"Tensed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the lungs completely and force the air down into the lower part of the lungs. Then, keeping the lower limbs perfectly stiff, with muscles tensed, bend the body forward from the middle of the trunk and while doing this empty the lungs quickly. Then straighten up again, at the same time filling the lungs. This should be repeated from 6 to 12 times. Then repeat the operation, but bending backward instead of forward, paying ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... nerve and muscle tensed as he sat in the booth, despite his efforts to relax. Slowly the tension eased, and he began to feel slightly drowsy. The booth seemed to ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova
... Pike nodded his head and agreed, and I noted his two big paws, relaxed the moment before and drooping over the rail, quite unconsciously tensed and folded themselves into fists. Also, I noted fresh abrasions on the knuckles. Miss West laughed heartily, as ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... there belched forth into the water of the central lagoon and into the air over it a flood of deadly vapor. As the Nevian turned toward the prisoner there was an almost inaudible hiss and a tiny jet of the frightful, outlawed stuff struck his open gills, just below his huge, conical head. He tensed momentarily, twitched convulsively just once, and fell motionless to the floor. And outside, the streams of avidly soluble liquefied gas rushed out into air and into water. It spread, dissolved, and diffused with the extreme mobility which is one of its characteristics; ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... His muscles tensed to drive home the blade, but something held his hand. His face paled. His shoulders contracted with a little shudder, and he turned toward the door of the apartment, almost running across the floor in his ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... He tensed in the dank shadows. Someone else was in this forest with him. It did not disturb him. Whatever was here was not alien to him or the forest. His eyes probed the mist that slithered through the ancient mossy trees and hanging vines. ...
— Strange Alliance • Bryce Walton
... to himself his exultation that beauty and bright eyes had played a clever trick on this man who, if his own judgment had been followed, would now be resting peacefully at the bottom of the river. It was the final stab to Carrigan. His muscles tensed. For the first time he felt the desire to shoot a naked fist into the grinning mouth of Concombre Bateese. He laid a hand on the half-breed's shoulder, and Bateese turned about slowly. He saw what was in the ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... three-dimensional representation on the screen. Not at the physical aspects of the man; as a biologist trained in the specialty of alien life she had seen a lot stranger sights. It was the man's pose, the expression on his face—tensed to leap, his lips drawn back to show all of ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... of swimming blue eyes, upturned face, tensed grasp, breaking voice, swayed me. But what if she were an actress, an adventuress? And then, my parents, my father's name! I had already been cozened once, I had resolved not to be snared again. The spell cleared ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... moment and he would just catch the low rumble of a man's voice, then begin again—interminably; at first annoying, then strangely terrible. He shivered, and getting up out of bed went to the window. It had reached a high point, tensed and stifled, almost the quality of a scream—then it ceased and left behind it a silence empty and menacing as the greater silence overhead. Anthony stood by the window a moment longer before he returned ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... the agility to evade one of Corrigan's heavy blows. It had caught him as he had tried to duck, striking fairly on the point of the jaw, and he was badly dazed. But he still grinned mockingly at his enemy as the latter followed him, tensed, eager, snarling. He evaded other blows that would have finished him—through instinct, it seemed to Corrigan; and though there was little strength left in him he kept working his right fist through Corrigan's guard and into his face, pecking ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... there a broad, yellow moon edged its way above the hills and rolled up through the black trees and then floated through the sky. Beneath such a moon no harm could come to her. It was while she stared at it, letting her tensed alertness relax little by little, that she saw, or thought she saw, a hint of moving white pass over the top of the rise of ground ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... jump, and he knew it all along. When Rambler rose gamely to it, with tensed muscles and forefeet flung forward to catch the bank beyond, he knew it better. And when, after a sickening minute of frenzied scrambling at the crumbling edge, they slid helplessly to the bottom, he cursed his idiocy for ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... the water was warm he had been in it a long time and he took every precaution to maintain his physical powers. He did not dress, but he rubbed thoroughly every part of his body that he could reach. Then he flexed and tensed his muscles until he had thrown off every chance of chill, after which he lowered himself into the water, and pushed out with ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to lounge against the hatch, the mate closed in behind Newman, and I saw a revolver in his hand. At the same time, the man with the shotgun said something to Newman, something that angered the big fellow, I could tell from the way his shoulders humped and his body tensed. Squarely behind him ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... time when the buck's ears lifted and tensed with swift eagerness for sound. His head was turned down the canyon. His sensitive, quivering nostrils scented the air. His eyes could not pierce the green screen through which the stream rippled away, but to his ears came the voice ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... Foster's muscles tensed swiftly, then flung his body headlong out into space. His aim was perfect. The bulky roll of cloth in his outstretched right hand struck the cable squarely with all the force of his hurtling body ...
— The Cavern of the Shining Ones • Hal K. Wells
... rose, my spirits mounted invincibly. It was the joy of the open road and the care-free heart. Like some hideous nightmare was the memory of the tunnel and the gravel pit. The bright blood in me rejoiced; my muscles tensed with pride in their toughness; I gazed insolently ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... Joe nodded. Then he tensed. Brent had meant it as a rather mirthless joke. But Joe was astonished at what his own brain made of it. He thought it over. Then he said, "Why not? It ought to be ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... settled back in his seat. His eyes, like the girl's, were watchfully bent upon the gloom-filled angle which Terry must negotiate before the way straightened out again before her. Her headlights cut through the shadows; Terry's little body stiffened a bit and her hands tensed on her wheel; her flying speed was lessened an almost negligible trifle; she made the turn and opened ...
— Man to Man • Jackson Gregory |
