"Quip" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Peters, one of the town's foppish young gallants, and who now occupied a prominent front seat, had widely announced the fact that he was present for the express purpose of "showing the mind-reader up." At him accordingly the first quip was directed. ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... he picked up between his sackpossets much loose gossip. He took his ordinary at a boilingcook's and if he had but gotten into him a mess of broken victuals or a platter of tripes with a bare tester in his purse he could always bring himself off with his tongue, some randy quip he had from a punk or whatnot that every mother's son of them would burst their sides. The other, Costello that is, hearing this talk asked was it poetry or a tale. Faith, no, he says, Frank (that was his name), 'tis all about Kerry cows that are to ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Jonson's sons, solemnly promised to give the child a dozen good "Latin spoons" for the father to "translate." Latin was a play upon the word "latten," which was the name of a metal resembling brass. The simple quip was a good-humoured hit at Jonson's pride in his classical learning. Dr Donne related the anecdote to Sir Nicholas L'Estrange, a country gentleman of literary tastes, who had no interest in Shakespeare except from the literary point of view. He entered ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... merely such notes as he might have written had we both been living within the four-mile radius; usually notes about books which he needed, always brightened with a quip and some original application of slang. Occasionally there were rhymes. One was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... names were James Leander, the latter being conferred for no more classical reason than his father's association with a famous boating club, but the fact supplied Furneaux with material for many a quip. These things Theydon learnt later. At present he was giving all his attention to Winter, who led the way into a dainty furnished bedroom. The electric lights were governed by two switches. A pair of lamps occupied the usual place in front of a dressing table; ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... folly. So I, a fool, do greet thee, fool, and welcome thee to this my palace of ease and pleasaunce where, an ye be minded to list to the folly of a rarely foolish fool, I will, with foolish jape and quip, befool thy mind to mirth and jollity, for thou art a sad ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... the governor's "quip modest," he merely growled out something about zeal in discharging his duty, and anxiety to prevent smuggling, to which the ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... strangest feet, two toes behind and two in front, and when he came down near where I stood, I saw a bright-red spot on the head. When I went a step nearer, he didn't like it, and then laughed out loud at me—'Quip! Cher, cher, cher, cher! Ha! ha! ha! ha!' I thought he might be some kind of a Woodpecker, but those in uncle's room are a ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... one—and looked very disconsolate. "What has become of your case?" Lincoln asked. "Gone to h—-," was the gloomy response. "Well, don't give it up," Lincoln rejoined cheerfully; "you can try it again there"—a quip which has been attributed to many wits in many ages, and will doubtless make the reputation of jesters yet to be.] But the fact is that with all his stories and jests, his frank companionable humor, his gift of easy accessibility ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... of the work of Erasmus—his Greek edition of the New Testament and his Praise of Folly—has already been mentioned. In a series of satirical dialogues—the Adages and the Colloquies—he displayed a brilliant intellect and a sparkling wit. With quip and jest he made light of the ignorance and credulity of many clergymen, especially of the monks. He laughed at every one, himself included. "Literary people," said he, "resemble the great figured tapestries of Flanders, which produce effect only when ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... to tell, began on this wise:—Albeit, debonair my ladies, you have forestalled me to-day of more than two of the stories, of which I had thought to tell one, yet one is still left me to recount, which carries at the close of it a quip of such a sort, that perhaps we have as yet heard nought ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... to its powers over gentlemen who made debts without the intention of paying them, as he may have received at frequent unsolicited interviews with a sergeant or a bum-bailiff, has this passage in his "Quip for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... a limerick," said Jeffers lightly. "It's about a young spaceman named Mike, who said: 'I can do as I like!' And to prove his bright quip, he took a round trip, clear to Sirius B on a bike. Or, the tale of the pirate, Black Bart, whose head was as hard as ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... his gang were toward the fore—first out. They spread off to one side with jest and quip, with flash of bottle and slap on shoulder. The populace thinned a bit from the steps.... And then suddenly as a pistol shot Cleve Whitmore's voice rang out ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... had come to stand in awe of his almost uncanny powers of guessing facts from nuances, and of linking nuances into conclusions often startling in their thoroughness and correctness. But Dick, his shoulder toward her, laughing over some quip of Hancock, was just turning his laughter-crinkled eyes toward her as he started ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... Herbert E. Pyecroft—for such she learned was his full name; a face customarily sedate and elderish, and then, almost without perceptible change, for swift moments oddly youthful; with a wide mouth, which would suddenly twist up at its right corner as though from some unholy quip of humor, and whose as sudden straightening into a solemn line would show that the unseemly humor had been exorcised. In manner he was bland, ornate, gestureish, ample; giving the sense that in nothing less commodious than a church could he loose his person and his powers ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... enjoyment of the situation by a smile of elderly amusement. Or yet again we can see him at the room of some boon companion seriously announcing to a convulsed assembly his intention of applying for a fellowship, and when the last quip had been hurled at him through clouds of smoke and the laughter had died down, proposing that the house should go into committee for the purpose of concocting the now famous letter to Burleigh. When we next catch a glimpse of ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... hurt her when he flung himself into a chair and exchanged a quip with Harlequin in the usual manner as with an equal, and it offended her still more that Harlequin, knowing what he now knew, should use him with the ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... recorded in his lifetime relates that Burbage, when playing Richard III., agreed with a lady in the audience to visit her after the performance; Shakespeare, overhearing the conversation, anticipated the actor's visit and met Burbage on his arrival with the quip that "William the Conqueror was ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... walked like a king through the filth and the clutter, (Sweet to meet upon the street, why did you glance me by?) But he caught the quaint Italian quip she flung him from the gutter; (What can there be to cry about that I should ...
— A Few Figs from Thistles • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... well known, and that his domestic experiences have made him the good apostle he is. I remember how well he turned off the argument against himself as to the miracle of the marriage-feast in Cana of Galilee: "Yes, certainly, drink as much wine made of water as you can." It was a witty quip, but is no reply to that miracle of hospitality. Apropos,—I do not know whether or not the following anecdote can be fathered on Mr. Gough, but it is too good to be lost, especially as it bears upon the fate ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... thought of Emmy as imbedded in domestic affairs. After all, damn it, as he was thinking; if you want one girl it is rotten luck to be fobbed off with another. Alf knew quite well the devastating phrase, at one time freely used as an irresistible quip (like "There's hair" or "That's all right, tell your mother; it'll be ninepence") by which one suggested disaster—"And that spoilt his evening." The phrase was in his mind, horrible to feel. Yet what could he have done in face ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... from the East and from the West, That's subject to no academic rule; You may find it in the jeering of a jest, Or distil it from the folly of a fool. I can teach you with a quip, if I've a mind; I can trick you into learning with a laugh; Oh, winnow all my folly, and you'll find A grain or two of ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... My quip brought a glint into her eyes and a richer colour to her cheek. "Yes, heard of him," she said, with a trace of chagrin in her voice. "And now, O Nimrod of the watery plains, how far is ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... The quip escaped him, so to speak, unawares. His voice remained serious and free of all chaff. And he muttered, ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... is possible that Byron was thinking of Horace Walpole's famous quip, "The summer has set in with its usual severity." But, of course, the meaning is that, owing to excessive and abnormal fogs, the summer gilding might have to ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... digest that quip of the mule?" said Richard. "Wash it down with a brimming flagon, man, or thou wilt choke upon it. Why, so—well pulled!—and now I will tell thee, thou art a soldier as well as I, and we must brook each other's jests in the hall as each other's blows in the tourney, ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... trusty blade, an' laying bare his knotted arm, approached the dastardly ruffian with many a merry quip and jest, prepared ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... to put him off. Then Worry began to shadow David by day, to share his pillow at night. If Fisher, like so many others, should fail—! But with an effort he concealed the unbidden guest from Shirley. With her he was always cheery, ready with quip and laugh, teasing her over her devotion to that red-faced bit of humanity, hight Davy Junior. And in truth, the sight of her, still weak and fragile but happy in the possession of her baby, would give him a fresh courage. Things couldn't happen to ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... good stories. But the close is the stage at which he arrives at his mental conclusion as to the "preponderance" of the evidence. Jests and light conversation are out of place when the judge is performing his functions in the courtroom of the mind. An amusing remark or a witty quip at this juncture would suggest that the scales of decision in the salesman's own mind were somewhat unbalanced. Your attitude when you are weighing "Yes" and "No" before the prospect should be pleasant, but quiet and serious, as is becoming ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... failure to stop all supplies from reaching Germany. Lord SYDENHAM attributed it to the Declaration of London, which had crippled the Navy; Lord BERESFORD thought it was the result of trying to run a war with a Cabinet that included twenty-one amateurs. Lord LANSDOWNE, a master of the quip modest, thereupon stated the Government's intention to add a twenty-second to the twenty-one by appointing a Minister ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... few thousand dollars less to put up here and there, and he would have been ruined; his blood became hotter whenever he thought of it. He had had to fight the worst of it through alone, for George, who had been useful as a kind of buyer and seller, who was ever all things to all men, and ready with quip and jest, and not a little uncertain as to truth—to which the old man shut his eyes when there was a "deal" on—had, in the end, been of no use at all, and had seemed to go to pieces just when he was most needed. His father had put it all ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... Judge came in with a smile on his round face and shot off a merry remark. But the quip didn't take as it should have done. He was received with quiet nods and not with smiles and loud greetings as usual. Nothing daunted, he made his way to the bar, and, standing next to Hitchcock, called ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... much winter in the country as it is in the town. The trees are still there, and in and about them birds remain. "Quip! whip!" sounds from the elms; "Whip! quip!" Redwing thrushes threaten with the "whip" those who advance towards them; they spend much of the day in the elm-tops. Thick tussocks of old grass are conspicuous at the ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... labor of love; pleasure &c 827. relaxation; leisure &c 685. fun, frolic, merriment, jollity; joviality, jovialness^; heyday; laughter &c 838; jocosity, jocoseness^; drollery, buffoonery, tomfoolery; mummery, pleasantry; wit &c 842; quip, quirk. [verbal expressions of amusement: list] giggle, titter, snigger, snicker, crow, cheer, chuckle, shout; horse laugh, belly laugh, hearty laugh; guffaw; burst of laughter, fit of laughter, shout of laughter, roar of laughter, peal of laughter; cachinnation^; Kentish ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the Gallic love of wit and laughter. To joke and quip seemed to him beneath the dignity of men. It is, rather, the safety-valve of a highly intelligent people—the outlet for their ironic perceptions of life. The most amusing songs of the war that I ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... brook; But when the twangling ended, skipt again; And being asked, 'Why skipt ye not, Sir Fool?' Made answer, 'I had liefer twenty years Skip to the broken music of my brains Than any broken music thou canst make.' Then Tristram, waiting for the quip to come, 'Good now, what music have I broken, fool?' And little Dagonet, skipping, 'Arthur, the King's; For when thou playest that air with Queen Isolt, Thou makest broken music with thy bride, Her daintier namesake down in Brittany— And so thou ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... Burbage, when playing Richard III, agreed with a lady in the audience to visit her after the performance; Shakespeare, overhearing the conversation, anticipated the actor's visit, and met Burbage on his arrival with the quip that 'William the Conqueror was before Richard ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... such a man? I then asserted the reasonableness of all that is. To this he agreed, reserving, however, one exception. He looked at me, as he said it, in a way I could not mistake. The inference was obvious. That he should be guilty of so cheap a quip in the midst of a ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... at the prospect of his services being in requisition again. He had not yet learnt the application to all things mundane of Disraeli's quip that it is ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... it shall be a duty and a pleasing sport to wander with Momus beneath the tropic stars where Melpomene once stalked austere. Now to cause laughter to echo from those lavish jungles and frowning crags where formerly rang the cries of pirates' victims; to lay aside pike and cutlass and attack with quip and jollity; to draw one saving titter of mirth from the rusty casque of Romance—this were pleasant to do in the shade of the lemon-trees on that coast that is curved like lips set ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... pass each other as fast as if they had been shod with seven-league boots. So he not only kept up with us easily, but oftentimes made a detour through the fields and over the wild country on either side, as a questing dog does, ever returning to us with some quaint vagrant fancy or quip of ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... police force has always been fair game for the students, a position "he" (to use the long-standing quip) did not always appreciate. Gatherings of students in the streets were at one time looked upon with great disfavor, while the daily "rushes" at the old post-office, before the days of carrier delivery, were particularly prolific sources of trouble. The office ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw |
