"Off the hook" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... lines taut, or he'll be wriggling through them and carry off the hook and line!" cried Tom. At last it was got up flush with the bulwarks, when down it came, knocking over poor Billy and two of the native crew. Had not Tom and Desmond rushed forward and hauled Billy out of ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... chance and was perfectly delightful while it lasted. Was there ever a woman, since the world began, who did not know that sensation, either by experience or by wishing she might try it? What pleasure would there be in angling if the fish did not try to get off the hook, but stupidly swallowed it, fly and all? It might as well crawl out of the stream at once and lay itself meekly down ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... "I could grab it, if I tried. It is just like what we call bullheads up in Pineville. I've caught 'em in our pond. You can hardly get 'em off the hook without getting ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... said Hinpoha, joining in the conversation. "It went to a hundred and six and then it blew up and fell off the hook." ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... had just been slaughtered, and was hanging on the hook; but it got off the hook alive and well and followed her; and the oxen, though they were ploughing, trailed the plough with them and did her bidding. So she fled to the lake again, they following her, and with them plunged ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... in the night I would almost yield to a wild impulse and catch those pantaloons off the hook, to rush out and go to Canada with them, and then I would softly go through the pockets and hang ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... We were off the Hook running straight to the open sea. The nervous feeling of planning and delay of the last few days gave way now to the exhilaration which comes of activity in danger. If the Germans should get us, the least that would happen to me would be internment until the end ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... ashore six carronades, and now mounted but 48 guns, accompanied by Captain Jones in the Macedonian, 38, and Captain Biddle in the Wasp, 20, left New York, passing through Hell Gate, as there was a large blockading force off the Hook. Opposite Hunter's Point the main-mast of the States was struck by lightning, which cut off the broad pendant, shot down the hatchway into the doctor's cabin, put out his candle, ripped up the bed, and entering between ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... all!" said I. "This is a splendid fish, if I can ever get him off the hook. Don't come near him! If he sticks that back-fin into you, ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... enough to keep off the fisherman's hook; the squirrel never cracks an empty nut; the crow soon learns the harmlessness of the scarecrow. But man, though he may have twenty times wriggled off the hook, the patient angler catches him at last. He always cracks the empty shell, then cries: 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' This cry he might be spared would he learn a lesson from the squirrel, who weighs his nuts and throws away the light, hollow shell.... ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... myself, and any one else who had happened to drop in, would repair to the fish-holes three miles distant. I hate fishing. Ugh! The hideous barbarity of shoving a hook through a living worm, and the cruelty of taking the fish off the hook! Uncle allowed no idlers at the river—all had to manipulate a rod and line. Indulging in pleasant air-castles, I generally forgot my cork till the rod would be jerked in my hand, when I would pull—too late! the fish would be gone. Uncle would lecture me for being a jackdaw, ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... a half-million dollars' profit? The dilemma is a serious one, perhaps the weakest point in the land-use control at this local level, and it may mean that higher levels of government will have to take over some of the responsibility and get local governments off the hook. ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... off the hook at Arden, just as Jane had left it dangling, and now he was listening—listening to interrupted portions of a scene being enacted in that far away library, and illogically hoping one of its actors might ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... evil; I have formerly endured even greater. Do thou, O prophet, tell me forthwith how I may amass riches and heaps of money. In troth I have told you, and tell you again. Use your craft to lie at catch for the last wills of old men: nor, if one or two cunning chaps escape by biting the bait off the hook, either lay aside hope, or quit the art, though disappointed in your aim. If an affair, either of little or great consequence, shall be contested at any time at the bar; whichever of the parties live wealthy without heirs, should he be a rogue, ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Belgian Government, had written to me saying that he was absolutely destitute and begging me to send him some money for the relief of his family and other Americans who were in dire need. The Tennessee was lying off the Hook of Holland at that time, and there were several of our splendid army officers ready and eager for any service. One of the best of them, Captain Williams, offered himself as messenger, and I sent him in to Antwerp, with three thousand dollars in gold in ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke |
