Top Flinching Quotes
Browse top 55 famous quotes and sayings about Flinching by most favorite authors.
Favorite Flinching Quotes
1. "As opposed to this, we National Socialists must hold unflinchingly to our aim in foreign policy, namely, to secure for the German people the land and soil to which they are entitled on this earth. And this action is the only one which, before God and our German posterity, would make any sacrifice of blood seem justified."
Author: Adolf Hitler
2. "You make faces when you read, you know. I can always tell when you're reading something happy or suspenseful, or upsetting. Your face shows everything...whenever you read, it's all reflected there in your face. Like that time you came over, and Andrew was busy studying, so you read In Cold Blood. You were grimacing and flinching through the whole book, as though it was happening personally to you."
Author: Alicia Thompson
3. "The more a daughter knows about the details of her mother's life - without flinching or whining - the stronger the daughter."
Author: Anita Diamant
4. "Ask me anything, Bailey challenged.What are you scared of? The question got out of Tibby's mouth before she meant to ask it. Bailey thought. I'm afriad of time, she answered. She was brave, unflinching in the big Cyclops eye of the camera. There was nothing prissy or self-conscious about Bailey. I mean, I'm afraid of not having enough time, she clarified. Not enough time to understand people, how they really are, or to be understood myself. I'm afraid of the quick judgments and mistakes that eerybody makes. You can't fix them without time. I'm afraid of seeing snapshots instead of movies. Tibby looked at her in disbelief. She was struck by this new side of Bailey, this philosophical-beyond-her-years Bailey. Did cancer make you wise? Did those chemicals and X rays supercharge her twelve-year-old brain?"
Author: Ann Brashares
5. "It takes a fearless, unflinching love and deep humility to accept the universe as it is. The most effective way he knew to accomplish that, the most powerful tool at his disposal, was the scientific method, which over time winnows out deception. It can't give you absolute truth because science is a permanent revolution, always subject to revision, but it can give you successive approximations of reality."
Author: Ann Druyan
6. "We must set aside our wishes and give heed to reality. Nobody can accept the truth while hiding from it. When a decision matters, we have to stare at the truth unflinchingly. Only then can we find peace in our choices."
Author: Brandon Mull
7. "Kaladin charged the chasm, not even flinching as men were slaughtered around him. It wasn't bravery that drove him; it wasn't even a wish that those arrows would take him and end it all. He ran. That was what he did. Like a boulder rolled down a hill, or like rain fell from the sky. They didn't have a choice. Neither did he. He wasn't a man; he was a thing, and things just did what they did."
Author: Brandon Sanderson
8. "Come on Amy, I saved you once, I'll save you again."I met his stare unflinchingly. "I don't need saving."A wicked grin formed slowly. "Don't you?"
Author: C.J. Duggan
9. "Life is flinching in the midst of breathing, gasping at the thought of dying. It's climbing ropeless up sheer rock faces, groping for the next finger-hole of hope. Steady on! Only a thousand feet to go and after that a jungle, a minefield, a rapids. (Can I stop smiling now?)Once, not long ago, I was flung off the cliff of the moment, thrust into an illicit relationship with destiny, an affair not of my making. Was I making love or being raped? The lines were fuzzy."
Author: Chila Woychik
10. "But that's the Way, and there is no other. And once his mind's made up, the trembling and aimless walking stops, and he can look doom in the face without flinching. ("Jane Brown's Body")"
Author: Cornell Woolrich
11. "He just looked at his brother and very slowly shook his head, as if to reprove him. 'Ash' was all he said.The elder Turner reached out and ruffled his younger brother's hair. Mr. Mark Turner did not glower under that touch like a youth pretending to be an adult; neither did he preen like a child being recognized by his elder. He could not have been more than four-and-twenty, the same age as Margaret's second-eldest brother. Yet he stood and regarded his brother, unflinching under his touch, his eyes steady and ageless."
Author: Courtney Milan
12. "A decision has been called for. The Nodders sit paralyzed. The Men crouch in their various holes. Tradition and Revolution, having spoken, perch high and unflinching. Fear and Loathing quietly cha-cha down the table's length.A distant referee's whistle."
Author: Dale McGowan
13. "The only real danger is flinching, seeming to notice your own nakedness. If you don't flinch, you're merely nude, which is a classically recognized form of beauty."
Author: David Thomson
14. "A good poem looks life straight in the face, unflinching, sincere, equal to revelation through loss or gain."
Author: David Whyte
15. "What should we think of someone who never admits error, never entertains doubt but adheres unflinchingly to the same ideas all his life, regardless of new evidence? Doubt and skepticism are signs of rationality. When we are too certain of our opinions, we run the risk of ignoring any evidence that conflicts with our views. It is doubt that shows we are still thinking, still willing to reexamine hardened beliefs when confronted with new facts and new evidence."
Author: Diane Ravitch
16. "Mr. Malfoy is new to the business of having ideas, and so when he has one, he becomes proud of himself for having it. He has not yet had enough ideas to unflinchingly discard those that are beautiful in some aspects and impractical in others; he has not yet acquired confidence in his own ability to think of better ideas as he requires them. What we are seeing here is not Mr. Malfoy's best idea, I fear, but rather his only idea."
Author: Eliezer Yudkowsky
17. "We need courage to take ourselves seriously, to look closely and without flinching, to regard the things that frighten us in life and art with wonder."
Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
18. "Her hand fluttered over her heart. "Did you just say the word shopping without flinching?""I did. So?""So, that's gotta be a record. It's a worldwide fact men hate shopping.""How can I hate it when I've never done it?"Her lips curled into a slow, beautiful smile. "If you weren't already an angel, I'd dub you a saint. Poor guy. You have no idea what you're in for."
Author: Gena Showalter
19. "Will power is but the unflinching purpose to carry the task you set for yourself to fulfillment."
Author: George S. Clason
20. "Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God"
Author: Henry Kissinger
21. "On the board was a list of words and phrases which her mother considered not suitable for use in college T-shirt design. She had been asked about them so often that in the end she had started a blacklist of banned words to which everyone could refer. Every time someone thought of a new one, she unflinchingly wrote it down...Rose read through the list, and turned back to her letter.These are the words I learned to spell in Mummy's art class today, she wrote, and sighed a little as she began the tedious job of copying from the board."
Author: Hilary McKay
22. "Rachel Resnick's story of love lost and love sought cracks open the timeworn addiction narrative to release something raw, probing, brave, and redemptive. The courage it took to write this story is challenged only by the courage it must have taken to live it. I sit in awe of such unflinching honesty. LOVE JUNKIE is memoir at its very best."
Author: Hope Edelman
23. "We were the unflinching prisoners of a grandiose make-believe, we who looked upon ourselves as heard-headed materialists. We dismissed the distress of today, the human wreckage scattered all about us, the terror and militarism prevailing in the country with the stereotyped belief that we were marching forward with great strides."
Author: Jan Valtin
24. "Woolf worried about the childlessness from time to time, and suffered from the imposed anxiety that she was not, unlike her friend Vita Sackville-West, a real woman. I do not know what kind of woman one would have to be to stand unflinchingly in front of The Canon, but I would guess, a real one. There is something sadistic in the whip laid on women to prove themselves as mothers and wives at the same time as making their way as artists. The abnormal effort that can be diverted or divided. We all know the story of Coleridge and the Man from Porlock. What of the woman writer and a whole family of Porlocks?For most of us the dilemma is rhetorical but those women who are driven with consummate energy through a single undeniable channel should be applauded and supported as vigorously as the men who have been setting themselves apart for centuries."
Author: Jeanette Winterson
25. "We are aware that the order of God requires the exercise of humility, but not of servility of slaves; but a humility that can be associated with undoubted courage and unflinching integrity; at the same time there is no room for pride, self-sufficient pride, that rests solely upon its own capabilities, and refuses to look for the support and countenance of others.--MS 7:91 [MS is the Millenial Star]"
Author: John Andreas Widtsoe
26. "Evil exists," he says, not flinching at the word. "I believe that what the rich have done to the poor people in this city is something that a preacher would call evil. Somebody has power. Pretending that they don't so they don't need to use it to help people-that is my idea of evil."
Author: Jonathan Kozol
27. "She knew what she looked like - someone at the edge of catastrophe, someone already flinching from a blow that had not yet been delivered."
Author: Josephine Humphreys
28. "His gaze held hers, and his voice was tender and rough. "Love me, Elizabeth." Elizabeth felt a tremor run through her entire body, but she looked at him without flinching. "I do."
Author: Judith McNaught
29. "Horror itself is a bit of a bullied genre, the antagonist being literary snobbery and public misconception. And I think good horror tackles our darkest fears, whatever they may be. It takes us into the minds of the victims, explores the threats, disseminates fear, studies how it changes us. It pulls back the curtain on the ugly underbelly of society, tears away the masks the monsters wear out in the world, shows us the potential truth of the human condition. Horror is truth, unflinching and honest. Not everybody wants to see that, but good horror ensures that it's there to be seen."
Author: Kealan Patrick Burke
30. "I have spent much of my adult life flinching with pain as I tried to pull out the threads that bound the shadows of my past to me."
Author: Lorna Luft
31. "Pulling through is what people do around here. There is a kind of bravery in their lives that isn't bravery at all. It is automatic, unflinching, a mix of man and machine, consuming and unquestionable obligation meeting illness move for move in a giant even-steven game of chess – an unending round of something that looks like shadowboxing, though between love and death, which is the shadow? "Everyone admires us for our courage," says one man. "They have no idea what they're talking about.""Courage requires options," the man adds."There are options," says a woman with a thick suede headband. "You could give up. You could fall apart.""No you can't. Nobody does. I've never seen it," says the man. "Well, not really fall apart."
Author: Lorrie Moore
32. "But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection."
Author: Marcel Proust
33. "I sang out the words unflinchingly though, as I stomped around the toadstool in clouds of church-basement dust, with a damp Gnome hand clutched in each of mine."
Author: Margaret Atwood
34. "It's only at this age that I can say the word 'art' without flinching."
Author: Mira Nair
35. "Raymond continued circling me, and I looked back at him. "Anyway, I know Lilith hates your guts, and she would have killed you yesterday if you hadn't managed to escape."He stopped and stepped closer, I didn't back away. His gaze traveled the length of my body and fixed on my face, he seemed to like what he saw. I barely kept myself from flinching. "If I were king, things would be different. I could make you my queen." Eew. I left my face blank, and raised an eyebrow. "Thanks for the offer, but no thanks. I'm not really into necrophilia."
Author: Natalie Herzer
36. "A coin is turned around before it is handed to the beggar, yet a child is unflinchingly tossed into cosmic bruteness."~ Peter Wessel Zapffe"
Author: Peter Wessel Zapffe
37. "I am not one of your repentant sinners, Kenneth. I have lived my life—God, what a life!—and as I have lived I shall die, unflinching and unchanged. Dare one to presume that a few hours spent in whining prayers shall atone for years of reckless dissoluteness? 'Tis a doctrine of cravens, who, having lacked in life the strength to live as conscience bade them, lack in death the courage to stand by that life's deeds. I am no such traitor to myself."
Author: Rafael Sabatini
38. "Only what?" I asked. I could barely hear my own voice.He turned his gaze back to me, firm and unflinching. "Only… more human."And that was it. All the anger and sorrow vanished. There was nothing in me.Nothing at all. I was empty."Get out," I said."
Author: Richelle Mead
39. "Buy a pup and your money will buyLove unflinching that cannot lie."
Author: Rudyard Kipling
40. "You are bruised.''Am I? I hadn't noticed.''Lucrezia says you killed the bastard.'... Cesare's hands were shaking. Hard, sun-darkened hands made to hold a sword or lance unflinchingly, but they trembled against my pale skin."
Author: Sara Poole
41. "Celaena." She looked back at him, her red gown sweeping around her. His eyes shone as he flashed her a crooked grin. "I missed you this summer."She met his stare unflinchingly, returning the smile as she said, "I hate to admit it, Sam Cortland, but I missed your sorry ass, too."
Author: Sarah J. Maas
42. "For the only safe harbour in this life's tossing, troubled sea is to refuse to be bothered about what the future will bring and to stand ready and confident, squaring the breast to take without skulking or flinching whatever fortune hurls at us."
Author: Seneca
43. "I really hate Squires. (Syra)(She pulled another flat bolt out and loaded it, then shot it at Otto. Moving so fast he could hardly be seen, the Squire turned around and caught it without flinching. He held the bolt up to his nose and inhaled it lovingly.)Mmm. Rose. My favorite. (Otto)Perhaps we should leave you two alone. (Jess)Yeah, this does remind me a bit of the mating rites of the mean and the surly. (Allen)"
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon
44. "His whole face was soft now. He brushed the tears from my cheek with his lips. "That doesn't mean anything to me," he breathed against my skin. "You will always be the most beautiful thing in my world. Ofcourse..." He hesitated, flinching slightly..."
Author: Stephenie Meyer
45. "In summer, waiting for night, we'd pose against the afterglow on corners, watching traffic cruise through the neighborhood. Sometimes, a car would go by without its headlights on and we'd all yell, "Lights!""Lights!" we'd keep on yelling until the beams flashed on. It was usually immediate - the driver honking back thanks, or flinching embarrassed behind the steering wheel, or gunning past, and we'd see his red taillights blink on. But there were times - who knows why? - when drunk or high, stubborn, or simply lost in that glide to somewhere else, the driver just kept driving in the dark, and all down the block we'd hear yelling from doorways and storefronts, front steps, and other corners, voices winking on like fireflies: "Lights! Your lights! Hey, lights!"
Author: Stuart Dybek
46. "We need someone to direct us and reassure us this is possible. And I don't think I'm that person. I may have been a catalyst for rebellion, but a leader should be someone with conviction, and I'm barely a convert myself. Someone with unflinching courage, and I'm still working hard at even finding mine. Someone with clear and persuasive words, and I'm so easily tongue-tied.Words. I think of words and I think of Peeta. How people embrace everything he says. He could move a crowd to action, I bet, if he chose to. Would find the things to say. But I'm sure the idea has never crossed his mind."
Author: Suzanne Collins
47. "Terror"There is something About youThat seems so youngSo trustingThis is the part of you that I most love And the part of you that I am most frightened to hurt Do you think the German poetsWhen speaking of the terror of loveMeant the terror that comes From knowingWe can be harmed Or from knowingWe have the power to hurtOf these two terrorsThe second is the greaterHumanity's deeper fear Perhaps it is so Even with Americans Who arm their leaders Not for fear of being destroyed But because in disarming them for a momentAll the harm done would be exposed Leaving the people Limping home in shameLike OedipusWho was haunted by mirrorsThe terror that comesFrom knowing you have the power to hurtThis is the greater fearPerhaps this is why our dogsCan look into our eyes UnflinchinglyWith unconditional loveIt is not because they are too stupid to know that somedayWe may casually break their heartsBut because they are wise enough to know thatThey will never break ours"
Author: Tara Sophia Bahna James
48. "Are you healed? One sure way to tell if you've healed from your past pain is to be aware of how you feel when someone brings it up. Are you anxious, sad, emotional? If you are, the wound has not completely healed. But if you can hear a name from your past, recall a memory without flinching, then you know that your scar tissue is protecting you and that inside you're healthy and strong again. It's a wonderful feeling to feel nothing at all when your hurtful past doesn't hurt anymore."
Author: Toni Sorenson
49. "I walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer. My bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music. It is a fire that solitude presses against my lips."
Author: Violette Leduc
50. "One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half."
Author: Winston Churchill
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