Stifled Quotes

His lips touched the back of her neck and moved along her stubborn shoulder. One hand stroked her breasts, and the other moved unerringly between her thighs; he found the most sensitive part of her and moved against her and in her until her half-formed protests turned into soft, stifled moans. The moon moved lower in the sky, tangling itself in her eyes until he closed them with surprisingly gentle kisses. Her body was the ocean and his was the wild wind
turning ripples into foam-capped breakers that soared and curved translucently before they crashed into oblivion against distant shores. ~ Rosemary Rogers

Broken Melody

Broken melody - tear sparkling in the eye
Of a woman loved…
Please past,
Jewel lost,
A trampled dream
Lips unkissed
In the broken melody.

With silent sobs the naked shoulders shake,
Their whiteness dazzling…
Stabbed, stabbed with remorse
For the moments of mindlessness,
For her ruined fate,
For the happiness lost
In the broken melody.

Face hidden in her hands in shame,
Remorsefully the woman weeps,
With heart despairing
(A broken guitar,
A voice stifled
On lips kissed by pain
In the broken melody).
Silent he stands beside the woman weeping

Scolding tears of shame
That dim her eyes.
Some money on the table quickly lays
And goes away,
Leaving the woman lost
In the broken melody.
But when another comes, lust mounts again,

The heated blood
Pounds furiously through the veins,
Benumbing mind
… and only gasps
And grants are heard
In the horrid melody.

(Translated by R.Elsie) ~ Millosh Gjergj Nikolla (Migjeni)

I was wrenched awake at the tail-end of a stifled scream. I fought my way up from a deep dark dream. The scream had been mine. ~ Jane Wilson-Howarth

Forgive me, Old One." Vaughn stifled a yawn. "Is there a point to this bedtime story?"
Rhys picked up the fork from Vaughn's plate and drove it into his brother's thigh. "There. I've made four points for him. ~ Hailey Edwards

Whatever condition we are in, we must always do what we want to do, and if we want to go on a journey, then we must do so and not worry about our condition, even if it's the worst possible condition, because, if it is, we're finished anyway, whether we go on the journey or not, and it's better to die having made the journey we're been longing for than to be stifled by our longing. ~ Thomas Bernhard

Permission is the key that unlocks the door that's been holding us trapped, muzzled, and stifled in our grief. Permission is the opposite of rejection. Permission is the opposite of abandonment. Permission lifts the weight, eases the pressure, and loosens the reins. ~ Shelby Forsythia

I told him that bed-and-breakfasts have ginormous whirlpool tubs, and that I'd be willing to do unspeakably sinful things to him
in it."
A strangled sound came from one of the two nerdy guys behind us in line, both wearing tortured expressions and staring at Erin. We stifled
laughs.
Maggie sighed. "Poor Chaz. He never had a chance… he's gonna be standing in front of a bunch of people saying 'I do' someday without
knowing how it happened."
"Ugh! I don't think so. When it's time to settle down, I'm getting somebody like…" Erin looked over her shoulder at the eavesdroppers behind
us, "like one of them."
The boys looked at each other and stood up a little straighter. With a smirk in Erin's direction, one of them fist-bumped the other. ~ Tammara Webber

There is no suffering, except remorse, so fatal as that which comes from the consciousness of strangled ambition, blasted hope, stifled aspiration. To be conscious that we possess decided ability for some particular calling, and to be compelled by circumstances, year after year, to be chained to drudgery which the heart loathes, requires supreme courage. ~ Orison Swett Marden

No one leaves his or her world without being transfixed by its roots, or with a vacuum for a soul. We carry with us the memory of many fabrics, a self soaked in our history, our culture; a memory, sometimes scattered, sometimes sharp and clear, of the streets of our childhood, of our adolescence; the reminiscence of something distant that suddenly stands out before us, in us, a shy gesture, an open hand, a smile lost in time and misunderstanding, a sentence, a simple sentence, possibly now forgotten by the one who said it. A word for so long a time attempted and never spoken, always stifled in inhibition, in the fear of being rejected- which as it implies a lack of confidence in ourselves, also means refusal to risk. ~ Paulo Freire

Don't you see what I'm saying? It's got nothing to do with definite, measurable talents - it's your very essence that's being stifled here. It's what you are that's being denied and denied and denied in this kind of life. ~ Richard Yates

Without art, we're handicapped, and living a stifled, barren existence. ~ Ken Danby

It exasperated her to think that the dungeon in which she had languished for so many unhappy years had been unlocked all the time, and that the impulses she had so carefully struggled with and stifled for the sake of keeping well with society, were precisely those by which alone she could have come into any sort of sincere human contact. ~ George Bernard Shaw

There is much to be done, there is much that can be done ... one person of integrity can make a difference, a difference of life and death. As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs. ~ Elie Wiesel

Society considers the sex experiences of a man as attributes of his general development, while similar experiences in the life of a woman are looked upon as a terrible calamity, a loss of honor and of all that is good and noble in a human being. This double standard of morality has played no little part in the creation and perpetuation of prostitution. It involves the keeping of the young in absolute ignorance on sex matters, which alleged "innocence," together with an overwrought and stifled sex nature, helps to bring about a state of affairs that our Puritans are so anxious to avoid or prevent. ~ Emma Goldman

I've got a really great team around me. They're the ones that are in the restaurants on a day to day basis. Anyone that's good can't be stifled in any way. I don't baby people. ~ Todd English

Nothing would be regarded as obscene, I feel, if men were living out their inmost desires. What man dreads most is to be faced with the manifestation, in word or deed, of that which he has refused to live out, that which he has throttled or stifled, buried as we say now, in his subconscious mind. The sordid qualities imputed to the enemy are always those which we recognize as our own and therefore rise to slay, because only through projection do we realize the enormity and horror of them. ~ Henry Miller

Lalie had helped her undress, down to her sheer silk shift, and Marisa had removed even that, feeling stifled by the moist heat and the netting over her bed. She slept, but there were strange dreams hovering on the edge of her unconsciousness. She dreamed that Inez came back from the city with a stocky, red-faced man with a sheaf of papers in his hand, and that while they stood looking down at her and talking about her she tried to move and protest, but she was caught in the netting that stopped up her eyes and her mouth. The netting turned into a sea of sand under which she was buried. And somewhere above her, booted feet astride her face, she knew that Dominic stood scowling, as she remembered him last. ~ Rosemary Rogers

I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time. ~ Jack London

While the train flashed through never-ending miles of ripe wheat, by country towns and bright-flowered pastures and oak groves wilting in the sun, we sat in the observation car, where the woodwork was hot to the touch and red dust lay deep over everything. The dust and heat, the burning wind, reminded us of many things. We were talking about what it is like to spend one's childhood in little towns like these, buried in wheat and corn, under stimulating extremes of climate: burning summers when the world lies green and billowy beneath a brilliant sky, when one is fairly stifled in vegetation, in the color and smell of strong weeds and heavy harvests; blustery winters with little snow, when the whole country is stripped bare and gray as sheet-iron. We agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town could know anything about it. It was a kind of freemasonry, we said. ~ Willa Cather

All the horrors of all the ages were brought together, and not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them. The mighty educated States involved conceived-not without reason-that their very existence was at stake. Neither peoples nor rulers drew the line at any deed which they thought could help them win. Germany, having let Hell loose, kept well in the van of terror; but she was followed step by step by the desperate and ultimately avenging nations she had assailed. Every outrage against humanity or international law was repaid by reprisals-often of a greater scale and of longer duration. No truce or parley mitigated the strife of the armies. The wounded died between the lines: the dead mouldered into the soil. Merchant ships and neutral ships and hospital ships were sunk on the seas and all on board left to their fate, or killed as they swam. Every effort was made to starve whole nations into submission without regard to age or sex. Cities and monuments were smashed by artillery. Bombs from the air were cast down indiscriminately. Poison gas in many forms stifled or seared the soldiers. Liquid fire was projected upon their bodies. Men fell from the air in flames, or were smothered often slowly in the dark recesses of the sea. The fighting strength of armies was limited only by the manhood of their countries. Europe and large parts of Asia and Africa became one vast battlefield on which after years of struggle not armies but nations broke and ran. Whe ~ Winston S. Churchill

He might have been considered a very eligible bachelor, had he worked a little less, and ventured into society a little more. But Pritchard loathed large groups of mixed company, where every man is required to act as a kind of envoy for his sex, and presents his own advantages playfully, under the scrutiny of the room. Large crowds made him stifled and irritable. He preferred close company, and kept few friends - to whom he was fiercely loyal, ~ Eleanor Catton

I want here to make three suggestions: first, that the doubts the ordinary man feels about religion are justified, and need not be stifled or concealed; second, that there is no ground for the view that Christianity is the only alternative to communism, or that there can be no sound character training that is not based on religion; and, third, I want to make some practical suggestions to the parents who are not believers, on what they should tell the children about God, and what sort of moral training they should give them. ~ Margaret E. Knight

All right," I said, waving the cup away and dabbing moisture very carefully from my lips. "I'm fine." I breathed shallowly, feeling my heart begin to slow down. "Well. So. At least now I know why you've been coming back from the Cherokee villages in such a state of-- off--" I felt an unhinged giggle rising, and bent over, moaning as I stifled it. "Oh, Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ. And here I thought it was thoughts of me, driving you mad with lust."
He snorted then himself, though mildly. He put down the cup, rose, and turned back the coverlet. Then he looked at me, and his eyes were clear, unguarded.
"Claire," he said, quite gently, "it was you. It's always been you, and it always will be. Get into bed, and put the candle out. As soon as I've fastened the shutters, smoored the hearth, and barred the door, I'll come and keep ye warm. ~ Diana Gabaldon

If we separate our mundane needs (doing) from God's best gift, his loving presence (being), then we are overspiritualizing prayer. If we ask nothing of God, we are left adrift in an evil world. Such a position may feel spiritual because it seems unselfish, but it is unbiblical because it separates the real world of our desires from God's world. The kingdom can't come because it is floating. By discounting the spiritual and physical worlds, Neoplatonism did exactly what the Enlightenment did. The only difference was Neoplatonism valued the spiritual while the Enlightenment valued the physical. So the church is influenced by Neoplatonism (the physical isn't important), and the world is shaped by the Enlightenment (the spiritual isn't important). Both perspectives stifled honest, person-to-person praying in the church. ~ Paul E. Miller

So I pulled the ridiculously small, unwrapped, box from the sleeve of my yukata (as they don't have pockets) and rather overly self-consciously handed it to her. She took the pitiful little box, held it up to her ear and gave it a cautious little rattling shake. -You didn't just put a couple of dried old beans in here, as a joke, did you? She suddenly glared at me suspiciously.
I heard a stifled bark from Yumi at that, and a deep gasp from Uncle Suzuki and Aunt Anda, followed by a moment of silence. -Of course not, you silly old goose, I snapped back, -just open it and you'll see what's inside! ~ Andrew James Pritchard

People would do well to ask themselves how many of their ambitions and aspirations derive from the type of economic system they inhabit and the insecurity and exhaustion it creates, and question the sense and purpose of a society where control of a large portion of life is abdicated under contract in the labour market, and where immense creativity and potential is stifled by the need to do difficult and repetitive tasks in order to earn a wage. ~ Tony Benn

How is it having more control if there are young people stifled the opportunities that we had? ~ Sadiq Khan

The stifled hum of midnight, when traffic has lain down to rest, and the chariot wheels of Vanity, still rolling here and there through distant streets, are bearing her to halls roofed in and lighted to the due pitch for her; and only vice and misery, to prowl or to moan like night birds, are abroad. ~ Thomas Carlyle

Quite frankly, the Urban brand organization became too siloed, with too little communication across functional areas. The great creativity that has been the hallmark of our success became stifled. ~ Richard Hayne

l. She
dared one more quick look at the tat, but her attention soon
moved to the size of the muscle on which it had been inked.
Definitely leer-worthy. When he passed beside her on his
way toward the back of the room, she caught a whiff of sexy
aftershave and stifled a groan. Millicent was going to be all
a-twitter over him. Tara just knew it.
When she heard someone behind her whisper, "He's
sooo hot," she couldn't help but silently agree.
But it was another girl's answer that made her curious.
"Yeah . . . but no one in her right mind would mess with
him."
"Bethany did."
"But not for long."
"Yeah. Right."
Ahah. Bethany must be the girl glaring at him beside the
teacher's desk. ~ Sharon Sala

II

A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
In word, or sigh, or tear -
O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd,
All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,
And its peculiar tint of yellow green:
And still I gaze - and with how blank an eye!
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars;
Those stars, that glide behind them or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:
Yon crescent Moon as fixed as if it grew
In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;
I see them all so excellently fair,
I see, not feel how beautiful they are!

III

My genial spirits fail;
And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?
It were a vain endeavour,
Though I should gaze for ever
On that green light that lingers in the west:
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life, whose fountains are within. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Poverty arises and persists where corruption is endemic and enterprise is stifled, where basic fairness provided by the rule of law is absent. In such circumstances, poverty is an assault against human dignity, and in that assault lies the natural seed of human anger ~ Colin Powell

A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear,
A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet or relief,
In word, or sigh, or tear. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Mother, have you noticed that this society we're in tends to be a little…repressive?"
"What does that mean, Eugenie? What does that mean, that strange new word, 'repressive,' that I have never heard before?"
"It means…it's like when you decide to do something, and you get up out of your chair to do it, and you take a step, and then become aware of frosty glances being directed at you from every side."
"Frosty glances?"
"Your desires are stifled."
"What desires are you talking about?"
"Just desires in general. Any desires. It's a whole…I guess atmosphere is the…word…a tendency on the part of the society…"
"You'd better sew some more pillow cases, Eugenie. ~ Donald Barthelme

Pop is everything art hasn't been for the last two decades ... It springs newborn out of a boredom with the finality and over-saturation of Abstract-Expressionism, which, by its own esthetic logic, is the END of art, the glorious pinnacle of the long pyramidal creative process. Stifled by this rarefied atmosphere, some young painters turn back to some less exalted things like Coca-Cola, ice-cream sodas, big hamburgers, super-markets and 'EAT' signs. They are eye-hungry; they pop ... ~ Robert Indiana

Slowly, her slim hand smoothed over the swell of his buttock, lingering there. A shocked laugh choked his throat, the sound muddled by a stifled groan that her intrigued touch elicited. The saucy little sneak thief was copping a feel. He felt inclined to turn around and let her get a handful. ~ Kristen Callihan

In 1951, the Columbia University sociologist C. Wright Mills published a study titled White Collar: The American Middle Classes.26 Like Ronald Coase, Mills was fascinated by the rise of large managerial corporations. He argued that these firms, in their pursuit of scale and efficiency, had created a vast tier of workers who carried out repetitive, mechanistic tasks that stifled their imagination and, ultimately, their ability to fully participate in society. In short, Mills argued, the typical corporate worker was alienated. For many, that alienation was captured in the warning printed on the Hollerith punch cards that, thanks to IBM and other data processing firms, became ubiquitous symbols and agents of bureaucratized life during the 1950s and 1960s: "Do Not Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate. ~ Moises Naim

This was a life, this was how people chose to live? Somewhere inside she could feel winds dying, the gales of her youth stifled. She was learning that in her life everything - health, happiness, even love - was subject to the landscape; the weathers of the world were inseparable from the weathers of her soul. ~ Anthony Doerr

The cow-shaped cookies have a beef flavoring, the turkey-shaped cookies have a poultry flavoring, and ... "
Jane held up one of the cookies. "Human-flavored?"
Meg stifled a sigh. That would be the first thing on her feedback list: don't make people-shaped cookies. The Wolves were way too interested and all of them leaped to a logical, if disturbing, expectation about the taste. ~ Anne Bishop

Good day to you, Sister," Gannon grunted, gritting his teeth and clenching the reins in a white-knuckled grip. "May you live to see your great-grandchildren, and may your eyes never grow dim!" Rolin stifled a snicker. His spinster aunt was childless, and her eyesight was poor from years of needlework. ~ William D. Burt

That good disposition which boasts of being most tender is often stifled by the least urging of self-interest. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Civilization flows; culture thickens and coagulates, like tired, sick, stifled blood. ~ Edward Abbey

Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. there is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there. ~ Henry Miller

Lust should be stifled, for it cannot lead to truth. ~ Moses Ibn Ezra

Jaenelle peered into the space between the chair arms. "Saetan?" she said in a small, quivery voice. "Saetan, are you all right?"
Using Craft, Saetan sent the top chair back to the blackwood desk. "I'm fine, witch-child." He stuffed his feet into his shoes and gingerly stood up. "That's the most excitement I've had in centuries."
"Really?" He straightened his black tunic-jacket and smoothed back his hair.
"Yes, really." And Guardian or not, a man his age shouldn't have his heart gallop around his rib cage like this. Saetan looked around the study and stifled a groan. ~ Anne Bishop

The common base of all the Semitic creeds, winners or losers, was the ever present idea of world-worthlessness. Their profound reaction from matter led them to preach bareness, renunciation, poverty; and the atmosphere of this invention stifled the minds of the desert pitilessly. ~ T.E. Lawrence

I had a moment when I first got on Supernatural when I was like, "Oh my god, people are paying attention to me, I have fans, maybe I should cultivate an image and try to seem really cool." I had this moment of being commercially self conscious and it took maybe a month for me to realize no, this is not who I ****ing am, and here's a picture of me in drag. Which is, by the way, so much more liberating and relaxing. There's not a more sure fire way to give a stifled, boring, empty, vapid, meaningless interview than trying to say the right thing ... ~ Misha Collins

When men have appreciated the countless differences which the exercise of that judgment must necessarily produce, when they have estimated the intrinsic fallibility of their reason, and the degree in which it is distorted by the will, when, above all, they have acquired that love of truth which a constant appeal to private judgment at last produces, they will never dream that guilt can be associated with an honest conclusion, or that one class of arguments should be stifled by authority. ~ William Edward Hartpole Lecky

I understood where I had come from: from a dreary tangle of sadness and pretense, of longing, absurdity, inferiority and provincial pomposity, sentimental education and anachronistic ideals, repressed traumas, resignation, and helplessness. Helplessness of the acerbic, domestic variety, where small-time liars pretended to be dangerous terrorists and heroic freedom fighters, where unhappy bookbinders invented formulas for universal salvation, where dentists whispered confidentially to all their neighbors about their protracted personal correspondence with Stalin, where piano teachers, kindergarten teachers, and housewives tossed and turned tearfully at night from stifled yearning for an emotion-laden artistic life, where compulsive writers wrote endless disgruntled letters to the editor of Davar, where elderly bakers saw Maimonides and the Baal Shem Tov in their dreams, where nervy, self-righteous trade-union hacks kept an apparatchik's eye on the rest of the local residents, where cashiers at the cinema or the cooperative shop composed poems and pamphlets at night. ~ Amos Oz

He guessed the NKVD didn't even know that Waffen-SS men could be identified by the blood-group tattoos on the underside of their left arms, usually near the armpit. Richter didn't have one. He'd been classed as a non-combatant, as he'd said, at least for a portion of the war. He decided it could be weeks before they found out who he was.
But Volsky's confidence appeared to have been restored too, now. He said, 'And the vat of incense?'
'I had the incense brought from the remnants of a Christmas smoker factory. Silly little hollow figurines invented by toymakers in the Ore Mountains. Cone incense burns down inside the figurines and the smoke emerges from the open mouths. There was a glut of them,' Richter said, truthfully. 'Berliners were shocked and saddened after Stalingrad. But they lost the will to celebrate after the Battle of Kursk. They knew the Red Army was coming. The puerile little incense smokers were redundant, together with the incense they were to hold. Except it didn't go to waste. The vat was taken from a merchant's house. It's from Hong Kong, I think.'
Volsky leaned back in his chair. He said, 'Why go to all the trouble?'
That's a good question, Richter thought.
He stifled a smile. 'To mask the smell. ~ Gary Haynes

You gonna tuck me in?"
She stifled the grin. Opportunistic, determined idiot. "You gonna behave?"
"Define 'behave. ~ Elizabeth Hunter

I realise and finally acknowledge that at the core I am only a lover. Of life. Of beauty. Of love. Of being in love. Of kindness. Of words. Of conversations. Of dreams. Of imagination. Of ideas. Of realness. Of vulnerability. Of solitude. Of Silences. Of companionship. Of poetry. Of music. Of movement. Of stillness. Of energy. And, when the lover in me is stifled,starved, not finding resonance, is misunderstood, is dulled or ignored, I question my very existence because I do not feel alive. When the lover in me dies, everything in me dies. I realise that my inner fire is only a lover. I have no other identity of self than as a lover. ~ Srividya Srinivasan

He never tried anything other than to kiss her, hold her hand; often, in his company, she felt boredom rise in her like a stifled yawn. ~ Laura Barnett

The glorious freedom of writing is a beautiful thing that must never be stifled by censorship. ~ Stewart Stafford

Foreign, eh?" Hetty frowned. "Then I am glad Mr. Pinter is looking into his background. You have to be careful with foreigners."
"Right. I wouldn't want to rush into marriage with a stranger," Celia said tartly. "Oh, wait, yes, I would. My grandmother has dictated that I must."
Hetty stifled a smile. "Sarcasm does not become you, dear girl."
"Draconian ultimatums don't become you, Gran."
"Complain if you must, but I still mean to see you married by year's end. ~ Sabrina Jeffries

These 'mistakes' occur in my books for a reason. I have an agenda: I'm secretly trying to inspire kids to create their own stories and comics, and I don't want them to feel stifled by 'perfectionism.' ~ Dav Pilkey

From day one it was like society was this violent, complicated dance and everybody had taken lessons but me. Knocked to the floor again, climbing to my feet each time, bloody and humiliated. Always met with disapproving faces, waiting for me to leave so I'd stop fucking up the party.
The wanted to push me outside, where the freaks huddled in the cold. Out there with the misfits, the broken, the glazed-eye types who can only watch as the normals enjoy their shiny new cars and careers and marriages and vacations with the kids.
The freaks spend their lives shambling around, wondering how they got left out, mumbling about conspiracy theories and bigfoot sightings. Their encounters with the world are marked by awkward conversations and stifled laughter, hidden smirks and rolled eyes. And worst of all, pity. ~ David Wong

You would rather die than be a governess? It's not prostitution, for heaven's sake!" Charlotte gaped, and Emily, pale and stricken as she was, stifled a giggle. "I shudder to think where you learned of such things," Charlotte said, standing. "The Bible," Anne snapped. "Allow me to recommend it to you." Good ~ Lena Coakley

It was this whole huge deal," Megan said. "But then we re-voted and I won! I still can't believe it."
"Well, congratulations," Finn said.
"Thanks. I couldn't wait t tell you," Megan said, grinning at him. "You should have seen her face. It was like…"
Megan stopped suddenly--Finn's face had gone all weird. He wasn't smiling anymore. It seemed like he had stopped breathing.
"What?" Megan said, her heart skipping a beat. He was studying her. Taking in every line of her face from her jaw to her cheekbone to her flyaway hair.
Finn reached over and ran his hand quickly over her hair, brushing it back. "This," he said.
And then he leaned forward and kissed her. For an infinitesimal moment, Megan froze. She had no idea what to do with herself. No idea where to put her hands or whether to move her lips or how to even breathe.
Kiss him back, for God's sake! she told herself.
Then she stifled a surprised, embarrassed, happy laugh and did as she was told. She returned his pressure and reached up to grab awkwardly at his sleeve. Finn's hand cupped the back of her head and his other hand lightly touched her knee. Megan's skin was on fire. Finn was kissing her. Finn was kissing her!
He pulled back, out of nowhere, and looked her in the eyes. "Is this okay?" he asked.
Megan mutely, dumbly, breathlessly nodded. She just wanted his lips on hers. He smiled and kissed her again, and this time Megan slid forward on the bench, leaning her body clo ~ Kate Brian

Love hasn't got anything to do with the heart, the heart's a disgusting organ, a sort of pump full of blood. Love is primarily concerned with the lungs. People shouldn't say "she's broken my heart" but "she's stifled my lungs." Lungs are the most romantic organs: lovers and artists always contract tuberculosis. It's not a coincidence that Chekhov, Kafka, D.H. Lawrence, Chopin, George Orwell and St Thérèse of Lisieux all died of it; as for Camus, Moravia, Boudard and Katherine Mansfield, would they have written the same books if it werent for TB? ~ Frederic Beigbeder

The times when I feel not alive is when I feel stifled, when I feel like the emotion that's in me is not coming out. I'm too busy, too hectic. I'm serving my iPhone more than my spirit. Those are the times I feel bad. ~ Michael Franti

Why do gentlemen's voices carry so clearly, when women's are so easily stifled? ~ Sarah Waters

When I should have felt real pain, I stifled it. I didn't want to take it on, so I avoided facing up to it. Which is why my heart is so empty now. ~ Haruki Murakami

Emotions become more violent when expression is stifled. ~ Philo

I knew now that the trouble with the dead wasn't that they overwhelmed you, that they haunted you and stifled you with memories. The trouble with the dead was that they packed up and left you, and there was nothing you could do to bring them back. ~ Christie Hodgen

No Child Left Behind has diminished [teachers'] sense of control of their own classroom, narrowed the focus of their jobs, and stifled pedagogical innovation. ~ James M. Lang

You too are an exile, I thought. You morn for the broad open steppes where you have room to spread your icy wings. Here you feel stifled and constricted, like an eagle that cries and beats against the bars of its iron cage. ~ Mikhail Lermontov

I Am!

I am - yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes -
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live - like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
Even the dearest that I loved the best
Are strange - nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie
The grass below - above the vaulted sky. ~ John Clare

Do you know what day it is?" she asked, peering at him.
"Don't you?"
"Here in Spindle Cove, we ladies have a schedule. Mondays are country walks. Tuesdays, sea bathing. Wednesdays, you'd find us in the garden." She touched the back of her hand to his forehead. "What is it we do on Mondays?"
"We didn't get to Thursdays."
"Thursdays are irrelevant. I'm testing your ability to recall information. Do you remember Mondays?"
He stifled a laugh. God, her touch felt good. If she kept petting and stroking him like this, he might very well go mad.
"Tell me your name," he said. "I promise to recall it. ~ Tessa Dare

To grow one has to feel pain, know uneasiness - as you certainly must know from your work as a child psychiatrist. Isn't it more dangerous, more awful, when people don't feel the kinds of doubts and misgivings and confusions we've been talking about, when instead their voices are stifled by the permeating ideology, the official seductive presence of the state and the marketplace and the military machine? ~ Daniel Berrigan

Darks drifts covered the horizon. A strange shadow approaching nearer and nearer, was spreading little by little over men, over things, over ideas; a shadow which came from indignations and from systems. All that had been hurriedly stifled was stirring and fermenting. Sometimes the conscious of the honest man caught its breath, there was so much confusion in that air in which sophisms were mingled with truths. Minds trembled in the social anxiety like leaves at the approach of the storm. The electric tension was so great that at certain moments any chance-comer, thought unknown, flashed out. Then the twilight darkness fell again. At intervals, deep and sullen mutterings enabled men to judge of the amount of lightning in the cloud. ~ Victor Hugo

The mask of self-deception was not longer a mask for me, it was a part of me. Night lifted it, laying bare the stifled truth below; but there was no one to see except myself, and when day broke the mask fell back again of its own accord. ~ Robert W. Chambers

I glanced at Alex and stifled a shriek. While I wasn't looking, he'd transformed into a large timber wolf.
"Do you have to turn into animals behind my back?" I asked.
Alex barred his fangs in a canine grin. ~ Rick Riordan

Shamed and enraged, I sit by the side of the road and cry.
Eclipsed by a sense of disgrace, my emotions feel momentarily stifled and disconnected. Instead of anger, I feel dishonored and exposed. I cannot even formulate my thoughts, much less speak them. My integrity and humility have been violated. I have only my own indignation to spur me on. ~ Holly A. Smith

I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. - Jack London ~ Jack London

If you give me the name of the contraceptive shot you had, I will source for more of them. I am keen that nothing interrupts our enjoyment of each other." His tone indicated the understatement of the millennium.
"It's called Depo-Provera. It's supposed to last three months or so, and Paul has a few more doses." When he'd injected me, I'd said, "The idea of living another three months feels far-fetched right now." He'd replied, "Better safe than sorry, huh?"

Aric nodded. "I will be on the lookout for it."


Aric raised a brow at that. Then, seeming to make a decision, he eased me aside to get out of the bed. "I have something for you." As he strode to our closet, I gawked at the sight of his flawless body.

The return view was even more rewarding.

He sat beside me and handed me a small jewelry box. "I want you to have this."

I opened the box, finding a gorgeous gold ring, engraved with runes that called to mind his tattoos. An oval of amber adorned the band. Beautiful. The warm color reminded me of his eyes whenever he was pleased.

"My homeland was famous for amber - from pine." He slipped the ring on my finger, and it fit perfectly. Holding my gaze, he said, "We are wed now."

First priest I find, I'm goan to marry you. Jack's words. I recalled the love blazing from his gray gaze before I stifled the memory. "Aric, th-this is so beautiful. Thank you."

The symbol of his parents' marr ~ Kresley Cole

I want to make connections and to communicate because we are only and really alive right now. I still want to experience the extremes so I must find ways to fulfil this need sober. I must be brave. I wonder if I can still be cheeky or flirtatious without booze. If I master this, I could be unstoppable. In the past months I've been stifled by bruised confidence and anxiety, but these things take time. I'm gradually learning to say things sober that other people wait to say drunk. ~ Amy Liptrot

I know now that it's the sweet, sweating smell of hope, which is opposite of hate; and it's the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. ~ Gregory David Roberts

Rap is always evolving. It's easy for the old school to hate the new school, but it's a music that got a little stifled I think, by the Internet a little bit. ~ Ice Cube

He's outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)
And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard's.
And when the larder's looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,
Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke's been stifled,
Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair -
Ay, there's the wonder of the thing! Macavity's not there!

And when the Foreign Office find a Treaty's gone astray,
Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way,
There may be a scrap of paper in the hall or on the stair -
But it's useless to investigate - Mcavity's not there!
And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:
'It must have been Macavity!' - but he's a mile away.
You'll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,
Or engaged in doing complicated long-division sums.

Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibi, and one or two to spaer:
At whatever time the deed took place - MACAVITY WASN'T THERE!
And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
(I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time
Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime! ~ T.S. Eliot

Always more, always hungrily scratching for more. But there were times, quiet moments, when our mother was sleeping, when she hadn't slept in two days, and any noise, any stair creak, any shut door, any stifled laugh, any voice at all, might wake her, those still, crystal mornings, when we wanted to protect her, this confused goose of a woman, this stumbler, this gusher, with her backaches and headaches and her tired, tired ways, this uprooted Brooklyn creature, this tough talker, always with tears when she told us she loved us, her mixed-up love, her needy love, her warmth, those mornings when sunlight found the cracks in our blinds and laid itself down in crisp strips on our carpet, those quiet mornings when we'd fix ourselves oatmeal and sprawl onto our stomachs with crayons and paper, with glass marbles that we were careful not to rattle, when our mother was sleeping, when the air did not smell like sweat or breath or mold, when the air was still and light, those mornings when silence was our secret game and our gift and our sole accomplishment - we wanted less: less weight, less work, less noise, less father, less muscles and skin and hair. We wanted nothing, just this, just this. ~ Justin Torres

But I was living my life sideway. I did not act on what I wanted, I did not say the things I thought, and being so stifled and clamped all the time left me exhausted; no matter what I was doing, I was always imagining something else. ~ Curtis Sittenfeld

I require your assistance," a male voice whispered.
My mouth fell open.
"Ahhgaluhg!" I gagged - near drowned - on a slew of water and lost my balance. The pink shower curtain proved no leverage whatsoever, and I ripped it down with me, rod and all, slopping into the tub with a splash, irritated squeal, and shuddering thud.
"Jay - !" I stifled a scream and hissed the second syllable through clenched teeth, " - den!"
"Have you sustained injury?" Jayden's face hovered over the tub.
"Not until you showed up! ~ A. Kirk

He had to deal all at once with the packed regrets and stifled dreams of an inarticulate lifetime. ~ Edith Wharton

Passive commerce ... should thus ... [compel us] to content ourselves with the first price of our commodities, and to see the profits of our trade snatched from us, to enrich our enemies and persecutors. That unequalled spirit of enterprise ... an inexhaustible mine of national wealth, would be stifled and lost; and poverty and disgrace would overspread a country, which, with wisdom, might make herself the admiration and envy of the world. ~ Alexander Hamilton

Easing farther inside, he found a woman within who resembled Mariketa. Beside her stood a man who crossed thick arms over his chest, raising his brows at Bowe.
At that moment, Bowe realized that he was meeting Mari's parents - and that, in addition to his bare feet and unshaven, rough appearance, his shirt was on backward. And inside out.
"This is the male she's been seeing?" the man muttered. "He can't even dress himself."
Bowe just stifled the urge to point out that though he might not be able to dress himself, he sure as hell could perceive when a bairn was on his shoulders. Instead he bit his tongue. This warlock, though arrogant, was Bowe's future father-in-law.
"A werewolf, Jill? Really."
"Hush." The woman slapped the back of her hand against his stomach, then said, "I'm Jillian. And this is my husband, Warren. We are Mari's parents. And we know you're Bowen MacRieve of the Lykae clan."
He gave her a nod.
To Bowe, Warren demanded, "Aren't you a bit old for my daughter?"
When Bowe scowled, Jillian blithely continued, "We've been waiting for you. ~ Kresley Cole

Argh!" Thalia pushed me, and a shock went through my body that blew me backward ten feet into the water. Some of the campers gasped. A couple of the Hunters stifled laughs.
"Sorry!" Thalia said, turning pale. "I didn't mean to - "
Anger roared in my ears. A wave erupted from the creek, blasting into Thalia's face and dousing her from head to toe.
I stood up. "Yeah," I growled. "I didn't mean to, either."
Thalia was breathing heavily.
"Enough!" Chiron ordered.
But Thalia held out her spear. "You want some, Seaweed Brain?"
Somehow, it was okay when Annabeth called me that - at least, I'd gotten used to it - but hearing it from Thalia was not cool.
"Bring it on, Pinecone Face! ~ Rick Riordan

Recent action in Syria and Palestine also tell us that the awakening voices of democracy in those regions are occurring, and that those in that region are able to pursue it without being stifled by terrorists that are despotic. ~ Judd Gregg

There's no way I'll be able to peacefully sleep with my cock throbbing so painfully. I carefully undo my belt and pants before sliding them to my ankles. With my foot, I kick them under the bed. I peel away my sweater and have it join my pants as well. Once I'm standing beside her in nothing but my boxers and socks, I stroke myself through my underwear. God, I fucking want her. I push my boxers down my thighs so that my heavy erection bobs out. When I take it in my grip, it's hot and pulsating. I'm dying to push into every single one of her holes. To draw out pleasure and pain from her. I want to own every part of her. Fisting my cock feverishly, I attempt to keep my grunts stifled. With each tug, I get closer and closer to release. ~ K. Webster

It's your world, but I make my way in it. At fifteen, no, I couldn't stand up to you. The age of illusions, when we know nothing, we hope for everything; we're wandering in a mist ... And the half of the world that's never had any use for us, suddenly is besieging us. You need us, you adore us, you're suffering for us. You want everything--except to know what we think. You look deep in our eyes--and put your hand up our dress. You call us, "Pretty thing." That confuses us. The most beautiful woman, the highest ranked, lives half dazzled by constant attention, half stifled by obvious contempt. We think all we're good for is pleasing you--till one day, long acquaintance with you dispels the last mist. In a clear light, we suddenly see you as you are--and generally we start preferring ourselves. At thirty, I could finally say no--or really say yes. That's when you begin backing away from us. Now I'm full-grown. I pursue my happiness the same as any man. ~ Pierre-Augustin Caron De Beaumarchais

Chance stifled a grin, and all I could think was that this girl had to be related to me. Only women who were related to me annoyed me this much. ~ Barbra Annino

The man quoted Confucius? How unfair that a man such as he could be so clever, dangerous, rich, powerful, and well read. Farah stifled a sigh, then, alarmed by her reaction to him, straightened her spine and took up her quill, ready to swipe the efficient shorthand across her paper. ~ Kerrigan Byrne

Tyson, Frank is a descendant of Poseidon."
"Brother!" Tyson crushed Frank in a hug.
Percy stifled a laugh. "Actually he's more like a great-great- ... Oh, never mind. Yeah, he's your brother."
"Thanks." Frank mumbled through a mouthful of flannel. ~ Rick Riordan

Wishing to make an effective entrance, he flung it wide open, when a heavy jug of water fell right down on him, wetting him to the skin, and just missing his left shoulder by a couple of inches. At the same moment he heard stifled shrieks of laughter proceeding from the four-post bed. ~ Oscar Wilde

Some of the brightest and best women in our society are stifled in their ambitions. ~ Nicola Sturgeon

He brought down Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and Jay Cantor's Krazy Kat, then grabbed an omnibus volume of Dick. "And this is the book that inspired the film we saw tonight." Tess stifled a laugh, but not the surge of affection behind it. Where some might have seen an almost woeful ignorance ~ Laura Lippman

Certain things seeped into his memory. Like how Jane had called him "Saint Dominick" three months ago, which he'd thought odd at the time for a woman who should have believed him a fortune hunter. Or how she'd spoken of being tired of "waiting" for her "life to begin."
Good God. She really might have been talking about him then. About waiting for him to come after her. All this time…
No, he couldn't believe that. She'd only been seventeen when they'd ended things, and women that age were still feeling their way in life. She couldn't possibly have been carrying a torch for him all these years.
Why not? You've been carrying one for her.
He stifled a curse. Nonsense. He'd cut her out of his heart.
God, he was such a liar.
They were now well out of the city. She sat quietly beside him, obviously uncomfortable after what had happened between them.
She couldn't be any more uncomfortable than he was. He could still taste her mouth, still feel the moment when she'd turned to putty in his arms. He was aware of every inch of her that touched him now. Her hand lay in her lap, so close he could reach over and take it.
Or perhaps not. The last thing he needed was her shoving him off the phaeton, which she was liable to do if she took a mind to it. She was damned angry.
Though he wasn't entirely sure why. She was engaged to a very rich, very well-connected earl, all because Dom had set her free. So why did she look as if she wanted to throttle h ~ Sabrina Jeffries

Perhaps never before in history has the artist been so certain that the more daring, iconoclastic, absurd, and inaccessible he is, the more he will be recognized, praised, spoiled, idolatrized. In some countries the result has even been an academicism in reverse, the academicism of the "avant-garde" - to such a point that any artistic experience that makes no concessions to this new conformism is in danger of being stifled or ignored. ~ Mircea Eliade

He felt entombed and stifled and desperately craved oxygen. He vainly raised the question: Why have you forsaken me?

'Call my mother,' he yelled. He had meant to say: I'm dying. Please call a priest.

The shadowy Presence, who had been in a panic, rushed over to him and, disregarding the fact that it was live, pushed the cable aside.

'You're alive,' the Presence said in breathless tones. 'Mamma's here to help.'

The elevator continued to descend, creating a vacuum. Barnes gasped for breath.

'Breathe in, breathe out,' the Presence urged. She tapped his pulse rapidly with two fingers. 'Come on, you can do it. One, two, three. Breathe in. Mamma's here to help.' ... In his delirium he thought that indeed his mother was here to help. However, in all of Barnes's twenty-nine years of so-called living, his mother had never come so comfortingly close as this. ~ Joseph G. Peterson

I have definitely been in experiences where my girlfriends have outgrown me and that's ok and I think that I should be inspired by that to know that it's time to move on - it's time to evolve as well and I think that should be inspirational to other people. They shouldn't feel stifled and feel like oh we can't grow up, we can't move on - change is a good thing. ~ Adrienne Bailon