Nervous As Quotes & Sayings

Well, it's not so much a trembling,' was the answer - 'though they do quiver - as a complete derangement of the nervous system. They can't sign their names to the book; sometimes can't even hold the pen; look about 'em without appearing to know why, or where they are; and sometimes get up and sit down again, twenty times in a minute. This is when they're in the office, where they are taken with the hood on, as they were brought in. When they get outside the gate, they stop, and look first one way and then the other; not knowing which to take. Sometimes they stagger as if they were drunk, and sometimes are forced to lean against the fence, they're so bad: - but they clear off in course of time. — Charles Dickens

I recalled that inward sensation I had experienced: for I could recall it, with all its unspeakable strangeness. I recalled the voice I had heard; again I questioned whence it came, as vainly as before: it seemed in ME
not in the external world. I asked was it a mere nervous impression
a delusion? I could not conceive or believe: it was more like an inspiration. The wondrous shock of feeling had come like the earthquake which shook the foundations of Paul and Silas's prison; it had opened the doors of the soul's cell and loosed its bands
it had wakened it out of its sleep, whence it sprang trembling, listening, aghast; then vibrated thrice a cry on my startled ear, and in my quaking heart and through my spirit, which neither feared nor shook, but exulted as if in joy over the success of one effort it had been privileged to make, independent of the cumbrous body. — Charlotte Bronte

I replaced my lip with my thumb as my nervous chewing object. "I've taken over your workspace. Your hours. Your life."
"You've taken over the very heart of me. Blah, blah. What do you want to do about it?" He tilted his head and drew his ribbon through his fingers. "No, I'll tell you what I want. I wa-"
"I'm sorry!"
"Do you hear me complaining, Crown? Do you actually know me to do anything I don't want to do? — Anne Zoelle

The knocking out of a pipe can be made almost as important as the smoking of it, especially if there are nervous people in the room. A good, smart knock of a pipe against a tin wastebasket and you will have a neurasthenic out of his chair and into the window sash in no time. — Robert Benchley

When you are waiting for a train, don't keep perpetually looking to see if it is coming. The time of its arrival is the business of the conductor, not yours. It will not come any sooner for all your nervous glances and your impatient pacing, and you will save strength if you will keep quiet. After we discover that the people who sit still on a long railroad journey reach that journey's end at precisely the same time as those who "fuss" continually, we have a valuable piece of information which we should not fail to put to practical use. — Anna Brackett

I'd like to thank Sony for their gracious hospitality, and for not repeatedly punching me in the face. If I seem a little nervous, it's because Kevin Butler was introduced to me backstage as the VP of sharpening things. — Gabe Newell

All writers are unaffiliated. The novelist, the poet, will understand the institutions they live within, including their religious traditions, as aggregate historically amended fictions. Appointing themselves as witnesses, they are necessarily independent of all institutions, including the institution of the family-which may be why nothing makes family members more nervous than the discovery that one of them is a writer. — E.L. Doctorow

We are often struck by the force and precision of style to which hard-working men, unpracticed in writing, easily attain when required to make the effort. As if plainness and vigor and sincerity, the ornaments of style, were better learned on the farm and in the workshop than in the schools. The sentences written by such rude hands are nervous and tough, like hardened thongs, the sinews of the deer, or the roots of the pine. — Henry David Thoreau

I didn't move, numb as Al sidled up alongside me and together we eyed Pierce, nervous under our combined scrutiny.

"If you give him a body," he said lightly, "I will kill him."

I looked at Al. His eyes didn't look strange anymore, and it scared me. "I don't know that curse," I said blandly. — Kim Harrison

And then to Leo's surprise, Catherine smiled at him. A sweet, natural, brilliant smile, the first she had ever given him. Leo felt his chest tighten, and he went hot all over, as if some euphoric drug had gone straight to his nervous system.
It felt like ... happiness.
He remembered happiness from a long time ago. He didn't want to feel it. And yet the giddy warmth kept washing over him for no reason whatsoever.
"Thank you," Catherine said, the smile still hovering on her lips. "That is kind of you, my lord. But I will never dance with you."
Which, of course, made it the goal of Leo's life. — Lisa Kleypas

Before the general use of these instruments of precision in time, there was a wider margin for all appointments; a longer period was required and prepared for, especially in travelling--- coaches of the olden period were not expected to start like steamers or trains, on the instant--- men judged of the time by probabilities, by looking at the sun, and needed not, as a rule, to be nervous about the loss of a moment, and had incomparable fewer experiences wherein a delay of a few minutes might destroy the hopes of a lifetime. A nervous man cannot take out his watch and look at it when the time for an appointment or train is near, without affecting his pulse, and the effect on that pulse, if we could but measure and weigh it, would be found to be correlated to a loss to the nervous system. — George Miller Beard

Maybe it has something to do with turning 30. I don't feel as shy or nervous or self-conscious. I have more confidence that I can handle what life brings me. I don't feel scared to have an idea and express it. — Michelle Williams

Butch repositioned the Sox cap, and as his wrist passed by his nose, he got another whiff of himself. "Ah, V ... listen, there is something a little weird going down on me."
"What?"
"I smell like men's cologne."
"Good for you. Females dig that kind of thing."
"Vishous, I smell like Obsession for Men, only I'm not WEARING any, you feel me?"
There was silence on the line. Then, "Humans don't bond."
"Oh, really. You want to tell that to my central nervous system and my sweat glands? They'd appreciate the news flash, I'm sure. — J.R. Ward

Will you be bringing that outspoken maid of yours?'
'Tela? Yes. If I come.'
'She makes me nervous. I can't read her.'
'Nor can I.'
'Well of course not, if I can't.'
'But I trust her.'
Cedas' turn to misstep. He had heels on, to make him as tall as her, and she was in dance slippers. It hurt.
'Not that far,' she reassured him. — Helen Bell

When the globe is covered with a net of railroads and telegraph wires, this net will render services comparable to those of the nervous system in the human body, partly as a means of transport, partly as a means for the propagation of ideas and sensations with the speed of lightning.
Wilhelm Weber, 1835 — Wilhelm Weber

Beautiful." "And scary," Sara said. "It's not scary at all," said Artham with a laugh. He ran to the edge of the cliff and jumped. The others gasped and then fell into nervous laughter as he spread his wings and soared out over the water. — Andrew Peterson

As it shut behind him, Clary reached up and angrily yanked the pins out of her hair. It cascaded in tangles down around her shoulders. "Clary," Luke said gently. He stood up. "What are you doing?" "My hair." She yanked the last pin out, hard. Her eyes were shining, and Simon could tell she was forcibly willing herself not to cry. "I don't want t wear it like this. It looks stupid." "No, it doesn't." Luke took the pins from her and set them down on one of the small white end tables. "Look, weddings make men nervous, okay? It doesn't mean anything. — Cassandra Clare

The nervous systems of other animals were not artificially constructed - as a robot might be artificially constructed - to mimic the pain behavior of humans. A capacity to feel pain obviously enhances a species' prospects of survival ... it is surely unreasonable to suppose that nervous systems that are virtually identical physiologically, have a common origin and a common evolutionary function, and result in similar forms of behavior in similar circumstances should actually operate in an entirely different manner on the level of subjective feelings. — Peter Singer

I've always been full of nervous energy, but I'm not really as happy as I seem. — Loretta Lynn

We who live in this nervous age would be wise to meditate on our lives and our days long and often before the face of God and on the edge of eternity. For we are made for eternity as certainly as we are made for time, and as responsible moral beings we must deal with both. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

The men of those days ... were absolutely not the same people that we are now; it was not the same race as now, in our age, really, it seems we are a different species ... In those days they were men of one idea, but now we are more nervous, more developed, more sensitive; men capable of two or three ideas at once ... Modern men are broader-minded - and I swear that this prevents their being so all-of-a-piece as they were in those days. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I don't know why I'm nervous.
Nor do I understand why I come across as such an ice queen when I'm nervous. I should probably be locked up for murder; because I've been known to kill a conversation stone dead. -Layla — M.A. George

What about his style?" asked Dalgliesh who was beginning to think that his reading had been unnecessarily restricted.
"Turgid but grammatical. And, in these days, when every illiterate debutante thinks she is a novelist, who am I to quarrel with that? Written with Fowler on his left hand and Roget on his right. Stale, flat and, alas, rapidly becoming unprofitable ... "
"What was he like as a person?" asked Dalgliesh.
"Oh, difficult. Very difficult, poor fellow! I thought you knew him? A precise, self-opinionated, nervous little man perpetually fretting about his sales, his publicity or his book jackets. He overvalued his own talent and undervalued everyone else's, which didn't exactly make for popularity."
"A typical writer, in fact?" suggested Dalgliesh mischievously. — P.D. James

Violet is a riot. She's probably worse than most of the guys on the team with the stuff that comes out of her mouth. I'm not sure if she's a nervous person or half-crazy, but she's entertaining to be around. As — Helena Hunting

Deep and regular breathing, also referred to as diaphragmatic breathing, helps to quiet the sympathetic nervous system and allows the parasympathetic nervous system - which governs our sense of hunger and satiety, the relaxation response, and many aspects of healthy organ function - to become more dominant. — Jocelyn K. Glei

"You don't believe in God," I said to Stein. "God is a word banging around in the human nervous system. He exists about as much as Santa Claus." "Santa Claus has had a tremendous influence, exist or not." "For children." "Lots of saints have died for God with a courage that's hardly childish." "That's part of the horror. It's all a fantasy. It's all for nothing." — Peter De Vries

Keegan felt nervous as Rourk walked toward her. What should she say? In an instant, he stood in front of her. She felt his fingers trace the side of her face. She looked up into his grey eyes as he leaned down and kissed her.
Keegan had kissed boys before, but she'd never felt anything like this. — Julia Crane

Except for the risk, the marijuana situation in California is a lot like the booze situation in the 1920's. Pot is everywhere, thousands of people smoke it as often as they take aspirins. But the fact of illegality has bred a cultishness, a pot underground whose partisans are forced to skulk around like spies, convening in dark rooms to pass their criminal pleasure from hand to nervous hand. Many get high from the sheer risk. — Hunter S. Thompson

In April 2002, I saw the Bush family once again during a JJRTC tour similar to the one we had conducted for the Clintons. It was strange to see George W. Bush grown up and president. It took me back to when I first arrived at the White House - a rookie being cued in by old hats. I hoped President Bush could bring back what was so sorely missed and what once existed under his father. Dynasties made me nervous, but I sorely hoped Bush 43 (our forty-third president) would restore the White House to the level of dignity that Papa Bush had promoted. I thought of my own father, the life I led, and what my son might be like. Was I as strong as my father? Had I kept my promise to protect others? Would my children retain their character? I was honored that the new president remembered me and shook my hand, just as his father would have. I asked about Bush 41 (our forty-first president). It was blast. — Gary J. Byrne

Forget about your lists and do what you can because that's all you can do. Phone up the people you miss and tell them you love them. Hug those close to you as hard as you can. Because you are always only a drunk driver's stupidity, a nervous shopkeeper's mistake, a doctor's best attempts and an old age away from forever. — Pleasefindthis

Was that a Raven joke?' Otto asked. 'I can never tell.'

'Oh, you can always spot my jokes, Mr Malpense,' Raven said with a cold smile. 'They're the ones where you die laughing.'

'Point taken,' Otto said with a slightly nervous smile.

'She seems to be . . . dare I say it . . . in a good mood,' Nigel said as Raven walked back towards the cockpit.

'Kinda scary, isn't it,' Shelby said. 'It's a bit like a shark smiling. — Mark Walden

I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be when I started. — Todd Barry

American university presidents are a nervous breed; I have never thought well of them as a class. — John Kenneth Galbraith

This was the first thing I ever said, "All right, I'm gonna try to do the very best I can." Instead of doing this, "All right, I'll work at like three-quarters speed, and then I can always figure that if I just hadn't been a fuckup, the book coulda been really good." You know that defense system? You write the paper the night before, so if it doesn't get a great grade, you know that it could've been better.
And this worked
I worked as hard as I could on this. And in a weird way, you might think that would make me more nervous about whether people would like it. But there was this weird
you know like when you work out really well, there's this kind of tiredness that's real pleasant, and it's sort of placid. — David Lipsky

People get nervous when things move to Friday. Friday has become a landscape where shows just don't do very well as business for the network. — J.H. Wyman

His lips were like a caress as he brushed them across mine; slow and soft.
He lingered, breathing in deeply as if he couldn't breathe without me. Eventually, he moved on to plant a tender kiss on my bottom lip, before pilling back and looking at me. His cocky grin was gone, replaced with something tender and nervous. His thumb ran over my lip once, before he let go, and smiled. -Loc 1471 ARC — Nichole Chase

In this world we like to follow the plot, to think we know what is happening, what is coming next. But these great quantum movies are like spiritual experiences. They start to dismantle the world as we know it, and we find ourselves knowing less and less about what is happening. We do not have to know; there is a Presence behind all this that knows what It is doing. Instead of feeling nervous when things start to dismantle and fall apart, we can accept that we personally do not know, and see it as a good thing. — David Hoffmeister

You don't like my restaurant, Miss Connor?"
"I couldn't say since the waiting list to get in is six months long."
One side of his mouth curved up. "This is true."
His finger lingered, and I tried to swallow the nervous lump in my throat. "I think you can call me by my first name now, seeing as how you're touching my boob. That puts us a little past formality, don't you think? — Jenny Lyn

My brain and body and nervous system, they see a plane ride, a long plane trip, as an opportunity to sleep with nothing coming in, nothing to do. I just go offline the minute I'm on the plane. — Anthony Bourdain

I'm always nervous about going home, just as I am nervous about rereading books that have meant a lot to me. — Jeanette Winterson

I would be very nervous to rap I think if it ever comes to that! I'm going to try to steer clear as long as possible. — Jacob Artist

I should like to raise the question whether the inevitable stunting of the sense of smell as a result of man's turning away from the earth, and the organic repression of the smell-pleasure produced by it, does not largely share in his predisposition to nervous diseases. — Sigmund Freud

I feel quite at home writing short stories but nervous and anxious when writing novels, as if the bad time of consecutive failures might arise again. — Charles Baxter

This was nothing like Tokyo, where the past, all that remained of it, was nurtured with a nervous care. History there had become a quantity, a rare thing, parceled out by government and preserved by law and corporate funding. Here it seemed the very fabric of things, as if the city were a single growth of stone and brick, uncounted strata of message and meaning, age upon age, generated over the centuries to the dictates of some now-all-but-unreadable DNA of commerce and empire. — William Gibson

If it makes you feel any better, you're not as bad as Keith. He was here earlier today and was so nervous, he literally kept looking over his shoulder." Lee paused thoughtfully. "I think it might have been because Adrian kept laughing like a mad scientist at those old black-and-white movies he was watching. — Richelle Mead

We are part of nature, a product of a long evolutionary journey. To some degree, we carry the ancient oceans in our blood. ... Our brains and nervous systems did not suddenly spring into existence without long antecedents in natural history. That which we most prize as integral to our humanity - our extraordinary capacity to think on complex conceptual levels - can be traced back to the nerve network of primitive invertebrates, the ganglia of a mollusk, the spinal cord of a fish, the brain of an amphibian, and the cerebral cortex of a primate. — Murray Bookchin

Pocket Poem
If this comes creased and creased again and soiled
as if I'd opened it a thousand times
to see if what I'd written here was right,
it's all because I looked too long for you
to put in your pocket. Midnight says
the little gifts of loneliness come wrapped
by nervous fingers. What I wanted this
to say was that I want to be so close
that when you find it, it is warm from me. — Ted Kooser

Richard [Griffiths] was by my side during two of the most important moments of my career. In August 2000, before official production had even begun on Potter, we filmed a shot outside the Dursleys', which was my first ever shot as Harry. I was nervous and he made me feel at ease. Seven years later, we embarked on 'Equus' together. It was my first time doing a play but, terrified as I was, his encouragement, tutelage and humor made it a joy. In fact, any room he walked into was made twice as funny and twice as clever just by his presence. — Daniel Radcliffe

Taking awfully long to deliver a package!" Dad said.
"Because you make him nervous!" I motioned for him to go inside.
"That should make him faster," Dad pointed out. "What is it anyway?"
"Uh."
Rose whispered, "Tell him it's the Kama Sutra book you ordered."
I yelled over my shoulder, "It's the Kama Su - " I turned to Rose. "Wait. Isn't that the - "
"Ancient text of sexual pleasure?" he nodded. "Yes. Quite riveting. I'd be happy demonstrate. My skills are legendary."
"Oh, thanks very much."
"I'll take that as a yes."
"No! — A&E Kirk

A recent invention, vocal language may date back only ca. 200,000 years. As human primates, we have not fully come to grips with the prolonged, face-to-face closeness required for speech. Speaking to a stranger, e.g., stresses our autonomic nervous system's sympathetic (i.e., fight-or-flight) division, which a. speeds our heartbeat, b. dilates our pupils, and c. cools and moistens our hands. The limbic brain's hypothalamus instructs the pituitary gland to release hormones into the circulatory system, arousing our blood, sweat, and fears. — David B. Givens

As we were about to cross the road, Davin suddenly grabbed my wrist and held me back a moment; a car peeled out of the driveway and roared past us. "Geez," I gasped, and then, glancing at him curiously, I added, "Thanks." He didn't say anything, but slowly released my wrist. Before he completely withdrew, I took his hand and interlaced my fingers through his. He looked at me, his lips parted in surprise, but then he smiled shyly and gave my hand a squeeze as we kept walking. It gave me a feeling of nervous flutters in the best way. As we walked up to the doors, Jill and Laurel came bursting out the exit. — J.M. Richards

Their [realists'] concern is that utopian aspirations towards a new peaceful world order will simply absolutize conflicts and make them more intractable. National interests are in some degree negotiable; rights, in principle, are not. International organizations such as the United Nations have not been conspicuously successful in bringing peace, and it is likely that the states of the world would become extremely nervous of any move to give the UN the overwhelming power needed to do this. — Kenneth Minogue

In the 1880s, a weedy Easterner named Owen Wister had something like a nervous breakdown. Wyoming, with its wide-open spaces and healthy pursuits, was prescribed as a cure. Wister was immediately smitten by the taciturn cowboys and the rules imposed upon them by the cattle barons. — Clive Sinclair

When I look at my fellow competitors, I say to myself, 'I many be nervous, but you are definetly nervous as well.' — Zhang Jinjing

In regard to leaving, your options are
limited. Dismemberment is one, but I have a hard time imagining you hacking Cerdewellyn into
pieces, even if you had the strength. Bone is ... difficult.
She ran her hands through her hair, feeling nervous. Yeah, that's what's keeping me from
dismembering him, pulling a muscle as I cut through bone. — Caroline Hanson

Prince Albert, or Bertie, as he was known in the family (his full names were Albert Frederick Arthur George), had been raised by nurses and tutors. His mother had played so little part in his upbringing that only after his nurse had suffered a nervous breakdown did she discover that the woman had not had a day off in over three years. — Theo Aronson

With such riches as I have in life, you're always nervous. Being Irish, you're waiting for something to knock it sideways. — Pierce Brosnan

I become a better actor after I step on a stage in front of, like, 500 people when it's just me, a microphone and my guitar. You don't get as nervous walking into a room in front of 3 or 4 people and to do a scene or to walk on a set. You gain confidence. — Bryan Greenberg

Our environmental problems originate in the hubris of imagining ourselves as the central nervous system or the brain of nature. We're not the brain, we are a cancer on nature. — David Foreman

A nervous, undernourished girl who continually looked down the front of her gown as though there was some sort of construction project going on under her clothes. — Philip Roth

I've never really been nervous about any concerts. I enjoy it so much. All that matters is getting the songs played well, trying to get them to sound as close to the record live, which isn't easy, because my music is quite complicated to play. — Adam Ant

The brain, which operates on electromagnetic impulses, is as much an activity of the universe as are the electromagnetic storms in the atmosphere or on a distant star. Therefore science is one form of electromagnetism that spends it time studying another form ... science is god explaining god through a human nervous system ... isn't spirituality the same thing? — Deepak Chopra

When I started singing as a freshman, I didn't sing for anybody - my parents or my friends. By the time I was a senior, the teacher asked me if I wanted to audition for a solo at my graduation. I was really nervous but I got it. — Toby Lightman

Caroline Caldwell gets out of Rosie using the cockpit door rather than the midsection door. The midsection door still has the airlock attached and her hungry specimen jammed into it. She walks twenty paces forward. That's as far as she can go, more or less. She stares at the grey wall for a long time. For whole minutes, probably, although she doesn't really trust her time sense any more. Her wounded mouth throbs in time with her heartbeat, but her nervous system is like a flooded carburettor; the engine doesn't catch, the confused signals don't coalesce into pain. Caldwell — M.R. Carey

It's natural to feel jittery around new people. But sometimes you can get over your jitters if you make a joke. So when the Swedish housekeeper brought her breakfast on a tray, Charity said something cheeky about eating Lady Margaret out of house and home. But the big red-faced woman took no notice at all. So then Charity had to look totally relaxed and unconcerned as she enjoyed her breakfast in bed, which was easy enough after the first bite. The spooky Swedish housekeeper really was a fabulous cook. And Charity believed believed in looking for the best in people. — Elizabeth Jane Howard

Every morning she pulled a delicate cup from its brass hook and filled it, hoping that it would be dark and deep and secret as a forest, and each morning it cooled too fast, had too much milk, stained the cup, made her nervous. — Catherynne M Valente

When you get ill do not get nervous about it and try as much as possible to be hopeful. — Hazrat Ali Ibn Abu-Talib A.S

It is of course no secret to contemporary philosophers and psychologists that man himself is changing in our violent century, under the influence, of course, not only of war and revolution, but also of practically everything else that lays claim to being "modern" and "progressive." We have already cited the most striking forms of Nihilist Vitalism, whose cumulative effect has been to uproot, disintegrate, and "mobilize" the individual, to substitute for his normal stability and rootedness a senseless quest for power and movement, and to replace normal human feeling by a nervous excitability. The work of Nihilist Realism, in practice as in theory, has been parallel and complementary to that of Vitalism: a work of standardization, specialization, simplification, mechanization, dehumanization; its effect has been to "reduce" the individual to the most "Primitive" and basic level, to make him in fact the slave of his environment, the perfect workman in Lenin's worldwide "factory. — Seraphim Rose

I think the world divides neatly into those who are excited by the managed induction of terror and those who are not. I do not find terror exciting. I find it terrifying. One of my basic goals is to subject my nervous system to as little total terror as possible. The cruel paradox of course is that this kind of makeup usually goes hand in hand with a delicate nervous system that's extremely easy to terrify. — David Foster Wallace

[Hank] dumped the saddle on the ground as he set the sawhorse down. "Am I makin' you nervous?"
"Not you so much as your unusual ... supplies."
That damnably alluring grin appeared again. "Ah, hell, darlin'. It ain't nothin'. We're just gonna have ourselves a private rodeo."
"Let me guess. Instead of bulls and broncs, you're gonna be ridin' me. — Lorelei James

With the arrival of electric technology, man has extended, or set outside himself, a live model of the central nervous system itself. To the degree that this is so, it is a development that suggests a desperate suicidal autoamputation, as if the central nervous system could no longer depend on the physical organs to be protective buffers against the slings and arrows of outrageous mechanism. — Marshall McLuhan

Any young boy can nowadays explain human flight - mechanistically: " ... and to climb you shove the throttle all the way forward and pull back just a little on the stick ... " One might as well explain music by saying that the further over to the right you hit the piano the higher it will sound. The makings of a flight are not in the levers, wheels, and pedals but in the nervous system of the pilot: physical sensations, bits of textbook, deep-rooted instincts, burnt-child memories of trouble aloft, hangar talk. — Wolfgang Langewiesche

... as I attempt to release her, she squeezes my hand and offers a shy smile. Something within me shifts. No, I don't get nervous, but Brenna transports me to all sorts of new places. It's not her physical proximity getting to me, it's the fact that she makes me feel. — Katie McGarry

Zaphod marched quickly down the passageway, nervous as hell, but trying to hide it by striding purposefully. — Douglas Adams

Years after the war, after marriages, children, divorces, books, he came to Paris with his wife. He phoned her. It's me. She recognized him at once from the voice. He said, I just wanted to hear your voice. She said, it's me, hello. He was nervous, afraid, as before. His voice suddenly trembled. And with the trembling, suddenly, she heard again the voice of China. He knew she'd begun writing books, he'd heard about it through her mother whom he'd met again in Saigon. And about her younger brother, and he'd been grieved for her. Then he didn't know what to say. And then he told her. Told her that it was as before, that he still loved her, he could never stop loving her, that he'd love her until death. — Marguerite Duras

All you ought to be worrying about now is order (not about how to impose it on chaos, wish is the opposite of art, but about how to bring it out of chaos, which is art itself). And your worrying about this ought not to be a tortured thing - God knows there's enough torture growing wild in everybody's life so that nobody in his right mind needs to cultivate it - but a serene thing. Don't, in other words, jazz yourself up into a nervous wreck. Be quiet, be as sane as you can, and let the work come out of you. If it's to come, it will; if it's not, no amount of self-induced frenzy is going to hep it along.
One final piece of solemn, teacherly advice, and I do mean this: Try to like yourself a little better. — Blake Bailey

The doctrine of evolution implies the passage from the most organised to the least organised, or, in other terms, from the most general to the most special. Roughly, we say that there is a gradual 'adding on' of the more and more special, a continual adding on of new organisations. But this 'adding on' is at the same time a 'keeping down'. The higher nervous arrangements evolved out of the lower keep down those lower, just as a government evolved out of a nation controls as well as directs that nation. — John Hughlings Jackson

The college dreamed on
awake. He felt a nervous excitement that might have been the very throb of its slow heart. It was a stream where he was to throw a stone whose faint ripple would be vanishing almost as it left his hand. As yet he had nothing, he had taken nothing. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Memphis cupped her cheek in his hand and put his mouth on hers. Theta had never been kissed the way Memphis was kissing her now. There had been fumbling boys thrumming with nervous want. There had been theater owners, older "uncles" who pawed at her when she walked past or who wanted to "inspect" her costume to make sure it was decent down to the undergarments, men she granted the occasional kiss in order to stave off something worse. And there was Roy, of course. Beautiful, cruel Roy, whose kisses were declaratory, as if he needed to conquer Theta, to brand her with his mouth. Those men had never really seen Theta. But Memphis's kiss was nothing like theirs. It was passionate, yet tender. A mutual agreement of desire. It was a kiss shared. He was kissing her. He was with her. — Libba Bray

He climbed the stairs with slow deliberation, aware - too aware - of how hard his heart was working. Ka-boom, ka-thud. Ka-boom, ka-thud. Ka-boom, ka-thud. It made him nervous when he could feel his heart beating in his ears and wrists as well as in his chest. Sometimes when that happened he would imagine it not as a squeezing and loosening organ but as a big dial on the left side of his chest with the needle edging ominously into the red zone. He did not like that shit; he did not need that shit. What he needed was a good night's sleep. — Stephen King

I very rarely get nervous as an actor. Very rarely. — Corin Nemec

that in modern life we overuse the "fight, flight, or freeze" response, because we respond to many situations as if they are life-threatening when they are not. As a result, our nervous systems don't have time to recover, because we are activating this response too frequently. — Linda Lantieri

I went as a passenger, having no other inducement than a kind of nervous restlessness which haunted me as a fiend — Edgar Allan Poe

Civil time' as the chronologists call it, has always been based on the rotation of the earth. But our sense of 'private' time is innate. Neurologists think that this sense of time, which is always of the present moment, is conditioned by our nervous systems. As we grow older, our nervous systems decelerate and our sense of personal time dawdles correspondingly ... This is why our lives seem to pass more quicly as we age. — William Boyd

A nurse's aid threw the contents of a patient's water glass out a window, the mass of water hitting the ground dislodging a pebble which rolled across the angled pavement and fell with a click on a stone culvert in the ditch below, startling a squirrel having at some sort of nut right there on the concrete pipe, causing the squirrel to run up the nearest tree, in doing which it disturbed a slender brittle branch and surprised a few nervous morning birds, of of which, preparatory to flight released a black-and-white glob of droppings, which glob fell neatly on the windshield of the tiny car of one Lenore Beadsman, just as she pulled into a parking space. Lenore got out of the car while birds flew away, making sounds. — David Foster Wallace

There's times I've been quite nervous doing session work, such as when I'm asked to play the violin in a 'country and western' style or a 'gypsy' style. I'm not very good at that sort of playing at all. I think it's important as a session musician to have your own voice. — Ric Sanders

His thumb caressed her cheek. His eyes held her, warm and strong. "I, Christian James, take you, Violet Mary, to be my wife. To have, to hold. To love, honor, and cherish. To amuse, to pleasure, to make smile and laugh. To dance with, at every opportunity. To respect always, and tease on occasion. To confide in, whenever need be. To treasure, protect, admire - " She couldn't help but give a nervous laugh. "I don't think these words are in the vows." "They're in my vows," he said gravely. "But in the interests of time, I shall to return to form. All that richer-poorer, sickness-health business goes without saying. And I will gladly forsake all others, so long as we both shall live." His hand slid back into her hair, grasping tight. Raw emotion roughened his voice. "I need a lifetime with you. — Tessa Dare

Fat Charlie wondered what Rosie's mother would usually hear in a church. Probably just cries of "Back! Foul best of Hell!" followed by gasps of "Is it alive?" and a nervous inquiry as to whether anybody had remembered to bring the stakes and hammers. — Neil Gaiman

Look to the nervous system as the key to maximum health. — Galen

She didn't remember feeling nervous, as though someone was stalking her, watching her every move. — Elizabeth Heiter

( ... ) to think that worms and slugs are neurologically simple is another blunder of contemporary, scientifically uninformed philosophy. To take as an example the current "superstar" nematode worm
superstar, because it was the first multicellular organism to have its genome completely sequenced, by 1998, and is widely used as a model organism
the 1 mm long Caenorhabditis elegans, it exhibits a nervous system of 302 neurons and a sensorimotor system with very complex connectivity patterns. — Istvan Aranyosi

I have an almost religious zeal ... not for technology per se, but for the Internet which is for me, the nervous system of mother Earth, which I see as a living creature, linking up. — Dan Millman

Eat well and sleep well. That will feed your nervous system and your psyche. As you get older, you look how you feel. — Francesca Annis

I met Jason Mraz when he had a concert in Korea as a cover contest winner of his songs! He was super nice to even tune the guitar that I also won from the contest for me and we decided to jam to one of his hit songs, " Lucky". I actually don't remember how I was able to sing because I was so nervous at the time but it would also be a dream come true if i can have the honor to share the stage with Jason Mraz one day! — Megan Lee

Every phrase had to be captured on paper or it wasn't real, it slipped away. I'd see the words hanging in midair
Camille, pass the milk
and anxiety coiled up in me as they began to fade, like jet exhaust. Writing them down, though, I had them. No worries that they'd become extinct. I was a lingual conservationist. I was the class freak, a tight, nervous eighth-grader frenziedly copying down phrases ("Mr. Feeney is totally gay," "Jamie Dobson is ugly," "They never have chocolate milk") with a keenness bordering on the religious. — Gillian Flynn

Ruth Varnum was always as nervous as a rat; and, come to think of — Edith Wharton

You mean Heiron,' said Lamen. 'Yes, that's right,' said Charls. 'I can't meet Heiron,' said Lamen. 'It's understandable to be nervous around great men like the Kyros, Lamen. But the Prince wouldn't have you as an assistant if he didn't believe in your abilities.' Lamen passed his hand over his face and had a look of distraught amusement. 'Charls - ' 'Don't worry, Lamen. Here it is not as it is with smaller houses. The Kyros is a great but remote figure. Most likely our dealings will be with the Keeper.' Lamen — C.S. Pacat

How the hell was it that she'd always been so comfortable with him before, but as soon as she'd realized she was in love with him, as soon as she told him that ... she was nervous all the time? — Stacia Kane

No, he mustn't think about it, or indeed about anything, and especially not about heroin, because heroin was the one thing that really worked, the only thing that stopped him scampering around in a hamster's wheel of unanswerable questions. Heroin was the cavalry. Heroin was the missing chair leg, made with such precision that it matched every splinter of the break. Heroin landed purring at the base of his skull, and wrapped itself darkly around his nervous system, like a black cat curling up on its favourite cushion. It was as soft and rich as the throat of a wood pigeon, or the splash of sealing wax onto a page, or a handful of gems slipping from palm to palm. — Edward St. Aubyn

I'd be worried about myself as a human if I hadn't been nervous. — Allison Williams