“Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” And at the same time, his long bony body rose up out of the bed and his bowl of soup went flying into the face of Grandma Josephine, and in one fantastic leap, this old fellow of ninety-six and a half, who hadn’t been out of bed these last twenty years, jumped on to the floor and started doing a dance of victory in his pajamas.”
“Never forget that anticipation is an important part of life. Work’s important, family’s important, but without excitement, you have nothing. You’re cheating yourself if you refuse to enjoy what’s coming.”
“I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life.”
The reindeer were excited. They pranced and paced, ringing the silver sleigh bells that hung from their harnesses. It was a magical sound, like nothing I’d ever heard.
The first thing in the world they ever heard were the words, “Tin soldiers!” uttered by a little boy, who clapped his hands with delight when the lid of the box, in which they lay, was taken off.
“My father was always saying the inn would be ruined, for people would soon cease coming there to be tyrannized over and put down, and sent shivering to their beds; but I really believe his presence did us good. People were frightened at the time, but on looking back they rather liked it; it was a fine excitement in a quiet country life . . . ”
“At length, when the excitement subsided a little, I was able to say a few words with a chance of being listened to. “I am truly thankful to see you all safe and well, and, thank God, our expedition has been very satisfactory.”
“She’s saying it! She’s saying it!” cried Jane, holding tight to herself for fear she would break in two with delight. And she was saying it. The Bird Woman was there and she was saying it. “Feed the Birds, Tuppence a Bag! Feed the Birds, Tuppence a Bag! Feed the Birds, Feed the Birds, Tuppence a Bag, Tuppence a Bag!”
“The pedagogue’s mouth watered, as he looked upon this sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind’s eye, he pictured to himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce.”
“The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them.”
″‘When I was your age, I left Spain with my mother, father, and sisters. [...] We had to take several ships and the journey lasted months. When we arrived, nothing was as promised. There were many hard times. But life was also exciting. And we had each other.‘”
“She soared with the anticipation of dreams she never knew she could have, of learning English, of supporting her family, of someday buying a tiny house.”
“This place I am hoping to get to is so marvelous that if I described it to you now you would go crazy with excitement. And then, if we failed to get there (which is very possible), you would die of disappointment. I don’t want to raise your hopes too much, my darlings.”
“For at least two hours the Boy loved him, and then Aunts and Uncles came to dinner, and there was a great rustling of tissue paper and unwrapping of parcels, and in the excitement of looking at all the new presents the Velveteen Rabbit was forgotten.”
“That moment. That instant when your fingers curl round the handles of a shiny, uncreased bag--and all the gorgeous new things inside it becomes yours. What’s it like? It’s like going hungry for days, them cramming your mouth full of warm buttered toast.”
“I honestly feel as though I’ve run an obstacle course to get here. In fact, I think, they should list shopping as a cardiovascular activity. My heart never beets as fast as it does when I see a “reduced by 50 percent” sign”.
″‘You should have Hugo throw you in the pool.’
The golem turned his head toward Seth, who shrugged.
‘Sure, that would be fun.’
Hugo nodded, grabbed Seth, and, with a motion like a hook shot, flung him skyward.
...
Her brother sailed nearly as high as the roof of the house before plummeting down and landing in the center of the deep end with an impressive splash.
Kendra ran to the side of the pool. By the time she arrived, Seth was boosting himself out of the waster, hair and clothes dripping. ‘That was the freakiest, awesomest moment in my life!’ Seth declared. ‘But next time, let me take off my shoes.‘”
“The drums were still beating, persistent and unchanging. Their sound was no longer a separate thing from the living village. It was like the pulsation of its heart. It throbbed in the air, in the sunshine, and even in the trees, and filled the village with excitement.”
“There is no sport equal to that which aviators enjoy while being carried through the air on great white wings. More than anything else the sensation is one of perfect peace mingled with an excitement that strains every nerve to the utmost if you can conceive of such a combination.”
“Terabithia was their secret, which was a good thing, for how could Jess have ever explained it to an outsider? Just walking down the hill toward the woods made something warm and liquid steal through his body.”
″‘But oh!’ thought Alice, suddenly jumping up, ‘if I don’t make haste, I shall have to go back through the Looking-glass, before I’ve seen what the rest of the house is like! Let’s have a look at the garden first!‘”
“Here today, up and off to somewhere else tomorrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that’s always changing!”
“Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could be seen from the old room was quite common and uninteresting, but that all the rest was as different as possible. For instance, the pictures on the wall next the fire seemed to be all alive, and the very clock on the chimney-piece (you know you can only see the back of it in the Looking-glass) had got the face of a little old man, and grinned at her.”
“And then I laugh, because it’s so ridiculous and so gorgeous and it’s all I can do to not melt into a fit of giggles. So what if I’m ninety-three? So what if I’m ancient and cranky and my body’s a wreck? If they’re willing to accept me and my guilty conscience, why the hell shouldn’t I run away with the circus?”
“The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.”
“The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.”
“She was out of the room in a moment, and ran down stairs – or, at least, it wasn’t exactly running, but a new invention for getting down stairs quickly and easily, as Alice said to herself. She just kept the tips of her fingers on the hand-rail, and floated gently down without even touching the stairs with her feet: then she floated on through the hall, and would have gone straight out at the door in the same way, if she hadn’t caught hold of the door-post.”
“It is so beautiful, so exciting, this love, that I tremble on the verge of it, and offer, quite out of my own habit, to look for a brooch on a beach; also it is the stupidest, the most barbaric of human passions”
“You can imagine the sensation there was the next morning when the missing Princess Amy calmly walked down to breakfast as though she had never been away.”
″... Pa caught Laura up in his safe, big hug. ‘We’re across the Mississippi!‘, he said, hugging her joyously. ‘How do you like that, little half-pint of sweet cider half drunk up?‘”
“When I think something nice is going to happen I seem to fly right up on the wings of anticipation; and then the first thing I realize I drop down to earth with a thud. But really, Marilla, the flying part is glorious as long as it lasts... it’s like soaring through a sunset. I think it almost pays for the thud.”
“Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive--it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be half so interesting if we know all about everything, would it? There’d be no scope for imagination then, would there? But am I talking too much? People are always telling me I do. Would you rather I didn’t talk? If you say so I’ll stop. I can stop when I make up my mind to it, although it’s difficult.”
“My inner world seems largely to consist of three rotating emotions: embarrassment, rage, and tension. Sometimes I feel excited, but I think that’s just positive tension.”
“Donny brought the drink and he and Dee Dee talked. They seemed to know the same people. I didn’t know any of them. It took a lot to excite me. I didn’t care. I didn’t like New York. I didn’t like Hollywood. I didn’t like rock music. I didn’t like anything. Maybe I was afraid. That was it – I was afraid. I wanted to sit alone in a room with the shades down. I feasted upon that. I was a crank. I was a lunatic. And Lydia was gone.”
“We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day “Thy will be done.” We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions.”
“You know that kind of quiver that trembles around through you when you are seeing something so strange and enchanting and wonderful that it is just a fearful joy to be alive and look at it.”
“So you’ll read to him from one of your books, and he’ll ask to see the pictures. When he looks at the pictures, he’ll get so excited he’ll want to draw one of his own.”
“All his thoughts, all his dreams were centered on the miraculous, endless possibilities opened up by a real, live, miniature Indian of his very own. It would be too terrible if the whole thing turned out to be some sort of mistake.”
“Feeling that this was an important moment in his life, he took hold of the handgrips. They felt good and solid beneath his paws. Yes, this motorcycle was a good machine alright.”
“Ralph was eager, excited, curious, and impatient all at once. The emotion was so strong it made him forget his empty stomach. It was caused by those little cars, especially that motorcycle and the pb-pb-b-b-b sound the boy made.”
“Ralph started the motorcycle again and rode around in the moonlight once more, faster and faster, until he was dizzy from circling, dizzy with excitement, dizzy with the joy of speed.”
″“I remember how happy Gracey was that afternoon, but it didn’t last long. When they got off that bus, every one of those kids was celebrating, white kids, black kids, it didn’t matter, but the next morning all the fun was washed out of the white kids.”
“Meanwhile Karl has been preparing the place in the mechanism of the great clock that was set aside for his masterpiece. Feverish with excitement, he hurried down the staircase of the clock tower and across the square to the inn. The old cat Putzi had come outside with Gretl, but he didn’t like the cold, and he sat on the windowsill, cleaning his ears, wondering if this man would let him in again for a snooze by the stove. But Karl didn’t notice him.
“The night before her birthday, Hannah went to bed tingling with excitement – she had asked her father for a gorilla! In the middle of the night, Hannah woke up and saw a very small parcel at the foot of the bed. It was a gorilla but it was just a toy.”
“Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and turn it into wisdom. His mind had no horizon - and his sympathy had no warp. He could talk to children, telling them very profound things so that they understood. He lived in a world of wonders, of excitement. He was concupiscent as a rabbit and gentle as hell. Everyone who knew him was indebted to him. And everyone who thought of him thought next, ‘I really must do something nice for Doc.”
“Col, in 1938, has the experience of seeing a neighbor getting evicted during the Great Depression.
Bridie, in 1928 and with much excitement, sees the arrival of electricity in her house.”
“She felt a great commotion in the air around her--a great excitement, muted, waiting on the Lord. And the air seemed to tremble, as before a storm. A light seemed to hang--just above, and all around them--about to burst into revelation.”
“As the wedding party moved through the forest, brightly plumed birds darted about in the cool green shadows beneath the trees. Though anxious about her sister, Nyasha was soon filled with excitement about all there was to see.”
“Little Toot was right in the middle of all the excitement. He watched his father work hard. Big Toot was the biggest and fastest tugboat on the river.”
“The fun and frolic seemed to grow greater the longer they played. In the excitement, time went on much faster than any of them dreamed. Suddenly, in the midst of the noise, came a sound - the sharp distinct slam of the carryall-door at the side entrance. Aunt Izzie had returned from her lecture.”
“But both children were too excited to sit quietly, so Peter took out a picture puzzle. As they fit the pieces together, their excitement slowly turned to relief, and then exhaustion. With the puzzle half done Peter and Judy fell sound asleep on the sofa.”
“Also, you’ll find out soon enough that John distorts—when he isn’t out-and-out lying. For example, in Problems in American Democracy the other day, Mr. Weiner asked him what kind of homes early American settlers lived in, and John said tree huts. Now John knows early American settlers didn’t live in tree huts, but he’ll do just about anything to stir up some excitement.”
“Girls will be girls, Miss Slighcarp, and you must allow something for the natural high spirits and excitement attendant on your own arrival and the expected one of her cousin.”
On a day when baby Liam is cutting a tooth, Katie Morag’s parents send her off to deliver the mail. On the Isle of Struay, the mail only comes once a week, so its arrival always generates plenty of excitement.
“There are hundreds of worries and even sorrows that may come along, but- I think what I really mean is that Rose won’t be wanting things to happen. She will want things to stay just as they are. She will never have the fun of hoping something wonderful and exciting may be just round the corner.”
″‘It must be the sea!’ exclaimed Moomintroll with a whoop of joy, and he started running upwind, his heart thumping with excitement, for if there is anything Moomintrolls really love, it is swimming.”
“I followed as sedately as I could after her, but my feet wouldn’t move quietly, they felt they must dance as if they were bewitched by the strangeness of everything.”
“The child was a little afraid to ask questions, the impressions were coming so thick and fast; they threatened to overwhelm her. The general excitement got into her blood, and she set up a fine, distinct buzzing.”
‘Everybody, I suppose, knows the dreamy, delicious state in which one lies, half asleep, half awake, while consciousness begins to return after a sound night’s rest in a new place which we are glad to be in, following upon a day of unwonted excitement and exertion. There are few pleasanter pieces of life.”
“Your principles can’t be extinguished unless you snuff out the thoughts that feed them, for it’s continually in your power to reignite new ones...It’s possible to start living again! See things anew as you once did--that is how to restart life!”
“It was long after the dinner hour before the excitement died away. Then it was learned that Grace was resting quietly in an easy chair and the doctor had ordered that she be kept quiet for several days. She was very much frightened and had told her parents that she would never jump rope again.”
For the present, under the circumstances, we deemed it prudent to make rather light of the matter to Trabb’s boy; who, I am convinced, would have been much affected by disappointment, if he had known that his intervention saved me from the limekiln. Not that Trabb’s boy was of a malignant nature, but that he had too much spare vivacity, and that it was in his constitution to want variety and excitement at anybody’s expense.
Captain Benwick and Louisa Musgrove! It was almost too wonderful for belief, and it was with the greatest effort that she could remain in the room, preserve an air of calmness, and answer the common questions of the moment.
“Oh! Harry, there never was anything so beautiful; Mrs. Fowler says we are all to go and live near her. There is a cottage now empty that will just suit us, with a garden and a henhouse, and apple-trees, and everything! and her coachman is going away in the spring, and then she will want father in his place; and there are good families round, where you can get a place in the garden or the stable, or as a page-boy; and there’s a good school for me; and mother is laughing and crying by turns, and father does look so happy!”