Tense Quotes

Collection of famous quotes and sayings about Tense.

Quotes About Tense

Enjoy collection of 100 Tense quotes. Download and share images of famous quotes about Tense. Righ click to see and save pictures of Tense quotes that you can use as your wallpaper for free.

Winners live in the present tense. People who come up short are consumed with future or past. I want to be living in the now. ~ Alex Rodriguez
Tense quotes by Alex Rodriguez
Their Invisibility Cloak didn't stop them making any noise, and there was a particularly tense moment when Ron stubbed his toe only yards from the spot where Snape stood standing guard. Thankfully, Snape sneezed at almost exactly the moment Ron swore. ~ J.K. Rowling
Tense quotes by J.K. Rowling
Excellence is my presence. Never tense, never hesitant. ~ The Notorious B.I.G.
Tense quotes by The Notorious B.I.G.
Neal didn't like to be asked things. It made his jaw tense. He'd give you a flippant answer. Like, whatever you were asking, it wasn't any of your business.
Like nothing was anyone's business.
Like nobody should ask questions that didn't absolutely need to be answered. ~ Rainbow Rowell
Tense quotes by Rainbow Rowell
Bell seated himself behind the desk, motioning for Nancy to stand opposite him. There was tense silence for a moment. Then Bell reached for a desk telephone.
"I am going to call the police, Miss Drew, and turn you over to them on a charge of trespassing, breaking, and entering with an attempt to steal."
"I wish you would," Nancy replied. "if it is possible over that dummy telephone. ~ Carolyn Keene
Tense quotes by Carolyn Keene
I do not fear that "future generations will not read novels," etc. It is probably a complete misunderstanding to conceive of serious art in categories of production, market, readers, supply and demand( ... )art is not the fabrication of stories for readers but a spiritual cohabitation, something so tense and so separate from science, even contradictory to it, that there can be no competition between them. If someone fine, dignified, prolific, brilliant (this is how one ought to speak of artists this is the language art demands) is born in the future, if someone unique and unrepeatable is born, a Bach, a Rembrandt, then he will win people over, charm and seduce them ... ~ Witold Gombrowicz
Tense quotes by Witold Gombrowicz
Falling in love, we said; I fell for him. We were falling women. We believed in it, this downward motion: so lovely, like flying, and yet at the same time so dire, so extreme, so unlikely. God is love, they once said, but we reversed that, and love, like heaven, was always just around the corner. The more difficult it was to love the particular man beside us, the more we believed in Love, abstract and total. We were waiting, always, for the incarnation. That word, made flesh.
And sometimes it happened, for a time. That kind of love comes and goes and is hard to remember afterwards, like pain. You would look at the man one day and you would think, I loved you, and the tense would be past, and you would be filled with a sense of wonder, because it was such an amazing and precarious and dumb thing to have done; and you would know too why your friends had been evasive about it, at the time.
There is a good deal of comfort, now, in remembering this. ~ Margaret Atwood
Tense quotes by Margaret Atwood
When i feel tense, I remember to relax all of the muscles and organs in my body ~ Louise Hay
Tense quotes by Louise Hay
The imperfect is the tense of fascination: it seems to be alive and yet it doesn't move: imperfect presence, imperfect death; neither oblivion nor resurrection; simply the exhausting lure of memory. From the start, greedy to play a role, scenes take their position in memory: often I feel this, I foresee this, at the very moment when these scenes are forming. - This theater of time is very contrary of the search of lost time; for I remember pathetically, punctually, and not philosophically, discursively: I remember in order to be unhappy/happy - not in order to understand. I do not write, I do not shut myself up in order to write the enormous novel of time recaptured. ~ Roland Barthes
Tense quotes by Roland Barthes
Suzy Zeus is tense as stemware,
not explosive, just on edge -
needs a ten-foot wall around her,
or at least a ten-foot hedge,
Suzy's straining, teeth to toenails,
easing backward on the ledge. ~ Maggie Robbins
Tense quotes by Maggie Robbins
Though there was no sound, there was a change. The atmosphere, which had gone tense at my accusation, relaxed. I wondered how I knew this. I had a strange sensation that I was somehow receiving more than my five senses were giving me - almost a feeling that there was another sense, on the fringes, not quite harnessed. Intuition? That was almost the right word. As if any creature needed more than five senses. ~ Stephenie Meyer
Tense quotes by Stephenie Meyer
First Lady Michelle Obama appears on 'Sesame Street' to celebrate the show's 40th anniversary. It's going to be a big episode. Yes, sources say the episode gets a little tense when Ernie and Bert ask the first lady why her husband's dragging his feet on gay marriage. ~ Conan O'Brien
Tense quotes by Conan O'Brien
I love you in the future tense: I will love you, tomorrow and the day after and the day after that until there are no more days left for us. ~ Chuck Wendig
Tense quotes by Chuck Wendig
It surprised me that I was already using the past tense. People I knew. As if I didn't know them anymore. ~ Ashley Newell
Tense quotes by Ashley Newell
If you wear black, then kindly, irritating strangers will touch your arm consolingly and inform you that the world keeps on turning.

They're right. It does.

However much you beg it to stop.

It turns and lets grenadine spill over the horizon, sends hard bars of gold through my window and I wake up and feel happy for three seconds and then I remember.

It turns and tips people out of their beds and into their cars, their offices, an avalanche of tiny men and women tumbling through life...

All trying not to think about what's waiting at the bottom.

Sometimes it turns and sends us reeling into each other's arms. We cling tight, excited and laughing, strangers thrown together on a moving funhouse floor.

Intoxicated by the motion we forget all the risks.

And then the world turns...

And somebody falls off...

And oh God it's such a long way down.

Numb with shock, we can only stand and watch as they fall away from us, gradually getting smaller...

Receding in our memories until they're no longer visible.

We gather in cemeteries, tense and silent as if for listening for the impact; the splash of a pebble dropped into a dark well, trying to measure its depth.

Trying to measure how far we have to fall.

No impact comes; no splash. The moment passes. The world turns and we turn away, getting on with our lives...

Wrappi ~ Alan Moore
Tense quotes by Alan Moore
If there's a character type I despise, it's the all-capable, all-knowing, physically perfect protagonist. My idea of hell would be to be trapped in a four-hundred page, first-person, first-tense, running monologue with a character like that. I think writers who produce characters along those lines should graduate from high school and move on. ~ Craig Johnson
Tense quotes by Craig Johnson
There are tenses that define us now: past tense, back then; future tense, not yet. We live in the small window between them, the space we've only recently come to think as still, and really it's no smaller than anyone else's window. ~ Margaret Atwood
Tense quotes by Margaret Atwood
They ask themselves: "What will he do?" "How will he react?" "Will he go mad?" "Will he bite?" "Will he be armed?" They're pumped up with fear. Adrenaline pumping, fingers tense on the trigger, brains racing. And I'm cool as a cat! The name 'Charles Bronson' causes panic! The name 'Mickey Peterson' causes stress! The police all love to arrest me, as I'm the most exciting madman they will ever arrest! It's a fact. So here I am years later, and I'm still the madman. There is no escaping my past. ~ Stephen Richards
Tense quotes by Stephen Richards
To church congregations and denominations that are weary of strife, of continually arguing things out in a tense, judgmental atmosphere, it may come as welcome news to learn that they, too, are allowed to say 'I know not' with regard to the Bible, free to not use it to justify taking sides in every issue that comes along. ~ Kathleen Norris
Tense quotes by Kathleen Norris
The general public have a warped view of the speed at which an investigation proceeds. They like to imagine tense conversations going on behind the venetian blinds and unshaven, but ruggedly handsome, detectives working themselves with single-minded devotion into the bottle and marital breakdown. The truth is that at the end of the day, unless you've generated some sort of lead, you go home and get on with the important things in life - like drinking and sleeping, and if you're lucky, a relationship with the gender and sexual orientation of your choice. ~ Ben Aaronovitch
Tense quotes by Ben Aaronovitch
Her room was darkened with the curtains drawn, but he could sense her inside, moving around quietly. Her heartbeat had turned languid; she must be preparing for bed. He cocked his head, listening intently. The closet door opened and shut, and there was the sound of running water. He held the goblet with such tense care his fingers began to ache.
When she had turned the faucet off, he said telepathically, "Tess, come to your window."
Startled, frozen silence. Then the languid pace of her heart exploded into a furious rhythm.
For a moment, when she didn't move, he thought she might disobey and end their tenuous relationship. Then he heard the soft rustle of cloth, and the creak of floorboards. When she appeared in the darkened window, she looked shadowy, like the half-hidden, opaque moon, her skin pale like pearls and hair lustrous with darkness.
She looked down at him but said nothing.
He held the goblet up to show it to her. "Are you sure you want to give this to me?"
Because it mattered. It mattered what she said. While the struggle made the offering sweet, it was the act of the gift itself that was the vital part of the covenant.
She didn't respond for long moments. He stood motionless as he waited, until finally she moved to put her hand to the windowpane.
"Yes."
He inclined his head to her, brought the goblet to his lips and drank.
Pure, undiluted power slid down his throat. Like the delicate skin at her wrist, it was warm ~ Thea Harrison
Tense quotes by Thea Harrison
Cher Marcel,
Allô. I am Oskar's mom. I have thought about it a ton, and I have decided that it isn't obvious why Oskar should go to French lessons, so he will no longer be going to go see you on Sundays like he used to. I want to thank you very much for everything you have taught Oskar, particularly the conditional tense, which is weird. Obviously, there's no need to call me when Oskar doesn't come to his lessons, because I already know, because this was my decision. Also, I will keep sending you checks, because you are a nice guy.
Votre ami dévouée,
Mademoiselle Schell. ~ Jonathan Safran Foer
Tense quotes by Jonathan Safran Foer
People's - most people's job is talking about the future or like money not even in the present tense. It's not even paper. ~ Colin Quinn
Tense quotes by Colin Quinn
I think that to believe is to acknowledge that it's a choice in that present tense and that doubt is always an option. You're not dealing with a fact like one plus one equals two - I'm gonna choose to believe that. It's kind of one of those things where you are choosing to believe that someone loves you. That is always going to be your choice. So for me, I think that's what makes the faith that I have volatile and explosive and dangerous and troubling. That's what most of my songs are about. ~ Jon Foreman
Tense quotes by Jon Foreman
Trouble in our family is spelled with a capital C and has been as long as I can remember. The C stands for Charles. He's my older brother, two years and four months older to be exact. Ever since the phone call about him last night, I've felt incredibly tense. And now, at this very minute, my parents are driving up to Vermont, to Charles's boarding school, to find out if he's actually been kicked out or if he's just been suspended again. I ~ Judy Blume
Tense quotes by Judy Blume
What do you think, Philip? Won't she be all the rage?" I couldn't look at Philip. He would undoubtedly say something polite, which everyone would know was a lie. But then, when he didn't immediately answer, I had to look at him. I was so surprised by what I saw that I looked twice. Philip held his mother's gaze with a hard look in his eyes. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He almost looked angry, but I couldn't fathom why her words would spark such a reaction in him. Lady Caroline's smile turned hard - almost mocking - from across the table. After a tense silence, he finally said, "Undoubtedly. ~ Julianne Donaldson
Tense quotes by Julianne Donaldson
The major problem is quite simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you for instance how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be described differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is further complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations whilst you are actually travelling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own father or mother. ~ Douglas Adams
Tense quotes by Douglas Adams
The hollowness in his chest, the tense yearning, the loneliness he braces against, every morning until he can immerse himself in work and forget. Not love. Something else, something with a power that endures. Not love, but a memory of love. ~ Aminatta Forna
Tense quotes by Aminatta Forna
It made me happy that poems are referred to in the present tense even when the poet is in the past tense. ~ David Benioff
Tense quotes by David Benioff
I would describe the distinction between city and landscape like this: cities tend to excite and agitate me; they make me feel big or small, self-confident, proud, curious, excited, tense, annoyed... or they intimidate me. But the landscape, if I give it the chance, offers me freedom and serenity. Nature has a different sense of time. Time is big in the landscape while in the city it is condensed, just like the city's space. ~ Peter Zumthor
Tense quotes by Peter Zumthor
His vulnerability allowed me to let my guard down, and gently and methodically, he tore apart my well-constructed dam. Waves of tender feelings were lapping over the top and slipping through the cracks. The feelings flooded through and spilled into me. It was frightening opening myself up to feel love for someone again. My heart pounded hard and thudded audibly in my chest. I was sure he could hear it.
Ren's expression changed as he watched my face. His look of sadness was replaced by one of concern for me.
What was the next step? What should I do? What do I say? How do I share what I'm feeling?
I remembered watching romance movies with my mom, and our favorite saying was "shut up and kiss her already!" We'd both get frustrated when the hero or heroine wouldn't do what was so obvious to the two of us, and as soon as a tense, romantic moment occurred, we'd both repeat our mantra. I could hear my mom's humor-filled voice in my mind giving me the same advice: "Kells, shut up and kiss him already!"
So, I got a grip on myself, and before I changed my mind, I leaned over and kissed him.
He froze. He didn't kiss me back. He didn't push me away. He just stopped…moving. I pulled back, saw the shock on his face, and instantly regretted my boldness. I stood up and walked away, embarrassed. I wanted to put some distance between us as I frantically tried to rebuild the walls around my heart.
I heard him move. He slid his hand under my elbow and turned me arou ~ Colleen Houck
Tense quotes by Colleen Houck
I sighed again, tipping my head back. My skin was still flushed, whether from anger or adrenaline or both, and my dragon crackled and snapped in myriad different directions. I needed to calm down. I wished I had my board. It was impossible to stay tense while floating on the surface of the ocean, its cold, dark depths lulling you to sleep. The sea was fascinating. It always amazed me how calm and peaceful it was one moment, only to bear down on you a moment later with the power and savagery of a hurricane. ~ Julie Kagawa
Tense quotes by Julie Kagawa
A quarter of America is a dramatic, tense, violent country, exploding with contradictions, full of brutal, physiological vitality, and that is the America that I have really loved and love. But a good half of it is a country of boredom, emptiness, monotony, brainless production, and brainless consumption, and this is the American inferno. ~ Italo Calvino
Tense quotes by Italo Calvino
My education and that of my Black associates were quite different from the education of our white schoolmates. In the classroom we all learned past participles, but in the streets and in our homes the Blacks learned to drop s's from plurals and suffixes from past-tense verbs. We were alert to the gap separating the written word from the colloquial. We learned to slide out of one language and into another without being conscious of the effort. At school, in a given situation, we might respond with "That's not unusual." But in the street, meeting the same situation, we easily said, "It be's like that sometimes. ~ Maya Angelou
Tense quotes by Maya Angelou
Tom ran his thumb over the head, circling lightly, unable to resist leaning down to suck the tip into his mouth. Prophet inhaled sharply, threaded his fingers into Tom's hair. He closed his eyes and groaned when Tom stroked in earnest, lifting his hips off the bed in a big cat-like stretch, letting Tom take control of him again. "Think I didn't get enough?" "Think you need sleep." Prophet's eyes opened as he studied Tom's face. "You're going to put me to sleep this way." "Gonna try," Tom told him, his hand pumping Prophet's cock slowly, then faster when the man refused to tear his gaze away. He couldn't read the man's expression, not until his mouth dropped and his eyes glazed. "Yeah, like that." Prophet's voice was hoarse, body tense. His casted hand reached out to hold on to Tom's biceps, the one with the dreamcatcher. Tom caught him staring at it when he came. ~ S.E. Jakes
Tense quotes by S.E. Jakes
Your muscles can tense with hope. ~ Darin Strauss
Tense quotes by Darin Strauss
Where will you go? What will you do?" he demanded.
"That need be no concern of yours
"
"The hell it isn't!" he shouted. "Everything about you is my concern."
She opened her mouth to deny this but the look of him stopped her. For a long tense moment he studied her and when he spoke his voice was low and furious and yearning.
"I don't give a bloody damn if I never share your bed, your name, or your house
you are still my concern. You can leave, take yourself from my ken, disappear for the rest of my life but you cannot untangle yourself from my
my concern. That I have of you, Miss Bede, for that, at least, I do not need your permission."
His words shocked her. She looked decades hence and she saw a specter of what might have been haunting her every moment, her every act, for the rest of her life.
"Your concern is misplaced."
"It's mine to misplace," he said steadily. ~ Connie Brockway
Tense quotes by Connie Brockway
These stories have a dark side. Outsiders and eccentrics are regarded with suspicion, tortured, even killed. The major theme that emerges is of families diminished by conflict; almost a generation of adult males appears to be missing. Their absence is balanced by a number of strong female presences. This also reflects the dominance of women in the Acehnese household.

Azhari is a master of suspense. He wastes no words; his narration is sparse. The overall atmosphere of the stories in Nutmeg Woman is tense and anxious. If there is a message, it is a plea for peace and tolerance and an end to bloodshed and oppression. ~ Heather Curnow
Tense quotes by Heather Curnow
Ingredients 1 drops Grapefruit Essential Oil 1 drop Ylang Ylang Essential Oil 1 drop Wild Orange Essential Oil 2 drops Patchouli Essential Oil 3 drops Bergamot Essential Oil Directions To support harmony in a tense home or mind, combine all ingredients in your diffuser and use as normal. ~ George Shepherd
Tense quotes by George Shepherd
I think they were afraid that some of us would try to kill ourselves or something because they looked very tense and one of them kept touching his beard. ~ Stephen Chbosky
Tense quotes by Stephen Chbosky
Reese?"
Her voice was tense, but I still liked the sound of my name on her tongue. Of course, it'd sound sweeter if she was screaming it into a pillow while I pounded her from behind. Funny how that works. ~ Joanna Wylde
Tense quotes by Joanna Wylde
She was one of those women who are usually referred to in the past tense, of whom one says: 'She had a certain freshness and bloom about her,' and whose freshness and bloom passed unnoticed even when she still had them. ~ Gabriel Chevallier
Tense quotes by Gabriel Chevallier
And this is the potency a first kiss should have: it should be earned. The moments leading up to it should be as tense as a crossbow drawn back. The reader should want it as badly as the hero and heroine, and feel as satisfied and transported and transformed as the hero and heroine in the wake of it. There are different ways to use kisses in a romance, but that first kiss is so meaningful, a pinnacle, and can be more intimate than sex. ~ Julie Anne Long
Tense quotes by Julie Anne Long
She wasn't even a person anymore, just flesh rotting, but I loved her present tense. ~ John Green
Tense quotes by John Green
His face was tense, his jaw flexed as he stared at her. She could hardly stand to meet his eyes. They were an ocean of betrayal. They probed her, searching for the smallest sign that she didn't mean it. That spark of hope that never seemed to go out. ~ Aprilynne Pike
Tense quotes by Aprilynne Pike
I, a singular proper noun, would go on, if always in a conditional tense. ~ John Green
Tense quotes by John Green
Have you ever seen The Last of the Mohicans?"
"I love it."
"Really?" I'm over the moon. We share a movie. Finally, we're on the same planet.
"Don't you love the part where he says, 'Stay alive. I will find you'?" I ask.
"I love that massacre scene," he says, like an excited little boy, "where they're walking down that path in the middle of nowhere and they're surrounded by the woods and you know the Indians are going to attack and it's so tense."
Things that make you go hmmm. ~ Melina Marchetta
Tense quotes by Melina Marchetta
Then all at once he´d hear his own voice enunciating clearly and firmly, feel its reverberance along the walls and ceiling, feel ears growing tense, men and women leaning forward in their chairs, see the rows of faces quite clearly, the groups of people who couldn´t find seats crowding at the doors. Phrases like `protest, massaction, united working-class of this country and the world, revolution´, would light up the eyes and faces under him like the glare of a bonfire. ~ John Dos Passos
Tense quotes by John Dos Passos
Long black hair and deep clean blue eyes and skin pale white and lips blood red she's small and thin and worn and damaged. She is standing there.
What are you doing here?
I was taking a walk and I saw you and I followed you.
What do you want.
I want you to stop.
I breathe hard, stare hard, tense and coiled. There is still more tree for me to destroy I want that fucking tree. She smiles and she steps towards me, toward toward toward me, and she opens he r arms and I'm breathing hard staring hard tense and coiled she puts her arms around me with one hand not he back of my head and she pulls me into her arms and she holds me and she speaks.
It's okay.
I breathe hard, close my eyes, let myself be held.
It's okay.
Her voice calms me and her arms warm me and her smell lightens me and I can feel her heart beat and my heart slows and I stop shaking an the Fury melts into her safety an she holds me and she says.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Something else comes and it makes me feel weak and scared and fragile and I don't want to be hurt and this feeling is the feeling I have when I know I can be hurt and hurt deeper and more terribly than anything physical and I always fight it and control it and stop it but her voice calms me and her arms warm me and her smell lightens me and I can feel her heart beat and if she let me go right now I would fall and the need and confusion and fear and regret and horror and shame and weakness and f ~ James Frey
Tense quotes by James Frey
From a craft standpoint, telling a story in the first-person present tense over the course of 500 pages is a daunting challenge. ~ Joseph Boyden
Tense quotes by Joseph Boyden
You want to …?" His other eye popped open as I started to slide down his body, intent on exploring that part of him which had given me so much pleasure. He grabbed me before I was able to move four inches. I looked up, worried that I had done something wrong. A familiar strained, tense look was on his face, his eyes screwed up tight. I looked down at his penis. It was no longer in a resting state. "I thought you were sated?"

I was. Until you went and mentioned doing that to me.
No! Don't touch me there, woman! For the love of – grk!"

A half hour later, Gabriel, his arm wrapped around me because my legs were unusually weak, hustled me toward the house with a grim look on his face.

I will beat this," he muttered. "I am a wyvern, I am strong. I will control my needs long enough to give you pleasure, and you will enjoy it, dammit!"
I said nothing, but I smiled. A lot. [May and Gabriel, pg. 307] ~ Katie MacAlister
Tense quotes by Katie MacAlister
It's always tense when you move a character from a book to the screen. Always tense. ~ Lee Child
Tense quotes by Lee Child
Just looking at him made Andrew feel tense and irritated. It was wonder perfect strangers didn't go up to the guy and punch him in the face. ~ Jane Davitt
Tense quotes by Jane Davitt
...from Emerson's journals. In the context, it is written in the past tense; changing the verb to present tense it reads: The poem is a confession of faith. Which is to say, the poem is not an exercise. It is not 'wordplay.' Whatever skill or beauty it has, in contains something beyond language devices, and has a purpose other than itself. ~ Mary Oliver
Tense quotes by Mary Oliver
Your mother sounds like a formidable woman," Valek said into the silence.
"You have no idea," Leif replied with a sigh.
"Well, if she's anything like Yelena, my deepest sympathies," Valek teased.
"Hey!"
Leif laughed and the tense moment dissipated.
Valek handed Leif his machete. "Do you know how to use it?"
"Of course. I chopped Yelena's bow into firewood," Leif joked. ~ Maria V. Snyder
Tense quotes by Maria V. Snyder
I love getting ready to do a scene, and thinking about it, and talking about it. But the rest of the time, I'm so nervous and obsessed. I'm just tearing my hair out in the trailer. The whole time I'm really tense. ~ Casey Affleck
Tense quotes by Casey Affleck
Two or three notes of music can instantly make you feel sad or tense or afraid or angry. To do that in words is much more difficult. ~ Anthony Daniels
Tense quotes by Anthony Daniels
I used to be very afraid of flying. It would creep me out and make me very tense and very uncomfortable, and I would sweat or even cry. I was very, very scared of dying, but I'm not anymore. Fears need to be indulged, in order to exist. I don't have much time to indulge in any fears. ~ Franka Potente
Tense quotes by Franka Potente
The One who lives outside of time invites you into a reality that is informed by His perfect plans to give you hope and a future. God speaks in the past tense about battles you're currently fighting. And He buries the shame of yesterday in order to resurrect the moment you are in and sustain you in the season He is calling you to embrace. ~ Steven Furtick
Tense quotes by Steven Furtick
Ammu watched over them fiercely. Her watchfulness stretched her, made her taut and tense. She was quick to reprimand her children, but even quicker to take offense on their behalf. ~ Arundhati Roy
Tense quotes by Arundhati Roy
Normally I laugh at such things, because there is nothing like a fart to lighten up a tense situation. ~ Kevin Hearne
Tense quotes by Kevin Hearne
I practice staying calm all the time, beginning with situations that aren't tense. ~ Martha Beck
Tense quotes by Martha Beck
Pornography is human imagination in tense theatrical action; its violations are a protest against the violations of our freedom by nature. ~ Camille Paglia
Tense quotes by Camille Paglia
I ride the singular point of the present until the future is past tense. ~ Rashaad Bell
Tense quotes by Rashaad Bell
In between, for five or ten minutes at a stretch, the real version, tense and dishonest and uncertain. I rarely allowed her to emerge for long. Work - all that productive, effective, focused work - kept her distracted and submerged all day. And drink - anesthetizing and constant - kept her too numb to feel at night. ~ Caroline Knapp
Tense quotes by Caroline Knapp
The story is the only thing that's important. Everything else will take care of itself. It's like what bowlers say. You hear writers talk about character or theme or mood or mode or tense or person. But bowlers say, if you make the spares, the strikes will take care of themselves. If you can tell a story, everything else becomes possible. But without story, nothing is possible, because nobody wants to hear about your sensitive characters if there's nothing happening in the story. And the same is true with mood. Story is the only thing that's important. ~ Stephen King
Tense quotes by Stephen King
But death on the page is just a typo, I said: You can't say for example, She is dead–"she" no longer is. You can't say for example, She was dead–death itself, a condition coterminous with eternity, renders the past tense inaccurate. ~ Joshua Cohen
Tense quotes by Joshua Cohen
Nobody can understand the pressures of doing an hour-long TV show unless you've done one. Even when you're not on call, you still are working, learning lines, doing appearances, just tense. ~ Michael Learned
Tense quotes by Michael Learned
Now, grip the bull tight with your thighs." She dutifully tensed her thighs. "Not tense. Grip. Real hard with your whole thigh." His voice dropped, his lips pressing in closer to her ear as he murmured, "I know you know how to do that."
A surge of heat shot from her core. Didn't he know she was having a hard enough time sitting on the damn thing as it was without sexual innuendo messing with her equilibrium? She shot him a don't-make-me-get-off-this-thing look but gripped.
Hard.
"Atta girl," he whispered.
Joss gritted her teeth. "Don't push your luck, cowboy. ~ Amy Andrews
Tense quotes by Amy Andrews
You said you loved me, is that now in the past tense?" "No, it's not." "Good. ~ E.L. James
Tense quotes by E.L. James
The warmth of his body shouldn't have felt good. He was angry and every muscle was tense. It was like being leaned on by a very heavy, warm brick. A sexy brick. ~ Patricia Briggs
Tense quotes by Patricia Briggs
After lunch I tried to watch television, but I found that even with two-thirds of my brain focused on fretting about my coming demise, the remaining third of my intellect was a little too smart to put up with the bright and brainless daytime drivel on all the channels. I turned off the set and just sat on the couch, letting one tense and miserable thought chase another, until finally, at half past five, the front door burst open and Astor stormed in, flung her backpack on the floor, and rushed to her room. She was followed by Cody, who actually noticed me and nodded, and then Rita, carrying Lily Anne. ~ Jeff Lindsay
Tense quotes by Jeff Lindsay
Christopher forced her to look back at him. "Loved?" he asked hoarsely. "Past tense?"
"Present tense," she managed to say.
"You told me to find you."
"I didn't mean to send you that note."
"But you did. You wanted me."
"Yes." More tears escaped her stinging eyes. He bent and pressed his mouth to them, tasting the salt of grief.
Those gray eyes looked into hers, no longer bright as hellfrost, but soft as smoke. "I love you, Beatrix."
Maybe she was capable of swooning after all. ~ Lisa Kleypas
Tense quotes by Lisa Kleypas
In pulp fiction it is a rigid convention that the hero's shoulders and the heroine's balcon constantly threaten to burst their bonds, a possibility which keeps the audience in a state of tense expectancy. Unfortunately for the fans, however, recent tests reveal that the wisp of chiffon which stands between the publisher and the postal laws has the tensile strength of drop-forged steel. ~ S.J Perelman
Tense quotes by S.J Perelman
I have come, my lovely," Roddy said with his usual sardonic grin as he swept her a deep bow, "in answer to your urgent summons-and, I might add,-" he continued, "before I presented myself at the Willingtons', exactly as your message instructed." At 5'10", Roddy Carstairs was a slender man of athletic build with thinning brown hair and light blue eyes. In fact, his only distinguishing characteristics were his fastidiously tailored clothes, a much-envied ability to tie a neckcloth into magnificently intricate folds that never drooped, and an acid wit that accepted no boundaries when he chose a human target. "Did you hear about Kensington?"
"Who?" Alex said absently, trying to think of the best means to persuade him to do what she needed done.
"The new Marquess of Kensington, once known as Mr. Ian Thornton, persona non grata. Amazing, is it not, what wealth and title will do?" he continued, studying Alex's tense face as he continued, "Two years ago we wouldn't have let him past the front door. Six months ago word got out that he's worth a fortune, and we started inviting him to our parties. Tonight he's the heir to a dukedom, and we'll be coveting invitations to his parties. We are"-Roddy grinned-"when you consider matters from this point of view, a rather sickening and fickle lot."
In spite of herself, Alexandra laughed. "Oh, Roddy," she said, pressing a kiss on his cheek. "You always make me laugh, even when I'm in the most dreadful coil, which I am now. You cou ~ Judith McNaught
Tense quotes by Judith McNaught
A study at Cornell University found that low-level noise both lowered job motivation and increased stress levels. It appears as well that an open-office type of environment can contribute to musculoskeletal problems such as a stiff back or tense neck and even heart disease due to increased levels of epinephrine, a stress hormone. ~ Jeff Davidson
Tense quotes by Jeff Davidson
How do you react with your body, breath, and eyes? Notice if you react to a person or situation that hurts you by withdrawing, hiding, or closing in on yourself. Notice if there are times when you find it difficult to look into someone's eyes, or times your chest and solar plexus become tense and contracted. These are signs of an unskillful reaction to hurt. ~ David Deida
Tense quotes by David Deida
Endlessly I sustain the discourse of the beloved's absence; actually a preposterous situation; the other is absent as referent, present as allocutory. The singular distortion generates a kind of insupportable present; I am wedged between two tenses, that of the reference and that of the allocution: you have gone (which I lament), you are here (since I am addressing you). Whereupon I know what the present, that difficult tense is: a pure portion of anxiety. ~ Roland Barthes
Tense quotes by Roland Barthes
Musclemen grow on trees. They can tense their muscles and look good in a mirror. So what? I'm interested in practical strength that's going to help me run, jump, twist, punch. ~ Jason Statham
Tense quotes by Jason Statham
Few fallacies are more dangerous or easier to fall into than that by which, having read a given book, we assume that we will continue to know its contents permanently, or having mastered a discipline in the past, we assume that we control it in the present. Philosophically speaking, "to learn" is a verb with not legitimate tense. ~ Robert Grudin
Tense quotes by Robert Grudin
We had to be to the stadium at six o'clock for home games, and traffic was so bad it would take us an hour and fifteen or an hour and thirty minutes to drive. So now I'm sitting in a car for almost an hour and a half and I'm very tense. I'm worried about the traffic. So I started smoking a cigar going to the games. ~ Michael Jordan
Tense quotes by Michael Jordan
In my heart, I knew that Whorf was right. I knew I thought differently in Turkish and English - not because thought and language were the same, but because different languages forced you to think about different things. Turkish, for example, had a suffix, -mis, that you put on verbs to report anything you didn't witness personally. You were always stating your degree of subjectivity. You were always thinking about it, every time you opened your mouth.

The suffix -mis had not exact English equivalent. It could be translated as "it seems" or "I heard" or "apparently." I associated it with Dilek, my cousin on my father's side - tiny, skinny, dark-complexioned Dilek, who was my age but so much smaller. "You complained-mis to your mother," Dilek would tell me in her quiet, precise voice. "The dog scared-mis you." "You told-mis your parents that if Aunt Hulya came to America, she could live in your garage." When you heard -mis, you knew that you had been invoked in your absence - not just you but your hypocrisy, cowardice, and lack of generosity. Every time I heard -mis, I felt caught out. I was scared of the dogs. I did complain to my mother, often. The -mis tense was one of the things I complained to my mother about. My mother thought it was funny. ~ Elif Batuman
Tense quotes by Elif Batuman
That kind of love comes and goes and is hard to remember afterwards, like pain. You would look at the man one day and you would think, I loved you, and the tense would be past, and you would be filled with a sense of wonder, because it was such an amazing and precarious and dumb thing to have done; ~ Margaret Atwood
Tense quotes by Margaret Atwood
I am using the past tense because I have no idea about the present as I couldn't predict the future at that time in the past. ~ Noha Alaa El-Din
Tense quotes by Noha Alaa El-Din
Like the wild beasts, she lives without a future. She inhabits only the present tense, a fugue of the continuous, a world of sensual immediacy as without hope as it is without despair. ~ Angela Carter
Tense quotes by Angela Carter
Let me clarify something for you, Damon. There is the simple
present tense, which is used to describe things that take place in the
present, simple past tense that describes things that occurred in the
past. And then there is the tense that is used to describe the chances
something has to happening. You should know about it, you just
used it. It is called the simply impossible tense. ~ Danka V.
Tense quotes by Danka V.
Shoulda, coulda, woulda. It's so easy in the past tense. ~ Sarah Dessen
Tense quotes by Sarah Dessen
I grew up back and forth between the British Isles: England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales. I spent short periods of time in France, Italy, and South Africa. This is my first time in the States. I was disappointed by Atlanta at first - I'd wanted to live in New York-but it's grown on me."
Everything about Kaidan was exciting and exotic. This was my first time traveling away from home, and he'd already seen so much. I ate my apple, glad it was crisp and not soft.
"Which was your favorite place?" I asked.
"I've never been terribly attached to any place. I guess it would have to be...here."
I stopped midchew and examined his face. He wouldn't look at me. He was clenching his jaw, tense. Was he serious or was he teasing me? I swallowed my bite.
"The Texas panhandle?" I asked.
"No." He seemed to choose each word with deliberate care. "I mean here in this car. With you."
Covered in goose bumps, I looked away from him and stared straight ahead at the road, letting my hand with the apple fall to my lap.
He cleared his throat and tried to explain. "I've not talked like this with anyone, not since I started working, not even to the only four people in the world who I call friends. You have Patti, and even that boyfriend of yours. So this has been a relief of sort. Kind of...nice." He cleared his throat again.
Oh, my gosh. Did we just have a moment? I proceeded with caution, hoping not to ruin it.
"It's been nice for me, too," I said. "I've ~ Wendy Higgins
Tense quotes by Wendy Higgins
Under stress, an unexercised heart will explode in frustration or fury. If the situation is especially tense, that exploding heart may be hurled like a fragment grenade toward the source of its pain. But a heart that has been consistently exercised through conscious engagement with suffering is more likely to break open instead of apart. Such a heart has learned how to flex to hold tension in a way that expands its capacity for both suffering and joy. ~ Parker J. Palmer
Tense quotes by Parker J. Palmer
She was
I keep using the past tense; I ought to say she is
one of those people who, at first sight, look plain, are quiet, unassertive, unmemorable even. But who, when they start to talk and you get to know them, become more and more attractive and impressive, and you see that in fact they are beautiful. Not conventionally beautiful, not celebrity beautiful, but beautiful all through. ~ Aidan Chambers
Tense quotes by Aidan Chambers
I have learned that love is not a button which you can switch it on when wonderfully sizzling and switch off when heart broken. When you love you cannot put a past tense to it because if you do then it was never love in the first place. But if love was there, then it persists in different forms such as mutual respect but never hatred. ~ Gloria D. Gonsalves
Tense quotes by Gloria D. Gonsalves
I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. ISAIAH 43:25 NOVEMBER 16 Rest in the Lord, wait patiently, have faith in Providence and God's love. In this way, you actually get your life under new management. What happens when a business repeatedly fails to show a profit? Usually it gets new management, doesn't it? A human life that hasn't been going well likewise calls for new management. Does everything go wrong for you? Why? Poor management. Are you nervous and tense and tired? Why? Poor management. Are you resentful and grumpy and bitter, full of hate and miserable as a result? Why? Poor management. You are making life hard for yourself because you don't think right, you don't act right, you don't plan right. Get your life under new management. Do it by opening your mind and heart to Jesus Christ. Take Him into your thinking and living. ~ Norman Vincent Peale
Tense quotes by Norman Vincent Peale
Through the eyes of the brave, the future makes past tense perfect sense. ~ Auliq Ice
Tense quotes by Auliq Ice
Remember, constantly, that when you talk about 'tense of a subjunctive,' you're not talking about time. You're slipping through degrees of reality. ~ C.J. Cherryh
Tense quotes by C.J. Cherryh
When we arrived in England, we could almost feel the excitement in the air. Banners, pictures, and other decorations hung everywhere, and the streets were packed with people waiting to celebrate the wedding of the century. The formal party in honor of the royal match was held on the evening of Monday, July 27--two nights before the wedding. That day I felt nervous with anticipation as I lunched with a friend and went to the hairdresser. Pat met Exxon colleagues for lunch near their office in Mayfair. As he described our plans for the upcoming ball and wedding, Pat began to feel totally overwhelmed by the importance and glamour of these royal events. So my darling husband excused himself, walked over to Green Park just across from the palace, and simply collapsed with nervous strain to nap on a quiet patch of grass for the afternoon. I've always envied his ability to tune out and relax when he's under stress; I get tense and can't eat or sleep. ~ Mary Robertson
Tense quotes by Mary Robertson
It wasn't until the morning after my uneventful shift, when I wake up, dazed and tense and frustrated as hell, that I realize I'm getting obsessed with that girl, my partner, and this thing is running me ragged. ~ Charlotte Penn Clark
Tense quotes by Charlotte Penn Clark
What libraries give you is all three tenses - the past tense - the present tense in which we live and the future that we can only imagine. These places have teachers who are living and dead and we are lucky to have them. If I sit here and read Aristotle, he is speaking to me across a thousand years - more than a thousand years. That sense that I am in the company of the great greatest people who ever lived is a humbling experience but a liberating experience. ~ Pete Hamill
Tense quotes by Pete Hamill
You don't have to tell me you're fine. I'm not fine. You're not fine either. We can be honest with each other about that, can't we?' I say. The sides of her face tense as tries to stop herself from crying, but she can't.
There is something about her grief that makes mine less exclusive. Less like my world isn't the only one falling apart. ~ Dawn O'Porter
Tense quotes by Dawn O'Porter
The bowed head, the buried face. She is silent, she will never speak, never forgive, never reach a hand, never leave this frozen present tense. All waits, suspended. Suspended the autumn trees, the autumn sky, anonymous people. A blackbird, poor fool, sings out of season from the willows by the lake. A flight of pigeons over the houses; fragments of freedom, hazard, an anagram made flesh. And somewhere the stinging smell of burning leaves. ~ John Fowles
Tense quotes by John Fowles
In our early youth we sit before the life that lies ahead of us like children sitting before the curtain in a theatre, in happy and tense anticipation of whatever is going to appear. Luckily we do not know what really will appear. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer
Tense quotes by Arthur Schopenhauer
Soldier Quotes «
» Crave Quotes