"Fib" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "I thought one more fib among so many couldn't matter, so I said you were. Heaven forgive me. By-the-by, are you really Dutch, or is that another—figure ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... petition is only for a modest prevarication—the cultivation of a reasonable misapprehension to attain a justifiable end. Consider the position analogous to that of one of Her Majesty's Ministers catechized by an impertinent demagogue. No fibs, you know—only what a truthful person tells instead of a fib! ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... from a family near by, named her "Rose Featherstone" and taken her to and from the kindergarten daily, a distance of at least half a mile of crowded streets. The affair was purely one of innocent romance. Emma Abby Googins never told a fib or committed the slightest fault or folly save that of burying her name, assuming a more distinguished one, and introducing a sister to me who had no claim to the Googins blood. Her mother was thoroughly ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... became easier in each succeeding examination for me not only to assist "Red," but absolutely to do his work. It is strange how in some things honest people can be dishonest without the slightest compunction. I knew boys at school who were too honorable to tell a fib even when one would have been just the right thing, but could not resist the temptation to assist or receive assistance in an examination. I have long considered it the highest proof of honesty in a man to hand his street-car fare to the ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... practical jokes of which I was so fond, and from which even my own father was not exempt. Kind reader, indulge the garrulity of age, and allow me to recount one of these. There are a few who will remember it; for they have laughed at it for fifty years. I never knew my father to tell a fib but upon one occasion in my life. Under the circumstances, I am sure the kindly nature will, at least, allow it to be ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... flimflam, cajolery, flattery; Judas kiss; perfidy &c (bad faith) 940; il volto sciolto i pensieri stretti [It]. unfairness &c (dishonesty) 940; artfulness &c (cunning) 702; misstatement &c (error) 495. V. be false &c adj., be a liar &c 548; speak falsely &c adv.; tell a lie &c 546; lie, fib; lie like a trooper; swear false, forswear, perjure oneself, bear false witness. misstate, misquote, miscite^, misreport, misrepresent; belie, falsify, pervert, distort; put a false construction upon &c (misinterpret); prevaricate, equivocate, quibble; palter, palter to the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... maliciously. "Think it over. Possibly you have not stopped to think as yet. When you know the truth yourself, you will be the better qualified to fib about it. Also, you will ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... good company, a text By no vain annotations vexed Which call from students sore perplexed The patience of a Job; And, page by page, a first-rate crib, Neither too faithful nor too glib— That, without fulsomeness or fib, Is what we get ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... not yet learned to lie, but he might then have made his first assay had he had a fib at his tongue's end; as he had not, he gloomed ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... sorry, Nat, but evidences are against you, and your old fault makes us more ready to doubt you than we should be if we could trust you as we do some of the boys, who never fib. But mind, my child, I do not charge you with this theft; I shall not punish you for it till I am perfectly sure, nor ask any thing more about it. I shall leave it for you to settle with your own ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Senate the outcome could hardly be in doubt. He had learned also of the other misfortunes which had befallen Judge Rossmore and he understood now the reason for Shirley's grave face on the dock and her little fib about summering on Long Island. The news had been a shock to him, for, apart from the fact that the judge was Shirley's father, he admired him immensely as a man. Of his perfect innocence there could, of course, be no question: these charges of bribery had simply been trumped up by his enemies ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... to be absent a year or eighteen months; if I prolong my travels it shall be in the way you proposed. I will then take my place in polite society, call upon you to pay all expenses, and fib on my own account to any extent required by that world of fiction which is peopled by ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... called a Busybody. The Busybody is always anxious after something about Somebody. He'll keep company with Anybody to find out Everybody's business; and is only at a loss when this head stops his pursuit, and Nobody will give him an answer. It is from these four heads the fib of each day is fabricated. Suspicion begets the morning whisper, the gossip Report circulates it as a secret, wide-mouthed Wonder gives Credulity credit for it, and Self-interest authenticates that, as Anybody may be set ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... France would not accede to it. Since she knew that the matter was already arranged and settled with the French court, this was a downright lie, though the queen probably regarded it as a venial fib, or as diplomacy. ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... and drank every drop to punish herself for her fib, for she was not in the least thirsty, and to drink a fairly large cupful of water when you are not thirsty is somewhat of an ordeal. Yet the memory of that draught was to be very pleasant to Rosemary. In after years it seemed to her that there was something sacramental about it. Perhaps this ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... so pale then?' said she, smiling with delight at my emotion. 'Is it anger at poor me for telling such a fib? Well, I only "tell the tale as 'twas told to me:" I don't vouch for the truth of it; but at the same time, I don't see what reason Sarah should have for deceiving me, or her informant for deceiving her; and that ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... I saw her punish her child for denying that she had committed some piece of mischief of which she was guilty. The mother's excuse to herself probably was that the child told a lie, she, a "society fib." Perhaps the smaller sinner had no reputation ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... crew and THEIR captain. I know I hire a worthy, clean, agreeable, and conscientious male or female hypocrite, at so many guineas a year, to do so and so for me. Were he other than hypocrite I would send him about his business. Don't let my displeasure be too fierce with him for a fib or two on his ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to stand up and fib each other about (saying nothing of the practice), why let them do it; or if two dogs worry each other to death for a bone, or two cocks meet and contend for the sovereignty of a dunghill. In these last two ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... good girl, and wrote me a letter. If Burney said she would write, she told you a fib. She writes nothing to me. She can write home fast enough. I have a good mind not to tell her that Dr. Bernard, to whom I had recommended her novel, speaks of it with great commendation, and that the copy which she lent ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... her own part in the ceremony in order to perform pirouettes and pigeon-wings (so to speak) before the backgammon-player of the tropics. "If Aunt Lyddy forgets, after all," said Jane, anxiously, "and does mention Florida, why, I've told a fib for nothing." Jane had informed Mrs. Rhodes that the Bateses had lost their youngest child at Jacksonville, and so could not bear the slightest mention of the South; though she knew perfectly well that the youngest ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... red: what would her mother say if she brought Wolfgang with her? No, that would really not do, this was just the day when their room had not been tidied. And she had told a fib too: there were no herrings, only onion sauce with ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... tell this fib that the landlord was quite taken in by it. "Very well, friend," said he, "you may stop here till your ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... hastily—for you are at a disadvantage with ghosts and with Toms when you stoop—and pick it up and hurl it promiscuously in the direction of the footsteps, and quaver, in a voice that belied its message, "Go away, Tom Hamon! I can see you,"—which was a little white fib born of the black urgency of the situation;—"and I'm not the least bit afraid,"—which was ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... shames a scribbler? break one cobweb through, He spins the slight, self-pleasing thread anew; Destroy his fib or sophistry in vain, The creature's at his foolish work again, Throned in the centre of his thin designs, Proud of a vast ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... been salted down to keep till sold. The kind gentleman and saint, whose name was Nicholas, restored these three children to life. It is said that once he lost his temper, and struck with his fist a gentleman named Arius; but the story-teller does not believe this, for he thinks it is a fib, made up long afterward. How could a saint lose his ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... you, Captain Chinks," exclaimed he; but what he said was rather complimentary than strictly true—a society fib. ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... "it is not to be. I have fought your battle, and won it. But I have had to make such promises to your father, and—woe is me!—to your mother, as will damn me forever if you do not help me to keep them. I can fib to your father and not care a snap, but lie to ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... that he had read some parts of these volumes. This he asserts with an air of truth that commands belief; he told the same tale to Cardinal Orsini, and to many more, and to all in the very same words, so that I think this is no fib of his. What more do you want? This statement of his, and his serious countenance, cause me to give some credence to him. For it is a very good thing to be misled in a matter of this kind, out of which coin can be made to such an amount as to be absolutely incredible. Therefore I have ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... talk about my being seen in a Staten Island beer garden with Bern Cameron, don't believe one word of it—we didn't go in at all, the place was too smelly. And that fib about his giving me a diamond ring,—deny it please, as I have never shown it to a soul—So you can ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... At the squares. At trump. At the cows. At the prick and spare not. At the lottery. At the hundred. At the chance or mumchance. At the peeny. At three dice or maniest bleaks. At the unfortunate woman. At the tables. At the fib. At nivinivinack. At the pass ten. At the lurch. At one-and-thirty. At doublets or queen's game. At post and pair, or even and At the faily. sequence. At the French trictrac. At three hundred. At the long tables or ferkeering. At the unlucky man. At ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... When I asked him whether he knew where it was hidden, he told a weak lie, but told the truth openly by the look of his eyes. He was like a little girl who pauses and blushes and confesses all the truth before she half murmurs her naughty fib. Who can be really angry with the child who lies after that unwilling fashion? I had to be severe upon him till all was made clear; but I pitied him from the bottom ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... You ought to have said that I sang better than I danced, and the fib would have pleased me immensely; we women like to hear ourselves praised for accomplishments we don't possess. No, my dear, rule art out of the cast and substitute advertisement. Did you notice a dowdy creature who was lunching with two men on your right? She wore a brown ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... fib on the part of the professor because he was thinking of it. But it did not include the whole truth, because he had already tried it, tried it very successfully only a few moments before. First he had made sure that he was alone in the room and then he had proceeded ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... good Eastern quibble infinitely more dangerous than an honest downright lie. The consciousness that the falsehood is part fact applies a salve to conscience and supplies a force lacking in the mere fib. When an Egyptian lies to you look straight in his eyes and he will most often betray himself either by boggling or by a look ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... the world that it costs me from Thirty to Forty Thousand!" [1717: Forster, i. 213.] So that here is the Majesty of Prussia, who beyond all men abhors lies, giving orders to tell one? Alas, yes; a kind of lie, or fib (white fib, or even GRAY), the pinch of Thrift compelling! But what a window into the artless inner-man of his Majesty, even that GRAY fib;—not done by oneself, but ordered to be done by the servant, as if ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... me?.. Why, that was a galejade a fib... Among us Taras-conese you ought surely to know what ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... bear, "he tells a fib. That ring was put in his nose to be fastened to a chain. He was held a slave by the man who, he says, treated him so finely. He was made to dance through fear of being touched up with a red-hot iron. In short, he is ...
— The Nursery, January 1877, Volume XXI, No. 1 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... from heaven to smuggle the bread out of capable workmen's mouths. All this is Pagan, and arose thus. The Trojans had Oriental imaginations, and feigned that their Palladium, a wooden statue three cubits long, fell down from heaven. The Greeks took this fib home among the spoils of Troy, and soon it rained statues on all the Grecian cities, and their Latin apes. And one of these Palladia gave St. Paul trouble at Ephesus; 'twas a statue of Diana that fell down from ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... again with all one's bones," Quoth Giles, "I hope you fib: I trusted, when I went to Heaven, To go ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... Miss Ashton,—and there is no such thing as keeping anything away from her, for you know how she hates what she calls a 'prevarication,'—that I just had my choice, to drink that nasty stuff, or to betray the Demosthenic Club, or to tell a fib, and have my walking-ticket given me, so I opened my mouth wide, and swallowed one swallow, then was going to turn away my head, but Miss Palmer held the tumbler tight to my lips, as I have seen people do to children ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... by the throat and asking him in trenchant tones, 'Have you spoken to her?' The Baby found it convenient to be able to give a truthful negative, not that he would have minded fibbing in the least, but in this case the fib would certainly have been detected; he could not expect his goddess to enter into any clandestine ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... refused to give up, declaring it to be the most fun they had had "in a coon's age," which was really a boys' bravery fib, and finally the machine drew up within a hundred and ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... now. Walk straight with regard to Mr. Townsend; that's all I ask. It is highly probable you have been corresponding with him for the last three weeks—perhaps even seeing him. I don't ask you—you needn't tell me." He had a moral conviction that she would contrive to tell a fib about the matter, which it would disgust him to listen to. "Whatever you have done, stop doing it. That's ...
— Washington Square • Henry James |
