Tic Quotes & Sayings

The baby hadn't cried or wanted food, which was good because all I had were a few Tic Tacs and a can of Red Bull. — Lexi Blake

I don't know if he needs a tic tac or toilet paper. — Jerry Lawler

Everything comes down so pasteurized
everything comes down 16 degrees
they say your amplifier is too loud
turn your amplifier down
are we high all alone on our knees
memory is just hips that swing
like a clock
the past projects fantastic scenes
tic/toc tic/toc tic/toc
fuck the clock! — Patti Smith

The man, his feet tip-tapping softly on the stairs, hated it. He avoided the Index like a gambling addict avoids the tic-tac-tac of the dice table; but, like an addict, he was always, always aware of it: of the pull of the Books, and the darkness, and the silence. — F.D. Lee

I gladly gave my aunt the privilege of scraping off all gum so my job wasn't as interesting or horrifying. I did find a few more menu drawings--a baby's scribble, an elaborate tic-tac-toe board, and some stretched out stick figures that made me miss Addie again. — Kate Willis

Once she got a grip on it, it was a death grip, and I would sooner go into her purse looking for Tic Tacs than try to get it away from her. — Shay Savage

Yes, these are the thoughts that occupy my brain on a daily basis: How many steps to take. How many hairbrush strokes. Making sure I line up my proofreading pens just so. Making sure my make-up is just so. Sitting in my fucking desk chair just so. It's exhausting living a "just so" life. And I don't want to do it, but the idea of not counting, not arranging, not tic-ing sends my heart reeling with anxiety. — S. Walden

I had this tic where I touch my mouth to my knee, and I'm always screwing up my back. I've had two shoulder surgeries. My doctor just smiles and laughs at me. — Dash Mihok

In my own case, I had to train myself out of that phony smile, which is like a nervous tic on every teenage girl. And this meant that I smiled rarely, for in truth, when it came down to real smiling, I had less to smile about. My 'dream' action for the women's liberation movement: a smile boycott, at which declaration all women would instantly abandon their 'pleasing' smiles, henceforth smiling only when something pleased them. — Shulamith Firestone

Sometimes I tic or twitch or cough, and it's a very public thing. — Tim Howard

It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself anything that carried the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called. — George Orwell

She's only seventeen years old," Llarimar said. "I can't imagine being
married to the God King at her age."
"I can't imagine you being married to the God King at any age, Scoot,"
Lightsong said. Then he pointedly cringed. "Actually, yes I can imagine it,
and the dress looks painfully inelegant on you. Make a note to have my
imagination flogged for its insolence in showing me that par tic u lar sight."
"I'll put it in line right behind your sense of decorum, Your Grace,"
Llarimar said dryly.
"Don't be silly," Lightsong said, taking a sip of wine. "I haven't had one
of those in years. — Brandon Sanderson

Looking back, video game design seems a natural fit, although there was no such thing when I was growing up. I built a Tic-Tac-Toe playing machine in my teens which went up in smoke on the night it was scheduled to go to a science fair. — David Crane

I can't avoid writing. It's a sort of nervous tic I have developed since I gave up needlepoint. — Clare Boothe Luce

I don't know what's going on with you and Travis, but I know that he's going to do something stupid to piss you off. It's a tic he has. He doesn't get close with anyone very often, and for whatever reason he's let you in. But you have to overlook his demons. It's the only way he'll know."
"Know what?" I asked,
"If you'll climb over the wall. — Jamie McGuire

When do I actually encounter the Other 'beyond the wall of language', in the rel of his or her being? Not when I am able to describe her, not even when I learn her values, dreams, and so on, but only when I encounter the Other in her moment of jouissance: when I discern in her a tiny detail (a compulsive gesture, a facial expression, a tic) which signals the intensity of the real of jouissance. This encounter with the real is always traumatic; there is something at least minimally obscene about it; I cannot simply integrate it into my universe, there is always a gulf separating me from it. — Slavoj Zizek

I have a good memory for words, and when I come upon a word I don't know, I remember it, or try to - it's almost like a tic. I also just have a good feeling for how words are made and formed in English and the etymologies that give you prefixes and suffixes. — Michael Chabon

My first tic was to shake my head violently. I was in karate class, and I was shaking violently. All of a sudden, I just started to notice that the teacher was looking at me, and all the kids were wondering what I was doing. I suddenly felt really strange. — Dash Mihok

SADNESSES OF THE INTELLECT: Sadness of being misunderstood [sic]; Humor sadness; Sadness of love wit[hou]t release; Sadne[ss of be]ing smart; Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean]; Sadness of having options; Sadness of wanting sadness; Sadness of confusion; Sadness of domes[tic]ated birds; Sadness of fini[shi]ng a book; Sadness of remembering; Sadness of forgetting; Anxiety sadness . . . INTERPERSONAL SADNESSES: Sadness of being sad in front of one's parent; Sa[dn]ess of false love; Sadness of love [sic]; Friendship sadness; Sadness of a bad conversation; Sadness of the could-have-been; Secret sadness . . . — Jonathan Safran Foer

Sometimes it's even hard to tell the difference between a tic and a compulsion. But while tics stem from an urge in a specific part of the body - either completely unconsciously or through a premonitory sensation that's satisfied only by the tic - OCD bubbles up as conscious thoughts in the mind. — Tim Howard

So, when kiss Spring comes
we'll kiss each kiss other on kiss the kiss
lips because tic clocks tock don't make
a toctic difference
to kisskiss you and to
kiss me. — E. E. Cummings

Sometimes he thinks the walls are throbbing, as if the water-stained concrete has developed a tic, and then he allows himself to close his eyelids which are as heavy as iron shields, so that he can tell himself who he is. — Salman Rushdie

Many parents and teachers have become irritated to the point of distraction at the way the weed-style growth of 'like' has spread through the idiom of the young. And it's true that in some cases the term has become simultaneously a crutch and a tic, driving out the rest of the vocabulary as candy expels vegetables. — Christopher Hitchens

By the time you've run your mind through it a hundred times, relentlessly worked out every tic of terror, it's lost its power over you ... [Soon it's] a story on a page or, more precisely, everybody's story on a page. — John Gardner

Tic Tacs you actually swallow, though," Esther pointed out. "You own a Tic Tac. Gum is just borrowed. — Sarah Dessen

Smiling is the worst thing you can do if you want the world to think you're okay when you're not. Some people can't help it - it's like a tic, a tell - and others do it on purpose, thinking people will buy whatever they're selling if it comes with a flash of teeth. But the truth is, smiling only makes a lie harder to pass off. It's like a giant crack in the front of a mask. — Victoria Schwab

Connubial
Because with alarming accuracy
she'd been identifying patterns
I was unaware of - this tic, that
tendency, like the way I've mastered
the language of intimacy
in order to conceal how I felt
I knew I was in danger
of being terribly understood. — Stephen Dunn

Not the "be yourself" line. I loathe that line. As if Myself and Tic have met before and gotten along, so all I have to do is make sure Myself is there this time. So illogical. — Kasie West

Wa-wa-wa watch bikinis no top. See my sex sex sex sexy bikinis would drop. Tic-tac-toe don't play me I'll stop. Tonight I will make you mine. — Alexandra Stan

Mort drove one of those little hybrid cars that, when not running on gasoline, was fueled by idealism. It was made out of crepe paper and duct tape and boasted a computer system that looked like it could have run the NYSE and NORAD, with enough attention left over to play tic-tac-toe. Or possibly Global Thermonuclear War. — Jim Butcher

Rapid movement was a relief in the midst of so much feeling. — Gail Carson Levine

And at the risk of sounding like Andy Rooney on Sixty Minutes, have you ever wondered why we say fiddle-faddle and not faddle- fiddle? Why is it ping-pong and pitter-patter rather than pong-ping and patter-pitter? Why dribs and drabs, rather than vice versa? Why can't a kitchen be span and spic? Whence riff-raff, mish-mash, flim-flam, chit-chat, tit for tat, knick-knack, zig-zag, sing-song, ding-dong, King Kong, criss-cross, shilly-shally, see-saw, hee-haw, flip-flop, hippity-hop, tick-tock, tic-tac-toe, eeny-meeny-miney-moe, bric-a-brac, clickety-clack, hickory-dickory-dock, kit and kaboodle, and bibbity-bobbity-boo? The answer is that the vowels for which the tongue is high and in the front always come before the vowels for which the tongue is low and in the back. — Steven Pinker

SADNESS OF THE INTELLECT: Sadness of being misunderstood [sic]; Humor sadness; Sadness of love wit[hou]t release; Sadne[ss of be]ing smart; Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean]; Sadness of having options; Sadness of wanting sadness; Sadness of confusion; Sadness of domes[tic]ated birds, Sadness of fini[shi]ng a book; Sadness of remembering; Sadness of forgetting; Anxiety sadness ... — Jonathan Safran Foer

This is the Modern Man, who cannot save himself but wants to save the world.
He is the Wise who knows not.
And his footsteps on the road click tic-tac, tic-tac — Cristiane Serruya

It's what surprised him most -- not the overpowering love all the books required that he feel for his child -- just that he simply liked being around him. And even with the diagnoisis, or even since, there's something a little joyous, alongside all the disaster, about living with Hendrick. Some feeling he gets about being in better or closer contact with the things we need, the things we want. I want to run the controls on the dump truck. I want to touch the faucet. I want to open the drawer three hundred times in a row. Because who doesn't want that from time to time? To fall deeper in? Who doesn't do it? Some mornings Jack taps his own spoon a few extra times on the rim of the cereal bowl just for the sheer pleasure of it, and then he'll wonder what the space really is, after all, between tic and illness. — Drew Perry

After decades away from the Midwest, she'd forgotten that bewildering generosity was a common regional tic. — J. Ryan Stradal

Countless doctors have drawn little tic-tac-toe grids for my parents over the years to try to explain the genetic lottery to them. Geneticists — R.J. Palacio

Can't you get flowers from the evil flower shop?" "Yes," I whispered, "but then they'd be evil flowers. C'mon, Bentley, try to keep up." "You know that charming tic, Daniel, where you start making jokes in a dangerous situation, and we all pretend we don't know you're doing it in order to cover up how nervous you are?" "What about it?" I asked. "I was just asking if you were aware of it." "Nope," I said. — Craig Schaefer

That's when Poppy kissed me. I didn't have time to get ready. She just kissed me there and then, right on the lips. It felt lovely. I wasn't even scared this time. It was warm and not too wet. I didn't get any tongue. Her breath smelled like Orange Tic Tacs. — Stephen Kelman

Yes, my sister is weird and says crap like en route. I smirk - it's a common facial tic of mine - and turn to her. — Stacey Wallace Benefiel

Who knows why we tic tac? ...there's more to it than a desire to irritate. — Georgia Blain

Love is a game
of tic-tac-toe,
constantly waiting
for the next x or o. — Lang Leav

What I really needed wasn't a dose of school spirit; it was a glass of water, an aspirin the size of my fist, and the answers to the history exam that I hadn't studied for the night before. "As long as I'm dreaming," I muttered, my words lost to the cacophony of the gym, "I'd also like a pony, a convertible, and a couple of friends."
"That's a tall order." I'd known that there were people sitting next to me, but I couldn't begin to imagine how one of them had heard me. I hadn't even heard me. "Would you settle for a piece of gum, an orange Tic Tac, and an introduction the the school slut? — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

I love the way the French shove chocolate into everything. It's, like, the best nervous tic ever. — Bridget Asher

Bhutan is the land of la. The monosyllabic word serves as all-purpose affirmation, honorific, and verbal tic. Mostly, it is a softener, appended to almost everything. La means "sir" but also "ya know." I like the way it sounds and, during my weeks in Bhutan, use it myself, but always self-consciously, never finding the right rhythm. — Eric Weiner

Yo momma's breath smells so bad I don't know if I should give her a Tic Tac or a piece of toilet paper. Yo — THE CLOWN FACTORY

One Monday, just for sport, Charlie grabbed an eggplant that a spectacularly wizened granny was going for, but instead of twisting it out of his hand with some mystic kung fu move as he expected, she looked him in the eye and shook her head - just a jog, barely perceptible really - it might have been a tic, but it was the most eloquent of gestures. Charlie read it as saying: O White Devil, you do not want to purloin that purple fruit, for I have four thousand years of ancestors and civilization on you; my grandparents built the railroads and dug the silver mines, and my parents survived the earthquake, the fire, and a society that outlawed even being Chinese; I am mother to a dozen, grandmother to a hundred, and great-grandmother to a legion; I have birthed babies and washed the dead; I am history and suffering and wisdom; I am a Buddha and a dragon; so get your fucking hand off my eggplant before you lose it. — Christopher Moore

The problem with words is that they easily lose their meaning. Say something often enough and it becomes a tic, not an expression of how you actually feel. Not only that, but words rarely change things. Actions do. — Seth Godin

Right now, as I've gotten older, my tics sustain for five or ten years. So, I can deal with them on a daily basis; I know how it affects my body. But when you're 10 years old, and every three months a tic comes along, it's daunting because you don't know what the next one is going to look like, what it's going to feel like. — Tim Howard

It had started to worry me that if I wasn't careful my meekness could become a habit, a tic, something hardwired that my mannerisms would continue to express throughout my life regardless of my efforts - the way a drunk who, though in the wagon, still staggers and slurs like a drunk. — Lorrie Moore

We walk into the future in God-glorifying confidence, not because the future is known to us but because it is known to God. And that's all we need to know. Worry about the future is not simply a character tic, it is the sin of unbelief, an indication that our hearts are not resting in the promises of God. — Kevin DeYoung

The only one that's appeared in my dreams is the one from Aliens. H.R. Giger's version of that Necronom was almost like a tic. It's reptilian. That creature is like a baby and tic combined. It's very frightening. It scared the hell out of me, it really did. — Lance Henriksen

It was nothing. We played tic-tac-toe for a while. You know we do that sometimes."
"Oh, I know," Teagan says.
"Okay, how did you make that sound like we were rolling around ripping off each other's clothes? — Elizabeth Scott

For those whose ganglia were formed pre-TV, the mimetic deployment of pop-culture icons seems at best an annoying tic and at worst a dangerous vapidity that compromises fiction's seriousness by dating it out of the Platonic Always, where it ought to reside. — Jonathan Lethem

A marriage bound together by commitments to exploit the other for filling one's own needs (and I fear that most marriages are built on such a basis) can legitimately be described as a "tic on a dog" relationship. Just as a hungry tic clamps on to a nourishing host in anticipation of a meal, so each partner unites with the other in the expectation of finding what his or her personal nature demands. The rather frustrating dilemma, of course, is that in such a marriage there are two tics and no dog! — Larry Crabb

Man with Brain the Size of Tic Tac Mates with Amoeba Couple gives birth to giant adjusto; names him Dale — Chris Crutcher

For whatever reason, thus far it's been important to me not to write that kind of collection. Which means that I've spent months playing tic-tac-notecard, trying to get the stories in an order whereby stories that are similar in any given way (diction, narrative stance, setting, plot) are separated by others that aren't. — Roy Kesey

Change the world, I know I won't,
Enthralling as always I hope it remains,
A kaleidoscope of joy, sorrow and pain.
But my only wish as I take this jaunt,
Is for my words on you to impress upon,
A smile, a tear or even an angry frown. — Anurag Anand

Tic Tacs are the maracas of breath mints. — Demetri Martin

You own a Tic Tac. Gum is just borrowed. - Esther — Sarah Dessen

Lopez reached into his pocket, took out a small packet of white lozenges, and popped one into his mouth. He didn't offer one to Holden. Lopez's pupils contracted to tiny points as he sucked the lozenge. Focus drugs. He'd be watching every tic of Holden's face during questioning. Tough to lie to. — James S.A. Corey

The Doctor: Hello, I've come to see the Lord Mayor.
Idris Hopper: Have you got an appointment?
The Doctor: No, just an old friend passing by, bit of a surprise. Can't wait to see her face!
Idris Hopper: Well, she's just having a cup of tea.
The Doctor: Just go in there and tell her "the Doctor" would like to see her.
Idris Hopper: "The Doctor" who?
The Doctor: Just "The Doctor". Tell her exactly that, "The Doctor".
Idris Hopper: Hang on a tic.
[Idris goes inside. There is the sound of a teacup smashing and Idris returns.]
Idris Hopper: The Lord Mayor says "thank you f-for popping by." She'd love to have a chat, but, um, she's up to her eyes in paperwork. Perhaps you would like to make an appointment for next week ...
The Doctor: [happily] She's climbing out the window, isn't she?
Idris Hopper: Yes, she is. — Russell T. Davies

I loved to say quasi. I was saying it now a lot, instead of sort of, or kind of, and it had become a tic. "I am quasi ready to go," I would announce. Or, "I'm feeling a bit quasi today." Murph called me Quasimodo. Or Kami-quasi. Or wild and quasi girl. — Lorrie Moore

I can always win in Tic Tac toe for example one strategy can be used serveral times and one moment he will find that I'm using this strategy and in the other day he will forgot aobut this and I just repeat the same - But from this point of view it's kind a useless and taking time. I want to find new path ways, the same is with chess I can win always the same way but one moment it come the rule or the thought - hey I want this to return and I will give you to return. I hate this moment it's kind a noobish or kind a bot way! — Deyth Banger

One day, when I was doing well in class and had finished my lessons, I was sitting there trying to analyze the game of tic-tac-toe ... The teacher came along and snatched my papers on which I had been doodling ... She did not realize that analyzing tic-tac-toe can lead into dozens of non-trivial mathematical questions. — Martin Gardner

Perfume counters in department stores, Holly Deblin smells of, the middle of July, and cinnamon Tic Tacs. — David Mitchell

After the dress rehearsal that afternoon, someone had misplaced the vial of poison, and for lack of better, Romeo would have to commit suicide by eating Tic Tacs. — Anne Fortier