Nonspontaneous Reaction Quotes

Jay came over as soon as Violet called him; she didn't even have to give him a reason. He was there in less than ten minutes.
Of course, he'd heard about what had happened to Hailey. Everyone had. Buckley was a small town, and news traveled fast . . . especially bad news.
When he got there she told him what she was thinking about doing. It was nothing dangerous, at least as far as she was concerned, and she hadn't expected Jay to disagree with her about it. So when he did, she was more than a little bit surprised by his stubborn reaction.
"No way," he insisted, and his voice left little room for argument. "There is no way you're going to go around looking for this guy."
Violet was shocked by the tone of his voice, and by the harsh look he shot at her. She thought maybe he misunderstood her plan, so she tried to explain it to him again. "Jay, I'm only going to public places, like malls and parks, to see if I can get a feeling for who this guy is. Who knows, maybe he goes to places like that to find them, maybe he hands out there waiting to pick out a girl to . . . you know, kidnap." She tried to make her argument sound logical, but there was a desperate edge to her voice. "I'm not going out alone . . . you can go with me. We'll just hang out at different places to see if we can find him. And if we do, we'll call my uncle. It's not like we'd do anything stupid."
"'Anything stupid' would be going out to look for a killer. I won't let you go looking for t ~ Kimberly Derting

The reaction of one man could be forecast by no known mathematics; the reaction of a billion is something else again. Hari ~ Isaac Asimov

Growing up, my father was a financial analyst for an oil company. He was just a regular dad. And when I would say, 'Hey, come see my play,' he'd say, 'Sure.' He'd see one, 'Oh, good play' - you know, very typical dad reaction. ~ Eric McCormack

The best reaction to our mistakes will vary from person to person, and according to his or her age, but please remember: for people with autism, the pain of being unable to do what we'd like to is already hard to live with. Pain arising from other people's reactions to our mistakes can break our hearts. ~ Naoki Higashida

Anger can be an effective negotiating tool, but only as a calculated act, never as a reaction. ~ Mark McCormack

The tragedy of her father's absence had never actually been an acutely tragic event for her. As she grew up and came to understand the world, he was a part of it. An already dead part. His absence was the landscape of her family. Increasingly, as the years went on, she didn't really know what she was missing, but that didn't stop her from missing it. She fixated on him. She prayed to him. She attempted to research him, found obscure publications of his in scientific journals. The language was so formal, she could barely understand it. But she told herself, This is familiar. This is mine, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She thought, There was a feeling he had, when he wrote this, when he was alive. He communicated it to me, even though everyone who reads this article only gets a lot of information about this scientific test subject, and his reaction to all these oils. She dreamed her father was still out there [ . . . though] her belief that her father was still living did not stop her from telling stories about his death. ~ Lydia Netzer

We are constantly murmuring, muttering, scheming, or wondering to ourselves under our breath," wrote Epstein. " 'I like this. I don't like that. She hurt me. How can I get that? More of this, no more of that.' Much of our inner dialogue is this constant reaction to experience by a selfish, childish protagonist. None of us has moved very far from the seven-year-old who vigilantly watches to see who got more." There were also delightful passages about the human tendency to lurch headlong from one pleasurable experience to the next without ever achieving satisfaction. Epstein totally nailed my habit of hunting around my plate for the next bite before I'd tasted what was in my mouth. As he described it, "I do not want to experience the fading of the flavor - the colorless, cottony pulp that succeeds that spectacular burst over my taste buds." Prior ~ Dan Harris

When forced to leave my house for an extended period of time, I take my typewriter with me, and together we endure the wretchedness of passing through the X-ray scanner. The laptops roll merrily down the belt, while I'm instructed to stand aside and open my bag. To me it seems like a normal enough thing to be carrying, but the typewriter's declining popularity arouses suspicion and I wind up eliciting the sort of reaction one might expect when traveling with a cannon.

It's a typewriter,' I say. 'You use it to write angry letters to airport security. ~ David Sedaris

Elevated blood sugar stirs up inflammation in the bloodstream, as excess sugar can be toxic if it's not swept up and used by cells. It also triggers a reaction called glycation - the biological process by which sugar binds to proteins and certain fats, resulting in deformed molecules that don't function well. These sugar proteins are technically called advanced glycation end products (AGEs). The body does not recognize AGEs as normal, so they set off inflammatory reactions. In the brain, sugar molecules and brain proteins combine to produce lethal new structures that contribute to the degeneration of the brain and its functioning. The relationship between poor blood sugar control and Alzheimer's disease in particular is so strong that researchers are now calling Alzheimer's disease type-3 diabetes.14 ~ David Perlmutter

By the second day, the song lyrics had faded, but in their place came darker irritations. Gradually, I started to become aware of a young man sitting just behind me and to the left. I had noticed him when he first entered the mediation hall, and had felt a flash of annoyance at the time: something about him, especially his beard, had struck me as too calculatedly dishevelled, as if he were trying to make a statement. Now his audible breathing was starting to irritate me, too. It seemed studied, unnatural, somehow theatrical. My irritation slowly intensified - a reaction that struck me as entirely reasonable and proportionate at the time. It was all beginning to feel like a personal attack. How much contempt must the bearded meditator have for me, I seethed silently, deliberately to decide to ruin the serenity of my meditation by behaving so obnoxiously? Experienced retreat-goers, it turns out, have a term for this phenomenon. The call it 'vipassana vendetta'. In the stillness tiny irritations become magnified into full-blown hate campaigns; the mind is so conditioned to attaching to storylines that it seizes upon whatever's available. Being on retreat had temporarily separated me from all the real causes of distress in my life, and so, apparently, I was inventing new ones. As I shuffled to my narrow bed that evening, I was still smarting about the loud-breathing man. I did let go of the vendetta eventually - but only because I'd fallen into an exhausted and dreamless sleep ~ Oliver Burkeman

Do you have infrared vision?" Interest glittered on his face.

Venom smiled, the curious reaction a far preferable one to quivering fear or horror. "You'll have to court me with roses and diamonds before asking such intimate questions."

Vivek snorted. "It's just like working for the Guild--place is full of smartasses. ~ Nalini Singh

Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments. ~ Plato

The words, sliding into his mind, were vibrant with her emotions. Dripping with sensitivity. Weeping with her reaction. Intimate beyond measure. Because she murmured forgiveness into his mind, she gave more of herself away to him. ~ Christine Feehan

If I participate, knowingly or otherwise, in my sister's oppression and she calls me on it, to answer her anger with my own only blankets the substance of our exchange with reaction. It wastes energy. And yes, it is very difficult to stand still and to listen to another woman's voice delineate an agony I do not share, or one to which I myself have contributed. ~ Audre Lorde

What is your name?"
It took a moment for the words to register--for me to realize he did not know who I was! His eyes narrowed; he had seen my reaction, then--and I stirred, which effectively turned my surprise into a wince of pain.
"Name?" he said again. His voice was vaguely familiar, but the vagueness remained when I tried to identify it.
"I am very much afraid," he said presently, "that your probable future is not the kind to excite general envy, but I promise I can make it much easier if you cooperate."
"Eat mud," I croaked.
He smiled slightly, both mouth and eyes. The reaction of angerless humor was unexpected, but before I could try to assess it, he said, "You'll have to permit me to be more explicit. If you do not willingly discourse with me, I expect the King will send some of his experts, who will exert themselves to get the information we require, with your cooperation or without it." He leaned one hand across his knee, watching still with that air of mild interest--as if he had all the time in the world. His hand was long fingered, slim in form; he might have been taken for some minor Court scribe except for the callused palm of one who has trained all his life with the sword.
The import of his words hit me then, and with them came more fear--and more anger. "What is it you want to know?" I asked.
His eyes narrowed slightly. "Where the Astiars' camp lies, and their immediate plans, will do for a start."
"Their camp lies in t ~ Sherwood Smith

I think we're tremendously different than the series, if they were to tune in to the series after seeing the movie they might be disappointed. That there was, you know, that they might have some kind of adverse reaction. ~ Gillian Anderson

There are three ways that men get what they want: by planning, by working, and by praying. Any great military operation takes careful planning or thinking. Then you must have well trained troops to carry it out: that's working. But between the plan and the operation there is always an unknown. That unknown spells defeat or victory; success or failure. It is the reaction of the actors to the ordeal when it actually comes. Some people call that getting the breaks. I call it God. God has His part or margin in everything. That's where prayer comes in. ~ George S. Patton Jr.

Wolves which batten upon lambs, lambs consumed by wolves, the strong who immolate the weak, the weak victims of the strong: there you have Nature, there you have her intentions, there you have her scheme: a perpetual action and reaction, a host of vices, a host of virtues, in one word, a perfect equilibrium resulting from the equality of good and evil on earth. ~ Marquis De Sade

Capitalism seems to have failed and is now stigmatized as greed. A reaction against individual excess is driving the world back to collective values. Fear of terror overrides rights; fear of slumps subverts free markets. Consumption levels and urbanization are simply unsustainable at recent rates in the face of environmental change. The throwaway society is headed for the trash heap. People who sense that "modernity" is ending proclaim a "postmodern age. ~ Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

I just try to keep my heart open. By this, I mean to try not to let my own programmed reaction to things keep me closed down for too long. ~ Krishna Das

He smiled at my reaction, the stupid smile of his that was like he knew something you didn't. And he knew something I didn't pretty much all the time, so it was pretty much every smile on his face. ~ Kiersten White

The action of social revolution and the reaction of guarding against such revolution or combating it once it has begun are the causes of a great deal of the human misery with which history is permeated. ~ Isaac Asimov

Man is the product of two forces, action and reaction, which make him think. ~ Swami Vivekananda

Theirs is the customary human reaction when confronted with innovation: to flounder about attempting to adapt old responses to new situations or to simply condemn or ignore the harbingers of change
a practice refined by the Chinese emperors, who used to execute messengers bringing bad news. The new technological environments generate the most pain among those least prepared to alter their old value structures. The literati find the new electronic environment far more threatening than do those less committed to literacy as a way of life. When an individual or social group feels that its whole identity is jeopardized by social or psychic change, its natural reaction is to lash out in defensive fury. But for all their lamentations, the revolution has already taken place. ~ Marshall McLuhan

When we smile, the muscles around our mouth are stretched and relaxed, just like doing yoga. Smiling is mouth yoga. We release the tension from our face as we smile. Others who run into us notice it, even strangers, and are likely to smile back. It is a wonderful chain reaction that we can initiate, touching the joy in anyone we encounter. Smiling is an ambassador of goodwill. ~ Nhat Hanh

Your reaction to a situation determines whether it will be positive or negative. If you're determined to label a situation positive, no matter how it appears, the result MUST be positive. If you label something negative, that MUST be your experience. It's never too late to change a situation because you have an unlimited supply of positive sticky labels! Your life is always your call! ~ Rhonda Byrne

Race is one millimeter deep. Intrepidly attending the dissection of a corpse", Bryson quotes the surgeon who pulled back a minute layer of skin and said: "That's all that race is – a sliver of epidermis." As we spread across the world, some people are thought to have evolved lighter skin in order to glean vitamin D from weaker sunlight. Throughout human history, people have "de-pigmented" and "re-pigmented" to suit their environment.

Biologically, skin colour is just "a reaction to sunlight", Bryson quotes the anthropologist Nina Jablonski as saying. She adds: "And yet look how many people have been enslaved or hated or lynched or deprived of fundamental rights through history because of the colour of their skin. ~ Bill Bryson

The August Decrees were an improvised parliamentary reaction to an emergency situation. ~ Francois Furet

She suddenly became aware of being pressed up against a really good-looking stranger, kissing in front of a goat pen. Apparently Zane got a similar wake-up call, because he stepped back at the same second she did. At least the man was breathing hard. She would hate to think she was the only one who had been affected.
"Okay, then," she said when she realized that all feelings to the contrary, she still could breathe.
Zane continued to stare at her.
She swallowed. "Did you want to say something?"
Anything would be fine. Just any old reaction. As long as he wasn't going to say it was all a mistake. That would really annoy her. Or maybe she was making a big deal out of nothing. Maybe he kissed lots of women out here by the goat pens.
"I have to get back to work. Can you find your way to the house?"
She blinked at him. That was it? Okay. Fine. As long as she didn't try to walk on legs that were still trembling, she could pretend nothing had happened.
"Sure," she muttered. "No problem."
He nodded, then bent down and picked up his hat. She frowned. When exactly had that fallen off? He straightened, opened his mouth, then closed it. She wasn't even surprised when he turned and left without saying a word. It was just so typical. ~ Susan Mallery

I apologize for my body's reaction," he managed between deep breaths. "That's not how I usually tell a woman I find her attractive." Jake Dalton, Prisoner of Love ~ Cathy Skendrovich

Trust in the familiar seems to be matched by wariness of the unfamiliar. Jennifer Richeson of Northwestern University has conducted experiments in which white subjects had to interact in some way with a white or a black man before taking a mental test. Those who dealt with the black man got lower scores on the test, and their brain scans showed what Prof. Richeson called "heightened activity in areas of the brain associated with regulating our thoughts and emotions." She interpreted this to mean that white subjects were struggling with the "awkwardness" or "exhaustion" of dealing with a black man, and that this interfered with their ability to take the mental test.
Researchers at Harvard and New York University had white and black subjects look repeatedly at a series of photographs of black and white faces, all with neutral expressions. Every time the subjects looked at one particular black face and one particular white face they got a mild electric shock. Lie detector-type devices showed that subjects would sweat - a typical stress reaction - when they saw the two faces they associated with the shocks. The researchers showed the photo series several times again, but without the shocks. White subjects quickly stopped sweating when they saw the white face formerly associated with the shock, but continued to sweat when they saw the black face. Black subjects had the opposite reaction, continuing to sweat when they saw the white but not the black face. Mahzarin Banaji, the ~ Jared Taylor

Imagination that compares and contrasts with what is around as well as what is better and worse is the living power and prime agent of all human perception judgement and emotional reaction. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

I watched as Humphrey Bogart's character used beans as a metaphor for the relative unimportance in the wider world of his relationship with Ingrid Bergman's character, and chose logic and decency ahead of his selfish emotional desires. The quandary and resulting decision made for an engrossing film. But this was not what people cried about. They were in love and could not be together. I repeated this statement to myself, trying to force an emotional reaction. I couldn't. I didn't care. I had enough problems of my own. ~ Graeme Simsion

There's a thing, Father, where men who have thought they were giants their entire lives actually see one for the first time.

It sparks a reaction.

It shows them their true worth.

It shows them their place. ~ Jonathan Hickman

Yin and Yang control man's actions, and both extremes are a natural reaction. ~ Ray Davies

I stilled. I was sure I'd imagined that all too familiar voice, but there he was. His bright blue eyes saying far more than his words ever could. His iris' held pain and anger and my shame increased tenfold. How foolish I was to think what I'd done would matter to him, or how his reaction would mean so much to me. ~ Freedom Matthews

Fighting the wounds of the past will only deepen those wounds. Relaxation is the method that heals the wounds of the mind, not reaction. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi

More than the problem, it's your reaction to the problem that creates chaos in your lives. Do not react in life. Always respond. ~ Pravin Agarwal

How many snapshots in the world were actually just-after shots, the moment that elicited the shooter to press the button never captured; instead, the detritus just following, the laughter, the reaction, the ripples. ~ Reif Larsen

That grip tightened again but this time he started rubbing his first two fingers against her neck in a soft little rhythm. The action was almost erotic. Or maybe that was just the effect he was having on her. She could feel his gentle stroking all the way to the pulsing point between her legs. Maybe she had mental issues that this man was turning her on.

He leaned closer, skimming his mouth against her jawline and she froze. Just completely, utterly froze. "Are you meeting Tasev?" he whispered.

She'd told herself to be prepared for this question, to keep her reaction under wraps, but he came to his own conclusion if his savage curse was anything to go by. Damn it, Wesley was going to be pissed at her, but Levi had been right. She had operational latitude right now and she needed to keep Levi close. They needed to know what he knew and what he was planning. Trying to shut him out now, when he was at the party specifically to meet the German, would be stupid. Levi had stayed off their radar for two years because he was good. Of course Wesley hadn't exactly sent out a worldwide manhunt for him either. About a year ago he'd decided to more or less let him go.

Now . . . "I met with the German earlier tonight. He squeezed me in before some of his other meetings."

Levi snorted, his gaze dipping to her lips once more, that hungry look in place again. It was so raw and in her face it was hard to ignore that kind of desire and what it was doi ~ Katie Reus