"Contort" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a certain less dignified, but expressive, three-lettered qualification. But before those Tripos Papers I bow my head in humble adoration. They sometimes take my breath away even to read the terrible excruciating things, which seem to turn one's brain round and round, and contort the muscles of one's face, and stop the pulsation of one's heart, when one tries to grasp the ...
— The Romance of Mathematics • P. Hampson
... exclaimed the hag, in a cracked tone, at the same time vainly endeavoring to contort her toothless jaws into an engaging simper, while the Doctor nearly burst with laughter—'have done now, or I'll slap ye for your impudence. But, faith, ye are such a pleasant gentleman, that I don't mind bestowing a kiss or two ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... my eyes till nine o'clock. I kept seeing that Spanish woman whirl around and contort, and—do you mind my telling you? —I couldn't just help it, I" (leaning forward to Jack) "got up and tried it before the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... have possibly preserved some recollection of this Thenardier woman, ever since her first appearance,—tall, blond, red, fat, angular, square, enormous, and agile; she belonged, as we have said, to the race of those colossal wild women, who contort themselves at fairs with paving-stones hanging from their hair. She did everything about the house,—made the beds, did the washing, the cooking, and everything else. Cosette was her only servant; a mouse in the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... cried Jabez, after a solemn pause, leaning over his cushion. 'Seventy times seven times didst thou gapingly contort thy visage—seventy times seven did I take counsel with my soul—Lo, this is human weakness: this also may be absolved! The First of the Seventy-First is come. Brethren, execute upon him the judgment written. Such honour have all ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... an altar. On the altar was a naked white woman being burned alive. There could be no doubt as to her being alive, for she was secured by chains in such a fashion that she was permitted a certain amount of freedom, of which she was availing herself to contort and twist her body into shapes which were horribly suggestive of the agony which she was enduring,—the artist, indeed, seemed to have exhausted his powers in his efforts to convey a vivid impression of the pains ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... this difference—Field's facial muscles seemed to act in obedience to his will, while Russell's appeared to break into whimsical lines involuntarily. Russell has a smile that would win its way around the world. Field could contort his face into a thunder-cloud which could send children almost into convulsions of fear. There was one story which they both recited with invariable success, that gave their friends a great chance to compare ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... stupendous pines and carpeted with long, luxuriant grass, gigantic ferns, and other monstrous primeval flora, of a nomenclature wholly unknown to me; I have watched in chilled fascination the black trunks twist and bend and contort, as if under the influence of an uncontrollable fit of laughter, or at the bidding of some psychic cyclone. I have at times stayed my steps when in the throes of the city-pavements; shops and people have been obliterated, and their places taken by occult ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell |
