"Quip" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... perchance George Pettie concealing his thorough enjoyment of the situation by a smile of elderly amusement. Or yet again we can see him at the room of some boon companion seriously announcing to a convulsed assembly his intention of applying for a fellowship, and when the last quip had been hurled at him through clouds of smoke and the laughter had died down, proposing that the house should go into committee for the purpose of concocting the now famous letter to Burleigh. When we next catch a glimpse of him he is no longer the madcap; he walks with such dignity as his stature ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... his firman, The judge in his ermine, Affirm and determine Bold words need the whip, Let them spare us the rod and remit us the sermon, For Death has a quip ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis
... the Swiss soldiers to such weeping longing for home that it was forbidden by their generals. Melancholy as is the repeated refrain, the couplets reveal a ravishing picture of the customs and the observing satirical spirit of the Gruyerien. Is not the quip of the Cure worthy of any son ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... the boisterous youngsters rang through the parlor. In eye, and look, and voice, the popular tribute spoke in honor of the popular instrument,—an instrument whose strings can sound almost every passion forth: The quip and quirk of merriment, the mourner's wail, the measured praise of solemn psalms, the lively beat of joy, the subtle charm of indolent moods, and the sweet ecstacy of youthful pleasure, when with flying feet and in the abandon of delight she swings, circles, and floats through the ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... cigarette given him by the bearers, and attempts to raise himself on his elbow that he may gaze at the curious scenes taking place around him. Others just stagger along, their pinched faces showing signs of suppressed pain, yet all have a quip or a jest on their lips as they smoke the inevitable cigarette. The sight is truly a wonderful one! The courage and calm that these wounded display in the midst of their sufferings is beyond words, but they are "Greatheart's ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... wings or was it a toy balloon?" Chief Hadfield was not a man to disappoint his audience, and the laugh that thanked him for this quip set Sandy twirling and chewing ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... dubious smile over the quip. This much he felt that he could afford, since those same courts served his personal purposes ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... no notice of the quip. "If to cultivate is to think of and to nurture, to strive always for greater perfection, then, yes, ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... the company this evening. Robin spoke of his ride, of things which he had seen upon it, of a wood that should be thinned next year; and Anthony made a quip or two such as he was accustomed to make; but the master sat silent for the most part, speaking to the lads once or twice for civility's sake, but no more. And presently silences began to fall, that were very unusual things in Mr. Anthony's company, for he had a quick and a gay ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... my seat was next to Miss Thorn's, while the Celebrity was placed at the right of Miss Trevor. I observed that his face went blank from time to time at some quip of hers: even a dull woman may be sharp under such circumstances, and Miss Trevor had wits to spare. And I marked that she never allowed her talk with him to drift into deep water; when there was danger ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the Society of Friends, you may extract a jest by saying "that many of the characters trembled with anxiety before its production—in fact, were quakers!" The name of the Manager of the Haymarket has frequently been the subject of a quip, if not a crank; still it may yet serve as a peg for slyly observing that, "At the fall of the Curtain, TREE, naturally enough, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... misread the Gallic love of wit and laughter. To joke and quip seemed to him beneath the dignity of men. It is, rather, the safety-valve of a highly intelligent people—the outlet for their ironic perceptions of life. The most amusing songs of the war that I have heard were given by the poilus on a little stage ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... thorough success. Not an invited guest was absent. The conversation sparkled. Quip and repartee shot across the "festive board," and all went merry as a dinner-bell. The host was satisfied, and proud withal. The next morning he approached Delmonico's cashier with ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... compliment is always the reward, not of passion however sustained, or sentiment however refined, but of humour whimsically fantasticating and balancing both. It is the gentle laugh, not violating, but just humanising, that very solemn kiss; the quip that just saves passion from toppling over the brink into bathos, that mark the skilful lover. No lover will long be successful unless he is a humourist too, and is able to keep the heart of love amused. A lover should always ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... derived from such limited, though authentic information as to its powers over gentlemen who made debts without the intention of paying them, as he may have received at frequent unsolicited interviews with a sergeant or a bum-bailiff, has this passage in his "Quip for an ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... Earlier in the evening a certain John Peters, one of the town's foppish young gallants, and who now occupied a prominent front seat, had widely announced the fact that he was present for the express purpose of "showing the mind-reader up." At him accordingly the first quip ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... pulsation; all is equal and all is included; the eager and absorbing quest is the quest of truth. It is this which the new generation demands from science, not the oratorical art of the professor, the noble gesture, the quip that lightens the weight of the discourse, the lively peroration of the carefully elaborated harangue, and all those expedients which were once developed by a special art for the express purpose of capturing the attention. It is passion for knowledge rather than attention ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... so bad, after all?" There was no time for explanation. She passed on into the jeweller's with another smile on her mobile face. He had to do his stammering to himself, annoyed at the quip of triumph, at the blithe sneer, over his young vaporings. This trivial annoyance was accentuated by the effusive cordiality of the great Lindsay, whom he met in the elevator. Sommers did not like this camaraderie ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... take the edge off this quip quarrelsome that the following amusing lines were addressed in the next month to his nieces, giving them particulars about animal and vegetables foods in Russia. "The country," he said, "has no veal—I mean eatable veal, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... away, shaking his head. He did not in the least appreciate the sorry quip. All that he knew was that sometimes well-dressed men who came and thus sat in the parks, were sometimes found in the same place by a policeman—and usually such men had holes, self-inflicted, in their heads. But long before he had passed from sight Jimmy ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... breath left for a quip. Barth was hurrying, and the thin air was beginning to have its effect. When an unusually smooth stretch of ice permitted her to take her eyes from the track for a moment she looked back to learn the cause of such haste. To her complete astonishment, the Maloja Pass and the hills ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... for great things from Osborne. I'm rather proud of him myself. He'll get a Trinity fellowship, if they play him fair. As I was saying at the magistrates' meeting yesterday, "I've got a son who will make a noise at Cambridge, or I'm very much mistaken." Now, is it not a queer quip of Nature,' continued the squire, turning his honest face towards Molly, as if he was going to impart a new idea to her, 'that I, a Hamley of Hamley, straight in descent from nobody knows when—the Heptarchy, they say—What's the date of ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Lincoln met one day on the courthouse steps a young lawyer who had lost a case—his only one—and looked very disconsolate. "What has become of your case?" Lincoln asked. "Gone to h—-," was the gloomy response. "Well, don't give it up," Lincoln rejoined cheerfully; "you can try it again there"—a quip which has been attributed to many wits in many ages, and will doubtless make the reputation of jesters yet to be.] But the fact is that with all his stories and jests, his frank companionable humor, his gift of easy ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... gang were toward the fore—first out. They spread off to one side with jest and quip, with flash of bottle and slap on shoulder. The populace thinned a bit from the steps.... And then suddenly as a pistol shot Cleve Whitmore's voice rang out like ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... Brydges in his reprint of "Greene's Groatsworth of Wit," has given the only passage from "The Quip for an Upstart Courtier," which at all alludes to Harvey's father. He says with great justice, "there seems nothing in it sufficiently offensive to account for the violence of Harvey's anger." The Rev. A. Dyce, so well known from his varied researches in our dramatic literature, is of opinion that ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... some brighter thoughts possess him, For the tears are dried the while. And the old, worn face is wrinkled In a reminiscent smile, From the middle of the forehead To the feebly trembling lip, At some ancient prank remembered Or some long unheard-of quip. ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... well known, and that his domestic experiences have made him the good apostle he is. I remember how well he turned off the argument against himself as to the miracle of the marriage-feast in Cana of Galilee: "Yes, certainly, drink as much wine made of water as you can." It was a witty quip, but is no reply to that miracle of hospitality. Apropos,—I do not know whether or not the following anecdote can be fathered on Mr. Gough, but it is too good to be lost, especially as it bears upon the fate ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... as now with George, the driver becomes temporarily idiot—stands us oafishly silent, or perhaps jerks out some stupid words; remembers when too late the quip that would have fetched the laugh, the thrust that would have sped the wound. He is ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... can give a quip-word," said she. "Clarice was just a lump of wood, that you could batter nought into,—might as well sit next a post. Marabel has some brains, but they're so far in, there's no fetching 'em forth. I declare I shall do somewhat one o' these days that ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... ago I was an abandoned humorist. Now I was a philosopher, full of serenity and ease. I had found a refuge from humor, from the hot chase of the shy quip, from the degrading pursuit of the panting joke, from the restless reach ...
— Waifs and Strays - Part 1 • O. Henry
... keenly alive to the monetary side of the transaction to pay heed to the quip. His portly figure curved in ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... sank upon the stone, this handsome boy whose tongue was ever ready and whose heart of a light o' love had taken toll from every maid in the settlement, and for the first time in his life he had no sprightly word, no quip for his ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... was homesick. At least, no one ever suspected such a possibility, for she had a smile and a quip for all, and her laughter was the gayest in the station. She ran out now, half-dressed, from her bedroom, waving a towel at ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... majestic truths. He got from this nothing but satisfaction; it obviously involved increased claims to popularity among his parishioners, and consequently magnified powers of usefulness, and it made life so much more a joy and a thing to be thankful for. Often, in the midst of the exchange of merry quip and whimsical suggestion, bright blossoms on that tree of strength and knowledge which he felt expanding now with a mighty outward pushing in all directions, he would lapse into deep gravity, and ponder with a swelling heart the vast unspeakable marvel of his blessedness, in being thus ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... governor's "quip modest," he merely growled out something about zeal in discharging his duty, and anxiety to prevent smuggling, to ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... of blandishments, standing on the threshold, with its finger on its lips. I will not ask how it comes that those personal altercations, involving all the removes and definitions of Shakespeare's Touchstone—the retort courteous—the quip modest— the reply churlish—the reproof valiant—the countercheck quarrelsome—the lie circumstantial and the lie direct—are of immeasurably greater interest in the House of Commons than the health, the taxation, and the education, of ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... un vendredi, bien gre et bien quipe de tout. Ledoux aurait voulu peut-tre des mts un peu plus solides; cependant, tant qu'il commanda le btiment, il n'eut point s'en plaindre. Sa traverse fut heureuse et rapide jusqu' la cte d'Afrique. Il mouilla dans la rivire de Joale[1] (je crois) dans un moment o les croiseurs ...
— Quatre contes de Prosper Mrime • F. C. L. Van Steenderen
... said Jeffers lightly. "It's about a young spaceman named Mike, who said: 'I can do as I like!' And to prove his bright quip, he took a round trip, clear to Sirius B on a bike. Or, the tale of the pirate, Black Bart, whose head was as hard as his heart. When ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... seven-league boots. So he not only kept up with us easily, but oftentimes made a detour through the fields and over the wild country on either side, as a questing dog does, ever returning to us with some quaint vagrant fancy or quip of childish simplicity. ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... of quips and anecdotes. Probably the most famous coffee quip is that of Mme. de Sevigne, who, as already told in chapter XI, was wrongfully credited with saying, "Racine and coffee will pass." It was Voltaire in his preface to Irene who thus accused the amiable letter-writer; and she, being ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... worthies, making him laugh heartily at their sayings passed into tradition and fable among us boys; for our one-eyed shoemaker and our corpulent grocer, like many other country wits to fortune and to fame unknown, surpassed either Douglas Jerrold or Sydney Smith in quip and drollery. And I did not omit George Lenox, for all Belfield except his wife was in the secret of his affairs, and they were our crowning joke, in which poor George himself joined merrily, although the story was ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... his plot, but this famous fryar Minor lived in the reign of Henry III. and died in the reign of Edward I. in the year 1284. He joined with Dr. Lodge in one play, called a Looking Glass for London; he writ also the Comedies of Fryar Bacon and Fair Enome. His other pieces are, Quip for an upstart Courtier, and Dorastus and Fawnia. Winstanley imputes likewise to him the following pieces. Tully's Loves; Philomela, the Lady Fitzwater's Nightingale; Green's News too Late, first and second part; Green's Arcadia; ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... comes early, and if a girl of that age is herself drawn into the circle of the events in question, we are never safe from extreme exaggeration. The merest larceny becomes a small robbery; a bare insult, a remarkable attack; a foolish quip, an interesting seduction; and a stupid, boyish conversation, an important conspiracy. Such causes of mistakes are well-known to all judges; at the same time they are again ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... pulled long ago by Plato in the Republic (not the New Republic) or by Samuel Butler in his Notebooks. Contribs come valiantly to hand with a barrowful of letters every day—("The ravings fed him" as Don captioned some contrib's quip about Simeon Stylites living on a column); but nevertheless the direct and alternating current must be turned on six times a week. His jocular exposal of the colyumist's trade secret compares it to the boarding-house ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... the scraps and odds and ends it contained were found classified in groups under such headings as these—Garlands of Gravity, Poverty's Pot Pourri, Wallat of Wit, Beggar's Balderdash, Octagonal Olio, Zany's Zodiac, Noddy's Nuncheon, Mumper's Medley, Quaffing Quavers to Quip Queristers, Tramper's Twattle, or Treasure and Tinsel from the Tewksbury Tank, and the like. He edited reprints of some rare books—that is to say, he saw them accurately reprinted letter by letter. Of these one has a name which—risking due castigation ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... his son; whereupon my Lord of York—his fine-cut face bowing and beaming with all that courtesy which hath less loyalty in it than the backward scrape of the clown's heel—'great honour,' says he, 'from the King's self to the King's son.' Did you hear the young King's quip? ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... very practical Gospel to our young scholar in Christian philanthropy. Were matters sometimes strained? did little jars arise and a shadow now and then gather on the faces of the strangers because their own mother was not? The wise foster-mother would set all right again by some merry quip, some gleesome turn, some one of those playful gleams of humour which furnish a key to the secret of successful work among the young. To be a mother to those orphans, to make life in its duties and joys, as far as possible, the same to them as if they had not lost ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe |
