Spasmodically Quotes & Sayings

Unlinked by a pacemaker, the cells beat irregularly, spasmodically, each tapping out a rhythm approximate to the 350 beats a minute normal to a chick. But as the observer watches, over a period of hours an astonishing phenomenon occurs. Instead of five independent heart cells contracting at their own pace, first two, then three, and then all the cells pulse in unison. There are no longer five beats, but one. How is this sense of rhythm communicated in the saline, and why? — Paul W. Brand

It's unlikely that the organized religions will get more sectarian ... or is it? I am not at all sure. — Mary Douglas

All laughter is a muscular rigidity spasmodically relieved by involuntary twitching. — Robert Benchley

Wear sexy panties tonight," he said against my mouth.

"I don't have any other options except commando."

Lee's arm tightened spasmodically right before he murmured, "Christ. — Kristen Ashley

When may did so, he found every cup and saucer, plate, vase, and bowl standing arranged across the floor like pieces in a scaled-up chess game.
"The Whitstable family tree," Bryant explained, entering and setting down his tea tray. "It's the only way I could get it sorted out in my head. I had to see them properly laid out, who was descended from whom." He pointed to a milk jug. "Daisy Whitstable is bottom left-hand corner, by the fireguard. Next to her is the egg cup, brother Tarquin ... Now, pass me Marion and Alfred Whitstable over there."
"What's their significance?"
"We need them to drink out of. — Christopher Fowler

Indeed a good quotation hardly ever comes amiss. It is a pleasing break in the thread of a speech or writing, allowing the speaker or writer to retire for an instant while another and greater makes himself heard. And this calling-up of the deathless dead implies also a community of mind with them, which the reader will not grudge the author lest he should seem to deny it to himself. — William Francis Henry King

The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one. — William James

Into the hands of common sense I confided the matter. Common sense, however, was as chilled and bewildered as all my other faculties, and it was only under the spur of an inexorable necessity that she spasmodically executed her trust. — Charlotte Bronte

The existence of common features in different forms of life indicates some relationship between the different organisms, and according to the concept of evolution, these relations stem from the circumstance that the higher organisms, in the course of millions of years, have gradually evolved from simpler ones. — Hans Adolf Krebs

Normal children of both sexes and all cultures will follow a more or less standard and universal developmental pattern and timetable, and reach approximately the same level of development at maturity. While a particular culture's need and expectations and teaching will shape the course of development and affect adult capabilities to some degree, normal individuals, whatever their native culture, if transplanted and taught, could learn to meet the normal demands of their adapted cultures. — Stella Chess

Proportion is that agreeable harmony between the several parts of a building, which is the result of a just and regular agreement of them with each other; the height to the width, this to the length, and each of these to the whole. — Vitruvius

Sometimes when we are beating ourselves up, we need to stop and say to that harassing voice inside, "Man, I'm doing the very best I can right now." — Brene Brown

They met middle-age together-a time when women are necessary to one another-and all the petty but grievous insults of greying hair, crowsfeet, and the loathed encumbrances of unwanted flesh, seemed less sordid when faced and fought (though fought spasmodically and with weak wills) gaily together. — Elizabeth Taylor

Suddenly the whole body writhed spasmodically and rolled over. His face ... He has no face ... The man's nose had completely burned away leaving only two holes in his head. The mouth had melted together, the lips sealed with the exception of a small opening in one corner. One eye had melted down over what had been his cheek, but the other ... the other was wide open. Where the rest of the face should have been there were only pieces of cartilage and bone sticking out between irregular shreds of flesh and slivers of fabric. The naked, glistening muscles contracted and relaxed, contorting as if the head had been replaced by a mass of freshly killed and butchered eels ... The skin over the collarbone on one side was gone and a piece of the bone stuck out, glowing white like a piece of chalk in a meat stew. — John Ajvide Lindqvist

The neurogenetic meaning of the cultural revolution is now clear. Neurochemicals are designed to be pursuitist, not escapist. They open the nervous system to the possibilities of future post-terrestrial evolution. — Timothy Leary

Everyone in the class turned. On one of the tables, a frog had started to smoke, and the limbs were twitching spasmodically. Dr. Herbert rushed over, clapping his hands. "It's alive!" he cried. — Daryl Gregory

Personal motivations to live are known to sometimes influence survival. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

We are citizens of heaven.
We must conduct ourselves, worthy of our calling, faith in Christ. — Lailah Gifty Akita

And yet amid that tense godless calm the high bare boughs of all the trees in the yard were moving. They were twitching morbidly and spasmodically, clawing in convulsive and epileptic madness at the moonlit clouds; scratching impotently in the noxious air as if jerked by some allied and bodiless line of linkage with subterrene horrors writhing and struggling below the black roots. — H.P. Lovecraft

I mean a man whose hopes and aims may sometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, I dare say) above the ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough after all if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good service leading to no other. All generous spirits are ambitious, I suppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road, instead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind I care for. — Charles Dickens

It's always interesting researching characters and as I get older and the more that I work in this business, I do more and more of it because I realize how important it is. — Max Thieriot