Quotes About Tension

In Christ we are no longer dominated by the flesh, but by the Spirit; but we are not yet delivered from the flesh. So long as this eschatological tension exists for the believer, so long will there be—in Calvin's view—a gap between the definition of faith and the actual experience of the believer:

Well, if that's what you call being at peace, for heaven's sake just warn me before you go to war, will you?

Why, she said, with a smile which snapped back after using as abruptly as a stretched rubber band, didn't he take a nice walk?

Better is peace than ever war.

The function of suspense is to put the reader in danger of an overfull bladder.

Tension produces instantaneous anxiety, and the reader finds it delicious.

Those are the three keys: the want and the opposition to the want need to be important, necessary, and urgent. The result should be the kind of conflict that interests readers.

Ironic, huh? To keep that part of me alive, I have to be close to that which kills it.

Commuting in London is basically warfare. It's a constant campaign of claiming territory; inching forward; never relaxing for a moment. Because if you do, someone will step past you. Or step on you.

I'd laugh, only my stupid lizard brain has disabled the laugh button for now. I'm too frozen up with tension. I am owed so much laughter. Sometimes I hope I'm building up a stockpile of missing laughs, and when I've recovered, they'll all come exploding out in one gigantic fit that last twenty-four hours.

My head is prickling and I can sense Suze staring meaningfully at me, but I don't want to meet her gaze. I want to make the perfect lighthearted comment that will instantly smooth everything over. Right now, though, I can't quite think of it

I know not, but strained silence, so I deem, IS no less ominous than excessive grief.

Friendship is a tension. It makes delicate demands.

They're both mad, I tell you, the two of them. One's just shown it, the other's been that way since she was born.

I think you're insane.

Life was never anything but a perpetual see-saw between gravity and jest.

His dagger was out, poised at her throat. "Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life.

There's always trouble in the Middle East. I can't recall any time in my life when there hasn't been trouble there.

My life is too tight, he wanted to say. My skin is too tight. The walls are too tight.

Happiness is overrated. There has to be conflict in life.

The best fiction is geared towards conflict. We learn most about our characters through tension, when they are put up against insurmountable obstacles. This is true in real life.

There are a ton of medical dramas out there dealing with life and death.

If you say anything, it just gets worse.

I must be the only playwright this century to have been pursued up a London street by an angry mob. LIke most battle experiences, my own view was limited by my vantage point at the back of the stalls. There was an inescapable tension in the house. The theatre itself took on a feeling of rococo mockery and devilment, too hot, a snake-pit of stabbing jewellery, hair-pieces, hobbling high heels, stifling wraps and unmanageable long frocks.