"Squib" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their wives to be. There is no fitness of disposition and character, no unity of ideals, no passionate surrender of the Self in devotion, no fixed purpose of duty, no harmony in tastes or outlook. Such love must come to disaster; it is like a damp squib, it is never properly alight and fades out swiftly in noisy splutters. Then, when the first desire goes, no friend ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... thought she, is like a noisy squib, the momentary terror of passengers; Lady Delacour's like an elegant firework, which we crowd to see, and cannot forbear to applaud; but Lady Anne Percival's wit is like the refulgent ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... Drake (MURRAY) must be the most preposterously startling story that I have read for this age. It makes you feel as if you had had a squib exploded under your chair at a temperance meeting. After beginning placidly about persons who live in South Kensington (and are so dull that the author has to fill up with minute descriptions of their drawing-rooms), somewhere ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... return of the times of her whom they unreasonably called Bloody Mary. Sons of this marriage, they feared, meant a long succession of princes and kings hostile to the Protestant faith and government by the people. In 1689, when William of Orange became king in James II.'s place, a political squib went off in the style of a nursery lullaby, entitled "Father Peter's policy discovered; or, the Prince of ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... a great piece of foolery when one looks back, but at the time we thought it high-minded and justifiable rebellion. We assembled in the court, and cheered after the senior tutor had been three parts smothered in his bed by a red-pepper squib dropped down the chimney; and on the morning after the Master's laundry was raided, and the linen (belonging to both sexes) distributed amongst the crows' nests in the avenue, I think special trains ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... said Mr Crummles. 'You on the top of a pair of steps with the phenomenon in an attitude; "Farewell!" on a transparency behind; and nine people at the wings with a squib in each hand—all the dozen and a half going off at once—it would be very grand—awful from ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... they meant all deep and unutterable affliction, and for a while swept away whatever was false and tawdry in the show, and thrilled our hearts with a rapture rarely felt. Yet, as but a moment before we had laughed to see Nebuchadnezzar's crown shot off his head by a squib visibly directed from the side scenes,—at the point when, according to the libretto, "the thunder roars, and a bolt descends upon the head of the king,"—so but a moment after some new absurdity marred the illusion, and we began to look about the theatre at the audience. We then beheld ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... next beyond was more responsible: in which judgment Cicero was of the opinion of Mr. Justice Blackstone in the famous leading case of Scott v. Shepherd (1 Smith's L.C., 480), where the question was who was liable for the damage eventually done by the burning squib which was passed about the market house by successive hands. The majority of the court held, however, against Blackstone and Cicero, and established the doctrine ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... Squib at school." He said it in a whimsical, humorous voice, looking down at her with ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... sometimes noisy assembly bore from him with kindly amusement and real respect what they would bear from no one else, and he had an influence in its sometimes turbulent debates which seems unaccountable. He was the vir pietate gravis. In a once popular squib, occasioned by one of the fiercest of these debates, this unique position is ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... about him too, something electric and tense. He stared at Anna-Felicitas, then turned quickly and stared at Anna-Rose, then quickly back to Anna-Felicitas, and so on all the way up. He was obviously extraordinarily interested. He seemed to have got hold of an idea that had not struck the squib-like boy downstairs, who was entertaining the taxi-driver with descriptions of the domestic life of ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... good speaking to you until you have calmed down. You remind me of a damp squib, all fuss and no result. I am going to dinner," Dennison said, and went out of the room without looking at either ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... Foote's fun upon Macklin's Lectures, led him to establish a summer entertainment of his own at the Haymarket. He took up Macklin's notion of applying Greek tragedy to modern subjects, and the squib was so successful that Foote cleared by it 500L in five nights, while the great Piazza Coffee-room in Covent Garden was shut up, and Macklin in the ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... ask mother if you can. You won't want to again; he goes off all the time like a squib." She threw back her head, and again Bob Pillin felt a little giddy. He ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to end the "Petrified Man" squib was a string of roaring absurdities, albeit they were told with an unfair pretense of truth that even imposed upon me to some extent, and I was in some danger of believing in my own fraud. But I really had no desire to deceive anybody, and no expectation of doing it. I ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... there was a grand display of fireworks, but somehow or other they did not go off at the right time and place; however, I daresay that the crowd were equally astonished and delighted as if each squib and cracker had played its part properly. One thing I must say for the Russians, that they are a very orderly, well-behaved people; and in all the vast crowds we saw, the people appeared kind and good-natured to each other in the extreme. There ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... is getting up a little entertainment for their own good, and they'd like a little newspaper notice. You know what I mean—a squib or two saying that ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... when he had kissed her, "every man must have his folly; I thank God mine is no worse. Off with you! I have given a child a squib." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... retaliate by spiflicating our agent in Damascus. Wise folk who live in glass-houses don't throw stones. What I think has been accomplished is to reduce our probable risk down to Yussuf Dakmar, who's a mean squib at best; and I think we've drawn suspicion clear away from Mabel Ticknor. All that remains is for me to go to that room where you see the light burning and ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... good. Your friend, now, seems a likely man; but you?— I thought you were a torch; and you're a squib. ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie
... the Township of Loaferdom, in the County of Hatework," says a printer's squib, "found themselves laboring under great inconvenience for want of an easily traveled road between Poverty and Independence. They therefore petitioned the Powers that be to levy a tax upon the property of the entire county for the purpose of laying out a macadamized ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... first thing he heard on entering the stage-door was a hiss. The story goes that the poor author was dreadfully frightened; and that in answer to a hurried question, Colman exclaimed, "Psha! Doctor, don't be afraid of a squib, when we have been sitting these two hours on a barrel of gunpowder." If this was meant as a hoax, it was a cruel one; if meant seriously, it was untrue. For the piece had turned out a great hit. From beginning to end of ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... especially the frail clusters, the great red grapes, the muscadine, the verjuice grape, and the laskard, for those that are costive in their belly, because it will make them gush out, and squirt the length of a hunter's staff, like the very tap of a barrel; and oftentimes, thinking to let a squib, they did all-to-besquatter and conskite themselves, whereupon they are commonly called the vintage thinkers. The bun-sellers or cake-makers were in nothing inclinable to their request; but, which was worse, did injure them most outrageously, calling them prattling ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... Clearstarch is one of the best captains all along shore—although, friend Squibob, I feel sure that you are about to observe that a captain with a name like that would give any one the blues. But don't do it, Squib! ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various |
