Home > Topic > ratcheting
1 " Imagine for a moment that we are nothing but the product of billions of years of molecules coming together and ratcheting up through natural selection, that we are composed only of highways of fluids and chemicals sliding along roadways within billions of dancing cells, that trillions of synaptic conversations hum in parallel, that this vast egglike fabric of micron-thin circuitry runs algorithms undreamt of in modern science, and that these neural programs give rise to our decision making, loves, desires, fears, and aspirations. To me, that understanding would be a numinous experience, better than anything ever proposed in anyone's holy text. "
― David Eagleman , Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
2 " Why shouldn't Mom trust me, Dad" Why are you so determined to make me out to be the bad guy all the time?" I stared at the side of his face, willing him to make eye contact. He didn't. " I've been doing really good late and you don't even care." " Yet you still managed to get into trouble tonight," he said." You have no idea what happened tonight," I said, my voice ratcheting up a notch. " All you know is that, because I was involved, I'm somehow guilty of something. You could at least pretend to care, you know. You could at least try to understand." Dad gave a sardonic little laugh. " I'll tell you what I understand," he said. " I understand that when you're left to your own devices you get into trouble, that's what I understand. I understand I was trying to have a happy, restful evening with Briley and once again you screwed it up. "
3 " Deputy Grayson?" He turned to stare down into those soft green eyes, his pulse ratcheting up. " Yes, Miss Smith?" " Thank you." She touched his arm. " And no matter what happens, I promise I'm not a bad person." She flung her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.... Warmth rushed through Nash and tingling spread from where Phoebe's lips had touched his cheek. He raised a hand to the spot and stared at the woman, a frown pulling his brows downward. He hadn't begun the day with the intent of finding a runaway bride stranded on the side of the road. Scenarios like that were only found in those unrealistic romance novels women liked reading.No. He hadn't asked for a kiss. But now that she'd done it, she couldn't undo it, and he couldn't unfeel it. "
4 " I'd never wanted to consume another body as rabidly as I did when he was inside me, but even like this, I could never seem to get close enough to the parts of him I wanted to feel. And it was with that thought in my mind that the delicious ratcheting tension along my skin and in my belly crystallized into an ache so heavy I slipped my legs off his shoulders, pulling all of his weight on top of me and pleading, " Please, please, please," over and over. "
5 " Television and movies were our biggest teachers. When we came to the United States, the Vietnam War was just ratcheting up. And so the Asian faces that I saw on the news, they were the face of the enemy. Asian men, particularly, were either small, ineffective, or they were evil. And those messages were deeply, deeply embedded in me for many years. "
