"Grouch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sit up and get breakfast!" declared Tommy. "Sandy's got a grouch on, and there's nothing on earth so good for a grouch as a slice ...
— Boy Scouts in Northern Wilds • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... she could go to sleep and forget them both, and the trains and the cars and the man in the park and Miss Stein, who still had against her a "grouch." If only she could forget even big, blundering Ursus, who wanted to treat her to oyster stews that he couldn't afford and take her to a dance hall next Sunday! And Sadie, too, who knew such strange and awful things about the world and life, ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... for the standing broad grin. There isn't a minute of the day that fails to find him glad that he's alive. Nobody ever saw him with a "grouch," or suffering from an attack of the "blues." Nobody ever heard him mention "hard luck" in connection with one of his failures. The worse the breaks of the game, the gloomier the outlook, the wider his grin. He has made ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... mellow his own discomfiture at Maria Theresa's coldness with numerous visits to the grill. The result was a morning "grouch," an afternoon headache, and a twilight bitterness which kept him permanently ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... first-rate. And she got rid of the skirt, too. Those black tights show off her legs very well. She keeps her feet together like I told her, and makes a good line along the back. See the light on those silver slippers,—that was a good idea I had. Come along to meet her. Don't be a grouch; she's done it fine!" ...
— Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... any more than you have to," advised one of the uniformed rookies, coming over to them after a few moments. "Shrimp is a terror and a grouch all the time. Sergeant Brimmer you'll find a real old soldier, and a gentleman all ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... is seen completely shrouded in his blanket, standing or sitting a little apart from the camp, he either has a grouch or he is praying. In either case it is not good manners to ...
— The Arrow-Maker - A Drama in Three Acts • Mary Austin
... pull off a deal like that is not worthy of the confidence of one of our sex. But, understand, I am not by any means damning the whole male sex, for I have met gentlemen who threw the lid of their grouch bag in the gutter and didn't care if they ever found it again. Those is the kind of parties that has my trust. Me grub, and I got money in the bank? Sure I do. I got to keep in training somehow, so if I did lose my inheritance I wouldn't be ...
— The Sorrows of a Show Girl • Kenneth McGaffey
... inside out. You overwork and shirk exercise, and let your temper run away with you, and smoke strong cigars on an empty stomach; and when you get indigestion as a natural result you look on yourself as a martyr, nourish a perpetual grouch, and make the lives of everybody you meet miserable. If you would put yourself into my hands for a month I would have you eating bricks and thriving on them. Up in the morning, Larsen Exercises, cold bath, a brisk rubdown, ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... would have remained to show what a hard pull we had yesterday, excepting the unpleasant feeling that I made rather a donkey of myself last evening. My only excuse, and a mighty poor one, is that I was rather played out and developed a silly grouch. ...
— Sweetapple Cove • George van Schaick
... results; and, anyway, it would be impossible to generalize to the extent of asserting that slow heart beat always gave a pleasant state of feeling, and rapid heart beat an unpleasant; for there is slow heart beat during a "morning grouch", and rapid during joyful expectation. Or, in regard to breathing, try this experiment: hasten your breathing and see whether a feeling of pleasantness results; slacken it and see whether unpleasantness results. The fact is that pleasantness can ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... head, found his self-esteem for him, and handed it over in its pristine vigor. Before he had sat half an hour at the merry table, he could look back at his profound depression of the morning with smiling wonder. Where in the world had he gotten his terrible grouch? Not a thing in the world had happened, except that the mayoralty was not going to be handed to him on a large silver platter. Was that such a fearful loss after all? On the contrary, was it not rather a good riddance? Being Mayor, ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... the slender figure of the girl passing among the huge fishermen who towered like giants above her. Radiating energy wherever she went, criticizing some, commending others and joking away the early-morning grouch, she directed the movements of the constantly increasing stream of men who thronged the dock and despatched the boats one by one ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... anywheres," he reflected. "This here's a swell head with a grouch. I reckon he ain't a serious friend of hers, or she wouldn't have stood for me rescuin' her when he offered himself that generous." The recollection convulsed him, and he bowed his head over the pony's neck to hide the laugh. When he looked ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... that life on the farm was "too slow, too lonely, and no fun." In country neighborhoods family life means more than it does in the city. The members of a family are at each other's mercy; and so, if the "father" always has a grouch, and the "mother" is worried, and tired, and cross, small wonder that the children try to get away. In the city there is always the "movie" to go to, and congenial companionship down the street, and so we mourn the depopulation of ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... card on his desk that says, "Do it Now," and so he lays down his book with a patient sigh, and comes back to it with a patent grouch. ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... I've hated it for thirty-two years. I'll die here—and I'll hate it till I die. I ought to have been a business woman. I had a good deal of talent for tending to figures. All gone now. Some folks think I'm crazy. Guess I am. Sit and grouch. Go to church and sing hymns. Folks think I'm religious. Tut! Trying to forget washing and ironing and mending socks. Want an office of my own, and sell things. Julius never hear ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... only hazarding a guess, but that guess is that my client can afford the gamble and is figuring on giving Pennington a pain where he never knew it to ache him before. In plain English, I believe the Colonel is in for a razooing at the hands of somebody with a small grouch ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... is peevish, and I'm out of tune; The Capting's a grouch whenever we hike; If we don't get into this muss pretty soon, We fellers are likely to go on a strike! We signed for a scrap, not a tea or a nap, Or to wait, And to wait, And to wait— Till ...
— With the Colors - Songs of the American Service • Everard Jack Appleton
... to Snow Camp, catching up with Isadore before he got there with his grouch, and Tom and Bob fell upon the grouch and dumped it into another snowbank—boy and all—and managed in the scuffle to bring Busy Izzy into a ...
— Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp • Alice Emerson
... usual family gathering, it sets the pace for the twenty-four hours. A cheerful start in the morning may give an optimistic momentum for all-day hill-climbing; or, one may slip dejectedly down hill if leaden-weighted with a "morning grouch" (one's own, or somebody else's). Even fellow "boarders" might reflect on this, with profit. Preoccupied with our own affairs, we forget to be mutually considerate. We habitually wake to rush and worry, taking social recreation chiefly ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... was hungry, but not for bacon. Alas! Our hunger was the healthier one! We talked of New York. "Mother's in Paris," he volunteered, "and Dad's in New York meeting her bills. But the Old Man's got a grouch at me, and so he sent me 'way out here in this God-forsaken country! Say, what did they make this country for? Got any tailor-made cigarettes about you? How did Broadway look when you were there last? Lights all there yet at night? I've been here two years—it seems ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... little greenish-grey eyes, and their stare was uninviting as he fixed them on his quondam partner. "If you want to grouch, go ahead and grouch! We've been pretty good friends for a pretty good number of years, but I ain't a fool. Sure, it's mine now! I didn't ask you to employ Grenville, did I? I was satisfied to take any old piece of paper ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... I gets it from the Boss was like this: Her father, the old brigand pantanta, couldn't get over the way we'd bansheed his bunch of third rate kidnappers with our tin armor play. He accumulated a sort of ingrowin' grouch and soured on the whole push because they wouldn't turn state's evidence as to who had given us ...
— Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... it. You ought to thank the old grouch for calling you up. He put two secret service men on the train with Flynn? Just like Hite. You'll have to admit that it takes a newspaper man ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... I hope some woman puts the hook into you some day. Where did you pick up the grouch? Some of your dusky ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... the train all that he had anticipated, and then some; but being one of that fortunate cult who arise happily, sing in bathrooms to the annoyance of neighbors who waken with a grouch, enjoy breakfast, and tackle each day as if it were certain to be filled with sunshine, soon found the position entertaining. Although he knew nothing at all about the subject, he even indulged in a learned discussion on cattle with his seat mate, and held his own until he suggested ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... her granddaughter on walks, and to cafes and theatres, on the hunt and capture of the kid, as it was put by the travelling salesman who suffered from his stomach,—a fellow half humorist and half grouch. When they were in the house Celia and Irene, the daughter and the granddaughter of Dona Violante, kept bickering at all hours; perhaps this continuous state of irritation derived from the close quarters in which they lived; perhaps so much passing ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... not reply, and he set his elbows on his knees and proceeded to nurse his private grouch in silence, quite excluding his companion from his thoughts. Now that he had been snatched so summarily from his hateful position on board the Olenia, his desire to leave her was not so keen. After ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... seem such a grouch, but I don't like your grade of paper either. And why not enlarge the magazine to about 11" x 9" by 1/2", and charge 25 cents for your thoroughly good magazine, apart from the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... day the same, Only a little worse; No one to grouch or blame— Oh, for a loving curse! Oh, in the night I fear, Haunted by nameless things, Just for a voice to cheer, Just for ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... lemoned him," declared Biff. "Any time a guy's making plenty of money and got good health and ain't married, and goes around with an all-day grouch, you can play it for a one to a hundred favorite that his entry's been scratched in the ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... idea, that no wild animal should be made to work on the stage or in the show-ring, as illogical and absurd. Human beings who sanely work are much happier per capita than those who do nothing but loaf and grouch. I have worked, horse-hard, throughout all the adult years of my life; and it has been good for me. I know that it is no more wrong or wicked for a horse to work for his living,—of course on a humane basis,—either on the stage or on the street, than it is ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... carefully on my kitchen table, as on any part of the house. If I find later that the winning plans include these things I shall believe that Henry Anderson is a mind reader, or that lost plans naturally gravitate to him. But there is no use to grouch further. I seem to be born a loser. Anyway, I haven't lost you and I still ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... "'E's got a grouch on 'cos you're late!" called out the head of the line. "No doin' nothin' when 'e's got ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... who had watched the price of porterhouse steak climb the ladder of fame, was deep in the throes of an unusually bad grouch when a would-be customer, eight years old, approached him and handed ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... grouch, if we didn't have this dry bed to skip along, we would be bucking the greasewood and cactus on the mesa above. So we get some favors coming ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan |
