"Play up" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... must do all this?" mocked the other, furiously. "Why must I do it all? Make Norma play up to me. She underplays me all the time; she's not in my key. That's what's the matter—and I'm damned ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... have been used to finance individuals and organizations whose business it has been to get communism into the private and public schools of the country, to talk down America and to play up Russia." ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot
... me, old man," he said, in a voice of grave and earnest sadness, while he pushed Cameron back into a chair. "We have a desperately hard game before us, you and I,—this is my game, too,—and we must be fit; so, Cameron, I want your word that you will play up for all that's in you; that you will cut this thing out," pointing to the decanter, "and will keep fit to the last fighting minute. I am asking you this, Cameron. You owe it to yourself, you owe it to me, you ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... was the aggrieved party, I supposed that he was entitled to the choice of weapons; I supposed that his devilish sense of humour was at the bottom of all this, and I was determined not to give him the chance of saying I wouldn't play up. But why couldn't he tell me what was in his mind? How far did he mean to take me out to sea first? These questions and others raced through my mind during the whole of that night, while I sat back leaning against ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... poor shop-girls. But all that is trumpery talk. What I arsk is, why shouldn't the 'Buses be kept a bit reglar, like Cabs, In the matter of fares and of distances? Oh, a old woman it crabs To hear of Perprietors pinching pore fellers as drive or conduck, While the "Pirates" play up merry mag with the poor helpless fare, as gets stuck Betwixt Dividend-grinders and Strikers? It ought to be altered, I say. Whilst they talk of what 'Bus-folk should earn, they ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 20, 1891 • Various
... certainly met singers and players who gloried in such accomplishments. A performer may also know every device and trick of the trade, he may be well aware of what will go down with his audience, he may play up to all their little foibles and weaknesses and give them exactly what they want: we can indeed scarcely quarrel with this. But so many are apparently content to allow the matter to remain on this lowly level. A singer who is thus able to play upon his audience and hold them in his grip ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt |
