Thrashing Quotes & Sayings

The ferry master moved away to lower the bow ramp onto the sand. He'd taken three paces when he heard a loud splash behind him. He swung around to see Ergon's head bobbing to the surface next to the stern of the punt, his arms thrashing widely as the shock of the cold sea water revived him.
Crowley grinned at the ferry master. 'Thought a little swim might do him good' he said.
Ergon was already floundering his way towards the beach. He was in waist-deep water now and in no danger of growing. Sodden and spluttering, he staggered up the sand and stood, glaring at Crowley and dripping water.
'I'll kill you for that!' he snarled
Crowley raised an eyebrow. 'So you keep saying'
He snapped his fingers at the two horses and they followed him down the ramp onto the land. The ferry master watched with interest. He'd never seen a Ranger tossed overboard before- particularly by another Ranger. — John Flanagan

And then the thrashing of the wind against the house and then what might have been a volley of pistol shots, and then a sound like something slowly spilling from a great height. Jacob pulled his knees up into his arms and whimpered. Annie, dramatically, put her arms around her father's neck. "There went the tree," he said. — Alice McDermott

Our huffing and puffing to impress God, our scrambling for brownie points, our thrashing about trying to fix ourselves while hiding our pettiness and wallowing in guilt are nauseating to God and are a flat out denial of the gospel of grace. — Brennan Manning

Before she could scream. Kestrel clutched at the blood pouring from her neck and staggered back, pummeled by the wind. Blister took another step and stabbed Kestrel in the heart with her poisonous tail. The SkyWing collapsed to the rocks, thrashing in agony. Her mouth opened to scream curses or breathe fire at her murderers, but only dark red blood bubbled out. — Tui T. Sutherland

He wore his hair in a way that suggested he'd just rolled out of bed after thrashing all night. In an earlier decade, your friends would have told you,"Man, your hair's a mess. Go fix it."
Now they say,"Whoa, dude, cool do. — Marshall Thornton

But what really won me over was his butt. What finally made it impossible for me not to like the man was how right out there on the Adventist basepaths, right in front of eighty or ninety of the kind of pious adult spectators who spent their every Sabbath if not their entire lives trying to forget the existence of things like butts, Beal's buns were trying to light a fire by friction inside his jeans; they were gyrating like a washing machine with its load off balance; they were thrashing against his pants like two big halibut against the bottom of a boat. And the wonderful thing, the amazing thing, was how once his older audience got over the shock of it, they began to look amused at, then fascinated by, and finally downright grateful toward his writhing reminder that yes, buns did exist, and yes, every one of us owned not one but two of the things, and yes, like the God who created them in His Image, they did indeed move in mysterious ways. — David James Duncan

Undaunted, Will confronted Rose on a street corner and administered what the newspapers termed a "terrible beating." He reportedly "lifted him up and dashed him to the pavement," executing continuous blows and hammering the man's head against the ground until Rose promised to leave town that very night. The story of the thrashing made news across the country. "The feeling among all classes of citizens," observed the Bismarck Tribune, "is that Mr. Taft did a public service and ought to have a medal. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

Almost the first thing you see after entering the Houdini exhibition at the Jewish Museum is a large-screen film of Harry Houdini hanging by his ankles upside-down from a tall building, high over a sea of men in fedoras, and thrashing his way out of a straitjacket. — Robert Gottlieb

Humph. Looking around for the sword, are you? Well, it's a better idea than thrashing around at random.'
'The Prince,' said Master Horace repressively, 'will inform us of his intentions when he wishes to do so. We are here to serve, not to quest
'
'Yes, it's the sword,' Edoran told her. — Hilari Bell

When Taft gives way to his (anger), one reporter observed, it is to inflict a merciless thrashing upon its victim, for whom thereafter he has no use whatsoever. With Roosevelt is a case of powder and spark; there is a vivid flash and a deafening roar, but when the smoke is blown away, it is the end. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

People don't know what they are striving for. They waste themselves in senseless thrashing around for the sake of a handful of goods and die without realizing their spiritual wealth. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I love you," she murmured.
The words ... it was as though an entire sun had exploded in his chest.
He'd been ridiculous. His thrashing thoughts, his grand confusion and torment and helplessness
it was only love, had always been love, he supposed. It was no precipice he stood at, or rather precipices have little meaning when one finally acknowledges that one has wings. Connor stepped off.
"I love you, too."
Such grave, inadequate words for what it was he felt. — Julie Anne Long

The French need a thrashing. If the Prussians win, the centralisation of the state power will be useful for the centralisation of the German working class. German predominance would also transfer the centre of gravity of the workers' movement in Western Europe from France to Germany, and one has only to compare the movement in the two countries from 1866 till now to see that the German working class is superior to the French both theoretically and organisationally. Their predominance over the French on the world stage would also mean the predominance of our theory over Proudhon's, etc. — Karl Marx

The United States started to go downhill when it changed from a round designed to kill the enemies of our glorious republic to one designed to piss them off," Faith said, shooting a zombie five times, then walking up and shooting the still-thrashing infected in the head. "Seriously, just die, okay? — John Ringo

An awful, heartbroken cackling from the reeds behind. A vortex formed. A hole in the water. Into this, tufts of feathers disappeared. Turning, Henry saw the fish inhale two ducklings. The others broke into the main river and were swept downstream, their mother with them. The thrashing fish threw water like a canoe blade. Gills flared as it wolfed them down. Henry looked about, frantic, but no one else was there to see, no one to assure him it was true. — Matthew Neill Null

Winds shake the leaves and for a moment I smell smoke. I concentrate on the scent, but it vanishes into the aroma of rain and tree bark, the way one life can collapse into another and different people can stir within the same body, like bats thrashing inside a secret hollow. — Laura Van Den Berg

Sometimes the crime follows the punishment, which only serves to prove the foresight of the Great God."
"That's what my grandmother used to say," said Brutha automatically.
"Indeed? I would like to know more about this formidable lady."
"She used to give me a thrashing every morning because I would certainly do something to deserve it during the day," said Brutha.
"A most complete understanding of the nature of mankind, — Terry Pratchett

Thrashing about on stage is my exercise for the day! — Imelda May

Jaenelle tried to smile. "They won't find their way through the maze. Not this maze, anyway." Then she looked sadly at Daemon's gaunt, bruised body and gently brushed the long, dirty, tangled black hair off his forehead. "Ah, Daemon. I had gotten used to thinking of my body as a weapon that was used against me. I'd forgotten that it's also a gift. If it's not too late, I'll do better. I promise." Jaenelle placed her transparent hands on either side of Daemon's head. She closed her eyes. The Black Jewel glowed. Listening to the Hayllian guards thrashing around somewhere in the maze, Surreal sank to the ground and settled down to wait. *Daemon.* The island slowly sank into the sea of blood. He curled up in the center of the pulpy ground while the word sharks circled, waiting for him. *Daemon. — Anne Bishop

I feel as though whenever I create something, my Mr. Hyde wakes up in the middle of the night and starts thrashing it. I sometimes love it the next morning, but other times it is an abomination. — Criss Jami

the farmer's almanac, pieces of stick candy, and Grandma's snuff box. I saw him reach into the fireplace once with his bare hand, remove a live coal, and light his pipe. He must have had leather for skin. One day, I looked out to the field to the east of the house and saw a cloud of dust rising from a thrashing machine. Men were gathered around with wagons, pitch — Lanier Davis

When someone goes on a long journey, those who stay behind wish them the energy of a wildfire. The power to take things that try to hinder you --- wind, thrashing enemies --- and use them to make you stronger. The power to burn so brightly that all who look will wonder how darkness ever existed in the same world as you." She puts a hand on my shoulder, but her resolve breaks, her eyes glassy. "Scorch this world, Winter queen. — Sara Raasch

Grief will go
it always does
but not before it forces us to do these absurd things, and hurt ourselves, and bring on suffering, because grief, that parasite, above all else does not want to die, and only in these terrible moments it creates can it feel itself thrashing back to life. — Andrew Sean Greer

No.
Chaol thought he had not heard it, the word that cleaved through the air just before the guard's sword did.
One blow from that mighty sword.
That was all it took to sever Sorscha's head.
The scream that erupted out of Dorian was the worst sound that Chaol had ever heard.
Worse even than the wet, heavy thud of her head hitting the red marble.
Aedion began roaring - roaring and cursing at the king, thrashing against his chains, but the guards hauled him away, and Chaol was too stunned to do anything other than watch the rest of Sorscha's body topple to the ground. And then Dorian, still screaming, was scrambling through the blood toward it - toward her head, as if he could put it back.
As if he could piece her together. — Sarah J. Maas

You mean to tell me,' I said, 'that every time I pleasure a young lady, I shoot into her two thousand million spermatozoa?' 'Absolutely.' 'All squiggling and squirming and thrashing about?' 'Of course.' 'No wonder it gives her a charge,' I said. A. — Roald Dahl

This was a mouth that had suffered many slings and arrows along with the occasional thrashing and several hundredweight of tobacco and Cadbury's milk chocolate. This was a mouth through which a great deal of life had passed at, it would appear, an uncompromising speed. — Bill Buford

If you really understand something, you can say it in the fewest words, instead of thrashing about. — Paul Graham

My once-keen analytical mind has become so dulled by endless hours of baking in the hot sun, thrashing about in tight chimneys, pulling at impossibly heavy loads, freezing my ass off ... so that now my mental state is comparable to that of a Peruvian Indian, well stoked on coca leaves ... — Warren G. Harding

He never pays attention, he always knows the answer, and he can never tell you how he knows. We can't keep thrashing him. He is a bad example to the other pupils. There's no educating a smart boy. — Terry Pratchett

I would use my tongue. First through those pretty knickers, and then when I had you soaking and thrashing round, I'd rip them off and spread your thighs wide and hold you open while I made a banquet of you. — Ruthie Knox

I wish you'd go a a little easier on him," she said.
"He came in here thrashing a sword around. Was I supposed to stand idly by and do nothing?" he huffed.
"Well, you weren't supposed to try and rearrange his face with your fist."
"I wasn't," Nicholas protested. "He lunged up into it several times. I was only in the way."
"You're ridiculous," she informed him. — Alexandra Bracken

I invited him over and he stayed forever. I feed him all my bread, the old peppers turned to mush & fluorescent mold, the chicken thighs unthawed & boneless. He ask for more so I give him my left leg. He ask for more & I give him my lungs & lips. More still, and there goes my bladder. He eats it all, all of me, eats the whole damn house, & I live forever in him or maybe it's the other way around. I swallowed. I swallowed him whole & didn't even notice him thrashing inside me. — Danez Smith

Our nights are different. She falls asleep like someone yielding to the gentle tug of a warm tide, and floats with confidence till morning. I fall asleep more grudgingly, thrashing at the waves, either reluctant to let a good day depart or still bitching about a bad one. Different currents run through our spells of unconsciousness. — Julian Barnes

She extends a fingertip. After a moment's hesitation, Manfred extends a fingertip of his own. They touch, exchanging vCards and instant-messaging handles. She stands and stalks from the breakfast room, and Manfred's breath catches at a flash of ankle through the slit in her skirt, which is long enough to comply with workplace sexual harassment codes back home. Her presence conjures up memories of her tethered passion, the red afterglow of a sound thrashing. She's trying to drag him into her orbit again, he thinks dizzily. She knows she can have this effect on him any time she wants: She's got the private keys to his hypothalamus, and sod the metacortex. Three billion years of reproductive determinism have given her twenty-first-century ideology teeth: If she's finally decided to conscript his gametes into the war against impending population crash, he'll find it hard to fight back. The only question: Is it business or pleasure? And does it make any difference, anyway? — Charles Stross

I don't ever want to make the mistake of needing him as much as or more than he needs me. But there's no denying that sometimes, when we sleep together in the dark cavern of the bottom bunk, his big brother thrashing around on top, the white noise machine grinding out its fake rain, the green digital clock announcing every hour, Iggy's small body holds mine. — Maggie Nelson

Write and keep writing, not because people will like it, but because someone may get a kick out of thrashing your book. — Magus Tor

Neverfell was tired, so very tired. Waiting in her room to learn of her fate, her mind kept dropping away into sleep for numb instants no longer than a blink. Next moment her thoughts would jar her awake again, thrashing and crashing and clattering like a monstrous waterwheel, turning and turning without end or purpose. She jerked and stared and barely knew where she was, dream pieces floating like iceberg shards across her half-waking mind. — Frances Hardinge

The giant raised his fist, and a voice cut through the dream.
"Leo!" Jason was shaking his shoulder. "Hey, man, why are you hugging Nike?"
Leo's eyes fluttered open. His arms were wrapped around the human-sized statue in Athena's hand. He must have been thrashing in his sleep. He clung to the victory goddess like he used to cling to his pillow when he had nightmares as a kid. (Man, that had been so embarrassing in the foster homes.)
He disentangled himself and sat up, rubbing his face.
"Nothing," he muttered. "we were just cuddling. Um, what's going on? — Rick Riordan

You know those exercise pools where the water comes at you strong and you have to swim against it to build up your strength? That's what the social pressure of staying young feels like. You can either exhaust yourself thrashing against it or turn around and let the pressure of it massage out your kinks. — Amy Poehler

Wolves exhibiting strange behaviour
caught in traps and thrashing about, injured by other creatures or by bullets, pups suffering from epilepsy
are attacked and killed by their pack members. But here everyone is human and must try to understand each other's mystery. Each other's pain. — Nadeem Aslam

Time isn't an orderly stream. Time isn't a placid lake recording each of our ripples. Time is viscous. Time is a massive flow. It is a self-healing substance, which is to say, almost everything will be lost. We're too slight, to inconsequntial, despite all of our thrashing and swimming and waving our arms about. Time is an ocean of inertia, drowning out the small vibrations, absorbing the slosh and churn, the foam and wash, and we're up here, flapping and slapping and just generally spazzing out, and sure, there's a little splashing on the surface, but that doesn't even register in the depths, in the powerful undercurrents miles below us, taking us wherever they are taking us. — Charles Yu

Disco satisfied social as well as musical needs. Disco people got to dress up all the time and go to places ... where everybody sort of 'looked good' - and later, after an evening of chemical alteration, everybody looked even better, and the next thing they knew, they were getting The Blox Job. Punk, in the late seventies, purported to be a rebellion against this sort of silly behavior. Maniac bands started thrashing away in dingy little places with no decor, developing their own silly behavior ... New wave evolved from punk, basically, by sterilizing its own safety pin. — Frank Zappa

Mom stood over the still thrashing ghost with the bat and brought it down on its head again and again. "Leave him alone, leave my family alone!" she screamed. "We are not going to die in a stupid gas station in the middle of nowhere! — C.A. Marshall

The effort flops like a just-caught fish inside her. A brief burst of possibility as the name is typed onto the screen, as she clicks to activate the search. Hope thrashing in the process of turning cold. — Jhumpa Lahiri

At this point two elderly security guards in parkas, the guys who normally work the front desk at the plant, asked John to step behind the tape. John claims that here he told the guards that he could not speak English and when that failed to persuade them, he fa ... ked a violent seizure. I am unclear as to the purpose of this part of his plan. John flung himself down and began rolling around in the snow, thrashing his limbs about and screaming "EL SEIZURE!!! NO ES BUENO!!!" in a Mexican accent. — David Wong

You filthy hypocrite! What about you and Lavender, thrashing around like a pair of eels all over the place?" demanded Ginny. — J.K. Rowling

Every morning when I'm thrashing around on the floor doing my solid hour of heavy exercises I'm not really doing that for anyone but myself. It makes me feel good. — Helen Gurley Brown

I scan the dark room, through the thrashing bodies of disillusioned Parisian youth, getting their anger out with a healthy dose of French punk rock. — Stephanie Perkins

I have seen Tasmanian devils battle over a carcass. I have seen lionesses crowding a kill, dingoes on the trail of a feral piglet, and adult croc thrashing its prey to pieces. But never, in all the animal world, have I witnessed anything to match the casual cruelty of the human being. — Terri Irwin

In all the thrashing about that results from our dwindling gold reserves, it's about time that this country and other countries get some perspective on the situation. The day this country is out of the stuff, that day gold becomes what it's worth as a metal and no longer will have much significance as a monetary measurement. It isn't the gold we have that makes this nation rich. It's what we make, our knowhow, our productivity. So long as this country produces more and better, the world will continue to want what we make. — Malcolm Forbes

Shane knew this wasn't love, at least not any kind of love that extended beyond the desires of two selfish bodies. No future, only fleeting pleasure. This was addiction, plain and simple ... irresistible need coupled with painful consequences and regret, moments of pure happiness like islands, spread out in a thrashing sea of insecurity and interminable waiting. — Cara McKenna

My father is beating Melanie, then, because a large dog begins to bark in warning, he beats this dog who competely submits to his thrashing. In the same way my mother and I also allowed ourselves to be thrashed. I know that the dog is my mother, absolute submission. I ask my father why he's beating Melanie as well, and he says he won't stand for such questions, she doesn't mean anything to him, it's shameless of me to even ask about her, he keeps repeating that Melanie doesn't mean anything to him, he only needs her for a few more weeks, for a little refreshment, I have to understand that. — Ingeborg Bachmann

In the lassitude after love Odysseus asks Circe, "What is the way to the land of the dead?"

Circe answers, "You are muffled in folds of heavy fabric. You close your eyes against the rough cloth and though you struggle to free yourself you can barely move. With much thrashing and writhing, you manage to throw off another layer, but find that not only is there another one beyond it, but that the weight bearing you down has scarcely decreased. With dauntless spirit you continue to struggle. By infinitesimal degrees, the load becomes lighter and your confinement less. At last, you push away a piece of coarse, heavy cloth and, relieved, feel that it was the last one. As it falls away, you realize you have been fighting through years. You open your eyes. — Zachary Mason

No need to witness what great and terrible beasts might roam beyond the city's walls. They were all right here, a construct of hot cries and thrashing limbs that raged unchecked. It was everybody's waking nightmare. Invoked in this heated bedlam the Blessed had sculpted themselves anew in humanity's very flesh. — B.P. Gregory

The best way to quiet a country is a good thrashing, followed by great kindness afterwards. Even the wildest chaps are thus tamed. — Charles James

It was then I truly realised the whale is no more a fish than I am. So much blood. This was not like the fish on the quay, fresh caught, lying flipping and flopping, death on a simmer. This was a fierce, boiling death. She died thrashing blindly in a slick of gore, full of pain and fury, gnashing her jaws, beating her tail, spewing lumps of slime and half-digested fish that fell stinking about us. It was vile. So much strength dies slowly. — Carol Birch

Our Meat Facial today, Ms. Loeffler?" "Uhm, how's that." "You didn't get our offer in the mail? on special all this week, works miracles for the complexion - freshly killed, of course, before those enzymes've had a chance to break down, how about it?" "Well, I don't . . ." "Wonderful! Morris, kill . . . the chicken!" From the back room comes horrible panicked squawking, then silence. Maxine meantime is tilted back, eyelids aflutter, when - "Now we'll just apply some of this," wham! ". . . meat here, directly onto this lovely yet depleted face . . ." "Mmff . . ." "Pardon? (Easy, Morris!)" "Why is it . . . uh, moving around like that? Wait! is that a - are you guys putting a real dead chicken in my - aaahhh!" "Not quite dead yet!" Morris jovially informs the thrashing Maxine as blood and feathers fly everywhere. Each — Thomas Pynchon

It's in the tilting and thrashing that we wangle our luck. — Chang-rae Lee

My earliest memories of that school consist of the thrashing I received because I did not know the details of the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. At present there are many schoolmasters who would like to thrash me because I remember that exodus from Egypt too well."15 What might seem to be the young Herzl's indifference toward his nation's past takes on a completely different meaning in his account to Reuven Brainin, his first biographer: — Georges Yitzhak Weisz

And he spat in her face. Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand and said, 'You shouldn't have done that.' As Amycus spun round, Harry shouted, 'Crucio!' The Death Eater was lifted off his feet. He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain, and then, with a crunch and a shattering of glass, he smashed into the front of a bookcase and crumpled, insensible, to the floor. 'I see what Bellatrix meant,' said Harry, the blood thundering through his brain, 'you need to really mean it. — J.K. Rowling

Saddle bronc is the quintessential rodeo sport - not the chaos of bull riding or the thrashing of bareback riding. It might be harder than both. — John Branch

My music doesn't really sound like punk music, it's acoustic. And it doesn't really sound like folk music 'cause I'm thrashing too hard and emoting a little too much for the sort of introspective, respectful, sort-of folk genre thing. I'm really into punk and folk as music that comes out of communities and is very genuine and very immediate and not commercial. — Ani DiFranco

Time, of course, topples everyone in its path equally- the way that driver beats his old horse until it dies. But the thrashing we receive is one of frightful gentleness. Few of us even realize that we are being beaten. — Haruki Murakami

Thrashing is not the most noticeably awful of disappointments. Not to have attempted is the genuine disappointment. — George Edward Woodberry

Her mind is a bird that's trapped inside her skull, flapping and thrashing, never breaking free. — Lauren DeStefano

As we walked to Fr Walsh's office, Sting asked me what I thought our punishment might be. I had just been beaten for the missing page fiasco, and he told me, straight-faced, that his last thrashing was because his dad was a milkman. — James Berryman

SPIIIIIDERS!" The world ceased its turning. The owl went dumb. The Milky Way flickered on the verge of extinction. Ben hollered it again: "Spiders!" He started thrashing wildly amid the pine needles. "They're all over me! — Robert McCammon

The corpse's hand reached up and grabbed Shaisam by the throat. He gasped, thrashing, as the corpse opened its eye.
"There's an odd thing about disease I once heard, Fain," Matrim Cauthon whispered. "Once you catch a disease and survive, you can't get it again. — Robert Jordan

But truth is like a thrashing-machine; tender sensibilities must keep out of the way. — Herman Melville

Never befuddle a solitary thrashing with a last annihilation. — F Scott Fitzgerald

As a child, young William alarmed his parents by reporting that he experienced visions. In later life he told his friends that he had seen angels among the haymakers in the fields, which still lay in easy walking distance from Broad Street. when he got home and reported the vision, he barely escaped a thrashing for telling a lie. More disturbingly, his wife once remarked, "You know, dear, the first time you saw God was when you were four years old and he put his head to the window and set you screaming. — Leo Damrosch

Word lessons, in particular the wouldst couldst shouldst have loved kind, were kept up, with much warlike thrashing, until I had committed the whole of French, Latin, and English grammars to memory ... — John Muir

Life is not a matter of choices! Life is handed to you, a couple of cards that have cycled through the grimy hands of hundreds of players before you. There are no aces hidden up your sleeve. There is no shortcut to success and happiness. Sleight of hand will only earn you a bloody nose and a thrashing in the alley outback. So instead, you play the few good cards you have and do what you can with the bad, and you play fair. There is no choice. — Kelseyleigh Reber

I kept driving straight on toward what we called home and could not say aloud the words that were thrashing me, as if somehow by remaining silent I could keep the terrible thing from having occurred. — Russell Banks

Supposing an emperor was persuaded to wear a new suit of clothes whose material was so fine that, to the common eye, the clothes weren't there. And suppose a little boy pointed out this fact in a loud, clear voice ...
Then you have The Story of the Emperor Who Had No Clothes.
But if you knew a bit more, it would be The Story of the Boy Who Got a Well-Deserved Thrashing from His Dad for Being Rude to Royalty, and Was Locked Up.
Or The Story of the Whole Crowd Who Were Rounded Up by the Guards and Told 'This Didn't Happen, OK? Does Anyone Want to Argue?'
Or it could be a story of how a whole kingdom suddenly saw the benefit of the 'new clothes', and developed an enthusiasm for healthy sports in a lively and refreshing atmosphere which got many new adherents every year, and led to a recession caused by the collapse of the conventional clothing industry.
It could even be a story about The Great Pneumonia Epidemic of '09.
It all depends on how much you know. — Terry Pratchett

I explode. "I FUCKING LOVE HER!" I scream, my heart thrashing in my ribs.
His mouth falls, his brows furrowing in confusion the longer he scrutinizes my features. I feel like he's clawing at my insides for answers.
Here they are. "I fell in fucking love with her. It hurt to be away from Daisy. It hurt to watch her with other guys. Everything fucking hurt, and I didn't want to live with that pain anymore. I fucking couldn't." I inhale deeply. "I can't tell you when it became unbearable, but it did — Becca Ritchie

A good thrashing is what's needed in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. Have you been beaten often? — J.K. Rowling

Then Father said: If the teacher has to thrash you again, Royal, I'll give you a thrashing you'll remember. — Laura Ingalls Wilder

That night I slept badly, thrashing about in my bed, not quite asleep and not quite awake. At times I had the feeling there was someone else in my bedroom who was talking to me, but of course I could not deal with this perception in any realistic way, since I was half-asleep and half-awake, and thus, for all practical purposes, I was out of my mind. — Thomas Ligotti

For the real movements of a life are gradual, then sudden; they resist becoming anecdotes, they pulse like quasars from long-dead stars to reach the vivid planet of the present, they drift like fog over the ship until the spread sails are merely panels of gray in grayer air and surround becomes object, as in those perceptual tests where figure and ground reverse, the kissing couple in profile turn into the outlines of the mortuary urn that holds their own ashes. Time wears down resolve
then suddenly violence, something irrevocable flashes out of nowhere, there are thrashing fins and roiled, blood-streaked water, death floats up on its side, eyes bulging. — Edmund White

But you can't shut Panic up, you know? She's a screaming, thrashing bitch, and she wanted out. — Leylah Attar

Arms and legs thrashing. The hammer of blood.
I'm coming, says Jude.
And holds her breath. Orgasm is brief, nonviolent.
What color? I say
Devastating blue, she says. The pale blue eyes of a murdered boy.
Very nice.
You remembered, she says.
Jude comes in colors. How could I forget. Trembling blond orgasms that seem to piss her off and rare pink orgasms that never end. Chemical red orgasms that fill her with guilt and perfect orgasms black as fresh earth. Orgasms shadowy and gray that may or may not cause her to weep and orgasms the color of bruised skin, orgasms that fade from purple to yellow and remain visible for days. — Will Christopher Baer

Dying wasn't so bad, not really. Not when you could go out like this, on a summer's evening with the fireflies winking in the trees. She always thought dying would be a scream into a void, a thrashing, a searing. Not this slow and sleepy drip. — Megan Shepherd

Write to me and don't be so lazy. Otherwise I shall have to give you a thrashing. What fun! I'll break your head. — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Whore!" he snarls, slamming me into the wall so hard stars burst in my eyes. I hiss at him, the tiger in me threatening to emerge and rip out his throat, but a shout brings me back to myself.
"Zahra!"
I turn my head and see Aladdin running toward us. When he sees that it's Darian holding me roughly against the wall, his face twists into such rage that he seems unrecognizable.
He crashes into Darian before the prince has a chance to say anything. The two slam into the ground, Aladdin throwing a punch that cracks against Darian's jaw.
"Stop it!" I cry. "Prince Rahzad!"
The boys ignore me, rolling and thrashing like dogs.
Leave them! Zhian roars. Let me out!
"How dare you touch her?" Aladdin spits, grabbing Darian by the hair and pressing the prince's face into the stone floor. "You bastard!"
"I didn't give her anything she didn't ask for," Darian hisses back. "Get off me or I'll have you executed! — Jessica Khoury

In night...
in night is when my mind is a flutter, and the world ablaze.
In night I see you, subtle, yet sure wrinkles in your smile and the echoes of your laugh.

In night
my mind tries to forget, but it is still there branded as etchings.

In night
my heart is set a fire thrashing to and fro from distant lands and seas.

You were a sailor but your anchor was no match for the wild waves and so you floated, but quickly sank.

And in night I write about a hundred moons and a hundred deaths. But they are all you.
For you are the sky and the wild seas.
And in night, I think, I will sail across your shore once again and once more. — Queenbe Monyei

Leo!" Jason was shaking his shoulder. "Hey, man, why are you hugging Nike?"
Leo's eyes fluttered open. His arms were wrapped around the human-sized statue in Athena's hand. He must have been thrashing in his sleep. He clung to the victory goddess like he used to cling to his pillow when he had nightmares as a kid. (Man, that had been so embarrassing in the foster homes.)
He disentangled himself and sat up, rubbing his face.
"Nothing," he muttered. "We were just cuddling. — Rick Riordan

Those who possess wisdom cannot just ladle it out to every wantwit and jackanapes who comes along and asks for it. A person must be prepared to receive wisdom, or else it will do him more harm than good. Moreover, a lout thrashing about in the clear waters of wisdom will dirty those waters for everyone else. — Tom Robbins

Everybody thinks performance capture is about thrashing around and doing a lots of movement, but it's actually about being able to contain and think and be believed in a close-up, as much as anything else. — Andy Serkis

Have you seen 'American Idol' lately? I'm sure that some kids somewhere at this moment are thrashing themselves silly over what they call 'Rock n' Roll.' — Eric Burdon

It can be really weird to say, 'Hey man, let's make a record and start with this horrible zither sound.' But I was obsessed with the idea of taking a sound and completely phenomenologically thrashing it. — Daniel Lopatin

Former Journey lead singer Steve Perry was a lifelong Giants fan who grew up in the San Joaquin Valley. When the Dodgers started showing him on the big screen during their nightly sing-along, Perry protested by sneaking out of his seats before the eighth inning began. Now the Giants were making their playoff run, and Perry had become a regular sight at AT&T park, thrashing around from a club-level suite as he spurred on the crowd. — Andrew Baggarly

Rather than do anything to draw his attention to me, I sat back and watched as he gave a row of metal chairs the worst beating of their inanimate lives, thrashing them into tiny pieces and stomping them into the carpeted floor. — Tim Marquitz

Zoya stared up at Nina in wonder. "You're alive," she said. Her gaze slid to Matthias, thrashing like the biggest, angriest butterfly ever pinned to a page. "And you've made a new friend. — Leigh Bardugo

Lysandra slipped closer, a solid rock in the thrashing sea of his rage. — Sarah J. Maas

Flailing and thrashing, Buttercup wept and tossed and paced and wept some more, and there have been three great cases of jealousy since David of Galilee was first afflicted with the emotion when he could no longer stand the fact that his neighbor Saul's cactus outshone his own. (Originally, jealousy pertained solely to plants, other people's cactus or ginkgoes, or, later, when there was grass, grass, which is why, even to this day, we say that someone is green with jealousy.) Buttercup's case rated a close fourth on the all-time list.
It was a very long and very green night. — William Goldman

You need to just fuck already. Get it over with before you kill each other."

"Ah, always the romantic, Emmy," Joey says.

"I'm so serious," she drawls in a drunken slur. "I don't know why you didn't pull the trigger last night, girl."

"I tried!" I say. "But now he says I have to be sober if I want to hook up with him, and being sober on the road is for pussies."

"Hey, pussies are tough," she says. "You should've seen the thrashing mine took last night."

"Nope," I say. "No thank you. — Mercy Brown

Say surrender. Say alabaster. Switchblade.

Honeysuckle. Goldenrod. Say autumn.
Say autumn despite the green
in your eyes. Beauty despite
daylight. Say you'd kill for it. Unbreakable dawn
mounting in your throat.
My thrashing beneath you
like a sparrow stunned
with falling. — Ocean Vuong

I FUCKING LOVE HER! I scream, my heart thrashing in my ribs. — Krista Ritchie

Broken leaves flew into the air from the violence of his thrashing, and the gore and blood kept pouring from the black hole in his belly and from his mouth - surely enough blood for ten men, a sight horrid enough to make God Himself weep - and suddenly, his boots stopped running and his form stilled and then ... Death caught him. — Laurie Halse Anderson