"Squib" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is the facility with which it is remembered and circulated. The man who reads the strong leader in the Times may have some general impression of being convinced, but he cannot repeat its arguments or quote its expressions. The pasquinade or the squib gets a hold on the mind, and in its very drollery will ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... permitted to give testimony, not only against individuals, but nations themselves, but which, in that time, was not more effective in practical results than at this day a caricature in St. James's-street, or a squib in a weekly newspaper—a power which exposed to relentless ridicule, before the most susceptible and numerous tribunal, the loftiest names in rank, in wisdom, and in genius—and which could not have deprived a beggar of his obol or a scavenger ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... but the Major would not listen; once more he stalked about the room and puffed out clouds of smoke, like a squib or a rocket. The women ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... nothing but rifle bullets, too large for the pistols and too small for the gun. I loaded the latter, however, but as often as I leveled it to fire, the little bullets would roll out of the muzzle and the gun returned only a faint report like a squib, as the powder harmlessly exploded. I galloped in front of the buffalo and attempted to turn her back; but her eyes glared, her mane bristled, and lowering her head, she rushed at me with astonishing fierceness and activity. Again and again I rode ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... to have another man's virtue instead of their own vices? 'Let me die the death of the righteous;' let my soul be in the state of the soul of the righteous—that is, in reference to his virtues, when I die, 'and let my last end be like his' (Num 23:10). It is a sport now to some to taunt, and squib, and deride at other men's virtues; but the day is coming when their minds will be changed, and when they shall be made to count those that have done those righteous actions and duties which they have scoffed at, the only blessed men; yea, they shall wish ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... it,' 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
... seeking to amend his Essay excited Borrow's keenest indignation, and induced him to produce the following amusing squib:— ...
— A Supplementary Chapter to the Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... burn under ordinary conditions must have oxygen, and the more oxygen it gets the better it burns. It does not follow that the supply of oxygen to a burning body must necessarily come directly from the air. Here, for instance, I have a squib. I will fire it and put it under water (Fig. 27). You see it goes on burning whether it is in the water or out of it, because one of the materials of which the squib is composed supplies the oxygen. The ...
— The Story of a Tinder-box • Charles Meymott Tidy
... sight you don't often see: a Diplomatique Corps being returned to store in a motor lorry. The disappointing thing about them was that, for all their fiery propaganda and for all their drastic resolutions, never a one of them produced so much as a squib-cracker. The only people to derive any excitement from the affair were the small children, who took it for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... deal about the "Man and the Apes" question, and I hear that somebody, I suspect Monckton-Milnes, has set afloat a poetical squib on ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... 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 towards three-quarters ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... Thomas, Sir, behave? Why bounce, and sputter, surely, like a squib:— You would have done the same, Sir, if a knave, A frouzy ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... religion, the king, kingdom, parliament and the city."(547) The aspect of the city at this time was that of a huge military depot. Everywhere was heard the sound of musket-shot and rattle of drum, besides the noise of the squib or other firework of the frolicsome apprentice. So great and continuous was the din that it had to be restricted ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... 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. ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... span of existence may be attained by a Socialistic State living on the capital of its predecessors, but it soon runs through the capital and goes out like a spent squib ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... said, 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
... to the situation. Skirmishes precede the great engagement, in which the nouns are worsted, though they have come off with some of the spoils of war; and peace is made on terms dictated by Priscian, Servius, and Donatus. Spangenberg's Grammatical War is a not uninteresting, not uninstructive squib, and the salt of it, or saltpetre of it, has not all evaporated after the lapse of some three centuries. There are bits that remind one of the Greco-Turkish war of ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... Besides, they might 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 discuss matters ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... of circus monstrosities. Thomas Moore sometimes takes malicious pleasure in thus showing up the oddities of his race. [See Common Sense and Genius, and Rhymes by the Road.] Later libelers have been, usually, writers of no reputation. The literary squib that made most stir in the course of the century was not a poem, but the novel, The Green Carnation, which poked fun at the mannerisms of the 1890 poets. [Footnote: Gilbert and Sullivan's Patience made an even greater sensation.] ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... "Memoires" (in relation to Messieurs de Lameth and their friends).—According to a squib of the day: "What Duport thinks, Barnave says and Lameth does"—This trio was named the Triumvirate. Mirabeau, a government man, and a man to whom brutal disorder was repugnant, called it the Triumgueusat. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... little paper squib which I offer, and carefully divides the contents into two equal parts; explaining, as he does so, how he intends to reserve one half of ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... of them having a wooden leg. These take a dance around Cain, and are very jocose, one of them inviting him to hell to take a cup of brimstone coffee, and another asking him to make up a party at whist. Cain snarls, and they tumble him and themselves headlong into the squib ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... as a day signal; and also a kite with some kind of squib, let off by a slow-light and attached to its tail, as one by night. ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... perhaps, than anyone, remembered from schoolroom days Bianca's moody violence when anything had occurred to wound her—remembered, too, the long fits of brooding that followed. This affair, which she had tried to persuade herself was exaggerated, loomed up larger than ever. It was not an isolated squib; it was a lighted match held to a train of gunpowder. This girl of the people, coming from who knew where, destined for who knew what—this young, not very beautiful, not even clever child, with nothing but a sort of queer haunting naivete' to give her charm—might even be a finger used by Fate! ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... hold her wit? The strength of all the Guard cannot hold it, if they were tied to it, she would blow 'em out of the Kingdom, they talk of Jupiter, he's but a squib cracker to her: Look well about you, and you may find a tongue-bolt. But speak sweet Lady, ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... leaves a blank for the name of George, as if his doggerel might yet exalt him to the pillory. Such, after years of rebellion, is the heart's unconquerable reverence for the Lord's anointed! In the next column, we have scripture parodied in a squib against his sacred Majesty. What would our Puritan great-grandsires have said to that? They never laughed at God's word, though they cut ...
— Old News - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... course of time he marries a female boob who has been raised according to the same general specifications, and nine times out of ten she's too refined to be bothered with a family. And presently there's a trip out to Reno and the little squib in the paper and—er—ahem! Drat your picture, Joe, you're the responsible party. You created a ten-thousand-dollar-a-year parasite on the body politic while your boy was still in his teens, and now you want to know what the devil to do about it, ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne |
