Tenterhooks Quotes & Sayings

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

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

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

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

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