"Fib" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 at Framley than with the Harold Smiths at Chaldicotes—even ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... said Mistress Wynne; "it is not to be. I have fought your battle, and won it. But I have had to make such promises to your father, and—woe is me!—to your mother, as will damn me forever if you do not help me to keep them. I can fib to your father and not care a snap, but lie to those blue eyes ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... 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
... gifts are brought out with many a shamefaced: "It looks awful little, but 't was the best I could do for the money. You see I spent more on the children than I lotted to," and many a cheerful fib of: "Why, that's exactly what I've been wishing for." Some poor fools, that have never learned and never will learn that the truest word ever spoken is: "It is more blessed to give than to receive," make their husbands ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... don't know why 'tis, but they hate to be reminded of it, and, when we came here, papa told us never to say anything bad about the town, as if we didn't like it, for we'd get everybody down on us. We did like it, though, so we didn't have to fib. But now you're here you'd better just keep still about anything that strikes you funny, when you're off with the boys. Then you can come back and talk it over with me, when they aren't round, if you want ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... with her," said Pen, telling almost the first fib which he has told in the course ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Carmichael across the indignant dominie, "I told a fib about you this morning, but quite innocently. I said you would ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... the dwarfs tell a monstrous fib, when they pretend that Kvasir, the inventor of poetry, has been suffocated by his own wisdom. Nevertheless, the little fellows showed thereby that they were not short of intelligence; for it is almost always in their own overflow that young poets are drowned. This superabundance ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... interrupted her. "Five." It was a fib. He had paid half a guinea for the few flowers, but he could not ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... 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 stronger semi-occasionally, if ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 22, August 27, 1870 • Various
... will be seen that Bud's little fiction in the hearing of Ben was not the proper thing, and, as it turned out, Bud was mighty sorry for his apparently innocent fib before the end of the day, or the dawning ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... 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 for breeding ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... know you want me to say 'yes'," she laughed. "I'd like to tell a white fib, to please you. But no, I am not quite surprised, for my sister wrote that you might come, and why. What a pity you had this long journey for nothing. My Kabyle maid, Mouni, has just gone to her home, far away in a little village near Michelet, in la Grande Kabylia. She is to be married ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... 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 ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... salted down to keep till sold. The kind gentleman and saint, whose 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 his ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... The Bard with many an artless fib Had in imagination fenced him, Disproved the arguments of Squib,[4] And all that Grooms[5] could ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... to neglect her own part in the ceremony in order to perform pirouettes and pigeon-wings (so to speak) before the backgammon-player of the tropics. "If Aunt Lyddy forgets, after all," said Jane, anxiously, "and does mention Florida, why, I've told a fib for nothing." Jane had informed Mrs. Rhodes that the Bateses had lost their youngest child at Jacksonville, and so could not bear the slightest mention of the South; though she knew perfectly well that the youngest child of the Bateses was a lusty youth of eighteen, ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... ludicrous, ridiculous, funny, droll. Lead, guide, conduct, escort, convoy. Lengthen, prolong, protract, extend. Lessen, decrease, diminish, reduce, abate, curtail, moderate, mitigate, palliate. Lie (noun), untruth, falsehood, falsity, fiction, fabrication, mendacity, canard, fib, story. Lie (verb), prevaricate, falsify, equivocate, quibble, shuffle, dodge, fence, fib. Likeness, resemblance, similitude, similarity, semblance, analogy. Limp, flaccid, flabby, flimsy. List, roll, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... afther 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 I got ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... fib as little as some historians, I might easily tell you who won the prizes at this shooting on Palmerstown Green. But the truth is, I don't know; my granduncle could have told me, for he had a marvellous memory, but he died, a pleasant old gentleman of four-score and upwards, when I was a small ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... 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 mountain mist to ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... practical jokes of which I was so fond, and from which even my own father was not exempt. Kind reader, indulge the garrulity of age, and allow me to recount one of these. There are a few who will remember it; for they have laughed at it for fifty years. I never knew my father to tell a fib but upon one occasion in my life. Under the circumstances, I am sure the kindly nature will, at least, allow it to be a ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... The doctor scowled now. "Then you told him a tremendous fib. I meant a deal of it. Well, he'll get his deserts yet, if he gets you, you deceiving minx. I told him one thing that was true enough, anyway"—he smiled broadly again—"I told him Mary was worth ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... see Emeline yesterday. I saw her in the parlour, and asked her to excuse Emeline, as she was a little indisposed. It is true, I had to fib a little. But that was better than a renewal of an acquaintance that ought now to cease. She seemed a little hurt, but ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... 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 ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... 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 conductor ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... 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 is the first law ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... 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 a "smarter" one than a child of hers could have aspired ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... he is more fortunate than I am, for I have never heard of him or what he is." This, I am sorry to say, was a fib, for it will be remembered that Mameena had mentioned him in the hut as one of her suitors, but among natives one must keep up one's dignity somehow. "Friend Umbezi," I went on, "I have come to bid you farewell, as I am about to ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... for inspiration (in other words for some harmless, necessary fib) I saw that Brigit and Monny had arrived on the scene. They had been pacing the deck, arm in arm; and now, arrested by Mrs. East's question, they hovered near, awaiting my answer with vague curiosity. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... herself 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 ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... 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 home with ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... them called to interview you at San Pasqual, 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 worth a million dollars. ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... a fib since last I gave him the ox-reim end to taste. Never a lump of sugar or a cookie or a plum pilfered—he would take them as bold as brass before your face if you didn't give. He said the night-prayer regularly. For the morning, Lord, Thou knowest ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Overmore hadn't been with him just as she had been before and just as she would be now. "Of course she has, old girl—where else could the poor dear be?" cried Beale Farange, to the still greater scandal of their companion, who protested that unless he straightway "took back" his nasty wicked fib it would be, this time, not only him she would leave, but his child too and his house and his tiresome trouble—all the impossible things he had succeeded in putting on her. Beale, under this frolic menace, took nothing back at all; ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... dangerous. We 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 ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... note.] The doctor scoffed at me all day yesterday with this Sweden. The public education, says he, in Sweden, and everything else there is first-class! But what is Sweden, anyway? It may be that Sweden is but a fib, is but used as an example, and that there is no education whatever or any of the other things there. And then, we don't live for the sake of Sweden, and Sweden cannot put us to test. We have to make our lip according to our ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... It is highly probable you have been corresponding with him for the last three weeks—perhaps even seeing him. I don't ask you—you needn't tell me." He had a moral conviction that she would contrive to tell a fib about the matter, which it would disgust him to listen to. "Whatever you have done, stop doing it. That's ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... This fib had the effect of making Antonio think that his son should go to Milan and enjoy the favors in which Valentine basked. "You must go to-morrow," he decreed. Proteus was dismayed. "Give me time to get my outfit ready." He was met with the promise, "What you need shall ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... obvious and absurd untruth in the face of the correspondence, as to the reason of her coming to Kleinwalde. She had said she had only come at the instigation of her son, who looked upon Anna as a deserving object of help. And Anna had been hurt, had been made miserable, by the paltriness of this fib. Her great desire was to reach her friends' souls quickly, to attain the beautiful intimacy in which the smallest fiction is unnecessary; and so little did Frau von Treumann understand her, that she had begun a friendship that was to be for life ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... 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 ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... Avendano tell this fib that the landlord was quite taken in by it. "Very well, friend," said he, "you may stop here ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... 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 ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... sweetmeats, of which he begged my Excellency to accept, and a little figure of a doll dressed in the costume of Lebanon. Then the punishment of imposture began to be felt severely by me. How to accept the poor devil's sweetmeats? How to refuse them? And as we know that one fib leads to another, so I was obliged to support the first falsehood by another; and putting on a dignified air—"Cogia Hassan," says I, "I am surprised you don't know the habits of the British Court better, and are not aware that our gracious master solemnly forbids his servants ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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
... them; the prettiest little dears one ever saw. The eldest is just about thirteen." This was a fib, because Mrs. Carroll knew that the eldest boy was sixteen; but what did it signify? "Amelia is ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... conscientious," said Priscilla in the stately, it-has-nothing-to-do-with-you sort of tone she found most effectual with the Countess; but she added a request under her breath that the lieber Gott might forgive her, for she knew she had told a fib. ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... 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
... to beautiful. Laura's intention had been to shield 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 ...
— The Getting of Wisdom • Henry Handel Richardson
... You ought to have said that I sang better than I danced, and the fib would have pleased me immensely; we women like to hear ourselves praised for accomplishments we don't possess. No, my dear, rule art out of the cast and substitute advertisement. Did you notice a dowdy creature who was lunching ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... being compelled to accept this fib, departed. After which the bell rang again. The usher then assumed his most gracious expression of face. By natural affinity, the lucky ones had gathered in a group at one end of the room. Though they had never seen one another before, most of them being the offspring of the late national lying-in, ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... years, 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 years, and, without further ceremony, flung him ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... 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 on the lips of the untaught" is not on the lips of those who "know better" ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... proud of fine clothes; let not their heads run upon their playthings when they should mind their books; said grace before they eat, their prayers before they went to bed, and as soon as they rose; were always clean and neat; would not tell a fib for the world, and were above doing any thing that required one; that God blessed them more and more, and blessed their papa and mamma, and their uncles and aunts, and cousins, for their sakes. "And there was a happy family, my dear loves!-No one idle; all prettily employed; the Masters ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... "I thought one more fib among so many couldn't matter, so I said you were. Heaven forgive me. By-the-by, are you really Dutch, or is that ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... the elders are yawning And rafters grow pale overhead With the day, there shall come with its dawning Some thought of that sentence unsaid. Be it this, be it that—'I forget,' or 'Was joking'—whatever the fem- -inine fib, you'll have made me your debtor And ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the common mind, or common practices, beyond a question, but it now means what is common as opposed to what is cultivated and refined. It is an absurdity, too, to make a thing respectable because it is common. A fib is one of the commonest things in the world, and ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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
... be careful to do the same for your family—a true Provencal version of the Harlowe family. Felipe does not know why I left, and he will never know. If he asks, I shall contrive to find some colorable pretext, probably that you were jealous of me! Forgive me this little conventional fib. ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... codex contained the ten decades of Titus Livy, and that he had read 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 which coin can be made to such ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... believe you are the young woman who this afternoon told me that Mr. Leaf was out. It was a fib, of course." ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... a fib on the part of the archdeacon, for Mrs. Grantly has a very nice school. To be sure it is not a Sunday-school exclusively, and is not so designated, but that exemplary lady always attends there for an hour before church, and hears the children say their ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... rather not have said that he was going to Bolton Street that evening, but he could find no alternative. "I believe I shall see her this evening," he said, simply venturing to mitigate the evil of making the communication by rendering it falsely doubtful. There are men who fib with so bad a grace and with so little tact that they might as well not fib at all. They not only never arrive at success, but never ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... believe you eveh done it at all. You neveh so much as told a fib in yo' life. You jest imagine ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... 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.
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... on board) preening herself in clothes which would have made the Queen of Sheba "look like thirty cents," I was weak enough to breathe the desired words of admiration. "Gorgeous" was, I think, my adjective; and it was no fib. ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... told ye a fib the day ye fust come. I did have a dinner, though it war a terrible measly one—Mrs. ...
— Gypsy Breynton • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... to whom we owe so much, will be most welcome to the half of any movables of mine that he can recover from the Abbot Maldon," and she paused, for the fib stuck in her throat. Moreover, she knew herself to be the colour ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... "It was no fib at all." And as her eyes widened, "You merely said that we hadn't been married yet. We haven't ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... "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
... weather—oh, it is so hot and glaring here! Chrissy and I cannot imagine how you can ride and play tennis in such heat; but perhaps it is cooler in the country. Now, remember, I mean what I say, and that I don't want you one bit. At least that is a fib in one way, because I always want my Betty; but I am quite happy to think you are enjoying yourself, and cheering up that poor girl—she must be very miserable. Write to me soon again. I do love your letters. I always keep them under my pillow and read them ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... "You fib in a good cause, but you cannot deceive me; I read your thoughts, but I am very forgiving, and I am resolved that we shall have a pleasant ride to the hotel together. Now, entertain me, tell me about that war, of which you ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... 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
... pulpit we accede to you; but out here, on the heath, surely 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
... me?.. Why, that was a galejade a fib... Among us Taras-conese you ought surely ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... 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 how ...
— Letters of a Dakota Divorcee • Jane Burr
... years, and has, as they pretend, the names of the 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
... Cardoville with a mixture of sympathy and deference. "Why should I keep it from you? I began by riding the high horse, and saying that the prince wished to marry me; and I finished by confessing that he almost turned me out. Well, it's not my fault; when I try to fib, I am sure to get confused. So, madame, this is the plain truth:—When I met you at poor Mother Bunch's, I was at first as angry as a little turkey-cock; but when I heard you, that are such a fine great lady, speak so kindly to the poor girl, and treat her as your sister, do what I would, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... perfidy &c (bad 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
... Carrie told the principal she had a headache, and I asked if I could go home with her and read her the assignments for next day (they called the lessons 'assignments' there), and they thought I was such a meek little country mouse that I wouldn't ever fib, and so they let us go, and what do you think we did? She had tickets for 'The Two Orphans' at the stock company. (You've never seen 'The Two Orphans,' have you? It's perfectly splendid. I used to weep my eyes out over it.) And afterward we went and waited outside, right near the stage entrance, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... "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 ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... would talk and say afterwards that they knew it all along. She saw that she must still make engagements which did not include her betrothed; she must meet the archnesses of her little world with blank looks above the music in her heart, with many evasions, and even, perhaps, a harmless fib or two. Nevertheless, the lovers secured many hours all to themselves. Shut from public view in Mr. Heth's study, and more especially in long motor rides down unfrequented by-lanes they were deep in the absorptions of exploring each other, of revealing themselves each to each. And to Carlisle ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... 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 ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... could not have told what he said. Her mind was entirely full of what she had to say. Somehow she stammered out the story: how she had been afraid to go to Nancy Gookin's, and how she had lost the sixpence her uncle had given her, and how Martha had said she told a fib. Patience trembled and gasped out the words, and curtesied, once in a while, when the Squire ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... a nuisance, on our last day! But I forgot, I asked her to come. If she stays very long, just tell a little fib, won't you, and say ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... my teeth with impotent anger; for it seemed such hard lines, just when I had succeeded in getting into favor, to go and spoil it all in that unhappy way. Now that I had become acquainted with their style of singing, the supposed fib, about which there had been such a pother, seemed a very venial offense compared with my attempt to lead the singing. Nevertheless, when the concert was over, not a word was said on the subject by any one, though I had quite expected to be taken at once to the ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... "I'll trouble you for two dollars for smokin' agin law, in the streets." Sassy was as quick as wink on him. "Smokin'!" says he; "I warn't a smokin'." "O, my!" says constable, "how you talk, man! I won't say you lie, 'cause it aint polite, but it's very like the way I talk when I fib. Didn't I see you with my own eyes?" "No," says Sassy, "you didn't. It don't do always to believe your own eyes, they can't be depended on more than other people's. I never trust mine, I can assure you. I own I had a cigar in my mouth, but it was because I ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... she wailed, half laughing, half crying; "that wretched little fib-teller of a clock of yours spoiled ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... I am. I'm going to tell you that,—that in writing to you the other day I wrote a fib. But it wasn't that I wished to deceive you;—only I couldn't say ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... hands 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 says ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... out loud, 'Lluella, that is your pencil and you know it!' And I had to say—right off, 'It isn't, and I didn't!' Now, what could I have said else? But it was an awful fib, ...
— Ruth Fielding on Cliff Island - The Old Hunter's Treasure Box • Alice Emerson
... will—that you are glad to see somebody, you mean that all the best part of you is glad—the kind, generous part that likes to give pleasure, not the selfish lower part that only thinks of its own convenience. So you are not really telling a fib, but being true to your nobler self. A great deal of what people call 'plain speaking' is simply giving rein to their most uncharitable thoughts. As a rule, I say Heaven defend me from those ultra-truthful souls who enjoy 'speaking ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... We shouldn't any of us have to fib. I always said Cristobal is the luckiest saint to have for a patron. See how he's offering his help to you. And oh, did you know he's the patron saint of automobilists? To-morrow I'll give you a Cristobal medal to nail on your ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... transparent fib was an infectious peal of laughter, and a kiss which amply repaid Teague for any discomfort to which ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... tattered black silk capuchin; and I knew not which to admire most, their folly or their impudence; for surely never did an adventurer set out with less capabilities about him; his whole story was so flagrant a fib, that in spite of the very respectable certificates of My Lord Mayor, John Wilkes, and Mr. Alderman Bull, I was obliged to tell him plainly, that I did not believe him to be a gentleman, nor his wife to be a relation of the Prince of Monaco. All this he took in ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume II (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... stately courtesy for the benefit of 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 low bow, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... that a corporal's stripe, given as a reward and an incentive, would be to me a talisman. I decided that I'd keep it in a place where I could rush to look at it whenever I needed encouragement to go on being a soldier. If I wanted to sneak myself out of trouble with a fib, or be snappish to Father or cattish to Di, or say "damn," or bang a door in a rage, it seemed to me that I should only have to think of that little triangle of black cloth and gilt braid to be suddenly as good as gold, all the way ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Gedeonovsky does not come?" observed Marfa Timofyevna, moving her knitting needles quickly. (She was knitting a large woolen scarf.) "He would have sighed with you—or at least he'd have had some fib ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... in a bumper! "Old" Ponny—a fib; What's fifty? A baby. Bring tucker and bib. Add twenty; then ask us again, little boy, And till then may your life ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... maliciously. "Think it 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. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... wanted, sir," said Winter. "There may be nothing in it, but I was curious to know why Hilton Fenley took the trouble to fib about such a trivial matter. His brother, too, is behaving in a way that invites criticism. I don't imagine that either of the sons shot his father—most certainly, Hilton Fenley could not have done it, and Robert, I think, was in ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... 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, almost a man and ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... hardly looked into all that as yet, aunt." There must surely have been a little fib in this, or the Dean's daughter must have been very much unlike ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... statue or 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: credat ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... 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
... petition is only for a modest prevarication—the cultivation of a reasonable misapprehension to attain a justifiable end. Consider the position analogous to that of one of Her Majesty's Ministers catechized by an impertinent demagogue. No fibs, you know—only what a truthful person tells instead of a fib! For ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... proposed arrangement, saying that we could walk, which was a fib, for I do not think that I could have done a mile; but Stella would not listen, she would not even let me carry my elephant gun, but took it herself. So we mounted with some difficulty, and Hendrika took up the sleeping Tota in her long, ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... 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 ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... Harvester. "You are yet too close Heaven to fib like that, Ruth. What have I done to indicate that I don't love you more ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... was I caught by a sudden cough on my part, which brought Aunt Polly to her feet before I had time to slip back to bed; and the only plea that my guiltiness could make her kind remonstrance on my being up in the cold, was the very natural and very wicked fib, that I heard her move and thought she might want something. Unsuspecting old lady! May her ashes at least rest in peace! How she caught me in her arms, kissed and carried me to bed, tucking in the blankets so effectually that all attempts to get up again ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... quarrel, his hearty friend and boon-companion, 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 first folio ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 449 - Volume 18, New Series, August 7, 1852 • 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, ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... all her nonsense, I believe she's honest. Besides, what interest could she have to be otherwise? To be sure, she didn't give me the true reason for the incognito; but that's nothing; she's just the woman to tell a useless fib, and reserve the truth for important occasions only—or what she ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... "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 stop work if ...
— The Great K. & A. Robbery • Paul Liechester Ford
... 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 ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... 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 in his ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... and half inclined to make that ordinary feminine fib, a headache, a plea for not making one of the party. I do not know what I might have said; I dare say something I should have been sorry for, because I felt strangely perverse ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... 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 ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... 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 ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... That last fib was truly sublime, and the name of Cassabianca pales before that of one who obeyed fraternal commands to the letter, and tried to love his duty, heavy as it was. If, as has been sometimes predicted, England had gone under just then, it might ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... whop him fo' tellin' a fib 'bout dey ain' no ghosts whin yiver'body know' dey is ghosts; but de school-teacher, whut board at Unc' Silas Diggs's house, she tek' note de hair ob li'l' black Mose's head am plumb white, an' she ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... Olive. Neither five nor fifteen, and yet not ten exactly, but either nine or eleven. She didn't tell me to say she was glad to see you, because she doesn't know whether she is or not, and she wouldn't for the world expose herself to telling a fib. She is very honest, is Olive Chancellor; she is full of rectitude. Nobody tells fibs in Boston; I don't know what to make of them all. Well, I am very glad to ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... "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 sometimes necessary ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... a pretty word," said Rhoda, pursing her lips. "Say a fib, next time.—Nonsense! Not a bit of it, Phoebe. We had been upstairs since ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... 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, ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... for me to say," replied Cordelia, in a slightly worried voice. "You've got all the pretty things used up. I should just have to say I think she's fat and homely—and I don't think I ought to say that, for it would be a downright fib. I don't think she's ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... within an inch of his young life. And the fact that David maintained tenaciously that he had never swerved from the slow monowheel lane didn't bother his parents a bit. They were acquainted with another small-boy frailty. Small boys, on occasion, are inclined to fib. ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... tease you," said John, who understood at once and who was willing to fib in a good cause. "I saw her watching through a window a fine big fellow, exactly your size, age and appearance, and with the same name. I said something about his being a hulking hostler and she turned upon me like ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... invite him 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 interests of ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... will subsequently 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 plenary dispensation from ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... she wants to go," Rose continued, uttering the biggest fib of her life and only regretting it should be wasted ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... stand up and fib each other about (saying nothing of the practice), why let them do it; or if two dogs worry each other to death for a bone, or two cocks meet and contend for the sovereignty of a dunghill. In these last two cases the appearance of cruelty is out of the question, and how much ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 484 - Vol. 17, No. 484, Saturday, April 9, 1831 • Various
... by leading up to the subject, because I thought her fib so flagrant and unnecessary; accordingly, we talked over a multitude of things,—Phoebe and Jem and their hard-hearted parents, our visit to Cardiff and Ilfracombe, Bill Marks and his wife, the service at the ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... 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
... 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 to tell ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... his pistol to our luncheon menu. Do, do save us from the Casino pet, dear Miss Grant. I've been holding an awful aunt of George's over the young man's head, saying she may arrive at any minute. But you know how things you fib about do have a way of happening, as a punishment, and I feel she may drop down on us if the room ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... this very small discovery, sliding over it some quite trivial remark; and presently Mrs. Carkeek regained her composure. But I own I felt disappointed in her. It seemed such a paltry thing to be disingenuous over. She had deliberately acted a fib before me; and why? Merely because she preferred the kitchen to the pantry tap. It was childish. 'But servants are all the same,' I told myself. 'I must take Mrs. Carkeek as she is; and, after all, she ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch |
