Quotes About Tension

Even Rudy stood completely erect, feigning nonchalance, tensing himself against the tension.

I notice a deliberate change in my brother. He's harder. He has a switch, and once a fight comes near, he flicks it and he is no longer my brother Rube. He's a machine.

The bombs were coming - and so was I.

There was the smell of pea soup, something burning and confrontation.

England and France had made their declaration on Germany. To steal a phrase from Hans Hubermann: The fun begins.

Frau Lindner war eine scharfkantige Frau mit dicken Brillengläsern und einem ruchlosen Blick. Sie hatte sich diesen Blick zugelegt, um jeden Gedanken an Diebstahl in ihrem Laden im Keim zu ersticken. Sie hütete ihr Geschäft mit einer soldatesken Haltung, einer unterkühlten Stimme, und selbst ihr Atem roch nach Heil Hitler.

God, there was such joy and fear there, such brilliant commotion.

It would have been hilarious if I wasn't about to die. It was still a little hilarious.

Left alone in an interrogation room, some men will look as though they're well into their last ten seconds before throwing up. And they'll look that way for hours. They sweat like they just climbed out of the swimming pool. They eat and swallow air. I mean these guys are really going through it. You come and tip a light in their face. And they're bugeyed - the orbs both big and red, and faceted also. Little raised soft-cornered squares, wired with rust. These are the innocent.

La città - è la città che dovrà guarirli, con lame di coltello e automobili, manganelli, colpi d'arma da fuoco. I cavi allentati e le pericolose costruzioni in muratura della città telecinetica.

The world is boiling. You hardly dare open a paper these days: the news is all of cataclysm and collapse. Tempers are threadbare; the yobs are winning; everybody accepts the fact that they've got to get nastier in order to survive. The world is going bad on us. I'm having nothing to do with it.

Le tiene miedo a Bill? — Por supuesto que sí. Es violento, y ni la mitad de tonto de lo que parece.

The British Government waited uneasily for some intimation of when the German blow in the West might fall.

True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice.

We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface hidden tension that is already alive

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.

Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with.

It must be remembered that genuine peace is not the absence of tension, but the presence of justice.

Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.

You may well ask: Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path? You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.

Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.

A Mrs. Hipp said vehemently that I had insulted her by implying that she, along with other white members of the committee, had come to the meeting with a closed mind. I tried to make it clear that my statement applied only to those people whose public pronouncements were antiNegro, and not to the committee as a whole, but to no avail. They continued to look at me as though I were the cause of the stalemate.

A church hall in semi-darkness. Bobby, Mammy (bottle in hand), Johnny, Helen, Bartley, Eileen and Kate sitting.

Money and emotion were never a good combination.