On Tenterhooks Quotes & Sayings

Religious authority has often, doubtless, been oppressive or unreasonable; just as every legal system (and especially our present one) has been callous and full of a cruel apathy. — G.K. Chesterton

It was exciting in its own self-absorbed way, which is very much the essence of journalism: you truly believe that you are living at the center of the universe and that the world out there is on tenterhooks waiting for the next copy of whatever publication you work at. — Nora Ephron

When people see a legend, they call it a legend. But to be a legend, it's a lot of hard work and patience. You can't play for five or ten years and be a legend. It takes longer than that. — Burning Spear

He knows I have a soft spot for RLS and not just because he was sick or because we have the same initials but because there's something impossibly romantic about him and because before he started writing Treasure Island he first drew a map of an unknown island and because he believed in invisible places and was one of the last writers to know what the word adventure means. I could give you a hundred reasons why RLS is The Man. Look in his The Art of Writing (Book 683, Chatto & Windus, London) where he says that no living people have had the influence on him as strong for good as Hamlet or Rosalind. Or when he says his greatest friend is D'Artagnan from The Three Musketeers (Book 5, Regent Classics, London). RLS said: 'When I suffer in mind, stories are my refuge, I take them like opium.' And when you read Treasure Island you feel you are casting off. That's the thing. You are casting off and leaving behind the ordinary dullness of the world. — Niall Williams

As it happens I've spent a night and a day going through your records. Fascinating stuff." Kempis took a roll of parchment from his cloak and tossed it onto the desk. "You know what really bugs me?" Enli steepled his hands. "I'm on tenterhooks." "Anolamies." "Anomalies?" "Them too. — Marc Turner

One thing I know for certain is that this killer - the Reaper - isn't my white knight. In fact, in this story, I very well suspect he may even be the villain. Because if Blaine ever finds out how I feel, it will certainly be the death of me." - Sasha — A. Zavarelli

Jane Austen is thus a mistress of much deeper emotion than appears upon the surface. She stimulates us to supply what is not there. What she offers is, apparently, a trifle, yet is composed of something that expands in the reader's mind and endows with the most enduring form of life scenes which are outwardly trivial. Always the stress is laid upon character... The turns and twists of the dialogue keep us on the tenterhooks of suspense. Our attention is half upon the present moment, half upon the future...Here, indeed, in this unfinished and in the main inferior story, are all the elements of Jane Austen's greatness. — Virginia Woolf

Awareness of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom. — Socrates

And all of a sudden, she knew. He was going to kiss her. And she wanted him to. More than she could have imagined. Her breath caught as his gaze moved from her eyes to her lips and her whole body tensed as she watched him move closer. His lips were so close to her own that she could feel the light touch of his breath on her skin. Her eyes fluttered closed and she waited on tenterhooks ... all her senses screaming. He's going to kiss you! Only, he didn't. — Sarah MacLean

Page: Don't keep the world on tenterhooks, Tom! Out with it! What's the best thing we can do to ensure a long, happy, healthy future for mankind?
Grey: We can just about restore the balance of the ecology, the biosphere, and so on-in other words we can live within our means instead of on an unrepayable overdraft, as we've been doing for the past half century-if we exterminate the two hundred million most extravagant and wasteful of our species.
Page: Follow that if you can, Mr. President. — John Brunner

Who cries for the children, I do! — Ronnie James Dio

Because you have to keep them on tenterhooks until the end. It's like when you're playing cards: you have to hold a few trump cards for the final part of the game. — Joel Dicker

Tenterhooks are the upholstery of the anxious seat. — Robert E. Sherwood

As a person, I do not like tension in squabbles; I also do not like being on tenterhooks. When I am in love, it's the same. Especially with regards to love, I want very much to protect it. — Joo Won