See Also: ANXIETY, TENSION, TREMBLING

1. All nervous and jerky like a windup toy or maybe a cockroach on its back, waving its legs and trying to turn over —George Garrett
2. Clucked nervously, like a mongoose —Romain Gary
3. Excitable … like a little rooster —Irwin Shaw
4. (Sat there open-mouthed,) feeling the nerves of his body twitter like so many sparrows perched upon his spinal column —F.Scott Fitzgerald
5. Felt as if she were on the edge of a frozen pond, forced to go forward and not knowing how thick the ice was —Donald MacKenzie
6. Felt as if someone had taken a vegetable peeler to my nerves —T. Coraghessan Boyle
7. His nerves set themselves on edge like soured teeth —H. E. Bates
8. His stomach felt like a volcano about to erupt —Andrew Kaplan
9. It’s (persistent feeling of impending insanity) like my head’s in a vice and all the assholes of the world are turning the goddam handle —Thomas Williams
10. Jumpy as a goat —James Thurber
11. Jumpy as a greyhound —Wallace Stegner
12. Jumpy as a jumping bean —Anon
13. Lived like an exposed nerve —Rita Mae Brown
14. Looked … like a nervous rabbit nibbling the smell of a gun barrel —Paul Theroux
15. Nerves burned like open sores on a dog’s neck —Hunter S. Thompson
16. Nerves like a bundle of firecrackers —Amy Lowell

    Lowell’s poem, Rosebud Wall-Paper, from which this is taken was written in country dialogue, with ‘of written as ‘o’.

17. Nerves like new thread —John Updike
18. Nerves tied in small, intricate knots, like embroidery stitching —Jean Thompson
19. (In rapid motion, bright,) nervous as a butterfly —Marge Piercy
20. Nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof —Anon

    In a television interview playwright Tennessee Williams stated that his father always used this phrase which became the title for one of his best known plays. It also served as a line for one of the leading characters, Maggie. During the interview Williams credited this and many other colorful phrases to Southern Blacks.

21. Nervous as a coyote in a pen —W. P. Kinsella
22. Nervous as a dog with a bone —Ben Hecht
23. Nervous as a hamster —Reynolds Price
24. Nervous as a kitten with a duck for a foster mother —Victor Canning
25. Nervous as a whore in church —American colloquialism
26. Nervous as a will o’-the-wisp —F. Scott Fitzgerald
27. On edge, like some restless night —Yasunari Kawabata
28. (They felt everything, feared everything, started back at the snapping of a twig, all their) senses strained like those of nervous explorers cautiously advancing, hand on cocked trigger, into an unknown jungle —Dorothy Canfield Fisher
29. Shuddering and wary, like horses bewildered by lightning —Ted Hughes

    Hughes’ poem, A Wind Flashes the Grass, links the comparison of the wary horses to trees suddenly silent and motionless.

30. White and shaken, like a dry martini —P. G. Wodehouse
31. Wriggle nervously like captive fish —Margaret Millar