"Spunk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that moment the Lord's ain hand out o' the Heevens struck the Horror whaur it stood; the auld, deid, desecrated corp o' the witch-wife, sae lang keepit frae the grave and hirsled round by deils, lowed up like a brunstane spunk and fell in ashes to the grund; the thunder followed, peal on dirling peal, the rairing rain upon the back o' that; and Mr. Soulis lowped through the garden hedge, and ran, wi' skelloch ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... the witness-stand in his own behalf. It rested with him and his lawyer to settle that; under the law he could not be forced to testify. The transcript of his testimony at the inquest was ready at the prosecutor's hand. Joe would be confronted with that, and, if there was a spark of spunk in him, people said, he would rise up and stand by it. And then, once Sam Lucas got him in the witness-chair, it would be all day with ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... man's spunk. Well, siree, those four men clumb into that yawl, an' a bunch of others jumped into the mush-ice an' toted her 'way out to clear water. With a yell, the fisherman put her nose inter the gale an' pulled. But it wa'n't ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... neither," declared Iggy, who seemed to have recovered all his spunk and spirit. "It is of a betterness to shoot lots when of a gas mast ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... have fish frys than to dig ditches. All of which I hearn Elmira talking over with the neighbours more'n once when I was growing up, and they all says: "How sad it is you have came to this, Elmira!" And then she'd kind o' spunk up and say, thanks to glory, she'd kep' ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... I, when I get in the cave, the waves come up and devour me? Suppose somebody has crawled in there to sleep, some tramp or something, and he should catch me by the leg? Or the bank should tumble in on top of me? All my spunk was gone, and I turned to run, when, bunk! I came into ...
— Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of ye had a grain of spunk, ye would have fired, and freed a fellow from the clutch of them hell thieves," muttered another of the men at the litter. "All the time, the devil had me by the throat, swinging his tommyhawk about my head, I saw ye dancing up and down in the heavens, instead ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... to talk, dear," nodded Patricia. "Let's take a walk. Forget the mean things I just said to you, but I had to do it to put some spunk into you." ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... Work! All the spunk, all the energy, had been sapped out of me long before, and even her promise couldn't revive it. My search for a berth wasn't much more than a sham. At the back of my head I knew very well what I'd come to. The only work I was capable of was dancing attendance on her, and filling ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... rooster in where dere wus a sick Yankee. De Yankee took him in his hands an' de rooster crowed. He give mother thirty-five cents for him. De Yankee said if he could crow an' his eyes out he wanted him. He said, he called dat spunk. ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States • Various
... and what we come to regard as natural may be only an acquired bad habit, which is, in fact, quite unnatural. Voice should certainly be what we call human. Better it should have some human faults than be smoothed out into negative perfection, without the true ring, the spunk of individuality. There is, nevertheless, a best naturalness, or second nature, and a worst. The object of training is to find ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... caird prevail'd—th' unblushing fair In his embraces sunk, Partly wi' love o'ercome sae sair, An' partly she was drunk. Sir Violino, with an air That show'd a man of spunk, Wish'd unison between the pair, An' made the bottle clunk To ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Uncle Sam was almost a stranger on the maps; he hadn't a friend in the world, apparently, while he had more enemies than he could shake a stick at. Every body snubbed him, and every body wanted to lick him. But Sam has now grown to be a crowder; his spunk, too, goes up with his resources, and he don't wait for any body to "knock the chip off his hat," but goes right smack up to a crowd of fighting bullies, and rolling up his sleeves, he coolly "wants to know" if any body had any ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... in earnest." There was a note of bitter challenge in Toby's reply. "If a woman hasn't the spunk to defend herself, she's ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... tell me why yes," he chuckled. "You have a lot of spunk. That you certainly have, and you ought to make a good business man, but I won't loan ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... him ther same question, an' he says as how he was too plumb scared ter do sich a thing. But jest as he was goin' ter holler he finds that he's loose, an' all his spunk comes back again. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... was wetted nearly all over. Our hands being benumbed with the cold, it was some time before we could get off our snow-shoes, and we were no sooner out of the water than our moccasins and leggings were frozen stiff. Our spunk wood got wetted by the water, and when we at last reached the shore we were unable to light a fire. Our clothes also were so completely frozen that we ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... on the face er the yeth good enough fer Sis, but that air feller's got the looks an' the spunk. I'll set in this very day an' hour, an' I'll bake Sis a cake that'll make the'r eyes water." And so it went. Everybody on Hog Mountain had some small ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... be, my dear; but really, Caroline, you do annoy me. Have you no spunk at all in your composition? Are you still fretting your heart out for that ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... pocket—they'll no be muckle use—button yir jackets, and when the three o' us gae down the passage for ony sake follow close in behind. Just ae thing more," said Speug, who was in his glory that day. "I'll need a laddie to keep me gaein' with balls, and I want a laddie that has some spunk, for he'll hae a rough time." Below thirty of the junior school were waiting and looking at Speug like dogs for a biscuit. He threw his eye over the group, any one of which would have given his best knife and all his marbles, and ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... a spunk o' Allan's glee, Or Fergusson's the bauld an' slee, Or bright Lapraik's, my friend to be, If I can hit it! That would be lear eneugh for me, If I could ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... kens nae mair nor a guano-bag. There's nocht in him but what the spoon pits intil him. He hasna the spunk o' a rabbit. I tell ye what, we need a man o' wecht in oor kirk. Come up oot o' there, boy; ye're lickin' that sugar again! Na, he'll ken wha he's preachin' till, when he stands up afore me. My e'e wull be on him nicht and day. Hae ye no thae bags made yet? Gin they're no' dune ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... strong, All our Scriptur' an' law, every the'ry an' fac', Wuz Quaker-guns daubed with Pro-slavery black. Why, ef the Republicans ever should git Andy Johnson or some one to lend 'em the wit An' the spunk jes' to mount Constitootion an' Court With Columbiad guns, your real ekle-rights sort, Or drill out the spike from the ole Declaration Thet can kerry a solid shot clearn roun' creation, We'd better take maysures for shettin' up ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... amongst them, not knowing the Use of Steel and Flints, they got their Fire with Sticks, which by vehement Collision, or Rubbing together, take Fire. This Method they will sometimes practise now, when it has happen'd thro' rainy Weather, or some other Accident, that they have wet their Spunk, which is a sort of soft corky Substance, generally of a Cinnamon Colour, and grows in the concave part of an Oak, Hiccory, and several other Woods, being dug out with an Ax, and always kept by the Indians, instead of Tinder or Touch-wood, both which it exceeds. You are ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... good guy," Oppenheimer rapped on. "I always was suspicious of educated mugs, but he ain't been hurt none by his education. He is sure square. Got all the spunk in the world, and you could not get him to squeal or double ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... Scholarship. The future held great things for me. I was a Yank like yourself, and damn proud of it. Life in England seemed strange and slow and sometimes utterly dismal under Austerity. Then, little by little I slipped into their slower ways, growing to love the people for their spunk, and finally coming to feel I was one ...
— Each Man Kills • Victoria Glad |
