Rictus Quotes & Sayings

His smile was the rictus of a beast. — Salman Rushdie

Between the lights and the ever-present blue ghosts of the Columbian Guard, the fair achieved another milestone: For the first time Chicagoans could stroll at night in perfect safety. This alone began to draw an increased number of visitors, especially young couples locked in the rictus of Victorian courtship and needful of quiet dark places. — Erik Larson

There is a moon shaped rictus in the streetlamp's globe where a stone has gone and from this aperture there drifts down through the constant helix of aspiring insects a faint and steady rain of the same forms burnt and lifeless. — Cormac McCarthy

A moving shadow means more to us than a body at rest. We are no longer taken in by a fixed grin. We know that only death has a rictus. — Joseph Roth

Up! Up into man-thing nest! Up to their streets and their cellars! Up to their granaries and their stockyards! Up to their homes and their temples! All-all belongs to Rictus! All-all belongs to Vecteek! — C.L. Werner

It's tough being a dictator, but I've always thought it must be tougher being a hanger-on to a dictator. The late nights spent listening to his crazed ranting, the weary rictus grin from smiling at bad jokes, the draining knowledge that one misjudged comment could land you on the chopping block. — John Niven

Ethan stood there, his face blue and wrinkled, his lips pulled into a rictus grin. In one hand, he clutched a butcher knife. Blood splattered his hands and face. 'Mommy slipped,' he whispered, and plunged the knife into my leg — Julie Kagawa

Most Christians salute the sovereignty of God but believe in the sovereignty of man. — R.C. Sproul

The grin on his face wasn't the affable, friendly sort; instead, it was the sociopathic rictus of the irretrievably, bug-fuckeringly insane — Kevin Hearne

I've spent the better part of my career in politics and public policy working on and fighting for education reforms. — Mark McKinnon

We're dealing here," said Vimes, "With a twisted mind."
"Oh, no! You think so?"
"Yes."
"But ... no ... you can't be right. Because Nobby was with us all the time."
"Not Nobby," said Vimes testily. "Whatever he might do to a dragon, I doubt if he'd make it explode. There's stranger people in this world than Corporal Nobbs, my lad."
Carrot's expression slid into a rictus of intrigued horror.
"Gosh," he said. — Terry Pratchett

The boy knelt, shoulders bowed, on the sand in the grey of morning, moaning softly, fearfully. Glowing tendrils of energy streamed across the agitated sky, converging high above him in a vortex of brightness. He flung his hands heavenward and a sheet of blinding brilliance descended from the vortex. It enveloped him and from its core a pulsing sphere of light fell, entering his body and almost tearing him apart. He went rigid, screaming to shatter the heavens, his dark eyes bulging from their sockets, his mouth wide in a rictus of agony. Sirius exploded in a burst of silver-blue radiance, as his howl rose to a shriek beyond hearing and endurance. Out of the light and the sound and the anguish, two names imprinted themselves on his mind. One of them, he knew, was his own.
The other floated for an instant above his consciousness like a fugitive white dove in the morning. — J. Valor

Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes and troubles, and yet when King Laugh come he make them all dance to the tune he play. — Bram Stoker

But in my wretched efforts to stay alive at almost any cost I could still hurt and be hurt in my turn, and as long as death's black barrel organ was playing it seemed I would have to dance to the cheerless, doom-filled tune that was turning inexorably on the drum, like some liveried monkey with a terrified rictus on its face and a tin cup in its hand. That didn't make me unusual; just German. — Philip Kerr

The Persian rug served as their country. The brawnier toilet paper people opted to live in its jade green jungles while the more sensitive and reflective toilet paper people preferred hiding in its opal cream sky. They were so light. No one would ever be able to tell that they had lived there. — Cherry Tigris

Only teasing', Death seemed to be saying over his shoulder with a rictus smile, with good humor and an oddly paternal affection. 'Take care of yourself, okay? We'll play again. — Barry Eisler

We live on a hunk of rock and metal that circles a humdrum star that is one of 400 billion other stars that make up the Milky Way Galaxy which is one of billions of other galaxies which make up a universe which may be one of a very large number, perhaps an infinite number, of other universes. That is a perspective on human life and our culture that is well worth pondering. — Carl Sagan

About the Wi-Fi. Are you blind? Can you read, at all?" He points to a notice in the corner of the coffee shop, which is all about the Starbucks Wi-Fi code. Then he focuses on my dark glasses. "Are you blind? Or just subnormal?" "I'm not blind," I say, my voice trembling. "I was just asking. Sorry to bother you." "Fucking moron," he mutters as he starts tapping again. Tears are welling in my eyes, and as I back away, my legs are wobbly. But my chin is high. I'm determined I'm not going to dissolve. As I get back to the table, I force a kind of rictus grin onto my face. "I did it! — Sophie Kinsella

Of whatever class or nation, however, all successful participants in the repetitive and unrelenting stress of aerial fighting came eventually to display its characteristic physiognomy: skeletal hands, sharpened noses, tight-drawn cheek bones, the bared teeth of a rictus smile and the fixed, narrowed gaze of men in a state of controlled fear. — John Keegan