"Fib" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said, "it's been very successful. I'm all braced up. I'm glad we have had such a good excuse for coming." A fib is ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... a little fib on Lina's part. She had thought that the letter or, rather, the fact that it had been written to Miss Madeline, funny. The Rev. Cecil Thorne was Miss Madeline's pastor. He was a handsome, scholarly man of middle age, and Lina had seen a good deal of him during her summer in ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... known, before the purchase was made, and it was objected to him that he had borrowed the money from a client, then Cicero, instigated by the unexpected charge, denied the loan, and denied also that he was going to buy the house. But when he had bought it and the fib was thrown in his teeth, he laughed heartily, and asked whether men had so lost their senses as not to be aware that a prudent father of a family would deny an intended purchase rather than raise the price of the ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... being angry with Greville Fane when she announced these nuptials to me as magnificent; I remember asking her what splendour there was in the union of the daughter of a woman of genius with an irredeemable mediocrity. "Oh! he's awfully clever," she said; but she blushed for the maternal fib. What she meant was that though Sir Baldwin's estates were not vast (he had a dreary house in South Kensington and a still drearier "Hall" somewhere in Essex, which was let), the connection was ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... concerning whatever business you go into. If I had known what the life of a False Hare really was, I doubt if I should have ever—But, dear me, this will never do—you're getting me into mischief! I've hardly done so much as a fib since we met." ...
— The Wonderful Bed • Gertrude Knevels
... This little fib (ready enough for Raffles, though I say it) earned me not only forgiveness but that obliging sympathy which is a branch of the business of the man at the door. The good fellow said that he could see I had been sitting up all night, and he left me pluming ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... lost!" exclaimed David, in what he tried to make a fearless tone; but Polly, as well as he himself, knew it to be a fib, spoken only ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... inference placed the Irish Catholics on a lower moral plane than the Aborigines, by reason of their priests keeping them in ignorance. This misconception had acquired all the solidity of fact before it reached me; consequently, my explanation was received as a well-meant fib. Anyway, these details will give you some idea of Rory, in his natural state ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... is nothing; I had not time to make up my mind to tell the truth. I was taken by surprise; and you know one's first impulse is to fib—about THAT." ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... unfortunately, timid swimmers are too apt to lose their Heads as well as their feet. Some of the lady visitors are Beautiful Swimmers, and their Divers Charms excite universal admiration. Many of these fair Amphitrites are so constantly in or on the water that it would hardly be a Fib to call them Amphibious. Their husbands and brothers are, I regret to say, not so much On the Water, preferring something a trifle ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... sister, she had plucked a certain little Nellie Taylor from a family near by, named her "Rose Featherstone" and taken her to and from the kindergarten daily, a distance of at least half a mile of crowded streets. The affair was purely one of innocent romance. Emma Abby Googins never told a fib or committed the slightest fault or folly save that of burying her name, assuming a more distinguished one, and introducing a sister to me who had no claim to the Googins blood. Her mother was thoroughly mystified by the occurrence and I no less so, ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... it and drank every drop to punish herself for her fib, for she was not in the least thirsty, and to drink a fairly large cupful of water when you are not thirsty is somewhat of an ordeal. Yet the memory of that draught was to be very pleasant to Rosemary. ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... ed her by the thro at and yell ed, swear to me thou nev er wilt re veal my se cret, or thy hot heart's blood shall stain this mar bel fib or; she gave one gry vy ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... fib, Winifred! These sunburnt fingers may have picked wild fruits, but they never made a pie in ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... faith) 940; il volto sciolto i pensieri stretti [It]. unfairness &c (dishonesty) 940; artfulness &c (cunning) 702; misstatement &c (error) 495. V. be false &c adj., be a liar &c 548; speak falsely &c adv.; tell a lie &c 546; lie, fib; lie like a trooper; swear false, forswear, perjure oneself, bear false witness. misstate, misquote, miscite^, misreport, misrepresent; belie, falsify, pervert, distort; put a false construction upon &c (misinterpret); ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... any rate, I know it became easier in each succeeding examination for me not only to assist "Red," but absolutely to do his work. It is strange how in some things honest people can be dishonest without the slightest compunction. I knew boys at school who were too honorable to tell a fib even when one would have been just the right thing, but could not resist the temptation to assist or receive assistance in an examination. I have long considered it the highest proof of honesty in a man to hand his street-car fare to the ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... for, like T. Morgan Carey, they had traced you that far. He came into the eating-house and asked me if I knew anybody in town by the name of Robert McGraw. I told him I did not—which wasn't a fib because you weren't in town at the time. You were in bed at the Hat Ranch. An engineer was with him and while they were at luncheon I overheard them discussing your water-right. The engineer declared that the known feature alone made the location ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... not read what follows, because it's a fib"; and she ran her eyes over several lines. "In spite of my prayers, I must go. 'You are no longer a boy,' my father said, 'you must think of the future. You have to learn things your own country cannot teach you, if you would be useful to her some day. What, ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... is charmed with her," said Pen, telling almost the first fib which he has told in the ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... jig it lid rim tin rig is sip fix dig bib bit tip six fig jib hit nip din big rib sit lip pin pig fib ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey
... this fib that the landlord was quite taken in by it. "Very well, friend," said he, "you may stop ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... a fib on the part of the professor because he was thinking of it. But it did not include the whole truth, because he had already tried it, tried it very successfully only a few moments before. First he had made sure that he was alone in the room and then he had proceeded ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... was at home in Banbridge. When Banbridge ladies went abroad calling, in the coach, much was exacted. Mrs. Morris could never have held up her social head again had she fibbed, or bidden the maid fib—that is, ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... kept such a roaring and bouncing, that I tho't he would have broke his cage and devoured us all; and the gentleman tittered forsooth; but I'll go to death upon it, I will, that my lady is as good a firchin, as the child unborn; and, therefore, either the gentleman told a fib, or the lion oft to be set in the stocks for bearing false witness agin his neighbour; for the commandment sayeth, Thou shalt not bear false witness ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... "Don't fib, Judith, dear," she answered. And, for Marcia, she was very grave. "I know you have a glass in your room. You wonderful, ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... me, "I didn't mean that way. I meant that when you try to fib you always do it so badly that one sees right through you. Now, acknowledge that you wouldn't ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... left the island, with a replenished purse, and from that time became a portrait-painter. If the poor fellow had been the veriest dauber, you, Eusebius, would have sat to him twenty times over, and have told all the country round quite as great a fib as he did the governor, that he was a very Raffaelle in outline, and Titian in coloring. And what shall the "recording angel" do? Poor fellow! ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... Hospital. That was sixteen years ago. Since then fortune has smiled, and she wants her baby back again; but on going to the hospital, says, that they informed her that her daughter has been just "put apprentice" in the very house before which she tells the story—part of it as great a fib as ever was told; for children once inside the walls of that "noble charity," never know who left them there; and any attempt to find each other out, by parent or child, is punished with the instant withdrawal of the omnipotent protection of the awful ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 21, 1841 • Various
... told you a fib; Mr. Talboys is at home. And observe! until I came to Font Abbey, he was here three times a week. You admit that. I come; your uncle knows I am not so unobservant as you, and Mr. Talboys is kept out ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... I forgot!" exclaimed the Marquis, looking about; "queer cove, doocid touchy, looks as if he might fib though. Ah, there he is! talking to the rough-looking customer over yonder;" and he pointed to Barnabas, who stood with his coat thrown open, and the objectionable neckcloth in full evidence. The Viscount looked, started, uttered a "view hallo," and, striding forward, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... learned to lie, but he might then have made his first assay had he had a fib at his tongue's end; as he had not, he gloomed deeper, and made ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... much false. After a certain fashion she and Lizzie Eustace called themselves friends. But she did not believe her friend to be honest, and was aware that in some matters her friend would condescend—to fib. Lizzie's poetry, and romance, and high feelings, had never had the ring of true soundness in Lucy's ears. But her imagination was not strong enough to soar to the altitude of the lies which Lizzie was now telling. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... "What a fib, Aunt Bettie," laughed Ruth. "You know you've been talking about him ever since we got off the train, and besides, you called ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson
... he began to lose his temper: it was too stupid, it made him look ridiculous. What did they mean by calling him "a Republican musician"; it did not mean anything.... Well, let the fib pass.... But when they set his "Republican" art against the "sacristy art" of the masters who had preceded him,—(he whose soul was nourished by the souls of those great men),—it was ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... to a man who can lie like that. Talk about Chatterton's Rowley deception, Macpherson's Ossian fraud, or Locke's moon hoax! Compared with this tremendous fib they are as but the stilly whisper of a hearth-stone cricket to the shrill trumpeting of a wounded elephant-the piping of a sick cocksparrow to the brazen clang of a donkey ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... mocked her: "Is it to watch the roses that you have put on the gown which matches your eyes, you sly one?"... "And the lilies in your hair, sweet? Is it to shelter them from the rain that you wear them?"... "Fie, Tata! Can you not fib yet without changing color?" ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... answered. "Let us be frank. I used never to tell the truth under any circumstances, when I was a girl, but Giovanni—my Giovanni—did not like that. Do you know what he did? He used to cut off a hundred francs of my allowance for every fib I told—laughing at me all the time. At the end of the first quarter I positively had not a pair of shoes, and all my gloves had been cleaned twice. He used to keep all the fines in a special pocket-book—if you ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... North Dormer intended to venture so far it was not likely that her absence from the festivity would be reported. Besides, if it were she would not greatly care. She was determined to assert her independence, and if she stooped to fib about the Hepburn picnic it was chiefly from the secretive instinct that made her dread the profanation of her happiness. Whenever she was with Lucius Harney she would have liked some impenetrable ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... a word of fib and not a grain of truth. Well, you would beat Jones if you went at his game, but I do think it a good idea to wire Nat Phillips. I'll go and do so at once," he added, feeling in his pocket to make sure he had with him change enough to ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... views) that I know more of the world than she does; since what I know of the world beyond this happy corner of it I learned when I was a mere child. But though we laugh, I can remember a good deal. I have heard polished gentlemen lie, at a pinch, like the proverbial pick-pocket, and pretty ladies fib as well as servant-girls. Of course, I do not mean to say that as many ladies as servant-girls tell untruths. But Eleanor would fain believe that the lie which Solomon discovered to be "continually ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... heard"—here the little widow remembered the fate of Ananias and Sapphira, and stopped short before she told such a tremendous fib. ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... some parts of these volumes. This he asserts with an air of truth that commands belief; he told the same tale to Cardinal Orsini, and to many more, and to all in the very same words, so that I think this is no fib of his. What more do you want? This statement of his, and his serious countenance, cause me to give some credence to him. For it is a very good thing to be misled in a matter of this kind, out of ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... this morning openly of whom he intended to bring with him into the Cabinet." Truth demands that the chronicler should say that this was a positive fib. Mr. Bonteen, no doubt, had talked largely and with indiscretion, but had made no such boast as that of which the Duchess accused him. "Mr. Gresham will get astray if he doesn't allow some one ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... had begun all wrong, and, manlike, demanded her confidence before she had made up her mind to own she had any to bestow; therefore nothing came of it but vexation of spirit; for it is a well-known fact that, on some subjects, if boys will tease, girls will fib, and both maintain that it is right. So Dolly whetted her feminine weapon, ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... Fibsy. That's me name, because, if you want to know, because I'm a natural born liar and I fib for ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... that he could forgive the big fellow the fib. He knew well enough that Dade Morgan was getting his money from Richard Starbright, who, in order to earn anything, was working like a dog on a newspaper. The fact that he was helping Morgan along ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... I may have my turn. You do not believe in Rumtunshid? Then why should farmer Buttercup be called on to believe in the communion of the saints? What does he believe about it? Or why should you make little Flora Buttercup tell such a huge fib as to say, that she believes in ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... was obliged to submit to be called the "marquis." The harmless fib was due to the rank of the little countess; she could not have driven through the streets of Paris in the same fiacre ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... of Pao-ch'in. "Don't be humbugging us!" she remarked. "I know well enough that you are not likely, on a visit like this, to have left any such things of yours at home. You must have brought them along. Yet here you are now again palming off a fib on us by saying that you haven't got them with you. You people may believe what she says, but I, for ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... listen: I am a rich man" (it was a great fib, for Woolsey's income, as a junior partner of the firm, was but a small one); "I can very well afford to make him an allowance while he is in the Fleet, and have written to him to say so. But if you ever give him a penny, or sell a trinket belonging to you, upon my word ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Now I wonder what that little chap would like—here's a drum, a box of tools, a knife, a menagerie. If he hadn't played truant from school that day, and then told a fib about it, I'd give ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... gasped. Betty had never been known to shed a tear. As for weeks of them, that was a bit extravagant. But the fib had the desired effect. The new girl turned her large, drenched gray eyes on Betty and ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill
... the school bounds at the time, or I should never have allowed you! And on the way you asked me if I had hurt myself in falling. I told you "No"; but that was a fib, for my hip was growing weak even then. It's by reason of my hip that I have to lie here. But in those days there was no one else to take the dancing classes, and it would never have done to confess. And—and that was all. I only met you once after that—it was in the post ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Allowed the subtle hint to slip— Maundered on about the ship That he did not chance to own; Told this grievance o'er and o'er, Knowing that she knew before; Told her how he dwelt alone. Lady Minnow, for reply, Cut him off with "So do I!" But she reddened at the fib; Servitors had she, ad lib. Town of Dae by the sea, In her youth who speaks no truth Ne'er shall young ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... Kasimir reproved, the housemother offered comfits, and Christina's soft voice was worst of all, for the child, probably taking her for Our Lady herself, began to gasp forth a general confession. "I will never do so again! Yes, it was a fib, but Mother Hildegard gave me a bit of marchpane not to tell—" Here the lay sister took strong measures for closing the little mouth, and Christina drew back, recommending that the child should be left gradually to discover their terrestrial nature. Ebbo had looked on with extreme disgust, trying ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... talk about my being seen in a Staten Island beer garden with Bern Cameron, don't believe one word of it—we didn't go in at all, the place was too smelly. And that fib about his giving me a diamond ring,—deny it please, as I have never shown it to a soul—So you can see ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... the lie—or fib, rather: he had been GOING to die for her. But why not have told the truth? Was it possible, she wondered, that her wretched vanity had survived her renunciation of the world? Why had she so resented just now the doubt cast on that irresistibility ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... that he might write at his ease in one of these rooms, as he could not then hear the door knock, or hear himself denied to be at home, which was sure to make him call out and convict the poor maid in a fib. Here, I said, he might be almost really not at home. So I put in an old grate, and made him a fire in the largest of these garrets, and carried in one table, and one chair, and bid him write away, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... must both keep up our characters. They have been plying me with all manner of questions below, as to who you were—your name, &c. I resolved that I would give you a lift in the world, and I stated that you had just arrived from making a grand tour—which is not a fib, after all—and as for your name, I said that you were ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... print, good company, a text By no vain annotations vexed Which call from students sore perplexed The patience of a Job; And, page by page, a first-rate crib, Neither too faithful nor too glib— That, without fulsomeness or fib, Is what we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CLVIII, January 7, 1920 • Various
... detect Pomona Road along - None faked a cly, nor cracked a crib, Nor prigged a wipe, nor told a fib,— Minds cultivated and ...
— Ban and Arriere Ban • Andrew Lang
... Mop and Drop so clear, Pip and Trip and Skip that were To Mab, their sovereign, ever dear, Her special maids of honour; Fib and Tib and Pink and Pin, Tick and Quick and Jill and Jin, Tit and Nit and Wap and Win, The train that ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... questions and I couldn't quite fib to him, and yet I couldn't see why he should expect me to tell him all about you. And so"—she paused and the little half-smile was ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... she'd fib about it," Woods went on, "and I finally axed her what she'd take, an' she said nothin' less than fifty dollars cash down would interest her, as she had a winter cloak to lay in, an' shoes for three women, an' ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... I to say? You would not wish me to tell a fib. I don't like Mrs. Harold Smith—at least, what I hear of her; for it has not been my fortune to meet her since her marriage. It may be conceited; but to own the truth, I think that Mr. Robarts would be better off with us ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... any one!' I answered, a little piqued that she should have drawn any such impression from my appearance. I may have been uttering a fib of magnificent proportions at the moment, but one has a right to deny cowardice to the last gasp, whatever else ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... What's the good of this dirty money to a dying man? I'd give it all to have my wife and the boy I lost back for a year or two; yes, I would go into a shop again and sell sugar like my grandfather, and live on the profits from the till and the counter. There's Mary calling. We must tell a fib, we must say that we thought she was to come to fetch us; don't you forget. Well, there it is, perhaps you'll think ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... refused to give up, declaring it to be the most fun they had had "in a coon's age," which was really a boys' bravery fib, and finally the machine drew up within a hundred and fifty feet ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... thought for the two hours that the city had been burning, how she might return and snatch her property from the flames. The sleepy guards at the barrier allowed the carriage to pass without much difficulty, the worthy lady allaying their scruples with a fib, telling them she was bringing back her niece with her to Paris to assist in nursing her husband, who had been wounded by the Versaillese. It was not until they commenced to make their way along the paved streets that they encountered serious obstacles; they were ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... what would her mother say if she brought Wolfgang with her? No, that would really not do, this was just the day when their room had not been tidied. And she had told a fib too: there were no herrings, only onion sauce with ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... it was only an axcuse she was afther makin,' an' she was lookin' that he'd be sayin' somethin' about the young Kings an' was afther dodgin' as long as she cud. So whin he shpoke so crass, she riz up aff the sate, for it was a fib she was tellin', an' she didn't shwape the kitchen at all, an' that was done be wan av the maids, an' gev a sigh, an' wint in the ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... mind, though she could have added somewhat to the figure without risking a fib. She said something else, a something that didn't sound exactly like a blessing; and, in a sudden fit of rage, started from her seat, sprang across the room, tore the offending Saint from the nail from which he had dangled for such long ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... with 'blind affection,' as he phrases it, as seen above, literally 'unto death,' and therefore bound by the strongest ties to keep his secret, if secret there were. Besides, Ben can be convicted of at least one unqualified fib on the subject. Hear how he describes Droeshout's print of Shakspeare, prefixed to the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • Various
... says she'll punish, She must do it, or she tells A fib, as Sister Annie Told "a story" 'bout the bells; And if mamma tells a fib, Then surely children will, And what a fearful thing, Our ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... indeed! There is a middle Course—say "fib" or "tarradiddle," "Not quite true," "A sort of riddle Facts to smother." We, who love the fair romancer— Be she talker, singer, dancer, What you will, she's sweet—we answer, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 29, 1892 • Various
... "Christmas is a fib, Christmas is a fraud, Christmas is a crime wanted and continued by the powerful to delude their servants and to make them believe that there is really happiness, justice and love on this earth.... There is no everlasting joy. How long, O ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... suppose that the declaration would be a pure fib, or anything like it. The man had no conscience, and he was almost incomparably selfish, but he was capable of loving, and he did love. That is to say, he was inflamed by this girl's beauty and longed to possess it. It is a low species of affection, ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... friend. The Squire has sent me a large supply. I am to divide with you," which was as near to a fib as the young clergyman ever got ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... under his coat and broke at my feet. It was food—dry bread and a bologna skin with a little meat in the end. He stopped and told me how hard it was to find food for a dog in which he was interested. But that was a fib. With all his faults Gibb never ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... so manifestly for the interest of Austria, that she was fearful that France would not accede to it. Since she knew that the matter was already arranged and settled with the French court, this was a downright lie, though the queen probably regarded it as a venial fib, or ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... clean, agreeable, and conscientious male or female hypocrite, at so many guineas a year, to do so and so for me. Were he other than hypocrite I would send him about his business. Don't let my displeasure be too fierce with him for a fib or two on ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... perhaps ... at having wasted so much money.... To try and forget that money I had sewn up, perhaps ... yes, that was why ... damn it ... how often will you ask me that question? Well, I told a fib, and that was the end of it, once I'd said it, I didn't care to correct it. What does a man tell ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... fair lady, but you have told me a fib. You said it was to be all for yourself, and got a hundred ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... the house conceived it best To keep the whole a secret in his breast. But to discover ALL, his lovely rib Appeared disposed, though wives can often fib; The silliest of the throng (or high or low), Most perfectly the science seem ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... you had lived at Westhaven you would have found out that to be so particular is the way to make those girls fib,' said Mrs. Morton. ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... my honor, Doc.! Expect me to fib to you. Of course I talked him out of it, and told him not to bother about it. First of all that it wasn't up to him yet, and if it was, I was ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... up your cat!" I cried, To think she'd fib quite horrified; "Why, how can you say that?" Her tears afresh began to run, She sobbed the words out, one by ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... me?.. Why, that was a galejade a fib... Among us Taras-conese you ought surely to know what ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... informed her mother that she had seen a lion in the park. No amount of persuasion or reasoning could make her vary her statement one hairbreadth. That night, when she slipped down on her knees to say her prayers, her mother said, "Polly, ask God to forgive you for that fib." ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... Mother from criticism, as well as to spare Miss Day's feelings. But to have done it so clumsily as this! To have had to wince under Miss Day's scepticism! It was only a wonder the governess had not there and then taxed her with the fib. For who believed in old nurses nowadays? They were a stock property, borrowed on the spur of the moment from readings in THE FAMILY HERALD, from Tennyson's LADY CLARE. Why on earth had such a far-fetched excuse leapt to her tongue? Why could ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... rogue, don't believe you! all a fib! better speak out: come, fit I should know; a'n't you my own ward? to be sure, almost of age, but not quite, so what's ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... so pale then?' said she, smiling with delight at my emotion. 'Is it anger at poor me for telling such a fib? Well, I only "tell the tale as 'twas told to me:" I don't vouch for the truth of it; but at the same time, I don't see what reason Sarah should have for deceiving me, or her informant for deceiving her; and that was what she told me the footman told her:—that Mrs. Huntingdon ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... said knights in Saxon characters, and yet such as no man can read), all this story I see so little ground to give the least credit to that I look upon it, and it shall please you, to be no better than a fib. ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... teaching, lamenting from time to time the stumbling-block of the idol and expressing wonder as to how it might be circumvented by a change in the hearts of the islanders, or otherwise. Sad as it is to record, in fact, dear old Bastin went as near to telling a fib in connection with this matter as I suppose he had ever done in his life. It happened thus. One day Bickley's sharp eye caught sight of Bastin walking about with what looked like a bottle of whisky ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... to heaven, but could not speak. "In fact," said Alfred, hesitating (for he was a wretched hand at a fib), "he saw him not a fortnight ago on board ship. But that is not all, mamma, the sailor ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... a duck, instead of a hen, (what a goose!) then over he went splash into the water himself. The question was not now whether the hen could swim, but whether he could; he floundered round and round, and screeched like a little bedlamite, and was just thinking of the last fib he told, when his brother Zedekiah came along and ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... to tell a lie in order to avoid a scolding. Nothing is more unfortunate, nothing is more easy for an ordinarily good, but misunderstood man, than the tendency to fib about little things, if he feels in his heart that his wife will scold,—that she will fail to see the point. It wounds his self-respect to have to do so, yet he selects the minor evil as he sees it, he sacrifices his manhood in the ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... pretty word," said Rhoda, pursing her lips. "Say a fib, next time.—Nonsense! Not a bit of it, Phoebe. We had been upstairs since we ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... distracted, and as soon as Reine had joined Mathieu's children, and could not hear what he said, he implored the young man to come with him. In a gasp he told the dreadful truth—Valerie was dying. Her daughter believed her to be in the country, but that was a mere fib devised to quiet the girl. Valerie was elsewhere, in Paris, and he, Morange, had a cab waiting below, but lacked the strength to go back to her alone, so poignant was his grief, so ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... exclaimed Frolich, ceasing her stirring for a moment to look round; "what a capital story that is! and how few people know it! and how neatly you catch him in his fib! And why should not something like it be happening now with Rolf? Rolf knows all the ins and outs of the fiord: and if he has been playing bo-peep with his enemies among the islands, and frightening Hund, is it not the most natural thing in the world that Hund should come scampering home, ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... constructed lie or by the girl's inquiries I could not tell, but my dislike for the clumsy giant made me suspicious about his knowledge of the incident of the preceding evening, and I felt certain that he was smiling at my fib. ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... was so sure that she would take me down to Miss Ashton,—and there is no such thing as keeping anything away from her, for you know how she hates what she calls a 'prevarication,'—that I just had my choice, to drink that nasty stuff, or to betray the Demosthenic Club, or to tell a fib, and have my walking-ticket given me, so I opened my mouth wide, and swallowed one swallow, then was going to turn away my head, but Miss Palmer held the tumbler tight to my lips, as I have seen people do to ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... manner towards his wife: he was savagely ironic with her, and trampled hobnailed on her timid opinions. But then Agnes didn't know how to treat him, Polly soon saw that: she was nervous and fluttery—evasive, too; and once during lunch even told a deliberate fib. Slight as was her acquaintance with him, Polly felt sure this want of courage must displease him; for there was something very simple and direct about his own way ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... be told off to sit on the Member's head. During this function the Baboo will deliver some sesquipedalian reflections in the rodomontade mood. The Shikarry will then tell the twelve-foot-tiger story. Mrs. Lollipop will tell a fib and make tea; and Ali Baba (unless his heart is too full of mulled claret) will make a joke. The company will break up at this point, after receiving a ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... was, that my young friend (for he was only about twenty-five) was not a very wise man; and this was a huge fib, which out of the kindness of his heart, he told in my behalf, for the purpose of creating a profound respect for me in the eyes ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... It's impossible you could have known! I'll tell you why, Rip! I wanted to try you. You fib well at long range, but you don't do at close quarters and single combat. You're good behind walls, but not worth a shot in the open. I just see what you're fit for. You're staunch—that I am certain of. You always were. Lead the way to one of the parks—down in that direction. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... frankly, on your honour. . . . I see from your face you are telling a fib. Once you've let a thing slip out it's no good wriggling about it. Tell me, do you see him? Come, as ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... you've told a fib, which only makes things worse." He smiled complacently at having beaten her in argument, and Myra thought she had never met such an insufferable boy in ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... ace of trumps still in my hands? Basta!—I say again Basta! It is evidently an object to Darrell to get rid of all fear that Sophy should ever pounce upon him tooth and claw: if he be so convinced that she is not his daughter's child, why make a point of my saying that I told him a fib, when I said she was? Evidently, too, he is afraid of my power to harass and annoy him; or why make it a point that I shall only nibble his cheese in a trap at the world's end, stared at by bushmen, and wombats, and rattlesnakes, and alligators, and ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... villainous daub fell never yet from heaven to smuggle the bread out of capable workmen's mouths. All this is Pagan, and arose thus. The Trojans had Oriental imaginations, and feigned that their Palladium, a wooden statue three cubits long, fell down from heaven. The Greeks took this fib home among the spoils of Troy, and soon it rained statues on all the Grecian cities, and their Latin apes. And one of these Palladia gave St. Paul trouble at Ephesus; 'twas a statue of Diana that fell down from Jupiter: ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... to confirm the truth of her fib. But the house-mouse could not take her eyes off the black rat, who had lain down in the snow and ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... fib among so many couldn't matter, so I said you were. Heaven forgive me. By-the-by, are you really Dutch, or is ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... name was Nicholas, restored these three children to life. It is said that once he lost his temper, and struck with his fist a gentleman named Arius; but the story-teller does not believe this, for he thinks it is a fib, made up long afterward. How could a saint lose ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... dreadfully frightened, but he managed to fly up to the hand of Suleiman-bin-Daoud, and clung there, fanning himself. Suleiman-bin-Daoud bent his head and whispered very softly, 'Little man, you know that all your stamping wouldn't bend one blade of grass. What made you tell that awful fib to your wife?—for doubtless she ...
— Just So Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... leave of your senses?" I demanded, assuming an indignation I did not feel. "Dr. Pettit was saying nothing to me that could possibly interest you." I felt a little twinge of conscience at the fib, but I had too much at stake to hesitate over a quibble. "As for casting sheep's eyes, as you so elegantly express it, you've been doing so much of it yourself that I suppose it is natural for you to accuse ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... once or twice, and observe yourself as well as you can, and AFTERWARDS read the rest of this note, which I have consequently pinned down. I find, to my surprise, whenever I act thus my platysma contracts. Does yours? (N.B.—See what a man will do for science; I began this note with a horrid fib, namely, that I want you to attend to a new point. (The point was doubtless described as a new one, to avoid the possibility of Dr. Ogle's attention being directed to the platysma, a muscle which had been the subject of discussion in other letters.)) I will try and get some persons thus to act who ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... I don't believe you eveh done it at all. You neveh so much as told a fib in yo' life. You ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... be conquered,' said Boku-den. 'O monk,' demanded the man, as Boku-den was clad like a Zen monk, 'what school of swordsmanship do you belong to?' Well, mine is the Conquering-enemy-without-fighting-school.' 'Don't tell a fib, old monk. If you could conquer the enemy without fighting, what then is your sword for?' 'My sword is not to kill, but to save,' said Boku-den, making use of Zen phrases; 'my art is transmitted from mind to mind.' 'Now then, come, monk,' challenged the ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... making me stay at home all the blessed day, and sending Captain Ussher all the way back to Mohill, and he having come over here by engagement to walk with me,"—this was a fib of Feemy's,—"and all to ask me where ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... the three faces glued against the panes, but her words were incongruous. "You wretch," said she, "don't come here. Hide about, dearest, till you see me with Father Francis. I'll raise my hand so when you are to cuddle him, and fib. There, make me a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... fib!" whispered Ellen behind her hand to Kate; and truth to say, his coming had rather upset our anticipated pleasure; but Mr. Hamlin had taken a great fancy to Theodora and was accepting her invitation, ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... with tight gray curls on his head, and deep dimples in his cheeks. If anyone had told me that he was not an English admiral I should have known it was a fib. ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... over. Possibly you have not stopped to think as yet. When you know the truth yourself, you will be the better qualified to fib about it. Also, you ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... good girl, and wrote me a letter; if Burney said she would write, she told you a fib. She writes nothing to me. She can write home fast enough. I have a good mind not to let her know that Dr. Bernard, to whom I had recommended her novel, speaks of it with great commendation, and that the ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... friend. When asked casually in conversation as to her maiden name, she had not blushed as she answered the question with a falsehood. When, unfortunately, the name of her first husband had in some way made itself known to Clara, she had been ready again with some prepared fib. And when she had recognized William Belton, she had thought that the danger to herself of having any one near her who might know her quite justified her in endeavouring to create ill-will between Clara and her cousin. 'Self-preservation ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... "Don't fib! I know better. Your birds and kitten occupy daily about thirty minutes of the time that's your own. What do you do with the rest ...
— The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... jest wish you'd been there. That lying nimshi was jest goin on the sweetest, as respectful an nice a thankin your wife fer comin, an excusin himself fer sendin fer her, and sayin he couldn't bear to tell her what he'd come fer, an pretty soon when she was scared 's death he up an told her a awful fib bout you an a woman called Kate, whoever she is, an he jest poured the words out fast so she couldn't speak, an he said things about you he shouldn't uv, an you could see he was makin it up as he went along, an he said he had proof. So he pointed at a pile of letters on the table an ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... 'I've had to fib about ee. Uncle Dan saw you run past all wet this morning, and he asked. I had to tell him something. I said you fell in trying to reach them watter-lilies. I didn't want your own uncle to know ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... I did not dye. Of corse you cant help bein a girl insted of a boy and thats al-rite because Heloise and Myra-Louise and Nelly the girl next dore and pretty nerely every body wood ruther be a boy than a girl, but you were the limit to fib about it and you have put me in a auful queer posishun, so no more fer ...
— Deer Godchild • Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell
... by the throat and asking him in trenchant tones, 'Have you spoken to her?' The Baby found it convenient to be able to give a truthful negative, not that he would have minded fibbing in the least, but in this case the fib would certainly have been detected; he could not expect his goddess to enter into any clandestine parley ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... 9th current, which I am this moment honoured with, is a deep reproach to me for ungrateful neglect. I will tell you the real truth, for I am miserably awkward at a fib—I wished to have written to Dr. Moore before I wrote to you; but, though every day since I received yours of December 30th, the idea, the wish to write to him has constantly pressed on my thoughts, yet I could not for my soul ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... a fib," said she; "but I was taken unawares, and, la, how could I recite to her the true list of my rare finery which came to port yesterday? So I but gave the list of goods for which my Lady Culpeper sent to England for the replenishing of her wardrobe ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... you.—But I came to see you about—(to the slave girl) get out of here, get out of my sight, you trouble maker, you're all ears and tongue and nothing else, all you do is to sit around Koritto—dear, now please don't tell me a fib, who stitched that ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... later I saw her punish her child for denying that she had committed some piece of mischief of which she was guilty. The mother's excuse to herself probably was that the child told a lie, she, a "society fib." Perhaps the smaller sinner had no reputation ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... Kitty. 'That's a fib. The duchess and I were well "acquaint" when Duke did not stand quite so high in favour. But I am thankful for my part, you two people have given up mischief and settled down. Sit still among your ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... came the others from the window. Meg, in fact, could not keep Cecile d'Aubepine back any longer from hindering such shocking impropriety as out tete-a-tete. We overheard her saving her little girl from corruption by a frightful French fib that the gentleman in black was Mademoiselle ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... absolute silence, unconscious—unaware of any thing round me; living only in my thoughts, and with a resolution growing ever stronger and stronger within me. I will not tell her! I will never tell any one. I, that have hitherto bungled and blundered over the whitest fib, will wade knee-deep in falsehoods, before I will ever let any one guess the disgrace that has happened to me. Oh that, by long silence, I could wipe it out of my own heart—out of the ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... an hour or so of solitary shopping, and had the things I bought carried straight into my own room, for I had given out that I had a sick headache, and wanted to sleep—a fib so delicate, that it seemed almost conscientious, besides being worth forgiving on account ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... keep it secret—I wouldn't have minded telling him a fib about a little thing. But he made ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... are (sollen Sie)," this is the remarkable point, "to give out in the world that it costs me from Thirty to Forty Thousand!" [1717: Forster, i. 213.] So that here is the Majesty of Prussia, who beyond all men abhors lies, giving orders to tell one? Alas, yes; a kind of lie, or fib (white fib, or even GRAY), the pinch of Thrift compelling! But what a window into the artless inner-man of his Majesty, even that GRAY fib;—not done by oneself, but ordered to be done by the servant, as if ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... fib at all." And as her eyes widened, "You merely said that we hadn't been married yet. We haven't you ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs |
