War Of Nerves Quotes & Sayings

We are Craiglockhart's success stories. Look at us. We don't remember, we don't feel, we don't think - at least beyond the confines of what's needed to do the job. By any proper civilized standard (but what does that mean now?) we are objects of horror. But our nerves are completely steady. And we are still alive. — Pat Barker

In war, love is a luxury. It comes at a high price... This brand of marriage, I guess, takes steady nerves. — Emily Yellin

I think the rest of the world will think we're made, and indeed we are. We've turned out the greatest Prime Minister in the post war years simply because of short term nerves. — Ann Widdecombe

The thing that drew me to Lafayette as a subject - that he was that rare object of agreement in the ironically named United States - kept me coming back to why that made him unique. Namely, that we the people never agreed on much of anything. Other than a bipartisan consensus on barbecue and Meryl Streep, plus that time in 1942 when everyone from Bing Crosby to Oregonian school children heeded FDR's call to scrounge up rubber for the war effort, disunity is the through line in the national plot - not necessarily as a failing, but as a free people's privilege. And thanks to Lafayette and his cohorts in Washington's army, plus the king of France and his navy, not to mention the founding dreamers who clearly did not think through what happens every time one citizen's pursuit of happiness infuriates his neighbor, getting on each other's nerves is our right. — Sarah Vowell

Is life less thrilling if your neighbors are rational, if they don't bomb your power stations whenever they feel you need to be admonished? Is it less rousing if they don't rattle your windows and nerves with indiscriminate sonic booms just because they can? — Rabih Alameddine

Before the civil war, Pottibakia was a normal member of the Comity of Nations. She erected tariff walls, broke treaties, persecuted minorities, obstructed at conferences unless she was convinced there was no danger of a satisfactory solution; then she strained every nerve in the cause of peace. — E. M. Forster

War makes extremely heavy demands on the soldier's strength and nerves. For this reason, make heavy demands on your men in peacetime exercises. — Erwin Rommel

I returned from the West, and brought home in my nostrils and nerves that benumbing lethargy, imprudent hostility, and arrogant superiority with which the West viewed the fate of Eastern Europe. — Sandor Marai

Mystified by the change in their formerly awkward relationship, Christopher asked Bennett what had happened to alter it.
"I told her I was impotent from old war wounds," Bennett said. "That calmed her nerves considerably."
Taken aback, Christopher had brought himself to ask gingerly, "Are you?"
"Hell no," came Bennett's indignant reply. "I only said it because she was so skittish around me. And it worked."
Christopher had given him a sardonic glance. "Are you ever going to tell Audrey the truth?"
A mischievous smile had played at the corners of Bennett's lips. "I may let her cure me soon," he admitted. — Lisa Kleypas

I want to lose all harshness of jagged nerves, to be above all gentle. I feel we have achieved victory for that almost more than anything-to be able to cultivate gentleness.
George Malory to his wife Ruth at the end of the Great War — Wade Davis

Robert rode beneath the banner of Carrick, the dragon shield on his left arm. He wore it proudly now in common cause; this symbol of Arthur, the warrior king. As he caught sight of Humphrey, the knight raised his fist in a defiant gesture that Robert returned. Today, God willing, they would finish this campaign. He wanted to return home blooded, to be able to tell his grandfather that he too had won his spurs in the king's war. Nerves and anticipation battled within him, his breaths coming hard and fast in the tight encasement of his helm. — Robyn Young

I have not forgotten you - the nights are long and difficult. You too know that all my eyes see, all touch with myself, from any distance, is you. The caress of fabrics, the color of colors, the wires, the nerves, the pencils, the leaves, the dust, the cells, the war and the sun, everything experienced in the minutes of the non-clocks and the non-calendars and the empty non-glances, is you. You felt it, that's why you let that ship take me away from Le Havre where you never said good-bye to me. I will write to you with my eyes, always. For you is all. — Frida Kahlo

The great American game should be an unrelenting war of nerves. — Ty Cobb

These moments of nocturnal prowling leave an indelible impression. Eyes and ears are tensed to the maximum, the rustling approach of strange feet in the tall grass in an unutterably menacing thing. Your breath comes in shallow bursts; you have to force yourself to stifle any panting or wheezing. There is a little mechanical click as the safety-catch of your pistol is taken off; the sound cuts straight through your nerves. Your teeth are grinding on the fuse-pin of the hand-grenade. The encounter will be short and murderous. You tremble with two contradictory impulses: the heightened awareness of the huntsmen, and the terror of the quarry. You are a world to yourself, saturated with the appalling aura of the savage landscape.
p. 71 — Ernst Junger

You too know that all my eyes see, all I touch with myself, from any distance, is Diego. The caress of fabrics, the color of colors, the wires, the nerves, the pencils, the leaves, the dust, the cells, the war and the sun, everything experienced in the minutes of the non-clocks and the non-calendars and the empty non-glances, is him. — Frida Kahlo

If, however, there is to be a war of nerves let us make sure our nerves are strong and are fortified by the deepest convictions of our hearts. — Winston Churchill