your jaw QUOTES

1 " I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, show no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread.Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dear like an opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper attention to fear.Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, your open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you. "

2 " If you want big improvements, she said, chew gum. Gum? Sure enough, chewing gum has been shown to improve a person's immediate recall of learned words by some 24 percent. Long-term recall improves by a larger 36 percent. To get the benefit, you actually have to chew gum as you are studying; for some reason you can't merely move your jaw up and down. I also discovered that drinking sage tea increases one's recall of words modestly, as does the odor of rosemary. Something as mundane as coffee provides a benefit, too. Drinking two cups of coffee increases neuronal activity in the frontal lobe, where working memory is controlled, and in the anterior cingulum, where attention is controlled. "

― Michael Erard , Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners

3 " Trust me, there are things in this mountain that will make your jaw bounce off the floor. "

― Jaleigh Johnson , The Secrets of Solace (World of Solace, #2)

4 " At first, you get your jaw broken but next time you know better than anyone how to protect yourself. "

― , Crocodile Chamber

5 " Do you know why I believe in the novel? It’s a democratic shout. Anybody can write a great novel, one great novel, almost any amateur off the street. I believe this, George. Some nameless drudge, some desperado with barely a nurtured dream can sit down and find his voice and luck out and do it. Something so angelic it makes your jaw hang open. The spray of talent, the spray of ideas. One thing unlike another, one voice unlike the next. Ambiguities, contradictions, whispers, hints. And this is what you want to destroy. "

― Don DeLillo , Mao II

6 " I prodded him in the chest with a finger and said, “Look here, smart mouth, I’m getting pretty sick of you already. If you know what’s best for you, keep your trap shut and do as I tell you. I still haven’t forgotten how you pushed my friend into that corpse. So unless you want to end up like that body in the underpass, do yourself a favour and keep out of my face, okay?”
“Whatever you say, boss. You’re the boss, boss,” Drake said.
“See, there you go again!” I snapped at him.
“I’m not sure I know what you mean, boss,” Drake said.
“You even say boss like a wise arse,” I shot back at him.
“I don’t know what you mean b-” Drake started again.
“Did I say you had to call me boss?”
“It’s just that I thought…”
“Don’t think!” I barked. “Just do as I say and we’ll get along just fine.”
“Whatever you say,” Drake said.
I glanced at Madison and she was smiling. “What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she smiled back.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realise that I was some sort of freaking comedian. Let’s see if
you think it’s so funny when another one of those dead kids shows up. Jesus, no wonder you amateurs haven’t caught this piece of scum yet – you’re probably all too busy sitting round cracking jokes and
taking the piss to do any real police work.”
“You are funny though,” she half-laughed. “It’s just that when you get angry, your jaw goes all
tense and your nostrils flare out at the sides.”
“Oh yeah, how very amusing,” I remarked. “I think you two clowns are funny – not ha-ha funny
– but fucked-in-the-head funny! Now, if you two have quite finished doing your Laurel and Hardy impersonations, we’ve got a killer to catch! "

― Tim O'Rourke , Wolf House - Potter's Story (Kiera Hudson Series One #4.5)