"Smugly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... approaches, the theory that their tastes were, blissfully, just the same. He was for ever reminding her of that, rejoicing over it and being affectionate and wise about it. There were times when she wondered how in the world she could "put up with" him, how she could put up with any man so smugly unconscious of the immensity of her difference. It was just for this difference that, if she was to be liked at all, she wanted to be liked, and if that was not the source of Mr. Mudge's admiration, she asked herself what on earth could be? She was not different only at one point, ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... me, anyway. The only way for me would be to drop gold-pieces on needy thresholds by night and run away—a startling occupation for a rheumatic bachelor, surely! I do not know how to receive thanks—they embarrass me frightfully. To stand smugly with a philanthropic smile while the widow and the orphan weep around my knees, is something I should be forever unable to achieve. Harriet's hospital was not a charity—it was something to keep the ridiculous creature busy—her yacht, her picture gallery, her stud-farm, ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell |
