"Spunk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... herself from her sister's arms and left the cell. Ratcliffe followed her, so impressed was he by her "spunk," he advised her as to her proceedings, to find a friend to speak for her to the king—the Duke of Argyle, if possible—and wrote her a line or two on a dirty piece of paper, which would be useful if she fell among thieves. Jeannie then hastened ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... never been crazy about thoroughbreds it's because you've never been around where they are much and don't know any better. They're beautiful. There isn't anything so lovely and clean and full of spunk and honest and everything as some race horses. On the big horse farms that are all around our town Beckersville there are tracks and the horses run in the early morning. More than a thousand times I've got out of bed before daylight and walked two or three miles to the ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... 'bout a boy bein' civil. You don't often find one, out West here, and when you do it's mostly accident; mebbe inherited. 'Course you c'n train a boy t' be p'lite, but you got t' be careful, like in trainin' any other animal, an' not take th' spunk outa him. Most folks thinks that when a boy's civil he ain't got nothin' else t' recommend him, but 'tain't allus so. Now, ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart
... the making of these Bodies, and several Histories out of Authors. Scarce any other Body hath such a texture; the fibrous texture of Leather, Spunk, &c. (which are there describ'd) come nearest to it That upon tryal with a piece of Spunge and Oyl the necessity of respiration could not ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... laugh. "Got spunk, ain't you? Now you git down and come along with me, Pete. No use you riding back to the mesa to-night. Your dad ain't there. You can't find ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... you done it when you did," pursued Tracey, oblivious to Nat in his own ecstatic temper. "I guess I wouldn't never 've got up the spunk to—to tell Angie what I did to-night, 'f it hadn't been we was talkin' 'bout your engagement to Josie. Then, somehow, it just seemed to bust right out of me, like I couldn't hold it no ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... Mr. Dale,' sez I. 'It takes a heap of spunk, I reckon, to go to them furren fields, but I kalkerlate it often takes jist as much to stay to hum, feed pigs, hens, an' look after a hull batch of children. I've hearn men preach about sacryfice in big churches, but I generally find that, when a poor country parish gits vacant, they don't ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... not the kind of man that's satisfied to go on working all his life for only just enough to keep body and soul together. That's all right maybe for pikers—poor devils that have no spunk—but not for 'yours truly.' I'm a pusher, a climber, I am, and, what's more, I'm a man with ideas. No one can keep me down in the world. One of these days I'll be driving my own automobile and Fanny will be riding in it with me. It's no ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow
... could of dreened theirn too, only they'd ruther hunt ducks and 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 ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... "She's got spunk in her, ha'n't she, that little one?" said the miller. "She's a likely lookin' little gal, too. But I never seen any one so ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... Journal. He was celebrated for his descriptions of scenery, and was not the only member of the club whose essays got into print. More memorable perhaps was an itinerant match-seller known to Thrums and the surrounding towns as the literary spunk-seller. He was a wizened, shivering old man, often barefooted, wearing at the best a thin, ragged coat that had been black but was green-brown with age, and he made his spunks as well as sold them. He brought Bacon ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... all in. That lad's got grit and pluck, and I'm almost sorry I had to do him up. But I had to. We simply must get the information about that mine, and this was the only plan I thought would work. But he sure has grit and spunk to ride on with that dose ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... off if I could, 'til we were fixed and quiet again. But at that, their chance isn't so grand. This isn't worrying Lily any. She saw all of it happen, she knows what's going on. What I want, dearest lady, is for you to get on the job, and spunk up to them, just like you did about Junior going away. I didn't think you'd get through with that, and I know Peter didn't; but you did, fine! Now if you and Peter would have a little private understanding and ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... my mind I'd got spunk enough, and I'd go right over there and tell Simon Basset I wanted my rope. So I took off my apron and clapped it over my shoulders—I've had a little rheumatism lately, and the wind's kind of cold to-day—and I ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the doings of the strange morning visitor. They saw that she was moving about as if she were intent upon domestic work; and, by-and-by, there she was busy with coals and sticks brought from their respective places, putting on the fire, which she lighted with the indispensable spunk applied to the spark in the tinder-box. Next she undertook the sweeping of the floor, saying to herself—and they heard the words—"It looks as if it hadna been swept for seven years." Next she washed the dishes, which had been left ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... surrounding influences, 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 ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... a thought that I was gittin' on better'n I really am," replied Hiram, with a crestfallen look. "Now, Mandy, don't get mad, I didn't mean nothin', I was only foolin' and you began it fust, by throwin' that dirty water in my face, and no feller that had any spunk could stand that." As he said this, a broad smile covered his face. "Say, Mandy," he continued, "here comes Obadiah Strout, we'd better make up before he gits in or it'll be all over town that you and me have been ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... Porky. "I knew you had the spunk. We will be in it somehow ruther, if they don't stick ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... be cuffed a time or two; I know her. Look here, Elv, you've simply got to let me fix you a pompadour and have your seams made straight. You'd have a presence to eclipse us all if you'd spunk up to your dressmaker and not let her put off crooked gores on you. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... of the Christmas holidays when Jane had proposed for Billy. He certainly had not broken his heart over his rejection. Anne wondered if Jane had also proposed to Nettie for him, or if he had mustered enough spunk to ask the fateful question himself. All the Andrews family seemed to share in his pride and pleasure, from Mrs. Harmon in the pew to Jane in the choir. Jane had resigned from the Avonlea school and intended to ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... him stay down, confound him,' says the parson; for, ye see, parsons is men, like the rest on us, and the doctor had got his spunk up. ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... off the water cart— It was a peacherino of a drunk; I put the cocktail market on the punk And tore up all the sidewalks from the start. The package that I carried was a tart That beat Vesuvius out for sizz and spunk, And when they put me in my little bunk You couldn't tell my ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... 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
... luncheon from across the aisle, insisted that dinner was to be not only with but "on" him, but I only consented on the "with" plan, and paid my own little check and tip. He said I was a darned independent little piece but he liked my spunk! He asked me where I was bound and I said—sighing a little for good measure, Emma—that I was going to Chicago to earn my living. Now in I or The Narrow Path he would at once have given me his card and offered to "fix me up with something at the office," but the Buffalo merely ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... There is no use in suffering, unless you cannot help it; and a good, stout, resolute protest would often be a great deal more wise, and Christian, and beneficial on all sides, than so much patient endurance. A little spirit and "spunk" would go a great way towards setting the world right. It is not necessary to be a termagant. The firmest will and the stoutest heart may be combined with the gentlest delicacy. Tameness is not the stuff that the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... used to say, "I don't git up enough spunk to cut a heifer out o' the herd until somebody else has roped her and slapped his brand onto her. Talk about too many irons in the fire, why, I've only got one, and it's het up red all the time waitin' fer the right chanct to use it; ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... they look like trouble," his host advised. "They've plenty of spunk, but I can tell you they make tracks for their holes if they hear one of those ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "I must spunk up a little," he said, "for I want to use this net," but in spite of his resolve, he was soon watching, as before, for the ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... him stay down, confound him,' says the Parson, for you see, parsons is men, like the rest on us, and the Doctor had got his spunk up. ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... Danusia grasped him by his shoulders, but being unable to hold him, began to cry for help. The huntsmen rubbed him with snow and poured wine in his mouth; finally the head huntsman, Mrokota of Mocarzew ordered them to put him on a mantle and to stop the blood with soft spunk ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Having floored, by good luck, the first swell of the age, Having conquered the prime one, that milled us all round, You kickt him, old BEN, as he gaspt on the ground! Ay—just at the time to show spunk, if you'd got any— Kickt him and jawed him and lagged[6] him to Botany! Oh, shade of the Cheesemonger![7] you, who, alas! Doubled up by the dozen those Moun-seers in brass, On that great day of milling, when blood lay in lakes, When Kings held the bottle, and Europe the stakes, Look down ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... spunk up an' go, if you don't feel like it," said her mother. "You'll feel better for it afterwards. There ain't no use in givin' up so. I'm goin' to get you a new crimson woollen dress, an' I'm goin' to have you go out more'n ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... 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 ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero |
