Stings You Quotes & Sayings

Repentance is like antiseptic. You pour antiseptic onto a wound and, at first, it stings. Then it heals. — Timothy Keller

Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you, for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains.
Aaron Hill — Michael Tappenden

So," Cooper said conversationally. "You got hit with a shotgun blast. What's that like?"...
She turned back to Cooper. "Well...um...it hurt. Like really big bee stings on crack. — Paige Tyler

What horror to awake at night
and in the dimness see the light.
Time is white
mosquitoes bite
I've spent my life on nothing.
The thought that stings. How are you, Nothing,
sitting around with Something's wife.
Buzz and burn
is all I learn
I've spent my life on nothing.
I'm pillowed and padded, pale and puffing
lifting household stuffing
carpets, dishes
benches, fishes
I've spent my life in nothing. — Lorine Niedecker

Did you know that a bee dies after he stings you? And that there's a star called Aldebaran? And that around the tenth of August, any year, you can look up in the sky ant night and see dozens and dozens of shooting stars? — Elizabeth Enright

My lessons from my mother's life are many, but one that stings the most and the one I want to imbue in my heart is to not judge people negatively by how they act, even if they look normal, or have been normal in your past, because you never know what they have to fight inside - something they never chose to have.
The answer to Dustin walking was not willpower. He was not born to walk, and while trying made us better people, more practice wasn't the answer - compassion was. The answer to the feeling that I was losing my mother slowly over the years was not to try to motivate her into a new perspective to magically fix all the problems - it was love. — Darcy Leech

Love not only stings when you lose it, when it's ripped away from you. When it first bites, it can sting just as deeply. — Cat Porter

You cannot go around in grief and panic every day; people will not let you, they will coax you with tea and tell you to move on, bake cakes and paint walls. [ ... ] So what you do is you let them coax you. You bake the cake and paint the wall and smile; you buy a new freezer as if you now had a plan for the future. And secretly
in the early morning
you sew a pocket in your skin. At the hollow of your throat. So that every time you smile, or nod your head at a teacher meeting, or bend over to pick up a fallen spoon, it presses and pricks and stings and you know you've not moved on. You never even planned to. — Andrew Sean Greer

Your love is a terrible thing," November says. "It sits heavy. It stings. It cuts."
She shrugs. "I am Casimira."
"I don't know if I can bear it."
"I would not have chosen you if you could not. You will get stronger. You will grow calluses. — Catherynne M Valente

Most of the time, lies are like having a needle dragged across the skin. If it only grazes the surface, and never leaves a mark, it doesn't faze the person that is being lied to. Other times, it's like a tiny pinprick on your finger. It draws a little blood to the surface, but stings like hell. You might be sore for a while, but you eventually heal and move on. Then, there are the other times, when the cut feels like it came from a machete, slicing so deeply that healing feels impossible.
Max's lie cut me right to the bone. — Loni Flowers

When you're making records, you develop, and so you hear the things you want to move away from. It stings a little, but you know, you gotta own it too. You've got to just go, "You know, I wasn't afraid to learn in front of people, so I give myself a little credit for not being afraid of anything." — Neko Case

The hole in my heart, I can't even begin to describe. It's hard when you open your heart and let someone in and then suddenly they're not in it anymore. It doesn't matter whose fault it is; that empty spot stings so bad that you want to find any kind of relief, or wrap yourself up so tight you can't feel it anymore. I knew it might be there a little while. Or maybe even a long while. For both of us. — Bill Konigsberg

I learned a strange thing... that in a jumble of unintelligible talk, the word "nigger" leaps out with electric clarity. You always hear it and it always stings. And always it casts the person using it into a category of brute ignorance. I thought with some amusement that if these two women only knew what they were revealing about themselves to every Negro on that bus, they would have been outraged. — John Howard Griffin

You coming?"
She hesitated, weighing her options. Risk running back down the flaming aisles to find another exit? Or trust the guy who'd been stalking her all afternoon?
The fire spread to the nearby shelves. The heat was growing unbearable.
"You cut me deep," he said. "You'd actually choose a fiery death over the prospect of my company. I have to admit, that stings a bit. — Jena Leigh

Listen you little turd, don't tell me my business. It's not worth the risk," the Old Man snarled.
"But Green ... Yikes, that stings! — Judy Byington

Do you know the story of the scorpion and the frog? You know, the frog agrees to carry the scorpion across the river, because the scorpion promises not to sting him. And then the scorpion stings the frog, half way across the river. The drowning frog asks him why he did it, when they'll both drown, and the scorpion says that he's a scorpion, and it's his nature to sting. — Gregory David Roberts

Some imagine game development as a path that we follow toward our
destination. I disagree with this image. I think it's more like a dark forest
full of stinging monsters, waiting to inject you with anesthetic poison.
Each time you bump into one, it stings you and the poison makes you
feel warm and content. But under the surface, the stings are stealing your
vigor, dissolving you from the inside. It's only later, as your strength runs
low and the moon clouds over, that you might realize that the pleasant
feeling you've enjoyed all this time wasn't progress. It was death. — Tynan Sylvester

Truth is a painful sword. It cuts deep and stings, but the pain evaporates, the blood dries, and in the place of such savagery is a gleaming absolution and an absolute purity.
It's blinding.
It hurts.
And it is utterly beautiful.
You can't escape it.
Truth demanded a leap,
I took it. — Cat Porter

I want to moan and writhe with you and I want to go up to you and kiss your mouth and pull you to me and say "I love you I love you I love you" while stripping. I want you so bad it stings. — Bret Easton Ellis

Once a hunter met a lion near the hungry critter's lair,
and the way that lion mauled him was decidedly unfair;
but the hunter never whimpered when the surgeons, with their thread,
sewed up forty-seven gashes in his mutilated head;
and he showed the scars in triumph, and they gave him pleasant fame,
and he always blessed the lion that had camped upon his frame.
Once that hunter, absent minded, sat upon a hill of ants,
and about a million bit him, and you should have seen him dance!
And he used up lots of language of a deep magenta tint,
and apostrophized the insects in a style unfit to print.
And it's thus with worldly troubles;
when the big ones come along, we serenely go to meet them, feeling valiant, bold and strong, but the weary little worries with their poisoned stings and smarts, put the lid upon our courage, make us gray, and break our hearts. — Walt Mason

They Lied"

They lied, my friend. They injected
their despair beneath your skin
like a parasitic insect laying eggs
in the body of another species.

Nothing they said is true,
everything about you is honorable. Every pore
that opens and closes - a multitude
along the expanse of your body, the
follicles from which hair sprouts
emerging again and again like spiders' floss
spun from a limitless source.

You wait, huddled. Or carry yourself from
place to place like a burden. As if
you would stash yourself, if you could,
in a bus station locker, or somewhere smaller.
You don't really hope, but
you can't give it up completely.

Some stubborn nugget
is lodged like a bullet in bone.
Though each breath stings with the cold
suck of it, you can know the truth.
Every cell of your body vibrates with its own intelligence.
Every atom is pure. — Ellen Bass

The world is a perfect design. If we can see it. If we can see ourselves and our surroundings. A vast sky held up by pillars. A carpet of earth that gives us all the food and fruit and nourishment we need to live. Animals of every species. Some that we can ride, some that we can eat, some that can help us in our work. They have specific duties.You can't tie a lion to a cart.
They have all been placed here as means for us to see our inner natures. Just because we are dressed like human beings doesn't exempt us from having animal tendencies. The mouse in us that steals a little bit from here and there. The vain peacock that grooms himself all the time. The sly fox. The stubborn donkey that closes his ear to the name of Allah. The scorpion that stings. These are all in us. — Shems Friedlander

You land a second strike, this time just on my left cheek. It feels hard already and stings like hell. I imagine the red mark it has left on my behind as I thank you. As the belt catches my right buttock, I squeeze my eyes shut. I know my tears are close. You strike me again and again. You vary the location and the intensity; somehow never letting me settle into a pattern with the pain. I try to keep count in mind, but after fifteen I am lost in the hot, stinging sensation of my behind. — Felicity Brandon

If you flinch," Four says, slowly, carefully. "Al takes your place. Understand?" I nod. Four's eyes are still on mine when he lifts his hand, pulls his elbow back, and throws the knife. It is just a flash in the air, and then I hear a thud. The knife is buried in the board, half a foot away from the my cheek. I close my eyes. Thank God. "You about done Stiff?" asks Four. I remember Al's wide eyes and his quiet sobs at night and shake my head. "No." "Eyes open, then." He taps the spot between his eyebrows ...
"Come on, Stiff," he says. "Let someone else stand there and take it." Why is he trying to goad me into giving up? Does he want me to fail? "Shut up, Four!"
...
My body goes rigid. This time, when it hits the board, my ear stings, and blood tickles my skin. I touch my ear. He nicked it. And judging by the look he gives me, he did it on purpose. — Veronica Roth

Sometimes you get run down. sometimes life throws dirt in your eyes and it stings and you can't see for a few minutes. even after you get it out your eyes are all red and your vision is shitty ... but eventually, whether through tears or maybe just time ... you start to see even clearer than before. life is not always good. which is why music exists. why i believe God exists. and why there's always a pint of coconut milk ice cream in my freezer. — Hayley Williams

The reaction to death is sometimes as violent as death itself. Shock throws a cautious coolness over your senses, but your stomach still has knots, your skin stings as if the Reaper is glaring at you as well. — Tim Lebbon

I hate you," Kingsley said.
"That hurts, King. That stings."
"Do you know what hurts? Having an erection and being two seconds from coming and your domme stops sucking you off."
"That is a very sad story. Tell me more."
"I've created a monster. — Tiffany Reisz

Who exactly are we?' I asked.
The American Dreamers. There aren't too many of us left.'
I don't know if I qualify.'
You an American? Or want to be an American?'
I am an American.'
You said you were having a dream.'
It's true, I did.'
Was it the one where you're inside the girl and you are pumping her and pumping her and you are so happy but then it turns out it's not a girl, it's really one of those super poisonous box jellyfish, and it stings you and you are screaming and screaming and the sky rains the diarrhea of babies?'
The ... no, I don't think so.'
I get that sometimes. Anyway, see you around. — Sam Lipsyte

You know, failure hurts. Any kind of failure stings. If you live in the sting, you will - undoubtedly - fail. My way of getting past the sting is to say no, I'm just not going to let this get me down. — Sonia Sotomayor

Holly asks, "Do you know what he'll say? You're so calm."

I say, "I'm sick over it."

"You don't look it."

Corr can hold a thousand things in his heart and reveal only one of them on his face, like he did earlier today. He is so very like me.

I let myself, for one brief moment, consider what Malvern may want to meet about. The thought stings inside me, a cold needle.

"Now you do," says Holly. — Maggie Stiefvater

For a wound to heal, you have to clean it out. Again, and again, and again. And this cleaning process stings. The cleaning of a wound hurts. Yes. Healing takes so much work. So much persistence. And so much patience. But every process has an end and an appointed term. Your healing will come ... And like all created things, your worldly pain will die. — Yasmin Mogahed

Tis in ourselves that we are thus
or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which
our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant
nettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up
thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs, or
distract it with many, either to have it sterile
with idleness, or manured with industry, why, the
power and corrigible authority of this lies in our
wills. If the balance of our lives had not one
scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the
blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us
to most preposterous conclusions: but we have
reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal
stings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this that
you call love to be a sect or scion. — William Shakespeare

If you read something bad about yourself and it stings you, I've learned that somewhere that's a judgment I'm holding about myself, so I'll try to work through that. — Gwyneth Paltrow

Got you. You're mine now. For the rest of the day, week, month, year, life. Have you guessed who I am? Sometimes I think you have. Sometimes when you're standing in a crowd I feel those sultry, dark eyes of yours stop on me. Are you too afraid to come up to me and let me know how you feel? I want to moan and writhe with you and I want to go up to you and kiss your mouth and pull you to me and say "I love you I love you I love you" while stripping. I want you so bad it stings. I want to kill the ugly girls that you're always with. Do you really like those boring, naive, coy, calculating girls or is it just for sex? The seeds of love have taken hold, and if we won't burn together, I'll burn alone. — Bret Easton Ellis

One that always stings is "Grow up." And it stings most when you have the suspicion that it is justified, that you have just done somethingchildish and you got nailed for it. It's probably been said to me a few times. — Thomas Haden Church

Out from the servient shoulders of some smooth-tongued Waiter it stares, into the scared dilating pupils of the White Satin Bride with her pledged hand clutching her Bridegroom's sleeve. Up from the gravelly, pick-and-shovel labor of the new-made grave it lifts its weirdly magnetic eyes to the Widow's tears. Down from some petted Princeling's silver-trimmed saddle horse it smiles its electrifying, wistful smile into the Peasant's sodden weariness. Across the slender white rail of an always out-going steamer it stings back into your gray, land-locked consciousness like the tang of a scarlet spray. And the secret of the face, of course, is "Lure"; but to save your soul you could not decide in any specific case whether the lure is the lure of personality, or the lure of physiognomy - a mere accidental, coincidental, haphazard harmony of forehead and cheek-bone and twittering facial muscles. — Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

God, how that stings! I've spent a lifetime loving science fiction and now I find that you must expect nothing of something that's just science fiction. — Isaac Asimov

Clumsily she reached for her bodice, trying to pull the reinforced fabric together.
"Allow me. You're still unsteady." His hands brushed hers aside and he began to hook her corset deftly.
Clearly he was familiar with the intricacies of a woman's undergarments. Amelia didn't doubt there had been more than a few ladies willing to let him practice.
Flustered, she asked, "Was I stung anywhere?"
"No." Mischief flickered in his eyes. "I checked thoroughly. — Lisa Kleypas

And so the game went on in this manner, a throng of children playing keep-away from a bowling ball tossed back and forth between two plump ogres. The air filled with shrieks and cheers and shouts of laughter as daring players thrilled at the sport. That is, all but the few poor souls knocked flat and captured. No laughter rose from behind bars because those in the birdcage knew what was in store. They would soon be lunch for a couple of hungry ogres.
Now you might be thinking - didn't Gavin call it fun when he was swallowed by a wolf earlier? And didn't he tell that raven-haired girl it doesn't hurt to be swallowed whole by a bear? All true, all true. But here's a secret you might not know.
Ogres chew their food.
Luckily, it's only the first bite that stings. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Totally drained he could only manage one but he made it a good one tongue included. "Delicious " he murmured.
"So depraved " Colton muttered.
"Thank you."
"Get off me."
"Mine "
"Stings."
"Boohoo. — Finn Marlowe

Being loved continuously when you believe that you're unlovable is like throwing salt on a wound. It stings like acid. You want it desperately, instinctively knowing deep down you were wired to need it. But the more love given, the more unworthy of love you behave, constantly trying to find ways to make up for the void and pain that reside like a monster inside your heart. — Christa Black

We need to get home and put some ointments and ice on the stings. Vinegar will make it worse, so if you thought Giraffe Boy could pee on you, you're shit out of luck."
She agrees as if prepared for this - the punishment, the medication, the swelling, the pain that hurts her now and the pain that will hurt her later. She seems okay with my disapproval. She's gotten her story, after all, and she's beginning to see how much easier physical pain is to tolerate than emotional pain. I'm unhappy that she's learning this at such a young age.
"The hospital will have ointments and ice," she says. — Kaui Hart Hemmings

For you guys out there who think looking doesn't hurt? You're wrong. Because we women don't think you're just enjoying the view. We think you're comparing, finding us lacking. And that stings. Like a paper cut on your eyeball. — Emma Chase

Talk to the Lord, Julianne. Even if you're mad as hornets. If you keep it all bottled up, you'll only end up with a belly full of bee stings. — Jocelyn Green

Go on bravely in the spirit of humility to make your general confession; - but I entreat you, be not troubled by any sort of fearfulness. The scorpion who stings us is venomous, but when his oil has been distilled, it is the best remedy for his bite; - even so sin is shameful when we commit it, but when reduced to repentance and confession, it becomes salutary and honourable. — Francis De Sales

Are you okay?" Travis asked.
"My hand stings."
He smiled. "That was bad ass, Pidge. I'm impressed. — Jamie McGuire

It doesn't pay to say too much when you are mad enough to choke. For the word that stings the deepest is the word that is never spoke, Let the other fellow wrangle till the storm has blown away, then he'll do a heap of thinking about the things you didn't say. — Jules Renard

Like a needle jabbed into your arm, reality stings you, hurting you more than your skin and flesh. You realize that you're nobody. The electricity's gone out, the darkness is your sudden enemy...you have to protect yourself from the dark. Otherwise the world goes out, along with the artificial lights from the power plant. The night once again disintegrates into atoms, changes from cultivated to wild, fitting itself afterward into its original black hues, its cat skin. — Georgi Tenev

Jason hesitated. "Does it ever stop hurting?" "When you lose someone?" Jace considered this for a moment. "No. Not entirely. There will always be times when you think of him, and it'll always hurt that it didn't work out ... but it won't remain the constant pain you feel now. You might go weeks, maybe even months without thinking of him. Then, on the long sleepless nights when you do, you'll feel a little pang of regret that still stings. That's all. — Jay Bell

You're beautiful," I say, and the honesty of my words stings. "You're beautiful inside and out. I like how you challenge me. I like how I can never figure out what you're going to do or say. I like how we've thrown weird shit in your direction and you take it like a pro."
I cup her face with one hand and caress her soft skin. "I like how you smile and how you laugh. I like how you love and defend your family and I like how you're trying to love mine. I love how you trust. But mostly, Emily, I like how I feel when I'm around you."
Shit. My heart bursts as the words tumble out. "I'm falling for you. — Katie McGarry

But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this that you call love to bea sect or scion ... It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will. — William Shakespeare

A wounded deer leaps highest, I've heard the hunter tell; 'Tis but the ecstasy of death, And then the brake is still. The smitten rock that gushes, The trampled steel that springs,, A cheek is always redder Just where the hectic stings Mirth is mail of anguish, In which its cautious arm Lest anybody spy the blood And, you're hurt exclaim. — Emily Dickinson