"Grouch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with him in the morning about 11:30. On going over to my other man's store I found that he was still in bed. Pretty soon he came in with his before-breakfast grouch. It was afternoon before I got him over to my sample room. Meantime I had gone to sell another man and sold him a bunch of children's and misses' goods—such stuff as a clothing house has ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... had some sort of a special grouch; I guess he was just beginning to get his snowshoes off after a fight with ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... thing in life is to discover the exact geographical location of a man's grouch—whether it is in his tooth, his vanity or his digestion, or is just a chronic ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... evidently has a grouch on this morning," laughed Walter. "Doesn't agree with him to ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Montana • Frank Gee Patchin
... came away all up in the air. There was something about you—the tone of your voice, the way your proud little head is set on your shoulders, your make-up in general—that sent me away with a large-sized grouch at myself, at Cariboo Meadows, and at you for coming in ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Carnegie medal thereby. I knew Oliver Sickles, and even better did I know his kind, who only go to battle when certain victory lies before them. The only chance I was taking was with my firm's interests. It might be that he'd have such a grouch against me that he'd carry no more coal for my firm than he could ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... are in a grouch, Mart. For Heaven's sake, cheer up!" Wallace, rumpling and kissing his daughter, would give her ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... is—is shocked. If I hear you—" He tossed his hands up helplessly. "You're making your daddy so mealy-mouthed, the first bohunk with a grouch will pull his nose. I've got to swear at 'em. If you don't let me tear loose a bit when I'm with you, the air's going to be so blue next time I meet a bohunk that he'll think he's gone to ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... the limit," said Melissa flatly. "The worst grouch I've ever seen, Mr. Bingle, even if he is your own flesh and blood uncle. He's almost ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... the sentimental Jacklondon idea, that no wild animal should be made to work on the stage or in the show-ring, as illogical and absurd. Human beings who sanely work are much happier per capita than those who do nothing but loaf and grouch. I have worked, horse-hard, throughout all the adult years of my life; and it has been good for me. I know that it is no more wrong or wicked for a horse to work for his living,—of course on a humane basis,—either on the stage or on the street, than it is for a coal-carrier, a foundryman, ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... morose, snarling at the men more than usual, and barely polite to Miss West and me when we chance to address him. His replies are grunted in monosyllables, and his face is set in superlative sourness. Miss West who is unaware of the occurrence, laughs and calls it a "sea grouch"—a phenomenon with ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... there is so much of Mademoiselle Simone in my story of Cagnes, and why the Artist had a grouch. His afternoon's work should have pleased him, should have satisfied him. He would not have finished it had he met Mademoiselle Simone. He knows more of Cagnes than I do, but he would rather have known more ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... first time what a bitterly hard thing it is for a man in a large and wicked city to keep from soda when once he has got the habit. Everything was against me. The old convivial circle began to shun me. I could not join in their revels and they began to look on me as a grouch. In the end, I fell, and in one wild orgy undid all the good of a month's abstinence. I was desperate then. I felt that nothing could save me, and I might as well give up the struggle. I drank two pin-ap-o-lades, three grapefruit-olas and ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... right—yes, sir," replied Merton Gill, though but half respectfully. The "Oh, all right" had been tainted with a trace of sullenness. He was tired of this continual nagging and fussing over small matters; some day he would tell the old grouch so. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... great checker-board of lights and shadows. Against the background of lights he could see the slender figure of the girl passing among the huge fishermen who towered like giants above her. Radiating energy wherever she went, criticizing some, commending others and joking away the early-morning grouch, she directed the movements of the constantly increasing stream of men who thronged the dock and despatched the boats one by one into ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... am sure you could make up a better scenario than that old grouch of a hermit," Helen ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... does his stunt with a whistle or smile—he's The Man Who Delivers the Goods. One man is afraid that he'll labor too hard—the world isn't yearning for such; and one man is always alert, on his guard, lest he put in a minute too much; and one has a grouch or a temper that's bad, and one is a creature of moods; so it's hey for the joyous and rollicking lad—for the ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... difference. It is the privilege of the commuter to growl as much as he likes about the discomforts of the road and the stupidity of the men who make up the time tables, but travelling men—we are speaking of salesmen especially—can never indulge in the luxury of a grouch. One of the biggest parts of his job is to keep cheerful all the time and that in itself is no small task. (Try it and see.) A farmer can wear a frown as heavy as a summer thunder cloud and the potatoes will grow just the same; a mechanic can swear at ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... seem such a grouch, but I don't like your grade of paper either. And why not enlarge the magazine to about 11" x 9" by 1/2", and charge 25 cents for your thoroughly good magazine, apart from the defects ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... Laughing Bill murmured. "You got a hundred-per-cent. grouch, but if the old medicine-man says he'll put you in right, you bet your string of beads he'll do it. He's got a gift for helpin' down-and-outers. You got class, Kid; you certainly rhinestone this whole bunch of red men. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... grouch," James explained, as they sat down at the table. "Not fit to associate with man or beast—not even his own dog, if he had one—when he first gets up. How come you were smart enough to get the answer so ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... that married folks are heir to. Cheery, glittering, soul-soothing, warmed hearted, inanimate friend! What wife can fail to admit the peace and serenity she owes to you? To you, who stand between her and all her early morning troubles— Between her and the before-breakfast grouch— Between her and the morning-after headache— Between her and the cold-gray-dawn scrutiny? To you, who supply the golden nectar that stimulates the jaded masculine soul, Soothes the shaky masculine nerves, stirs the fagged masculine mind, inspires the slow masculine sentiment, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... chewing a grouch," was what his good friend Mr. William Raines answered to my lament over his sadness. And that sadness lasted for three days, up unto the day before we came to a sight of the Lady of Liberty of America. ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Corporal Shrimp any more than you have to," advised one of the uniformed rookies, coming over to them after a few moments. "Shrimp is a terror and a grouch all the time. Sergeant Brimmer you'll find a real old soldier, and a gentleman ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... "Well, you grouch, if we didn't have this dry bed to skip along, we would be bucking the greasewood and cactus on the mesa above. So we get ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... such a moment, when she made allowances for him, that she thought of writing, making it easy for him to drop his grouch and return. But here Aurora felt a difficulty. Aurora thought well, in a general way, of her powers as a letter-writer, and she was proud of her beautifully legible Spencerian hand; but for such a letter as she wished to send Gerald fine shades of expression were needed ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... Perhaps Marie's temporary "grouch" against the Jews was partly due to the irruption into her Society of three new and attractive Israelites of her own sex—an event happening about that time. In one of these newcomers, Terry, it ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... replied. "Klein'll be glad to hear it. You know, Mawruss, Klein ain't such a grouch as most people think he is. In fact, taking him all around, Klein ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... was hungry, but not for bacon. Alas! Our hunger was the healthier one! We talked of New York. "Mother's in Paris," he volunteered, "and Dad's in New York meeting her bills. But the Old Man's got a grouch at me, and so he sent me 'way out here in this God-forsaken country! Say, what did they make this country for? Got any tailor-made cigarettes about you? How did Broadway look when you were there last? ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... girl. Think of the minus number of times girls like us get that little word whispered to 'em. Think of the short season. Moncrieff's grouch. The back muscles of your legs! Marry, he ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... that Sunday morning with a partially developed attack of indigestion and a thoroughly developed "grouch." The indigestion was due to an injudicious partaking of light refreshment—sandwiches, ice cream and sarsaparilla "tonic"—at the club the previous evening. Simeon Baker had paid for the refreshment, ordering the supplies sent in from Mr. Chris Badger's ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... himself or not, the sober Bud Moore who lay on his bunk nursing a headache and a grouch against the world was ashamed of the drunken Bud Moore who had paraded his drunkenness before the man who knew Marie. He did not want Marie to hear what Joe might tell There was no use, he told himself miserably, in making Marie despise him as well as hate him. There was a difference. ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... advised Kyle, whetting his new grouch. "If they ain't running away with girls in this region, they're ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... could go to sleep and forget them both, and the trains and the cars and the man in the park and Miss Stein, who still had against her a "grouch." If only she could forget even big, blundering Ursus, who wanted to treat her to oyster stews that he couldn't afford and take her to a dance hall next Sunday! And Sadie, too, who knew such strange and awful things about the world and life, although ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... there in that solitude with no person around but an old grouch that probably would not have a word to say ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... we could hear that old grouch shouting about Bridgeboro and our river and saying it was Sleepy Hollow and Dopeville, and the river was a mud hole. But it isn't and don't ...
— Roy Blakeley • Percy Keese Fitzhugh |
