"Curmudgeon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... warning of my manifest resolve; perhaps he thought it a woman's threat, and me no better than a woman! And partly for his sake, no doubt, though mainly for my mother's, I made the short work which I made; for he was horribly straitened—and in his free, light way he told me so—by his hard curmudgeon of a father. ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... behind the wall of pain, my thoughts knocked and thudded, urging me to do something. It was not until the Friday or the Saturday that I could think consecutively. My first thought was driven in on me by the old curmudgeon of a doctor, as his deliberate opinion that it was simply insanity to stay on in those damp rooms when I suffered from my complaint, that I was only asking for what I got, and that he, on his part, had no sympathy for me. I told him that I entirely agreed with ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... the heart of the worry, proving him only too likely a graceless jealous middle-age curmudgeon, a senile sentimentalist, thus did he upbraidingly mock himself—were there not signs of Damaris developing into a rather thorough paced coquette? She accepted the homage offered her with avidity, with many small ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... strike me, slave, curmudgeon! Now thy bones aches, thy joints cramps, and convulsions stretch and ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... now a plan to rob Mr. Salmon, through the means of the secret passage. He went further, for he had no lack of imagination, and proceeded to conjecture, that it was through the manoeuvreing of these very vagrants, that the old curmudgeon had been brought to Dymock's Tower, and following the connexion, he began to put together the appearance of the young blacksmith, the gipsy who had left Tamar at Shanty's, her second appearance and rapid disappearance, the coming ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... complaint seems reasonable enough (it must be borne in mind that he is his own reporter), and certainly helps to absolve him from the charge sometimes made against him that he was nothing more than a selfish curmudgeon who had resolved to let his knowledge die with him, rather than share it with other mathematicians of whom he was jealous. He told Cardan plainly that he kept his rules a secret because, for the present, ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... was in a pretty mess, to be sure, and serve him right, for Mrs. Noah had frequently offered him two of her (second) best milch mammoths for it; yet he had held on to his nasty sour grapes, like the mean old curmudgeon that ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... commanding manner with which, under these circumstances, the father controlled the people. They yielded in an instant to his will: one tall blacksmith seemed scarcely to relish his somewhat imperious demeanour, and stood rooted to the ground; but Baroni, placing only one hand on the curmudgeon's brawny shoulder, while he still continued playing on his instrument with the other, whirled him away like a puppet. The multitude laughed, and the disconcerted blacksmith ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... pack, Rogue or rascal, frater, maunderer, [6] Irish toyle, or other wanderer; [7] No dimber, dambler, angler, dancer, Prig of cackler, prig of prancer; No swigman, swaddler, clapper-dudgeon; Cadge-gloak, curtal, or curmudgeon; No whip-jack, palliard, patrico; No jarkman, be he high or low; No dummerar, or romany; No member of the family; No ballad-basket, bouncing buffer, Nor any other, will I suffer; But stall-off now and for ever All outtiers whatsoever; And as I keep to the foregone, So may help me Salamon! ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... "You old fool, you curmudgeon, you coward of an old blatherskite!" cried the boy, "I wouldn't drop it for all the world, not if you went on your bended knees. Bobo, yell for the police! Don't you touch my wrist! Look out now! ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... Where on earth has the old curmudgeon kept them all this time?" exclaimed Helen. "Do you think he bought, or ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... was a success because he had conceived an object, and by sheer persistence attained it. In the eyes of Bursley people he was a very decent fellow, a steady fellow, a confirmed bachelor, a close un, a knowing customer, a curmudgeon, an excellent clerk, a narrow-minded ass, a good Wesleyan, a thrifty individual, and an intelligent burgess—according to the point of view. The lifelong operation of rigorous habit had sunk him into a groove as deep as the canon of some American river. His ideas on every subject were eternally and ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... "'s an old curmudgeon; yes, a thing whose heart is flint; When I ask a friendly greeting, all I get's an angry glint. Let me do it every good turn that I can—my very best, Still it strikes me, trips, maligns me, and ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... contributions made in the church; and there were likewise boxes, stuck on the ends of long poles, wherewith the deacons could go round among the worshippers, conveniently extending the begging-box to the remotest curmudgeon among them all. From the arrangement of the seats in the nave, and the labels pasted or painted on them, I judged that the women sat on one side and the men on the other, and the seats for various orders ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... curmudgeon," declared the old woman, for the more she looked at Gabriel, the more she loved him. "What is it? Would he ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham |
