Wound Up Tight Quotes & Sayings

Something clamped tight inside her suddenly eased. He had been right. She did not have to grip her pain. She could let it go. The memory was still there. It had not vanished, but it had changed. It was a memory, a thing from her past. This wound could close and heal. The injury done to her was over. She did not have to keep it as a part of herself. She could allow herself to heal. Her tears were diluted in the rain that ran down her face. — Robin Hobb

With his long sharp nails he opened a vein in his breast. When the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight and with the other ceased my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound so that I must either suffocate or swallow ...
Some of the ... Oh my god ... my god
What have I done? — Bram Stoker

A Poem of Madness Five links stand out in the chain that binds our will. There's the primal urges, wound tight in nucleotidal strands. There's the faith that surges through our clasped and superstitious hands. There's the politics of kings and queens, and their many rules. There's culture which forms mobs of motley fools. Last comes our decisions, stacked up in piles of regret that we long to forget. — Hugh Howey

Her hands tightened on him. "I mean it," she said. "We're not doing this."
"Define this."
"We're not going to be friends."
"Deal," he said.
"We're not going to even like each other."
"Obviously."
She stared into his eyes, hers turbulent and heated. "And no more kissing - "
He swallowed her words with his mouth, delving deeply, groaning at the taste of her. He heard her answering moan, and then her arms wound tight around his neck.
And for the first time since his arrival back in Santa Rey, they were on the same page. — Jill Shalvis

The Ulfric had waded into the pack with my blood in his hands. They surrounded him, touching him, caressing, begging for him to share. He dipped his lingers in the nearly empty cup and held them down for the wolves to lick.
Edward came to stand near me. He said nothing, just helped me put pressure on the wound, got more napkins from under the bar and a clean cloth to tie it tight. Our eyes met, and he just shook his head, the faintest of smiles playing on his face. Most people pay money for information. — Laurell K. Hamilton

I'm tightly wound. I'm a loose cannon. Both - I'm a tightly wound loose cannon, a tight loose. — Jonathan Lethem

Whether by chance conjunction or not, the "wind-up bird" was a powerful presence in Cinnamon's story. The cry of this bird was audible only to certain special people, who were guided by it toward inescapable ruin. The will of human beings meant nothing, then, as the veterinarian always seemed to feel. People were no more than dolls set on tabletops, the springs in their backs wound up tight, dolls set to move in ways they could not choose, moving in directions they could not choose. Nearly all within range of the wind-up bird's cry were ruined, lost. Most of them died, plunging over the edge of the table. — Haruki Murakami

The wound-tight, travel-light Obama has a distaste for the adversarial and the random. But if you stick too rigidly to a 'No Drama' rule in the White House, you risk keeping reality at bay. Presidencies are always about crisis management. — Maureen Dowd

You could remember the sensual observations that made that day reality, and you could delude yourself into thinking - almost - that you could return to the past, and relive the days and hours in a quick space of time. But no, the quest of time past is more difficult than you think, and time present is eaten up by such plaintive searchings. The film of your days and nights is wound up tight in you, never to be re-run - and the occasional flashbacks are faint, blurred, unreal, as if seen through falling snow. — Sylvia Plath

I would not touch the ring; the thought of a ring around my finger always made me feel tied tight, because rings had no openings to get out of, but I liked the watch chain, which twisted and wound around my hand when I picked it up. — Shirley Jackson

Fear has a lot of flavors and textures. There's a sharp, silver fear that runs like lightning through your arms and legs, galvanizes you into action, power, motion. There's heavy, leaden fear that comes in ingots, piling up in your belly during the empty hours between midnight and morning, when everything is dark, every problem grows larger, and every wound and illness grows worse. And there is coppery fear, drawn tight as the strings of a violin, quavering on one single note that cannot possibly be sustained for a single second longer - but goes on and on and on, the tension before the crash of cymbals, the brassy challenge of the horns, the threatening rumble of the kettle drums. That's the kind of fear I felt. Horrible, clutching tension that left the coppery flavor of blood on my tongue. Fear of the creatures in the darkness around me, of my own weakness, the stolen power the Nightmare had torn from me. And fear for those around me, for the folk who didn't have the power I had. — Jim Butcher

At the far end of the library, a number of men had gathered into a tight, jostling ring around a very pretty, very young woman who was talking at what must have been the top of her lungs. Joe could not really understand what she was telling them, but it appeared to be a story that reflected poorly on her own judgment - she was blushing and grinning at the same time - and it unquestionably ended with the word "fuck." She tugged on the word, drawing it out to several times its usual length. She wound it all the way around her in two or three big loops and reveled in it as if it were a luxuriant shawl. — Michael Chabon

My skin feels too tight, like I might rupture. My mother must have read the end, the cards Enola keeps reading, the same thing Verona Bonn read, all the way back to Ryzhkova. They passed the cards to each other creating history, fingers touching paper, imbuing it with hope and fears, fear like a curse. Of course they wouldn't clear their cards, they were talking to their mothers, and isn't that part of why I've stayed here? The book noted a falling out between Ryzhkova and her apprentice, a falling out over the mermaid. Enola said that cards build history - what a perfect way to wound someone. The cards were hers, Ryzhkova's, then Amos and Evangeline's on down the line, each leaving themselves in the ink, each pulling from the deck, pulling in fears that work like poison. The wind blows a sheet of paper across a split board. The only paper of consequence was never in my possession - it was in Enola's. — Erika Swyler

People. And the brutal things we do to one another.
The fence shakes against my cheek and I turn, careful to keep my gaze lifted. I don't have it in me to look at her again. Bishop is grasping the chain-link with both hands, knuckles white, his eyes closed. His whole body is wound tight as a spring, like if I reached for him he would simply break apart at the joints, splinter into a hundred pi8eces. I don't try to touch him.
He lets out a yell and then another and another, loud and wild and out of control. He shakes the fence hard with both hands. His anger and frustration are more potent somehow because they are unexpected. When his scream fades into silence, he rests his forehead against the metal. "Sometimes," he says, voice raw, "I hate this place." He twists his neck and looks at me, hands still hooked in the fence above his head.
"I know," I say, barely a whisper. "Me, too. — Amy Engel

Noriega wound up like a baseball pitcher on top of the bed and hurled the small gun, but was low and outside for a ball. His tight-fitting house dress was bunched up high on his chubby thighs, exposing olive drab underwear.
I see London, I see France, I see a crazy dictator's underpants!
Chase's thoughts raced. — Cole Alpaugh

Clay caught her hand as she reached for his arm and held it tight. "And the girls can get a meal on, or we'll go eat in the bunkhouse. I want you to rest." "Clay, I don't need to rest." Sophie dabbed at his oozing wound. "There is nothing in the. . ." Sophie realized her fingers were going numb as Clay squeezed tighter and tighter. "The girls can do it. They have a stew already done, so they just need to mix up biscuits and set the table." She was talking fast at the end. Clay released her. Sophie sighed with relief and had to control the urge to rub her hand. She arched one eyebrow at her husband. "Good girl," he said, like she was a well-behaved horse. — Mary Connealy

His voice goads me and then I register the perfect rhythm he is creating in my tightly wound body. One, two, and then three fingers fill me, his hand rocking flawlessly against my quivering clitoris as he fucks me. Slowly at first and then the tempo increases as Shaw builds the pace. Before I know it I am panting as the sensations consume me. Eyes shut tight, I feel myself grinding against what feels like the palm of his hand or maybe his wrist, loving the friction it creates as Shaw penetrates me over and over again. — Felicity Brandon

His warm breath, smelling of clean spice, stroked her cheek and ear. A thrilling shiver coursed over her, the wound on her arm only a minor sting. Then his lips - those full, sensuous lips - grazed her jaw and the soft spot behind her ear, the hairs of his beard brushing her sensitive skin. Her shivers locked her muscles tight. A bolt of tantalizing heat shot down her center.
He leveraged closer, all that warrior brawn pressing hard against her side, linen rasping over skin, an exquisite feeling.
Yes. This. — Angela Quarles

Being a doctor he didn't want for choices, but also being a doctor he understood the fragility of bone and sinew that encompassed the even more fragile organ of the heart. He envisioned Therese's as being wound in intricate, tight, vinelike veins that he would slowly make sense of and unravel. — Tara Lynn Masih

I hid my wound under my clothes. Nobody could see it, including myself, and I completely forgot about it. Then I met someone who, filled with love, held me tight in that point. The pain was devastating, and I hated him, o how much I hated him, the cause of all my suffering. Then I met someone, beautifully dressed, and I loved him so much, holding him tight with all my passion. And he suffered badly, and he hated me, o how much he hated me, the cause of all his pain. So the story went on till I met someone who undressed himself, standing completely naked, with all his horrible wounds. Hence I also undressed, and I saw my horrible wounds, which he could also see. Then ... — Franco Santoro

Throughout their seven years of marriage, they had conducted their lives by different clocks. She dwelled as much in the future as in the present, envisioning where she wished to go, relentlessly mapping the path that ought to lead to her high goals. Her strong mainspring was wound tight. Neil lived in the moment. To him, the far future was next week, and he trusted time to take him there whether or not he planned the journey. They — Dean Koontz

I am jealous of the little kid
spinning around near the fountain.
What would these people think
if I were to start spinning
with my arms spread wide?
A lunatic on drugs, probably.
My greatest accomplishment here is not caring,
letting go of other people's opinions.
I am not wound as tight.
I can let go,
just no spinning yet. — Samantha Schutz

Are you wet for me?"
"Oh, f**k, sunshine, you are so wet."
"I am wound too tight Becca. Do you understand? in about ten seconds, I'm going to be all over you. And I'm not going to be able to go slow. It's gonna be hard and fast and rough. — Laura Kaye

Then she took my hand and touched it to the wound beside her eye. I caressed the half-inch scar. As I did so, the waves of her consciousness pulsed through my fingertips and into me - a delicate resonance of longing. Probably someone should take this girl in his arms and hold her tight, I thought. Probably someone other than me. Someone qualified to give her something. Goodbye, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. See you again sometime. — Haruki Murakami

One peek inside his top drawer had been enough for Sophie. Swimming goggles, nail clippers, a Ferragamo tie wound into a tight coil, and packets of Gulden's Spicy Brown Mustard. None of that compared to Ira Blumenstein's gold tooth, Kenneth Yang's Darth Vader lollipop, or Rich Angstrom's Magic 8 Ball. — Laura Hemphill

Her whole body was wound up tight. She was ready to storm the palace herself - an army of one. — Marissa Meyer

The spring is wound up tight. It will uncoil of itself. That is what is so convenient in tragedy. The least little turn of the wrist will do the job . . . The rest is automatic. You don't need to lift a finger. The machine is in perfect order; it has been oiled ever since time began, and it runs without friction . . . Tragedy is clean, it is restful, it is flawless . . . In a tragedy, nothing is in doubt and everyone's destiny is known. That makes for tranquility . . . Tragedy is restful; and the reason is that hope, that foul, deceitful thing, has no part in it. There isn't any hope. You're trapped. — Jean Anouilh