"Panicky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... repeated, now in a blank whisper, now with his voice rising towards a sob; and his friend might reassure him, reason with him, joke at him—all was in vain, and the old cry came back, 'The ship's going down!' There was something panicky and catching in the emotion of his tones; and I saw in a clear flash what an involved and hideous tragedy was a disaster to an emigrant ship. If this whole parishful of people came no more to land, into how many houses would the newspaper carry woe, ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... beginning, when both girls were smitten into panicky silence by the sound of the slipper Harriet deliberately dropped on the floor. Nina noiselessly bent her stocky young body far forward, to look through the crack of the bathroom door. Harriet went on quietly spreading the youthful dinner dresses on Nina's ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... village now. Troubled and stubborn, Sally stopped the car, and looked mutinously at her companion. The doctor's rosy face was flushed under his flaming hair, and in his very blue eyes was a look that struck her with an almost panicky sensation of surprise. Sally had never seen any man regard her with an expression of distaste before, but the doctor's look ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... secrets to a foreign Power. It was but natural that these three dismal failures should find their way to the newspapers and that, in the hysterical condition of modern journalism, they should be flung out to the world at large with all the ostentation of leaded type and panicky scare heads, and that learned editors should discourse knowingly of "the limitations of mentality" and "the well-authenticated cases of the sudden warping of abnormal intelligences resulting in the startling termination of amazing ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... psychological moment, Booker Washington materially aided the Southern farmers of both races to tide over a serious crisis and materially increased the economic wealth of the entire South. As he well knew, the people were desperate and panicky and hence ready to follow almost any lead. In any ordinary state of the public mind such a letter could have produced nothing like such an influence. This well illustrated Booker Washington's accurate knowledge of and feeling for the psychology of the public which enabled him almost ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... slave to himself, which was natural in one with a healthy ego, but he rebelled in ways either murderous or panicky at being a slave to anybody else. Love's sweet servitude was a thing of which he had no comprehension. Men he had seen in love impressed him as lunatics, and lunacy was a thing he had never considered worth analyzing. But comradeship ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... of the whole situation. England was just entering upon a great war with France. It was a death-struggle, so there was no room for half-way measures. Feeling ran high, and the English may have become panicky. There was a bitter hatred, too, which may have had something to do with it. The English believed that with so many concealed enemies in the country, and such a large number of open enemies on the borders, their position ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... toppled on his pedestal at the smile of an unsophisticated little country girl? And there was Basil, recognized as a veritable wizard of finance, waiting until the new house was almost completed, then getting panicky about the cost. And now Donald, whom she thought safely anchored on the other side of the world, threatening to come home at the most inopportune time and create no ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... at what people try to hide from themselves. We have a worm's-eye view of humanity. We know better than to throw a difficult problem at a man with an established name! They're neurotic about their reputations. Like Dabney, they get panicky at the idea of anybody catching them in a mistake. No big name in medicine or biology would dare tell you that of course it's all right for us to take a walk in the ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... keep on writing. It relieves my nerves. Ever since the revision Marie and I have gone over and over the same reasoning, trying to get at why we were arrested. To write it all out may help the restlessness and anxiety and—yes—the panicky fear that rises in my throat like nausea. Life is so terribly insecure. I feel as though I had been stripped naked and turned out into the streets, with no person or ...
— Trapped in 'Black Russia' - Letters June-November 1915 • Ruth Pierce
... American beauties more active; foreign mammas less firm; American securities in great demand; the market in princes somewhat stronger; holders of titles much sought after; brains without money a drug in the market; "bogus" counts at a discount; the genealogy market panicky and falling; the stock of nobility rapidly depreciating; the pedigree exchange market flat and declining, etc., etc. This traffic in titles, this barter in dowries, this swapping of "blood" for dollars, is an offense too rank for words to embody it. The trade in cadetships is mild in comparison ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... of supplies, Kanawha division; suppresses guerillas; left in command of Kanawha district, when General Cox was transferred to Washington; Lee learns forces of; destroys stores and bridges, and retreats down valley; retreat panicky and unnecessary; advances up valley under General Cox; relieved of ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... afternoon the project went through without a dissenting voice. Colonel Tom being absent, the two employe directors voted with Sam with almost panicky haste as Sam looking across at the well-dressed, cool-headed Webster, laughed and lighted a fresh cigar. And then he voted the stock Sue had intrusted to him for the project, feeling that in doing so he was cutting, perhaps for all time, ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... Norma gave a panicky laugh, snatched her fan, wrap, and flowers, and fled joyously down to be criticized and praised. On the whole, they were pleased with her: Alice, seizing a chance for an aside to tell her not to worry about the lowness ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... directly connected with the "big house", the guests soon detected the aroma of fresh fish and requested that they be allowed to partake of this delicacy. When the boys, as well as the servants, heard this, they became panicky for they feared the wrath of the master. But the catch was so heartily relished that instead of the expected punishment, they were commended and allowed to fish on the next day ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume IV, Georgia Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... a panicky one. There seemed not one chance in a hundred of closing the gaps sufficiently to keep the hospital ship afloat long enough to save many of its ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... picturesquely to one's imagination in many ways. The very grossness of the hog enables him becomingly to fill the role of the Beast as a foil to Pele, the Beauty. The hog's rooting snout, that ravages the cultivated fields; his panicky retreat when suddenly disturbed; his valiant charge and stout resistance if cornered; his lowered snout in charge or retreat; his curling tail—how graphically all these features appeal to the imagination in support of ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... window, and down the ladder, and had it well on the way back to the hooks on Jerrold's fence when seized and challenged by the officer of the day. Mad terror possessed him then. He struck blindly, dashed off in panicky flight, paid no heed to sentry's cry or whistling missile, but tore like a racer up the path and never slackened speed ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... very far from us, where the wind blows so constantly that the people grow accustomed to it; they depend on it; some say they like it; and when by a rare chance it goes down for a few hours, they become nervous, panicky, and apprehensive, always listening, expecting something to happen. But we of the windless North, with our sunlit spaces, our quiet days and nights, grow peevish, petulant, and full of grouch when the wind blows. We will ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... composed, they presented a sorry array of stalwart warders. Their sheepishness provoked us to laughter when we learned the true reason for all the bother. But it brought home to us the extreme danger of falling foul of such a panicky mob. ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... frugal household of Roper Ellwell where the wife had fitted boys "in the classical tongues" for Camberton, the family had come to this uncertain state, feverish, like the fickle fluctuations of the stock market; now prodigal and easy, again in a panicky distress with dire fear of unknown depths of poverty and humiliation. Whatever happened—reckless, with a philosophy that ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... very odd, she thought then, that she had no letters. By now the Evershams must surely have written—she had begged them to.... But she was not going to be silly and panicky, she determinedly informed that queer little catch in her side which came at the thought of her isolation, and humming defiantly she sat down at the white piano and opened the score of a light opera ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... passed; a few more short steps were taken. A muttered oath came from one of the wet, uncomfortable men in the grip of fear. Several there were on the brink of turning in, a panicky dash for the safety of the enclosure behind, the warm buildings, guarded by ray-batteries—and yet an awful fascination held them. What metallic horror of the deeps was ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... tested for long. Presently he was aware that a change had come over the scene—that the Die-Hards' whistles and shouts were being drowned in another sound, the cries of panicky men. Dobson's bellow was wafted to him. "Auntie Phemie," he shouted, "the innkeeper's getting rattled. Dod, I believe they're running." For at that moment twenty paces on his left the van of the retreat crashed through the creepers on the ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... uniform. I j'ined 'em—yes,—for wasn't I the agent of the Lord?" He laughed bitterly. "An' didn't He say: 'He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.' One by one they come up missin', till I had killed all but seven. These got panicky—followed by an unknown doom an' they c'udn't see it, for it come like a thief at midnight an' agin like a pesterlence it wasted 'em at noonday. They separated—they tried to fly—they hid—but I followed 'em 'an I got all but one. He fled ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... they were going; one never knew. Probably they would get orders at Dunkirk. Father Joffre, when there was a call for reinforcements, never was in a panicky hurry. He seemed to understand that the general who made the call could hold out a little longer; but the reinforcements were always up on time. A long head ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... in your dreams writing in white chalk on a blackboard, denotes ill tidings of some person prostrated with some severe malady, or your financial security will be swayed by the panicky ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... Burnside was relieved, I was urging upon him the necessity of looking well to the fact that there was a scheme on foot to depose him, and to appoint a military dictator in his stead. He laughed and said, 'I think, for a man of accredited courage, you are the most panicky person I ever knew; you can see more dangers to me than all the other friends I have. You are all the time exercised about somebody taking my life; murdering me; and now you have discovered a new danger; now you think the people of this great government are ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... it sympathetically upon her knee, but Trask, who was playing the accompaniment behind the scenes, had put an unfamiliar accent upon the notes. Out on the stage the Zingara was beating her tambourine sadly out of time and was longing, with a panicky fear, for the familiar touch of Sissy's ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... often?" the embittered lady asked. "If he'd listened to me at the right time, would we have to be taking in boarders and sinking DOWN in the scale at the end of our lives, instead of going UP? You were both wrong; we didn't need to be so panicky—that was just what that old man wanted: to scare us and buy us out for nothing! If your father'd just listened to me then, or if for once in his life he'd ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... home, stimulating the new plant and technology that can make our goods more competitive, is also the key to the international balance of payments problem. Laying aside all alarmist talk and panicky solutions, let us put that knotty ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... doorway and hugged the forward bulkhead of the cabin trunk, taking care not to mask the forward port-hole of the galley with his back. If Doc Bird had heard him crawling out, he might be of an inquiring turn of mind, in his present panicky condition, and explore with a knife ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... halted on her way across the lawn. "What time is she coming?" she asked in panicky way, as though she would flee before the ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... further thinking Maggie did did not result in cool, mature wisdom—for her thoughts were the operations of a panicky mind. Somehow she had to get warning to Larry of this imminent police hunt! Without doubt Larry would return to Cedar Crest sometime that night. Word should be sent to him there. A letter was too uncertain in such a crisis. Of course she had an invitation to go to Cedar Crest ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... at last. "You'll have to know something, to work intelligently. I must get control of the Omega Company, and to do it I've got to have more stock. I've been afraid of a combination against me, and I guess I've struck it. I can't be sure yet, but when those ten thousand shares were gobbled up on a panicky market, I'll bet ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... progress. Shacks, stores, outhouses suddenly developed a frantic desire to go to St. Louis. It was a weird retreat in very bad order. A cottage with a garret window that glared like the eye of a Cyclops, trembled, rocked with the athletic lift of the flood, made a panicky plunge into a convenient tree; groaned, dodged, and took off through the brush like a scared cottontail. I felt a boy's pity and sympathy for those houses that got up and took to their legs across the yellow waste. It did not ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... your leave" was so far from persuasive that it left her with a panicky desire to run away—again a new sensation. ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... our conversation of this afternoon, Bill, and as a result I'm panicky. I haven't any right to drag you into trouble or ask you to share my woes. I've thought it over and I think I shall play safe. Parker will get the ranch in the long run, but if I give him a quit-claim deed now I think he will give me at least a quarter of a ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... a friendly bias toward it at the beginning and were plainly moved by the dramatic power of it as it progressed, but they seemed shocked and bewildered by the bludgeon blows of the conclusion and the curtain fell upon a rather panicky silence. Then they rallied and gave both the performers and the composer what would pass in current ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... side-stepped the furniture, which in the panicky confusion of sweeping was huddled toward the center of the room, and through a cloud of dust ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... representatives made a lot of panicky moves to combat this threat. The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was given a new Bureau, set up like the F.B.I., and headed by Myron P. Bishop, a man trained by that distinguished expert on narcotics, ...
— Revenge • Arthur Porges
... carriers, wreaking havoc on every side, had broken up the battle formation the aliens had had; the flaming death from the horrible weapons of the invaders, the fearless courage of the foot soldiers, and the steel-clad monsters that were running amuck among them shattered the little discipline they had. Panicky, they lost their anger, which had taken them several hours to build up. They ...
— Despoilers of the Golden Empire • Gordon Randall Garrett
... like himself, and the other a sergeant. Their awkward entrance made him feel more than ever at ease, and ten minutes later they were all talking like mad, and laughing and joking as if they had known these people for years. They all went in to dinner. Buzz got panicky when he thought of the knives and forks, but that turned out all right, too, because they brought these as you needed them. And besides, the things they gave you to eat weren't much different from the things you had for Sunday or Thanksgiving dinner at home, and it was cooked the ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... know what happened to him. A good part of his life has been spent in hospitals; he'll pick up though. I think the newspaper reporters did more harm than the autoist. Do you know, Slade, I think the man may have just got panicky, like some of the ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... was open; the wind was sweeping in; again old newspapers went flying wildly as though in panicky fear. The men in the room were staring even as she stared, in bewilderment. She heard old man Adams's tongue clicking in his toothless old mouth. She saw Hap Smith, his expression one of pure amazement, standing, half crouching ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... coughed, as we wheezed. That had been a hard hike. The air was hot, we could feel the fire as the wind came in strong puffs; everywhere animals were running and flying, and the aspens were full of wild things, panicky. We had to decide quickly, for the fire ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... shareholders' money to better advantage were called to account, I imagine a number of respectable gentlemen would find their occupation gone. Besides, when people start deposing rulers they don't know where to stop. The thing's, so to speak, contagious, and panicky investors are ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... moment," he said softly. She paused and then went up to him. He held out a newspaper, suddenly at a loss for words, now that there was a prospect of a moment with her wholly uninterrupted. "Here," said he, a little panicky, "is a full account of the revival, sermon and all. Make your hair stand on end ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... fired seemed to reproach them with angry gestures, pointing to the effect upon the panicky mass. Then the whole squad rushed forward toward ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... Kings. Tonight they lay out somewhere below him, chartless, foodless, tentless, gunless—except for Hurree Babu, guideless. And this collapse of their Great Game (Kim wondered to whom they would report it), this panicky bolt into the night, had come about through no craft of Hurree's or contrivance of Kim's, but simply, beautifully, and inevitably as the capture of Mahbub's fakir-friends by the zealous ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... and send Sophy to tell smooth fictions at the door. Reporters could hardly get at her, and her husband himself, if he should try, could presumably be routed. Aunt Patricia Beattie was another matter. Esther was so panicky that she ran upstairs with the telegram and tapped at grandmother's door. Rhoda Knox came in answer. She was a large woman of a fine presence, red cheekbones with high lights, and smooth black hair brushed ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... from hindrance, coercion or question, Yet Agathemer and I could not but conjecture that the Senate, Perennis and Commodus had been promptly and minutely informed of all our doings, of our progress, of our approach; and had taken measures to deal with us and our instigators. We felt panicky. ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White |
