Susan Vreeland

Where there is no human connection, there is no compassion. Without compassion, then community, commitment, loving-kindness, human understanding, and peace all shrivel. Individuals become isolated, the isolated turn cruel, and the tragic hovers in the forms of domestic and civil violence. Art and literature are antidotes to that.

American Author

Cate Blanchett

Actresses can get outrageously precious about the way they look. That's not what life's about. If you starve yourself to the point where your brain cells shrivel, you will never do good work. And if you're overly conscious of your arms flapping in the wind, how can you look the other actor in the eye to respond to them?

Australian Actress

Alexa Chung

My brain is a big cluster of stuff. It moves quickly and loses focus quickly, so I need many projects to keep me stimulated - it's a luxury to be able to do lots of different things: style, write, present, DJ or just consult. It can't be any other way; I think I would shrivel up and fall asleep forever.

English Journalist

John Updike

Some golfers, we are told, enjoy the landscape; but properly, the landscape shrivels and compresses into the grim, surrealistically vivid patch of grass directly under the golfer's eyes as he morosely walks toward where he thinks his ball might be.

American Novelist

Guy Standing

Successive governments in the U.K. have worked to create a more flexible labour market, which also meant labour insecurity. They allowed wages to drop and non-wage benefits to shrivel, creating worse inequality than statistics reveal.

English Actor

Robert Green Ingersoll

The mind cannot be securely anchored. If we do not advance, we go backward. If we do not grow, we decay. If we do not develop, we shrink and shrivel.

American Lawyer

Steven Crowder

One of my goals in life is to watch political correctness shrivel up and die (as it should be for any true conservative).

Canadian Actor

Orson Welles

Anybody who speaks quietly and shrivels up in company is unbelievably arrogant.

American Actor

Stanley Marcus

Designers may find the fashion business can shrivel up.

American Businessman

Miroslav Volf

Croatian Theologian

Indicates a tangible transformation in size and texture, usually due to environmental effects.

Physical Change

Often used to describe aging or the end of a lifecycle for plants and other natural organisms.

Natural Process

Conveys unpleasant or undesirable effects; rarely used positively.

Negative Connotation

Used metaphorically to describe a powerful emotional reaction, such as embarrassment or shame.

Emotional Impact

Highlights the effect on one's self-esteem or pride, rather than a physical change.

Psychological Effect

More informal and typically used in casual conversation rather than formal writing.

Colloquial Use

 When that sap touches the insect’s cells, its high sugar content encourages the water in the cells to come out by osmosis… exactly like salt encourages water to come out of a slug. The more sap that passes through the insect, the more water it loses. Eventually, it shrivels up and dies.

The bug that poops candy...

 and the pigment slowly develops in their eyes. The last step of the process is their skin shrivels up and they sprout hair.

The first 21 days of a...

 their eyes in the last step their skin shrivels up and they sprout hair

Shrivel