Tensely Quotes & Sayings

But if Frederica was aware of my sentiments, and begged Cousin Alverstoke to intervene - !" She shuddered, and clasped her hands tensely together. "You see, he could, Harry! He could arrange for Endymion to be sent abroad, for instance, and then I think I should die. Oh, my dear brother, there's no one to help us but you, and I count on your support! — Georgette Heyer

I have never seen the Lord God. But I have seen Absalom alive in the tree. — William H Gass

Not everyone knows how to be silent or to leave in good time. It happens that even people of good breeding fail to notice that their presence provokes in the weary or preoccupied host a feeling akin to hatred, and that this feeling is tensely concealed and covered up with lies. — Anton Chekhov

Yakov spent the whole day playing his fiddle; when it got completely dark, he took the notebook in which he recorded his losses daily, and out of boredom began adding up the yearly total. It came to over a thousand roubles. This astounded him so much that he flung the abacus to the floor and stamped his feet. Then he picked up the abacus, again clicked away for a long time, and sighed deeply and tensely. His face was purple and wet with sweat. He thought that if he could have put that lost thousand roubles in the bank, he would have earned at least forty roubles a year in interest. And therefore those forty roubles were a loss. In short, wherever you turned, there was nothing but losses everywhere.
- Rothchild's Fiddle — Anton Chekhov

Embrace your fears. Don't let them keep you from moving forward. — Trish Blackwell

To live sanely in Los Angeles ... you have to cultivate the art of staying awake. You must learn to resist (firmly but not tensely) the unceasing hypnotic suggestions of the radio, the billboards, the movies and the newspapers; those demon voices which are forever whispering in your ear what you should desire, what you should fear, what you should wear and eat and drink and enjoy, what you should think and do and be. — Christopher Isherwood

I have one thing in my mind. How can I get people to start taking care of themselves? That's all I think about. — Jack LaLanne

A false path must be tensely and angrily defended by those it has deceived. — Vernon Howard

The bow too tensely strung is easily broken. — Publilius Syrus

This game still had its old ritual fascination for Pug; he was following it tensely, smoking a cigar. Once his nostalgia had been keen for the tough youthful combat on the grass, the slamming of bodies, the tricky well-drilled plays, above all for the rare moments of breaking free and sprinting down the field, dodging one man and another with the stands around him a roaring sea of voices. Nothing in his life had since been quite like it. But long ago that nostalgia had departed; those grooves of memory had worn out. To think that lads much younger than his own two sons were out on that chilly field in Philadelphia now, made Victor Henry feel that he had led a very long, multilayered existence, and was now almost a living mummy. Pug! — Herman Wouk

An hour passes. I sit tensely and watch his every movement in case he may perhaps say something. What if he were to open his mouth and cry out! But he only weeps, his head turned aside. He does not speak of his mother or his brothers and sisters. He says nothing; all that lies behind him; he is entirely alone now with his little life of nineteen years, and cries because it leaves him. — Erich Maria Remarque

Silence often expresses 'more powerfully than speech the verdict and judgment of society. — Benjamin Disraeli

He yearned for a thousand tremulous dreams, for cool and delicate images, transparent tints, fleeting scents, and exquisite music from streams of highly strung, tensely drawn silvery strings - and then silence, the innermost heart of silence, where the waves of air never bore a single stray tone, but where all was rest unto death, steeped in the calm glow of red colors and the languid warmth of fiery fragrance. — Jens Peter Jacobsen

Okay, so when is the mother ship coming to pick us up?" I ask worriedly. "The what?" Reed asks with confusion clouding his eyes. "The mother ship, you know, aliens?" I ask tensely. He gives me an impatient look. "Aliens?" he scoffs. "We're not aliens then?" I reply, not even trying to keep the relief out of my voice. "No!" he says emphatically as he searches my face - probably for other signs of mental illness. Sighing, I ask, "Then what are we, Reed? Because seriously, if some big alien bug cracks me open from the inside and starts wiggling out, I'm going to be really ticked off that you didn't warn me. — Amy A. Bartol

Beauty must mean something. God must know something about how beauty works on the human heart. He must have made us that way. — Frederica Mathewes-Green

To hear two American men congratulating each other on being heterosexual is one of the most chilling experiences - and unique to the United States. You don't hear two Italians sitting around complimenting each other because they actually like to go to bed with women. The American is hysterical about his manhood. — Gore Vidal

Every person is a Hindu who regards and owns this Bharat Bhumi, this land from the Indus to the seas, as his Fatherland as well as Holyland, i.e. the land of the origin of his religion ( ... ) Consequently the so-called aboriginal or hill tribes also are Hindus: because India is their Fatherland as well as their Holyland of whatever form of religion or worship they follow. — Vinayak Damodar Savarkar

I wonder if he still hates me," Silas says as the cat edges out from the couch, pale green eyes like little limes in the dark. As if to answer Silas's question, Screwtape takes a flying leap onto his lap and begins to purr wildly.
"I'm not falling for this anymore," Silas says firmly. He moves to push Screwtape away, but as soon as his palms are within a few inches of Screwtape's wild fur, the cat extends his claws into Silas's thighs. Silas winces and muffles a yelp.
"Need some help?" I say, trying to hide my laughter.
"That'd be great," he answered tensely. I hurry over and scoop Screwtape into my arms. The cat instantly melts against me and rubs his face against mine, the scent of catnip on his breath. I crinkle my nose.
"Thanks." Silas sighs in relief. "I can hunt wolves, but it's a cat I can't handle. Not terrible manly of me, is it?"
"I won't tell anyone," I answer with a soft smile that he returns. — Jackson Pearce

Would you have this?" the Protectorat hissed at his son.
Rafael's gaze narrowed in a slow inspection while she stared defiantly back. Rafael's gaze faltered, shot briefly toward Leon, and then down. His answer was obvious: no.
And in spite of everything, in the face of all the other more important dangers that threatened her, it still stung that someone, some boy, found her ugly. Gaia burned with sudden hate for all of them.
The Protectorat saw. He smiled slightly.
"I thought not," said the Protectorat, releasing her with a flick. He turned back toward his family. "I can't thrust her on any family I know, no matter what her genes are. She's a freak, not a hero. I'd rather make a hero out of Myrna Silk."
Leon had been standing tensely throughout this exchange. "I'd take Gaia," Leon said, his low voice resonating in the space. — Caragh M. O'Brien

Mary was like a caged tiger in the first days of her captivity. Keen, alert, and watchful, she listened tensely each dawn for the key that unlocked her door. After breakfast she watched the road for messengers, pacing back and forth like a confined feline.
But no messengers ever came.
Elizabeth had abandoned her. Or forgotten her.
And the days passed.
Little by little, the Queen of Scots grew accustomed to her captivity. She no longer heard the key in the lock, or the footsteps outside her door. More often than not it was the maid's cheerful voice that woke her, along with the hand on Mary's shoulder and the delicious smells wafting from the breakfast tray. — Margaret George

Suddenly, from the depths of that chair emerged the biggest, meanest-looking dog Jesse had ever seen. One side of his face had suffered some disfiguring injury.
The jaw hung slack and the eye on that side was missing.
Jesse froze in her tracks, terrified that she might be mauled by this monstrosity of a pet. She glanced
around, looking for a stick or a rock or anything to defend herself. There was nothing close but she was afraid to move. Surely if the animal were dangerous, Floyd and Alice Fay would have said something. Jesse waited tensely for a moment before realizing the dog wasn't so much growling or barking as he was howling; loudly, purposefully howling.
"She don't bite," a voice called out. "She's my hillbilly alarm system, letting me know that they's strangers about. — Pamela Morsi

As they moved from exhibit to exhibit like reluctant tourists in some artist's studio, Buffin sat on a stool with his limbs tense. He was like an exhibit himself in the direct odd light filtering through the whitish panes, legs wound tensely round one another, his face like an apologetic bag. — M. John Harrison

Impulsively, I threw up a new wall in my head. And suddenly I saw the situation for what it really was. Dante had me backed up against a tree, all right, but I did not want to make out with him.
"Demonstration finished," Dante said, his smile a bit too cocky for my liking.
"Next time choose a more appropriate demonstration," I said tensely. "Patch would kill you if he found out about this."
His smile didn't fade. "That's a figure of speech that doesn't work very well with Nephilim."
I wasn't in the mood for humor. "I know what you're doing. You're trying to set him off. This petty feud between the two of you will blow up to a whole new level if you mess with me. Patch is the last person you want to antagonize. He doesn't hold grudges, because the people who cross him tend to disappear quickly. And what you just did? That was crossing him. — Becca Fitzpatrick

He treats me like the dirt under my feet. — Samuel Goldwyn

Training is the key to keep people from getting hurt. — Gary Fisher

The secret subversive goal of my work is to show that women, not just lesbians, are regular human beings. — Alison Bechdel

Don't let anyone or anything rob you of the beauty and meaning at the heart of life. It's your birthright gift. — Parker J. Palmer

Might be that marriage was not the death of a woman and the end of her true self, but the unfolding of her. It might be that a woman could be a wife without having to cut the pride and the spirit out of herself. A woman might blossom into being a wife, not be trimmed down to fit. — Philippa Gregory

Then others for breath of words respect,
Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect. — William Shakespeare