Quicken Quotes

1. "I think I read in at least two ways. First, by following, breathlessly, the events and the characters without stopping to notice the details, the quickening pace of reading sometimes hurtling the story beyond the last page <...>. Secondly, by careful exploration, scrutinizing the text to understand its ravelled meaning, finding plesasure merely in the sound of the words or in the clues which the words did not wish to reveal, or in what I suspected was hidden deep in the story itself, something too terrible or too marvellous to be looked at."
Author: Alberto Manguel

2. "Watching movies simply is a promiscuous experience. The voracity it breeds! That quantity of quiddity compressed and quickened and sent at you! It's a little bit mad, isn't it, to hold a faithful flame for the one you've picked, when no such choice is required of you? The sane response to a rainbow is not to pick your favourite colour."
Author: Antonia Quirke

3. "Oh teach the mind t' aetherial heights to rise,And view familiar, in its native skies,Thy source of good; thy splendor to descry,And on thy self, undazled, fix her eye.Oh quicken this dull mass of mortal clay;Shine through the soul, and drive its clouds away!For thou art Light. In thee the righteous findCalm rest, and soft serenity of mind;Thee they regard alone; to thee they tend;At once our great original and end,At once our means, our end, our guide, our way,Our utmost bound, and our eternal stay!"
Author: Boethius

4. "One ought not to judge her: all children are Heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb high trees and say shocking things and leap so very high grown-up hearts flutter in terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one. But, as in their reading and arithmetic and drawing, different children proceed at different speeds. (It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.) Some small ones are terrible and fey, Utterly Heartless. Some are dear and sweet and Hardly Heartless At All. September stood very generally in the middle on the day the Green Wind took her, Somewhat Heartless, and Somewhat Grown."
Author: Catherynne M. Valente

5. "She had seen what it cost him and her heart quickened with compassion. For that alone, she might have loved him almost."
Author: Cecilia Dart Thornton

6. "The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator.""
Author: Charlotte Brontë

7. "I seem to wish to have some importanceIn the play of time. If not,Then sad was my mother's pain, my breath, my bones,My web of nerves, my wondering brain,to be shaped and quickened with such anticipationOnly to feed the swamp of space.What is deep, as love is deep, I'll haveDeeply. What is good, as love is good,I'll have well. Then if time and spaceHave any purpose, I shall belong to it.If not, if all is a pretty fictionTo distract the cherubim and seraphimWho so continually do cry, the leastI can do is to fill the curled shell of the worldWith human deep-sea sound, and hold it toThe ear of God, until he has appetiteTo taste our salt sorrow on his lips.And so you see it might be better to die.Though, on the other hand, I admit it mightBe immensely foolish."
Author: Christopher Fry

8. "I think fear neutralizes alcohol, weakens its anesthetic power. It's good for small fears; your boss, your wife, your bills, your dentist; all right then to take a drink. But for big ones it doesn't do any good. Like water on blazing gasoline, it will only quicken and compound it. It takes sand, in the literal and the slang sense, to smother the bonfire that is fear. And if you're out of sand, then you must burn up.("New York Blues")"
Author: Cornell Woolrich

9. "A QUICKENING that will last must come through the Word of God. A man stood up in one of our meetings and said he hoped for enough out of the series of meetings to last him all his life. I told him he might as well try to eat enough breakfast at one time to last him his lifetime. That is a mistake that people are making; they are running to religious meetings and they think the meetings are going to do the work. But if these don't bring you into closer contact with the Word of God, the whole impression will be gone in three months."
Author: D.L. Moody

10. "What doesn't quicken dies. That's an indisputable truth of life."
Author: Dean Koontz

11. "I made a silent promise to myself--I would come back when no one was here, and I would read those words. Maybe at that moment I knew what a thief must feel, a jewel thief. The way his heart would quicken with need and envy and want when he gazed down at the promise of diamonds and rubies.The way he knew he would soon hold them in his hands,pretending they were his even if they could never be."
Author: Deb Caletti

12. "And all at once the heavy nightFell from my eyes and I could see, --A drenched and dripping apple-tree,A last long line of silver rain,A sky grown clear and blue again.And as I looked a quickening gustOf wind blew up to me and thrustInto my face a miracleOf orchard-breath, and with the smell, --I know not how such things can be! --I breathed my soul back into me.Ah! Up then from the ground sprang IAnd hailed the earth with such a cryAs is not heard save from a manWho has been dead, and lives again.About the trees my arms I wound;Like one gone mad I hugged the ground;I raised my quivering arms on high;I laughed and laughed into the sky"
Author: Edna St. Vincent Millay

13. "Long my imprisoned spirit lay Fast bound in sin and nature's night; Thine eye diffused a quickening ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light; My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed Thee."
Author: Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

14. "Old boy," said Grimes, "you're in love.""Nonsense!""Smitten?" said Grimes."No, no.""The tender passion?""No.""Cupid's jolly little darts?""No.""Spring fancies, love's young dream?""Nonsense!""Not even a quickening of the pulse?""No.""A sweet despair?""Certainly not.""A trembling hope?""No.""A frisson? a Je ne sais quoi?""Nothing of the sort.""Liar!" said Grimes."
Author: Evelyn Waugh

15. "Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that He can make a lot more out of their lives than they can. He can deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds, strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings, increase their opportunities, comfort their soals, and pour out peace."
Author: Ezra Taft Benson

16. "We can go without dancing and things a little longer.""Especially since our Great Slipper Scandal quickened the undead and nearly destroyed the palace," said Bramble. "It put us off dancing for at least an hour."
Author: Heather Dixon

17. "Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power! Oh, high aspiring, rainbowed jet!—that one strives, this one jettest all in vain! In vain, oh whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon all-quickening sun, that only calls forth life, but gives it not again. Yet dost thou, darker half, rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith All thy unnamable imminglings float beneath me here; I am buoyed by breaths of once living things, exhaled as air, but water now."
Author: Herman Melville

18. "I look back at Silas, who is adding more sugar to his coffee. "Okay. Fine. One class, but only because I might not get another chance once we're back in Ellison. And you have to promise not to tell Scarlett.""Only if you let me pay for it," he counters."Silas," I say threateningly.He shrugs. "You and Lett are broke. And besides, if you pay for it, Scarlett will know the money is missing.""Fine," I say dismissively."Great. Let's go get you signed up, then," he says, rising and dropping a few crumbled dollars onto the tabletop. I remain seated, mouth open."Now?""No time like the present. I suppose I've taken Operation Rosie-Gets-a-Life as a personal mission. It's too similar to Operation Silas-Gets-a-Life for me to ignore." He extends a hand to me, and, without thinking, I take it. My heart rate quickens and I want to pull him toward me.Oh god. What am I thinking? I pull my hand away again and smile nervously. Silas smiles almost sheepishly. Did he feel the same stirring sensation?"
Author: Jackson Pearce

19. "The ever quickening advances of science made possible by the success of the Human Genome Project will also soon let us see the essences of mental disease. Only after we understand them at the genetic level can we rationally seek out appropriate therapies for such illnesses as schizophrenia and bipolar disease."
Author: James D. Watson

20. "Chemistry has the same quickening and suggestive influence upon the algebraist as a visit to the Royal Academy, or the old masters may be supposed to have on a Browning or a Tennyson. Indeed it seems to me that an exact homology exists between painting and poetry on the one hand and modem chemistry and modem algebra on the other. In poetry and algebra we have the pure idea elaborated and expressed through the vehicle of language, in painting and chemistry the idea enveloped in matter, depending in part on manual processes and the resources of art for its due manifestation."
Author: James Joseph Sylvester

21. "My pulse quickened. Was I? Gay, I mean? If so, what was I doing with Seth? Maybe I was bi. That would explain it. An open heart, willing to give and accept love wherever it came from. The feelings, the stirring, the awakening senses with Cece, though, I'd never experienced those with Seth. With any guy. (Chapter.12)"
Author: Julie Anne Peters

22. "Jesus loved me and I knew not why. And I loved him because He quickened my spirit to heights beyond my stature, and to depths beyond my sounding. Love is a sacred mystery. To those who love, it remains forever wordless; But to those who do not love, it may be but a heartless jest."
Author: Kahlil Gibran

23. "My pulses quicken. The thunderous sound of my heart beating fills my eardrums. I'm jealous of a dead girl. Why? Because I think I'm in love with her boyfriend."
Author: Kat Lieu

24. "I want to be your wife, your lover, your mate for life. I want to feel you inside me, to be one with you, to bear your children, to possess you as you possess me, to touch you as often as I wish, and to feel you quicken in my grasp. I need you... most desperately."
Author: Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

25. "But a slow, deeply satisfied smile came over him, and his breath quickened. 'So softly it starts,' he whispered. 'Foolishly clever and with an unsurvivable trust. It just saved your miserable life, that questionable show of thought, my itchy-witch.' Al's smile shifted, becoming lighter. 'And now you will live to possibly regret it."
Author: Kim Harrison

26. "The temperature of my blood dropped several degrees, and I took a step back. My heart quickened. "Storm?" I prompted, looking at the boxes on the dock labeled "non-perishable."
Author: Kirby Howell

27. "Her face was luminous and hopeful; she'd go into the dark with him in a heartbeat, sharp teeth and all. Human girls were stupid that way. No, not stupid. Primal in their skin, without even knowing it. The things that made thier pulse quicken were all the wrong things, but Mihai didn't take advantage of it, except for the free tea."
Author: Laini Taylor

28. "Harry's blood quickened as lurid images filled his mind...her against him, beneath him. That smiling mouth, his alone, her whispers curling into his ear. Her skin, soft and ivory pale in the darkness. Skin heated by skin, sensation emerging as he touched her.She was worth anything, he thought, even giving up the last remnants of his soul."
Author: Lisa Kleypas

29. "The Temperature is RisingThe heartbeat quickens my breath is controlled,my senses are illuminated like a mother to her young. This feeling I have I've know it before, when the gates are opened I'll remember the beginning. Awaiting, dreaming imagining the endless possibilities of moments together as I give into my desires. My body reacts it has a mind of its own leaving little clues yet I continue on. Poised and professional I cross my origin the passion that awaits it stirs like a simmer. The sweet aroma a treat being made just for him I know he will like, the hunger in his eyes his mouth soft and strong it only took me a moment as he continued to look on. I didn't even recognize my sound as I was in a sphere all alone I hoped and imagined it would be but my mind was left in awe like sweet chocolate after a meal."
Author: M.I. Ghostwriter

30. "His life was cheap to him. Perhaps that's why he rode faster than any other, perhaps that was why he had walked into the house of Aquila without the quickening of a heartbeat: because at the heart of his courage was the fact that he really did not care if he died. Such courage is not true courage. True courage is when a man quakes with fear in the face of death, yet still risks his life for something he cares about. Ricardo Bruni did not know this yet, but he was to learn it soon."
Author: Marina Fiorato

31. "A picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer. It dies by the same token. It is therefore risky to send it out into the world. How often it must be impaired by the eyes of the unfeeling and the cruelty of the impotent."
Author: Mark Rothko

32. "There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique."
Author: Martha Graham

33. "The heavenly blessing is to be delivered from the law, sin and death; to be justified and quickened to life: to have peace with God; to have a faithful heart, a joyful conscience, a spiritual consolation; to have the knowledge of Jesus Christ; to have the gift of prophecy, and the revelation of the Scriptures; to have the gift of the Holy Ghost, and to rejoice in God."
Author: Martin Luther

34. "But it was definitely a car trailing me and quickly I prepared myself for a great dash. I began quickening my step and when it stopped alongside me I could stand it no longer."My father's a cop and he'll kill you," I screeched without looking."No, he's a barrister," I heard Michael Andretti say in a calm voice, "and he'll kill you if you don't get into this car."
Author: Melina Marchetta

35. "Nor is it again that the novel has killed the play, as some critics would persuade us - the romantic movement of France shows us that. The work of Balzac and of Hugo grew up side by side together; nay, more, were complementary to each other, though neither of them saw it. While all other forms of poetry may flourish in an ignoble age, the splendid individualism of the lyrist, fed by its own passion, and lit by its own power, may pass as a pillar of fire as well across the desert as across places that are pleasant. It is none the less glorious though no man follow it - nay, by the greater sublimity of its loneliness it may be quickened into loftier utterance and intensified into clearer song."
Author: Oscar Wilde

36. "But the Lady Amalthea and Prince Lir walked and spoke and sang together as blithely as though King Haggard's castle had become a green wood, wild and shadowy with spring. They climbed the crooked towers like hills, picnicked in stone meadows under a stone sky, and splashed up and down stairways that had softened and quickened into streams."
Author: Peter S. Beagle

37. "Here silence stands Like heat. Here leaves unnoticed thicken, Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken, Luminously-peopled air ascends; And past the poppies bluish neutral distanceEnds the land suddenly beyond a beach Of shapes and shingle. Here is unfenced existence: Facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach."
Author: Philip Larkin

38. "It is that the Spirit is the outbreathing of God, His inmost life going forth in a personal form to quicken. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive the inmost life of God Himself to dwell in a personal way in us. When we really grasp this thought, it is overwhelming in its solemnity. Just stop and think what it means to have the inmost life of that infinite and eternal Being whom we call God, dwelling in a personal way in you. How solemn and how awful and yet unspeakably glorious life becomes when we realize this."
Author: R.A. Torrey

39. "We may say that all ages are dangerous to all people, in this dangerous life we live. But the thirties are a specially dangerous time for women. They have outlived the shyness and restraints of girlhood, and not attained to the caution and discretion of middle age. They are reckless, and consciously or unconsciously on the lookout for adventure. They see ahead of them the end of youth, and that quickens their pace."
Author: Rose Macaulay

40. "In the folklore of science, there is the often-told story of the moment of discovery: the quickening of the pulse, the spectral luminosity of ordinary facts, the overheated, standstill second when observations crystallize and fall together into patterns, like pieces of a kaleidoscope. The apple drops from the tree. The man jumps up from a bathtub; the slippery equation balances itself.But there is another moment of discovery—its antithesis—that is rarely recorded: the discovery of failure. It is a moment that a scientist often encounters alone. A patient's CT scan shows a relapsed lymphoma. A cell once killed by a drug begins to grow back. A child returns to the NCI with a headache."
Author: Siddhartha Mukherjee

41. "Words create sentences; sentences create paragraphs; sometimes paragraphs quicken and begin to breathe."
Author: Stephen King

42. "Who upholds the gorsedd if not You? Who counts the ages of the world if not You? Who commands the Wheel of Heaven if not You? Who quickens life in the womb if not You? Therefore, God of All Virtue and Power, sain us and shield us with Your Swift Sure Hand."
Author: Stephen R. Lawhead

43. "In this brief transit where the dreams crossThe dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these thingsFrom the wide window towards the granite shoreThe white sails still fly seaward, seaward flyingUnbroken wings And the lost heart stiffens and rejoicesIn the lost lilac and the lost sea voicesAnd the weak spirit quickens to rebelFor the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smellQuickens to recoverThe cry of quail and the whirling ploverAnd the blind eye createsThe empty forms between the ivory gatesAnd smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth This is the time of tension between dying and birth The place of solitude where three dreams cross Between blue rocks But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away Let the other yew be shaken and reply."
Author: T.S. Eliot

44. "To whom I owe the leaping delightThat quickens my senses in our wakingtimeAnd the rhythm that governs the repose of our sleepingtime,the breathing in unison.Of lovers whose bodies smell of each otherWho think the same thoughts without need of speech,And babble the same speech without need of meaning...No peevish winter wind shall chillNo sullen tropic sun shall witherThe roses in the rose-garden which is ours and ours onlyBut this dedication is for others to read:These are private words addressed to you in public."
Author: T.S. Eliot

45. "The scribe was a strict teacher and he did not accept anything less than perfect...Like a mother sensing the baby quickening within her, suddenly, to me, the letters were no longer hostile and unwieldly. I had command of them, with my head and with my hand...The words struck, as clear and as pure as a bell peal on a winter morning."
Author: Theresa Breslin

46. "We were quite naturally unhappy; feeling a definite need, unbearably keen at moments, which was never to be satisfied. But that was recognizable pain, and the sharp pang grew to be almost welcome in the midst of the sultry and opaque life which was not felt, had nothing real in it, and yet swam about us, and choked us and blinded us. All these tears and groans, reproaches and protestations of affection, high talk of duty and work and living for others, were doubtless what we should feel if we felt properly, and yet we had but a dull sense of gloom which could not honestly be referred to the dead; unfortunately it did not quicken our feeling for the living; but hideous as it was, obscured both living and dead; and for long did unpardonable mischief by substituting for the shape of a true and most vivid mother, nothing better than an unlovable phantom."
Author: Virginia Woolf

47. "But what after all is one night? A short space, especially when the darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of the wave."
Author: Virginia Woolf

48. "Great passions may give us a quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various forms of enthusiastic activity, disinterested or otherwise, which comes naturally to many of us."
Author: Walter Pater

49. "But whenever my consciousness was quickened, all those early friends were quickened within it, and in some strange way they accompanied me through all my new experiences. They were so much alive in me that I scarcely stopped to wonder whether they were alive anywhere else. Or how."
Author: Willa Cather

50. "His conviction of having no purpose in life other than to act as a distillation of poison was part of the ego of an eighteen-year-old. He had resolved that his beautiful white hands would never be soiled or calloused. He wanted to be like a pennant, dependent on each gusting wind. The only thing that seemed valid to him was to live for the emotions--gratuitous and unstable, dying only to quicken again, dwindling and flaring without direction or purpose."
Author: Yukio Mishima

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