fear

See Also: ANXIETY, EMOTIONS, NERVOUSNESS

1. Afraid, as children in the dark —Dante Gabriel Rossetti
2. An air of terrifying finality, like the clap of doom —Herbert Lieberman
3. (A vague, uncatalogued) apprehension, as cold and disquieting as a first snowflake smudging the window of a warm and complacent room —Derek Lambert
4. As courage imperils life, fear protects it —Leonardo Da Vinci
5. As easily daunted as an elephant in the presence of a mouse —Ben Ames Williams
6. Brute terrors, like the scurrying of rats in a deserted attic, filled the more remote chambers of his brain —Robert Louis Stevenson
7. Cowardice, like alcoholism, is a lifelong condition —Susan Walton, New York Times/Hers, June 4, 1987

   The cowardice Walton is comparing to alcoholism is that which drives the person who always does what is expected and when.

8. Cowardly as the hyena —Beryl Markham
9. His cowardice … fixed him like an invisible cement, or like a nail —Cynthia Ozick
10. Dreaded (her) like fire —Alexander Pushkin
11. The dread in his lungs lay heavy as cold mud —Peter Matthiessen
12. An eddy of fear swirled around her, like dust rising off the floor in some barren drafty place —Cornell Woolrich
13. Fear … a little like the fear of a lover who realizes that he is falling out of love —May Sarton
14. Fear … came and went like the throb of a nerve in an open tooth —James Warner Bellah
15. Fear … clutching at his heart … as if tigers were tearing him —Willa Cather
16. Fear … compressed me like a vise —Aharon Appelfeld
17. Fear fell [on crowd] like the shadow of a cloud —John Greenleaf Whittier
18. Fear … gnaws like pain —Dame Edith Sitwell
19. Fearing them as much … as a nervous child with memory filled with ghost-stories fears a dark room —W. H. Hudson
20. Fear is like a cloak which old men huddle about their love, as if to keep it warm —William Wordsworth
21. Fear … lay on me like a slab of stone —Norman Mailer
22. (In my body is a) fear like metal —Marilyn Hacker
23. The fear of failure … blew like a Siberian wind on our unprotected backs —John Le Carré
24. Fear oozed out (of the woods), as out of a cracked bottle —Dorothy Canfield Fisher
25. Fear ran through him like a sickness —Brian Moore
26. Fears … fell from him like dreams from a man waking up in bed —G. K. Chesterton
27. Fear … sat heavy in the center of his body like a ball of badly digested food —George Garrett
28. Fears came scurrying out from their hiding places like mice —Paige Mitchell
29. Fear … seized all his bones like water —Hugh Walpole
30. Fear shot through me like a jolt of electricity —Sue Grafton
31. Fear spread like a common chill —Paige Mitchell

    See Also: SPREADING

32. The fear [of death]… stood silent behind them like an inflexible and cold-eyed taskmaster —Joseph Conrad
33. Fear stuck in his throat like a cotton hook —Charles Johnson
34. Fear swelled like some terrible travail —Heinrich Böll
35. Fear tangled his legs like a barricade —Harris Downey
36. Fear tastes like a rusty knife —John Cheever
37. Fear trills like an alarm bell you cannot shut off —John Updike
38. Fear worked like yeast in my thoughts, and the fermentation brought to the surface, in great gobs of scum, the images of disaster —Evelyn Waugh
39. Fear wrapped itself around his chest like a wide leather strap tightened by a maniac —François Camoin
40. Feeling as if an ice pick had been plunged into his liver —Peter Benchley
41. (I had) a feeling in my knees like a steering wheel with a shimmy —Rex Stout
42. Feel like clammy fingers were poking at my very heart —Borden Deal
43. Feel like a tight-rope walk high over hell —Kenneth Fearing
44. Feels fear, like a water bubble in his throat —Jessie Schell
45. Felt a chill … like swimming into a cold pocket in a lake —Tobias Wolff
46. Felt a driblet of fear … like a glug of water backing up the momentarily opened drain and polluting the bath with a dead spider, three lice, a rat turd, and things he couldn’t stand to name or look at —Bernard Malamud
47. Felt like a deer stepping out before the rifle of the hunter —Piers Anthony
48. Felt like a nightmare that had yet to be dreamt —Stanislaw J. Lem
49. Felt (the beginning of) panic, like a giant hand squeezing my heart —Frank Conroy
50. Felt panicky, like he was in a bad dream where he did and said all the wrong things and couldn’t stop —Dan Wakefield
51. Felt the chill of mortality … like a toddler gifted with some scraping edge of adult comprehension —Penelope Gilliatt

    See Also: DEATH

52. Felt the sick, oppressive crush of dread, like pinpoint ashes —Sylvia Berkman
53. A foreboding, dusky and cold like the room, crept to her side —Hugh Walpole
54. Frightened as Macbeth before the ghost of Banquo —Louis Veuillot
55. Frightened as though he had suddenly found himself at the edge of a precipice —Honore dé Balzac
56. Frightened … like a man who is told he has a mortal illness, yet can cure it by jumping off a fifty-foot cliff into the water. “No,” he says, “I’ll stay in bed. I’d rather die.” —Norman Mailer
57. Frightening … like one of those films where ghostly hands suddenly reach in and switch off all the lights —Robert E. Sherwood
58. Fright stabbed his stomach like a sliver of glass —Arthur Miller
59. Full of dread and timidness as conscripts to a firing squad doing —Richard Ford
60. Gives me the creeps … like petting snakes —Raymond Chandler
61. Glances round him like a lamb at a convocation of wolves —T. Coraghessan Boyle
62. (Mildred’s) heart leapt with relief like a bird in her breast —Noël Coward
63. A hiss of terror, like air whistling out of a punctured tire —Cornell Woolrich
64. Horror should rise up like a clot of blood in the throat —Dylan Thomas
65. [A group of children] huddled in a corner … like so many wide-eyed, trembling mice —Gregory McDonald
66. I carry a scared silence with me like my smell —W. D. Snodgrass
67. I pretend that my right foot is like a bottle. I pour my fears down into the toes and cork the whole thing at the ankle, so none of my fears can escape into the rest of me —Dorothy B. Francis
68. My heart begins to pound like a thief s with the police after him —Isaac Bashevis Singer
69. My heart in my throat like a wad of sour grease —George Garrett
70. Panic, like a rabbit in front of the dogs —Peter Meinke
71. Panic rose as thick as honey in my throat —R. Wright Campbell
72. Panic shook her … as awful as if she had been tottering on a cliff in a roaring wind —Belva Plain
73. Panic that was like asphyxiation —Penelope Gilliatt
74. Ran terror-stricken, as if death were pursuing me —Aharon Megged
75. Scared as a piss ant —Anon
76. Scared … like a rabbit that spies a dog —Shelby Hearon
77. Shivered with fear like a thin dog in the cold —Stephen Vincent Benét
78. Take fear for granted like a drunken uncle —George Garrett
79. Terrifying, like a Samurai sword in motion —Robert Silverberg
80. Terrifying … like fingers clamped upon your throat —Beryl Markham
81. Terror ebbed like water from a basin —Julia O’Faolain
82. Terror … filled me as the sound of an explosion would fill a room —Scott Spencer
83. The terror inside him acted like radar —James Mitchell
84. Terror [of some hard to accomplish task] mocked, like some distant mountain peak —John Fowles
85. Terrors that brushed her like a curtain windblown against her back —Andre Dubus
86. (They) trail their fear behind them like a heavy shadow —Heinrich Böll

(See also ANXIETY.)

have one’s heart in one’s mouth To be frightened or scared, fearful or afraid, anxious or tense. The allusion is to the supposed leaping of the heart into the mouth upon experiencing a sudden jolt or start.

make the hair stand on end To terrify, to scare or frighten, to fill with fear. The allusion is to the way an animal’s hair, especially that on the back of the neck, involuntarily stiffens and becomes erect in the face of danger.

shake in one’s shoes To be petrified, terrified, panic-stricken; to be scared out of one’s wits. The expression is often applied figuratively to corporate as well as individual bodies.

Variations are quake or shake in one’s boots.

shake like an aspen leaf To tremble, quake; to shiver, quiver. This metaphor derives from the aspen tree with its delicate leaves perched atop long flexible stems that flutter even in the slightest breeze. The expression was used as early as 1386 by Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales.