy I might subsidize a stud of young peasants, or a tribal group in Tahiti. — Ezra Pound

The bike went up in the air and landed on my back. It broke my neck, smashed my collarbone and splinters of bone severed my main artery. My lung filled up with blood. I severed my nerves and to this day I have no feeling there. — Ozzy Osbourne

I don't have the slightest desire to speak over my dead brother. It gets on my nerves to always be compared with him. My brother was a magnificent person and an outstanding actor. — Joaquin Phoenix

I destroy because for me everything that proceeds from reason is untrustworthy. I believe only in the evidence of what stirs my marrow, not in the evidence of what addresses itself to my reason. I have found levels in the realm of the nerve. I now feel capable of evaluating the evidence. There is for me an evidence in the realm of pure flesh which has nothing to do with the evidence of reason. The eternal conflict between reason and the heart is decided in my very flesh, but in my flesh irrigated by nerves ... — Antonin Artaud

I could not bear the deep freeze settling around my bones at the thought that yet another attempt to get out of my life alive would end in disappointment. Time became palpable and viscous. Every minute, every second, every nanosecond, wrapped around my spine so that my nerves tightened and ached. I faded into abstraction. A self-generated narcosis created a painful blank where my mind used to be. — Elizabeth Wurtzel

I had a turnover and three missed shots down the stretch. I just have to make sure I calm my nerves. — Chris Bosh

You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these last twenty years at least. — Jane Austen

By becoming clearly contemplative in a matter of weeks, my prayer had been given a particular and novel cast; and this was matched by the distinctness in the reprecussions my daily sessions of exercises were having on my everyday life, as well as on the many different occupations which a monk is vowed to carry out. The genuine sense of euphoria that followed the exercises persisted in me and transfigured my day. During the early months I had to face up to the sort of difficulties which put one's nerves to the test, and which would certainly have put me on my back before. As it was, everything went off so smoothly and I took it all so well that I trained everyone under my charge to develop the attitude of 'accepting rather than undergoing. — Jean Dechanet

He could be anywhere by now, so that is where I look for him. Anywhere...
There are times when I don't recognize this woman who plays with such self-possession. She is something that I have faked. She is William Tyne's daughter, I supposed; his idea of her. I put her forward when I am performing so that he will approach me. I strive to make her taller than she is, more graceful, less unsure. I don't think other people have to try so hard in their lives. Or do they? Are we all living like this? So close to this mesh of nerves?
So I played for my father another concerto, though he was never one for sitting still in a chair. He would make an exception for me, though, his firstborn. He would see the progress I have made. — Claire Kilroy

Patty Flood and her good mood were starting to get on my nerves. Her mood was so good it was almost a physical thing, a monkey on a leash that she let leap all over the furniture, delighting only its owner. — Elizabeth McCracken

My nerves could use a drink. — Grace Kelly

Jack laughed, a quick, surprised chuckle. God, all I wanted these past months was the chance for you to get on my nerves. — Jane Seville

Nothing is going to stay the same; nothing's gonna sound like in 1952. There's some stuff that has some elements of back in the day, like back in the 90's, back in the 80's or whatever. Some elements, but it's not going to be the same, exactly, sounding. And I love it, I've seen the music change. I've seen the flow and the energy go from turned up to turned down to back to turned up. I like to try different stuff. I don't like to do the same old thing over and over again. I don't like to be repetitive, that gets on my nerves. — Juicy J

I tried to play off my outburst as having been touched by the romantic moment (and I think most people bought it!), but in reality I was crying because of what a farce this whole thing was and how stretched thin my nerves were at that moment. Hef reading off the flowing words of love from the card reminded me again what a joke this whole situation was and made me feel like I had missed out on my chance to ever have anything real with someone; to ever meet a man who really deserved a card like that. I had sold my soul to the devil and felt that there was no way out. — Holly Madison

Cruising along once again in this cesspool known as life, I realize that it is too late to make a detour. I will have to pass the anti-abortion pickets (50) outside of Planned Parenthood. Nothing gets on my nerves more than these pro-lifers. Not even astrology enthusiasts (51), Herman Hesse (52) or computer games (53). Look at these fools parading up and down! "Mind your own business," I yell. When one of these busybodies (a man, yet) approaches my car with literature, I lose control and scream, "I wish I was a girl so I could get an abortion!" Trembling with rage, I realize I'd better calm down before I get beat up, but can't resist one last taunt - "I hate the pope" (54), I yell to no one in particular. — John Waters

The fact that he might be as worried as I am eases my nerves. Its like there's a certain amount of stress appointed to every situation and I'm used to being responsible for holding it all by myself. Its nice to share it with someone — Kasie West

I'll tell you, my friends: it's all in the nerves. The nerves that tense and relax as you approach the edges of companionship and love. The razor-sharp edges of companionship and love. — Roberto Bolano

I always figured nerves were for Jane Austen characters and helium-voiced girls who never buy their round; I would no more have turned shaky in a crisis than I would have carried smelling salts around in my reticule. — Tana French

I culled poetry from odors, sounds, faces, and ordinary events occurring around me. Breezes bulged me as if I were cloth; sounds nicked their marks on my nerves; objects made impressions on my sight as if in clay. There, in the soft language, life centered and ground itself in me and I was flowing with the grain of the universe. Language placed my life experiences in a new context, freeing me for the moment to become with air as air, with clouds as clouds, from which new associations arose to engage me in present life in a more purposeful way. — Jimmy Santiago Baca

Well, if you sat eating as though nothing mattered save your dinner I'm not surprised," said Juliana
viciously. "If I were not so angry with her, the deceitful, sly wretch, I could pity her for all she must
have undergone at your hands."
"Seeing me eat was the least of her sufferings," answered the Marquis. "She underwent much, but it
may interest you to know, Juliana, that she never treated me to the vapours, as you seem like to do."
"Then I can only say, Vidal, that either she had no notion what a horrid brutal man you are, or that she
is just a dull creature with no nerves at all."
For a moment Vidal did not answer. Then he said in a level voice: "She knew." His lip curled. He
glanced scornfully at his cousin. "Had I carried you off as I carried her you would have died of fright
or hysterics, Juliana. Make no mistake, my dear; Mary was so desperately afraid she tried to put a
bullet through me. — Georgette Heyer

My hands trembled, so I took a deep drag to calm my frayed nerves. I just wanted to forget that terrible sight, but questions multiplied in my mind as the smoke furled. — Katherine McIntyre

Can you make it past me, thief-catcher?" Mat called, careful not to take his eyes off the man waiting for him with blade poised to strike. Sandar had insisted irritably on "thief-catcher," not "thief-taker," though Mat could not see any difference.
"I cannot," Sandar called from behind him. "If you move to let me by, you will lose room to swing that oar you call a staff, and he will spit you like a grunt."
Like a what? "Well, think of something, Tairen. This ragamuffin is grating my nerves."
The man in the gold-striped coat sneered. "You will be honored to die on the blade of the High Lord Darlin, peasant, if I allow it so." It was the first time he had deigned to speak. "Instead, I think I will have the pair of you hung by the heels, and watch while the skin is stripped from your bodies - "
"I do not think I'd like that," Mat said. — Robert Jordan

She looked beautiful and very innocent, her vibrant blue eyes wide with what he guessed was shock. Her cheeks were stained pink with more of the nerves she hadn't been able to hide during the ceremony. As for her rosy mouth, her lips were slightly parted and ripe for kissing.
'Mine,' he thought primitively. 'Mine to touch and taste and claim at my leisure. — Tracy Anne Warren

I do a lot of yoga and meditation. It calms my nerves and helps me channelise my energy. — Vijender Singh

My nerves did a jitter dance, — Jazz Feylynn

I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied. — John Steinbeck

She was scared. I pictured the police knocking, and here I was with a girl I'd been fucking the morning my wife went missing. I'd sought her out that day
I had never gone to her apartment since that first night, but I went right there that morning, because I'd spent hours with my heart pounding behind my ears, trying to get myself to say the words to Amy:
I want a divorce. I am in love with someone else. We have to end. I can't pretend to love you, I can't do the anniversary thing
it would actually be more wring than cheating on you in the first place (I know: debatable.)
But while I was gathering the guts, Amy had preempted me with her speech about still loving me (lying bitch!), and I lost my nerve. I felt like the ultimate cheat and coward, and
the catch-22
I craved Andie to make me feel better,
But Andie was no longer the antidote to my nerves. Quite the opposite.
The girl was wrapping herself around me even now, oblivious as a weed. — Gillian Flynn

The physical body is an agent of the spirit and its mirror. It is an engine and a reflection of the spirit. It is the spirit's ingenious memorandum to itself and the spirit sees itself in my body, just as I see my own face in a looking glass. My nerves reflect this. The earth is literally a mirror of thoughts. Objects themselves are embodied thoughts. Death is the dark backing that a mirror needs if we are to see anything. — Saul Bellow

It was scary how much she sounded like me sometimes. Maybe that's why she totally got on my nerves — MaryJanice Davidson

Ten minutes," Butch whispered into Marissa's ear. "Can I have ten minutes with you before you go? Please, baby ... "
V rolled his eyes and was relieved to be annoyed at the lovey-dovey routine. At least all the testosterone in him hadn't dried up.
"Baby ... please?"
V took a pull on his mug. "Marissa, throw the sap bastard a bone, would you? The simpering wears on my nerves."
"Well, we can't have that, can we?" Marissa packed up her papers with a laugh and shot Butch a look. "Ten minutes. And you'd better make them count."
Butch was up out of that chair like the thing was on fire. "Don't I always?"
"Mmm ... yes."
As the two locked lips, V snorted. "Have fun, kiddies. Somewhere else. — J.R. Ward

Don't be upset," he whispered.
"I couldn't stop it from happening," she said in a plaintive voice.
"You weren't supposed to," he said tenderly. "I was playing with you. Teasing you."
"But I wanted it to last longer. It's our wedding night, and it's already over." Pausing, Beatrix added glumly, "At least my part of it is."
Christopher averted his face, but she could see that he was struggling to contain a laugh. When he had mastered himself, he looked down at her with a slight smile and smoothed her hair back from her face. "I can make you ready again."
Beatrix was quiet for a moment as she evaluated her spent nerves and limp body. "I don't think so," she said. "I feel like a wrung-out kitchen mop."
"I promise to make you ready again," he said, his voice threaded with amusement.
"It will take a long time," Beatrix said, still frowning.
Gathering her into his arms, Christopher crushed his mouth over hers. "I can only hope so. — Lisa Kleypas

I won $100,000 in Vegas, which buys furniture for my beach house. That takes nerves. You can't think if I'm wrong I'll blow $30,000. — Jennifer Tilly

I'd never experienced stress before I did stand-up, and it was a massive shock to my system, this thing of waking up, and the nerves of, 'You're on stage tonight.' — Johnny Vegas

I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which braces my nerves and fills me with delight. — Mary Shelley

My building was constructed in 1896, and the utilities reflect an odd design that has been jerry-rigged further with each renovation. If you want to understand the wiring and plumbing in my building, you have to understand its history, how it was renovated for each new generation of scientists. My head has a long history also, and that history explains complicated nerves like the trigeminal and the facial. — Neil Shubin

In meditation I access it; in yoga I feel it; on drugs it hit me like a hammer - at sixteen, staring into a bathroom mirror on LSD, contrary to instruction ("Don't look in the mirror, Russ, it'll fuck your head up." Mental note: "Look in mirror."). I saw that my face wasn't my face at all but a face that I lived behind and was welded to by a billion nerves. I looked into my eyes and saw that there was something looking back at me that was not me, not what I'd taken to be me. The unrefined ocean beyond the shallow pool was cascading through the mirror back at me. Nature looking at nature. Not me, little ol' Russ, tossed about on turbulent seas; these distinctions were engineered. — Russell Brand

My toes are all squished. During an operation, they had to take nerves out. — Steven Tyler

Everyone, this is the new girl. Elder knows her. New girl, this is everyone." A few people look up politely; some actually smile. Most, however, look wary at best, disgusted at worse. The nurse closest to me jabs her finger behind her ear and starts whispering to nobody.
"What's wrong with her?" I ask Harley as he leads me to the table he was sitting at.
"Oh, don't worry, we're all mad here."
I giggle, mostly from nerves. "It's a good thing I read Alice in Wonder-land . I definitely think I've fallen into the rabbit hole."
"Read what?" Harley asks.
"Never mind." All around me, eyes follow my every move.
"Look," I say loudly. "I know I look different. But I'm just a person, like you." I hold my head up high, looking them all in the eyes, trying to hold their stares for as long as possible.
"You tell 'em," says Harley with another Cheshire grin. — Beth Revis

You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain, too much love drives a man insane. You broke my will, but what a thrill. Goodness gracious, great balls of fire. — Jerry Lee Lewis

I have one thing that counts, and that is my heart; it burns in my soul, it aches in my flesh, and it ignites my nerves: that is my love for the people and Peron. — Evita Peron

I look down at the city again. From here the city resembles a severed head, incinerated and discarded by the side of the river; its cavernous eye sockets are empty, bundles of dead nerves dangle from its neck, its shattered mouth gapes, a few desolate wires hang from its stark, scorched skull and, suddenly and incomprehensibly and so foreign to my body I could weep, I feel my heart expand with what I can only describe as a sensation of hope. Is there a word for that? Hope in the face of grand calamity. — Nick Cave

Shock and desire have my nerves tingling like I've been struck by horny lightning. — Nicole Christie

I used to get a lot of letters from prisoners. It used to get on my nerves. Especially family members. Everybody's innocent. — Terry McMillan

My nerves before a gig got worse; I had terrible bad nerves all the time. Once we started ... I was fine. — John Bonham

I love energy and people; gosh I love people even when they got on my nerves. — Ledisi

Anything's possible if you've got enough nerve. I was determined to try. I was determined to try because, frankly, my life was such a mess at this point, what - what was the worst that could happen? Everyone turn me down? Big deal. — J.K. Rowling

My father some times he goes crazy, but sometimes nerves, crazy and mad in one place it's like daemon have started to control his life so he ended his life. — Deyth Banger

Nerves were on hair triggers, and if my virgin aunt had stepped out from behind those crates with a puppy in one hand and a baby in the other my guys would have capped her. — Jonathan Maberry

There was this constant urge in me to tear my insides apart,
I didn't know why. By the time I made my mind that it was impossible for me
to do, there alighted the fear, haunting me with the words that rang
constantly in my head, "You're not brave enough".
I didn't feel devastated, I felt the urge to be devastated. — Sanhita Baruah

Ambulances always come with clouds of smoke. And then they disappear in a whistle. But what they bring is fear. Not freedom. Feardom is what they bring. And they bring fire and smoke. Oh, my nerves are bad tonight, yes, bad. I fear freedom. I, above all, fear the freedom that is above all feardom. — Giannina Braschi

My nerves will come when I have to take off my top. — Angel Porrino

I wasn't used to children and they were getting on my nerves. Worse, it appeared that I was a child, too. I hadn't known that before; I thought I was just short. — Florence King

For life has worn me down: continual uneasiness, concealment of my knowledge, pretense, fear, a painful straining of all my nerves - not to let down, not to ring out ... and even to this day I still feel an ache in that part of my memory where the very beginning of this effort is recorded, that is, the occasion when I first understood that things which to me had seemed natural were actually forbidden, impossible, that any thought of them was criminal. — Vladimir Nabokov

You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my poor nerves. — Jane Austen

You will be glad to know that Mary has made something special for dinner."
"Something edible, I hope."
Her lips twitched. "Absolutely."
"Then it's doubly a pity that I don't want dinner this evening." The hunger that roared through him had nothing to do with food.
"No dinner? But Mary-"
"Are you hungry?"
She gave an odd flicker of a smile. "I couldn't eat anything now if my life depended on it."
Her admission relaxed his taut nerves. She was as affected as he was. Good. That's how it should be. — Karen Hawkins

My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance. — Adrienne Rich

I beheld before me an animated Corse. Her countenance was long and haggard; Her cheeks and lips were bloodless; The paleness of death was spread over her features, and her eye-balls fixed stedfastly upon me were lustreless and hollow.
I gazed upon the Spectre with horror too great to be described. My blood was frozen in my veins. I would have called for aid, but the sound expired, ere it could pass my lips. My nerves were bound up in impotence, and I remained in the same attitude inanimate as a Statue.
The visionary Nun looked upon me for some minutes in silence: There was something petrifying in her regard. At length in a low sepulchral voice She pronounced the following words.
Raymond! Raymond! Thou art mine!
Raymond! Raymond! I am thine!
In thy veins while blood shall roll,
I am thine!
Thou art mine!
Mine thy body! Mine thy soul!
— Matthew Gregory Lewis

A morning coffee is my favorite way of starting the day, settling the nerves so that they don't later fray. — Marcia Carrington

Forgive me, madam," he said lightly, amused, "but waiting to make love to you again is straining my nerves."
She scoffed but she was quite shaken; he could see it in her expression, in the way she nervously toyed with the buttons on her pelisse.
"How awfully presumptuous of you to think I'd let you."
"You will," he insisted soothingly.
She gaped at him.
"Please continue," he urged. "I'm aching to hear the rest."
"You're as arrogant as usual."
"You missed it, though."
"I absolutely did not," she asserted.
He grinned. "You missed my arrogance almost as much as I missed your impudence, little one."
"That's absurd."
"I love you, Caroline," he softly, quickly replied, catching her off guard with such tenderness. "Move on before I decide I'm finished with this conversation, rip off your clothes, and show you how much. — Adele Ashworth

As I'm heading back to the ER, my hands shaking from both nerves and anticipation, it occurs to me how much I'm aching to hear his voice again. To brush my thumbs across his cheek and feel the sexy stubble that always seems to be there. I'm dying to tell him about the man with no one to call and make sure he knows that no matter what, when he's forty and injured in the ER, he can call me. He can always call me.
Is this what love is? — Julie Cross

That you were once unkind befriends me now, And for that sorrow, which I then did feel, Needs must I under my transgression bow, Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel ... — William Shakespeare

Poor friend and learned physician, my sensitive and gentle companion, instead of treating and curing the sick you yourself have fallen beneath the yoke of death, and now belong to death's kingdom. For many months you have witnessed such suffering and horror as the human mind can scarcely conceive, as he who sees cannot believe. Perhaps it is for the best that your nerves have betrayed you, that a benevolent veil of forgetfulness has fallen upon your mind. Now, at least, you need not fret or worry about what the future may hold in store for you. — Miklos Nyiszli

The fire you rubbed left its brand on the most vulnerable, most vicious and tender point of my body. Now I have to pay for your rasping the red rash too strongly, too soon, as charred wood has to pay for burning. When I remain without your caresses, I lose all control of my nerves, nothing exists any more than the ecstasy of friction, the abiding effect of your sting, of your delicious poison. — Vladimir Nabokov

The first day working with my father was nerve wracking. I was terrified that I would embarrass him or he would embarrass me and it was probably one of the more tortuous days of my life. After the first day was under our belt, it was a great opportunity and I'll always look back on that experience fondly. — Emily Deschanel

I was a sitting duck myself, and Arthur had a map of my nerves. — Tobias Wolff

It gets on my nerves when women take too much time on makeup. You would think after a lifetime they would have the process down to less than 45 minutes! — Christopher

I don't mind crack," I said. "I like crack as much as the next man. But it's not doing a thing for my nerves, and I already have a splitting headache - I say, I don't suppose those heroin dealers carry Anadin or acetaminophen or anything like that, do they?" "I think they just have heroin, Charlie. — Paul Murray

I'm so excited that my stomach is in a jiggle-jaggle of nerves.
There they go again.
Jiggle.
Jaggle.
I'm a mess. — Susane Colasanti

My nerves were telling me this guy was half a keg short of a six-pack. — Jonathan Maberry

Kissing just like she laughs: honest, heartfelt and heartful, she pulls me down as I lift her up , and the hum she gives when my tongue finds hers makes every one of my nerves fire. — Sarah Elizabeth

There are little things that get on my nerves, like people who have reading material in their powder room. When you go in someone's house, and next to the toilet they have a huge basket of magazines, I find that repellent. I recommend against straining while reading. — John Waters

When I was twelve, my sixth-grade English class went on a field trip to see Franco Zeffirelli's film adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. From that moment forward I dreamed that someday I'd meet my own Juliet. I'd marry her and I would love her with the same passion and intensity as Romeo. The fact
that their marriage lasted fewer than three days before they both were dead
didn't seem to affect my fantasy. Even if they had lived, I don't think their
relationship could have survived. Let's face it, being that emotionally aflame, sexually charged, and transcendentally eloquent every single second can really start to grate on a person's nerves. However, if I could find someone to love just a fraction of the way that Montague loved his Capulet, then marrying her would be worth it. — Annabelle Gurwitch

I returned from the West, and brought home in my nostrils and nerves that benumbing lethargy, imprudent hostility, and arrogant superiority with which the West viewed the fate of Eastern Europe. — Sandor Marai

I was so embarrassed I could feel my nerves curling like bacon over a hot fire. — Margaret Halsey

I almost laughed in spite of my nerves. What were the odds that two werewolves had the hots for
me? Like I was some gigantic monster magnet. Was there a sign on my back that said, bite me,
i'm available !? — Bree Despain

Minutes passed, each pulling my hopes down a little lower from the heights to which they had soared, and then, when tension on my nerves and the weight of the heavy rifle were becoming unbearable, I heard a stick snap at the upper end of the thicket. Here was an example of how a tiger can move through the jungle. From the sound she had made I knew her exact position, had kept my eyes fixed on the spot, and yet she had come, seen me, stayed some time watching me, and then gone away without my having seen a leaf or a blade of grass move. — Jim Corbett

I try not to set myself up as different or as a celebrity or special. I have a husband that can get on my nerves. I have kids that test my patience. I've got a cat I can't keep off the sofa. It's real. On a bad day, I'm reading 'Acts of Faith.' — Iyanla Vanzant

Whenever I heard that languid, beautiful melody, those days came back to me. It wasn't what I'd characterize as a happy part of my life, living as I was, a balled-up mass of unfulfilled desires. I was much younger, much hungrier, much more alone. But I was myself, pared down to the essentials. I could feel each single note of music, each line I read, seep down deep inside me. My nerves were sharp as a blade, my eyes shining with a piercing light. And every time I heard that music, I recalled my eyes then, glaring back at me from a mirror. — Haruki Murakami

Beer or three. My nerves were still singing from the morning. — Gillian Flynn

Clay nudged my leg with his surprisingly warm and dry nose, and I glanced down. He stared at me a moment then shifted his gaze to Scott, who was moving his drink for the waitress. Clay returned his glance to me and pulled his lips back in a silent snarl. Without the growl, it looked more like a scary, crazy wolf smile, but I got his meaning. Scott was getting on Clay's nerves, and Clay wouldn't put up with too much more. Peter — Melissa Haag

Yeah, but if I don't start my nervous pacing now, I'll never have it all done in time. — Scott Lynch

The biggest turn-off for me is people who think the world of themselves. Arrogance is not a sexy quality, and it really gets on my nerves. — Pixie Lott

As the starstruck Lafayette later described his first glimpse of Washington, "It was impossible to mistake for a moment his majestic figure and deportment; nor was he less distinguished by the noble affability of his manner." What a sweet memory. Still, it does get on my nerves how easy it is for tall people to make a good first impression. — Sarah Vowell

I know you don't like me very much."
He pulled back, and his smile turned into another chuckle. "Now I wouldnae say that. Donna get me wrong. Ye have a way about ye that drives me completely mad, and your sharp tongue grates on my nerves, but... 'tis apparent that I hold something for ye because I havenae yet run my sword through ye. — Victoria Roberts

I can't listen to music often. It plays on my nerves; it makes me want to say silly, tender things and stroke the heads of people who, living in a dirty hell, can yet create such beauty. — Ilya Ehrenburg

Being with Jody and Mark and Cal was beginning to weigh on my nerves, like a dull wooden block on the strings of a piano. I was afraid that at any moment my control would snap, and I would start babbling about how I couldn't read and couldn't write and how I must be just about the only person who had stayed awake for a solid month without dropping dead of exhaustion. — Sylvia Plath

The only system which is truly secure is one which is switched off and unplugged, locked in a titanium lined safe, buried in a concrete bunker, and is surrounded by nerve gas and very highly paid armed guards. Even then, I wouldn't stake my life on it. — Gene Spafford

I seem to wish to have some importance
In the play of time. If not,
Then sad was my mother's pain, my breath, my bones,
My web of nerves, my wondering brain,
to be shaped and quickened with such anticipation
Only to feed the swamp of space.
What is deep, as love is deep, I'll have
Deeply. What is good, as love is good,
I'll have well. Then if time and space
Have any purpose, I shall belong to it.
If not, if all is a pretty fiction
To distract the cherubim and seraphim
Who so continually do cry, the least
I can do is to fill the curled shell of the world
With human deep-sea sound, and hold it to
The ear of God, until he has appetite
To taste our salt sorrow on his lips.
And so you see it might be better to die.
Though, on the other hand, I admit it might
Be immensely foolish. — Christopher Fry