Surly Quotes

On this page you will find all the quotes on the topic "Surly". There are currently 54 quotes in our collection about Surly. Discover the TOP 10 sayings about Surly!
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  • It's a dirty little secret that most New Yorkers are pleasant, thoughtful, patient, and polite. The Chamber of Commerce must work overtime to maintain the surly, off-putting image that is widely believed to define the city. In truth, niceness is nearly epidemic in this town.

    Judith Kelman (2004). “Every Step You Take”, Jove Publications
  • Fate handed Barack Obama the best of all political gifts - a dyspeptic, surly, spiteful opposition on the one hand and very unpopular financiers on the other - and he wouldn't come out punching, name names, or go for the jugular. It was as if while getting mugged by guys with brass knuckles, he turned the other cheek. He even jeopardized his pledge to preserve women's rights under Roe v. Wade in order to get a health care bill written by the corporate lapdog Max Baucus and the gang of revolving door mercenaries he hired to write a bill friendly to industry.

    Writing   Fate   Doors  
    Source: progressive.org
  • When I'm not writing, I tend to get depressed and a little bit surly. And then when I'm writing, suddenly I feel enlivened. Now the only thing as I'm getting older that I notice is that it's a pattern.

    Source: www.interviewmagazine.com
  • We all accuse Vladimir Putin of Cold War nostalgia, but Washington's elites - politicians and intellectuals - miss the old days as well. They wish for the world in which the United States was utterly dominant over its friends, its foes were to be shunned entirely, and the challenges were stark, moral, and vital. Today's world is messy and complicated. China is one of our biggest trading partners and our looming geopolitical rival. Russia is a surly spoiler, but it has a globalized middle class and has created ties in Europe.

    Leadership   Money   War  
  • I was kind of like the Rhea Perlman of the bar. I was like Carla on “Cheers.” People were more afraid of me. There was a point where I got a little surly. There were only so many chicken wings I could serve before losing the smile on my face.

    Cheer   Wings   People  
    "‘The Big Bang Theory’ Star Melissa Rauch On Nerds, New Jersey And ‘Real Housewives’". Interview with Nicki Gostin, www.huffingtonpost.com. October 11, 2011.
  • Books are savaged and careers destroyed by surly snots who write anonymous reviews and publishers can't be bothered to protest this institutionalized corruption.

    Book   Writing   Careers  
  • he knows too much about himself to subject her to a morning after, when he will be cold, surly, impatient to be alone.

    Morning   Too Much   Cold  
    J. M. Coetzee (1999). “Disgrâce”, Random House (UK)
  • A young boy shouldn't be given up for hopeless just because he's lazy, surly, and good for nothing. Don't be discouraged by those things - maybe he's just trying to be like his daddy.

    Funny   Boys   Daddy  
  • If your master is surly, from getting up early (And tempers are short in the morning), An inopportune joke is enough to provoke Him to give you, at once, a month's warning.

    Arthur Sullivan, W. S. Gilbert (2008). “The Savoy Operas: The Complete Gilbert and Sullivan: The Complete Gilbert and Sullivan”, p.844, Penguin UK
  • Lord, confound this surly sister, blight her brow with blotch and blister, cramp her larynx, lung and liver, in her guts a galling give her.

    Sister   Giving   Lord  
    John Millington Synge (2008). “The Complete Works of J. M. Synge”, p.446, Wordsworth Editions
  • The service in L.A. is the best. You don't get sarcastic, surly, fed-up waiters and waitresses like you do in England. They're good at their job and they're there for the customer. The only depressing thing is a lot of them have written more screenplays than me.

  • Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, Where never the lark, nor even eagle flew- And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod The high, untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

    Wind   Space   Blue  
  • Winter is on the road to spring. Some think it a surly road. I do not. A primrose road to spring were not as engaging to my heart as a frozen icicled craggy way angered over by strong winds that never take the iron trumpets from their lips.

    Strong   Spring   Heart  
  • If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.

    Maya Angelou (2012). “The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou”, p.424, Modern Library
  • I really hate Squires. (Syra) (She pulled another flat bolt out and loaded it, then shot it at Otto. Moving so fast he could hardly be seen, the Squire turned around and caught it without flinching. He held the bolt up to his nose and inhaled it lovingly.) Mmm. Rose. My favorite. (Otto) Perhaps we should leave you two alone. (Jess) Yeah, this does remind me a bit of the mating rites of the mean and the surly. (Allen)

    Hate   Moving   Mean  
  • No longer mourn for me when I am dead than you shall hear the surly sullen bell give warning to the world that I am fled from this vile world with vilest worms to dwell: nay, if you read this line, remember not the hand that writ it, for I love you so, that I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot, if thinking on me then should make you woe. O! if, I say, you look upon this verse when I perhaps compounded am with clay, do not so much as my poor name rehearse; but let your love even with my life decay; lest the wise world should look into your moan, and mock you with me after I am gone.

    Wise   Sweet   Love You  
    Sonnet 71
  • A ward, and still in bonds, one day I stole abroad; It was high spring, and all the way Primrosed and hung with shade; Yet was it frost within, And surly winds Blasted my infant buds, and sin Like clouds eclipsed my mind.

    Spring   Clouds   Wind  
    Henry Vaughan (1976). “The complete poems”, Penguin Group USA
  • Begin your story with a sentence that will immediately grab hold of your listener's ears like a surly nun in a Catholic school.

  • Human affairs are so obscure and various that nothing can be clearly known. This was the sound conclusion of the Academic sceptics, who were the least surly of philosophers.

  • Very slowly, she peeked around the tree trunk. Saw a slim, petite figure, flanked by two very large, very dangerous-looking soldier of fortune types picking their way through the bodies and the rubble. "Amy?" Oh, God. It was Amy. "Get away from her," Jenna ordered, stepping out from behind the conifer, wielding the iron pan like a club. Both men stopped. Glanced at her. Glanced at each other over Amy's head. "What?" The biggest one grunted out a surly laugh. "Or you'll souffle us?" Okay. She was definitely going after him first.

    Men   Two   Iron  
  • I want my team to have my personality: surly, obnoxious, and arrogant.

  • Choose a good disagreeable friend, if you be wise--a surly, steady, economical, rigid fellow.

    Friends   Wise   Surly  
    William Makepeace Thackeray (1869). “The book of snobs. Sketches and travels in London. Denis Duval”, p.121
  • I've inherited the worst of each parent. I have my father's hypochondria and lack of concentration. I have his amorality. I have everything bad that he had. Then I have my mother's surly, pill-like, complaining, whining attitude.

    Interview with Douglas McGrath, www.interviewmagazine.com. September 1, 2008.
  • Understand me: I wish to be a man from somewhere, a man among men. You see, a slave, when he passes by, weary and surly, carrying a heavy load, limping along and looking down at his feet, only at his feet to avoid falling down; he is in his town, like a leaf in greenery, like a tree in a forest, argos surrounds him, heavy and warm, full of herself; I want to be that slave, Electra, I want to pull the city around me and to roll myself up in it like a blanket. I will not leave.

    Fall   Men   Cities  
    "The Flies". Play by Jean-Paul Sartre, Orestes to Electra, Act 2, 1943.
  • New Rule: If you can force a woman to look at a sonogram—to see what will happen if she has an abortion—you also have to let her see a crying baby, a bratty five-year-old, and a surly teenager to see what will happen if she doesn’t. And you have to tell her it costs $204,000 to raise it until it turns eighteen, in 2028, where it will be a slave to the Chinese, in a radioactive world with no animals, fish, or plants.

    Baby   Teenager   Animal  
    Bill Maher (2011). “The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody but Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass”, p.221, Penguin
  • The fawning courtier and the surly squire often mean the same thing,--each his own interest.

    George Berkeley (1837). “Works: Account of His Life and Letters”, p.363
  • The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.

    The Space Shuttle "Challenger" Tragedy Address, delivered 28 January 1986
  • Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, - and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air.

    In K. Rhys More Poems from the Forces (1943) "High Flight"
  • I wish there really was such a thing as a Time-Clock Puncher, though. I wish some gigantic, surly, stone-fisted Soap Mahoney-type guy went around the world smashing every clock in sight till there weren't any more and people got so confused about when to go to the mill or school or church that they gave up and did something interesting instead.

    Confused   School   Sight  
    David James Duncan (2010). “The Brothers K”, p.94, Dial Press
  • Like an animal, cancer sleeps, prowls, hibernates, turns surly or placid.

    Cancer   Sleep   Animal  
    Marni Jackson (2003). “Pain: The Fifth Vital Sign”, p.311, A&C Black
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