Quotes About Tension

They say civilization is a thin veneer over barbarism. Chicago stood waiting for the first tearing sound.

Kill you!" she snarled. "Kill you for what you did to him!" "Holy crap!" Thomas yelled. "Ack!" I agreed.

Elaine kept that deadly little wand pointed at the Skavis, eyes narrowed, and said, her voice rough and raw, "Who's useless now, bitch?

The net result of it was that some streets were bright with the headlights of military trucks and patrolled by National Guardsmen, and some of them were as black and empty as a crooked politician's heart.

Stop where you are." He didn't. He took a step toward me. So I shot him.

The evening had obviously been moving along entirely too smoothly, I thought. Something had gone wrong.

My father does not like you. I suspect he wishes to kill you." "I get that a lot.

I want five minutes alone with Dresden." "No offense, Nick," I said, "but that's about five minutes longer than I want to spend with you.

Just once," I growled, "I'd like to save the goddamned day without a shot clock. You know?

Oh, crap. You're saying that it's going to kill me, too." "Yes, that is exactly what I'm freaking saying, you tool." "Um," Thomas said, "I'm against that.

I took a slow breath and stepped past her, to face the king of the Red Court. He was kinda little.

Holy shit," I breathed. "Hellhounds." "Harry," Michael said sternly. "You know I hate it when you swear." "You're right. Sorry. Holy shit," I breathed, "heckhounds

Of course it went badly," Karrin said. "It was a fight with someone in your family. Believe me, family fights are the worst." "The family hasn't even been assembled yet and there's fights," I complained. "Looks pretty assembled to me, from what I've seen," she said, her tone dry.

There was a horrible, wrenching sound, a screech of protesting metal, and one of the screams peaked at a shivering, violent point—then dissolved into a strangled mishmash of sounds, of tearing and snapping and popping, of gurgling and thudding. And when they were finished, something, something big, with a cavernous, resonating chest, snarled from not ten feet beyond the security door.

Torelli's features darkened. "Kid. You just made the last mistake of your life." "God," I said. "I wish.

Harry?" she asked. "What was that?" "The plot," I said, "thickening.

Our idea of diplomacy is showing up with a gun in one hand and a sandwich in the other and asking which you'd prefer.

it left me suspended uncomfortably, stretched out between the overwhelming opposing forces, just trying to hang on. Story of my freaking life.

Watch out, he's loose!" I screamed to a nearby suit, reeling back toward him and fighting to keep the sudden grin off my face. "He'll tear us all apart!

Although it felt much longer, within a few seconds the pilot came over the loudspeaker. He spoke in German and Roxanne couldn't discern much from the tone of his voice. Then she heard the passengers who could understand him audibly gasp. This made her even more frightened. Finally, in somewhat broken English, the pilot announced that airspace over the United States was closed and he had been ordered to land in Gander, Newfoundland. He offered no further explanation.

How to make her run? No problem there. For a fearful shadow lies constantly over the residents of Uneasy Street. It casts itself through the ostensibly friendly handshake, or the gorgeously wrapped package. It beams out from the baby's carriage, the barber's chair, the beauty parlor. Every neighbor is suspect, every outsider, every period; even one's own husband or wife of sweetheart. There is no ease on Uneasy Street. The longer one's tenancy, the more untenable it becomes.

When life attains a crisis, man's focus narrows.

That's what she keeps you around for, to diddle her fiddle. Because you're low-hung and she's high-strung!

You talk crazy any more and I'll leave. Leave. For Christ's sake leave. She would not take her eyes from the dry wash. All right. Don't, he would say then. Don't. Why do you say those things. Why do you fight. He would sit on the bed and put his head in his hands. To find out if you're alive.