"Grouch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is part and parcel of the Thoracic's makeup. But did you ever see a fiery-natured man who didn't have lots of warm friends! It is the grouch—in whom the fire starts slowly and smoulders indefinitely—that nobody likes. But the man who flares up, flames for a moment and is calm the next never ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... Tony were inclined to score Phil's folly in making a hermit of himself. His sisters attacked him that very night on the subject of Sue Emerson's dance and accused him of being a "Grumpy Grandpa" and a grouch and various other uncomplimentary things when he announced that he wasn't going to ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... "Well, parson, what's the grouch? Are you the devil or an angel sent to bring retribution?" He ended with a silly laugh that told the experienced ear of the young lawyer that the young man had been drinking heavily. And this was the man whose name was signed as Rev. Theodore ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... that the ton rate had been jumped a couple of cents. And now it had been almost doubled. No wonder he wanted a confab with Marcus T. on the subject. And, from where I stood, it looked like he ought to have it, grouch or no grouch. ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... should have so suddenly determined to ingratiate myself with the old grouch I scarcely understood: for the construction of a salad was my very ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... in his rapid, easy fashion that he was out for the whole open season. That he'd practically had to kidnap Bill from his beloved Leaping Horse. That his old friend was just recovering from his consequent grouch, and, anyway, folks mustn't expect anything more than common civility from him as yet. He said that he hoped to make Fort Wrigley on the Mackenzie River some time in the summer, and maybe even Fort Simpson. But that would be the limit. By that time, ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... 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? ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... said, when I met him out again in it, a week later. "It was gummed up, so to speak; but it's working like a charm to-day. Get in and I'll take you a few miles. That other fellow got an awful grouch." ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... Watching practice had brought back the smart, and being liked or disliked seemed a little thing beside the bigger trouble. Still, he thought, if Roy was right perhaps he had better meet fellows half-way. There was no use in being a grouch. As a starter and in order to test the accuracy of Roy's statement, he decided that he would drop in on Carl Bennett, who roomed in Number 3. Bennett was a chap he rather respected and, while they had never been very close friends, Tom had ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... it is for a man in a large and wicked city to keep from soda when once he has got the habit. Everything was against me. The old convivial circle began to shun me. I could not join in their revels and they began to look on me as a grouch. In the end, I fell, and in one wild orgy undid all the good of a month's abstinence. I was desperate then. I felt that nothing could save me, and I might as well give up the struggle. I drank two pin-ap-o-lades, ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Al you remember me writeing to you about the little runt that throwed that guy's trombone away, well his name is Lahey but we call him Shorty on acct. of him being so short. Well I hadn't payed much attention to this here Sebastian because he has always got a grouch and don't say nothing only to mumble at the officers when they ask him some question but Shorty knows him and last night he told me all about him and he has been pinched 50 times for stabbing people but he has got some pull or ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner
... play for any Carnegie medal thereby. I knew Oliver Sickles, and even better did I know his kind, who only go to battle when certain victory lies before them. The only chance I was taking was with my firm's interests. It might be that he'd have such a grouch against me that he'd carry no more coal for my firm than ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... in a grouch, Mart. For Heaven's sake, cheer up!" Wallace, rumpling and kissing his daughter, would give ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... expect a class to be full of activity and responsiveness under an influence of unnatural solemnity. Lincoln is quoted as having declared, "You can catch more flies with a drop of honey than with a gallon of vinegar"—a homely expression, but full of suggestion. A grouch is ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... 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 ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Tugg, after supper, as we sat on the broad step before Maria Debora's door, and he smoked the native cheroots while I listened. "He ain't been in a civilized town like this since I've knowed him. For a l'arned chap, and a New Englander, he seems to have lost all curiosity, and, I reckon, he's got a grouch on the ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... You've got a grouch. Come with me and walk it off," Neil said uneasily, but he did not press the invitation, and his friend had little more to say. His silence was perhaps the most unusual thing about his behaviour, which was all out of key to-day. ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... of course," said Harriet. "He's gone around all winter with a grouch and a face a mile long. What's the ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... aging months for Maurice; and though, of course, the poignancy of shame lessened after a while, it left its imprint on his face, as well as on his mind. They speculated about it at the office: "'G. Washington's' got a grouch on," one clerk said; "probably told the truth and lost a transfer! ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... a grouch on me," laughed George. "Nothing much. That's our house just beyond grandfather's." He waved a sealskin gauntlet to indicate the house Major Amberson had built for Isabel as a wedding gift. "It's almost the same as grandfather's, ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... be getting queer like all other hermits he had ever heard of. It occurred to him that possibly Marion Rose was not really feather-brained, but that the trouble was in himself, because he was getting a chronic grouch. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... the words that were all ready to slip off the end of my tongue, and made my grouch against MacRae crystallize into a feeling akin to anger. Why couldn't the beggar stand his ground and deliver the ugly tidings himself? That bunch of cottonwoods with the new-made grave close by the dead horses seemed to rise up between us, and I became speechless. I hadn't the ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... a successful camping-out trip are personal. One must have the receptive and acceptive spirit. No matter what comes it is for the best; an experience worth having. Nothing must be complained of. The "grouch" has no place on a camping-trip, and one who is a "grouch," a "sissy," a "faultfinder," a "worrier," a "quitter," or who cannot or will not enter fully into the spirit of the thing had better ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... replied Merton Gill, though but half respectfully. The "Oh, all right" had been tainted with a trace of sullenness. He was tired of this continual nagging and fussing over small matters; some day he would tell the old grouch so. ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... and the pictures began again, but her mind was not following them. She was very quiet on the way home, and when Jimmie asked her if she had a grouch on she shivered and said, no, she guessed she was tired. Then she suddenly asked him what time he was going out to hunt for another job. He told her he couldn't be sure. He would call her up about noon and let her know. Could she manage to get out a while and meet him? She wasn't ...
— Exit Betty • Grace Livingston Hill
... "He is an early-morning grouch," James explained, as they sat down at the table. "Not fit to associate with man or beast—not even his own dog, if he had one—when he first gets up. How come you were smart enough to get the answer so ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... would say, "I'm going to make my pile in this town. I can do it. Beale sent me to court the other morning to get the judge's signature. He had a grouch on, and wanted to put me off. You ought to have heard me jolly him. I talked right up to him! Yes, sir; you bet! Didn't I have the gall? That's the way you want to do to get along—get right in and not be afraid. I got his signature, you bet. Ah, I'm ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... Billy just said about him and his chains!" cried Bobby. "'He's got nonskid-chains on his wheels to-day, all right.' Didn't you hear him? And he's had a grouch against Pretty Sweet ever since the time—about—that ...
— The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross - Or Amateur Theatricals for a Worthy Cause • Gertrude W. Morrison
... reason given was 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 our ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... You're going to pick up flesh and strength fast enough—it's that slush you've got on board that's getting my grouch. I'd rather you had a natural death, kid. I've taken a liking to you; and ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... as you used to be when you were a youngster. The girls, I know, are all ready to be friends, bless their dear little hearts. As for the boys, I'll venture to say we can patch up a treaty of peace with them. If you will promise to be a little less free with that stick and not get a grouch on you every time a boy looks your way, they will promise to play no more tricks. If they don't promise, I'll give every mother's son of them Hail Columbia when I come this way again," and by his looks, the boys knew he meant what he said. They ...
— A Dear Little Girl's Thanksgiving Holidays • Amy E. Blanchard
... on which the wit hangs his jest, the preacher his text, the cynic his grouch, and the ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland
... marked. At table every one is supposed to be at his best, not to bring any grouch, or a long or sad face to it, but to contribute his best thought, his wittiest sayings, to the conversation. Every member of the family is expected to do his best to make the meal a really happy occasion. There is a sort of rivalry to ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... sentimental Jacklondon 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 ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... wicked, 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 ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... married folks are heir to. Cheery, glittering, soul-soothing, warmed hearted, inanimate friend! What wife can fail to admit the peace and serenity she owes to you? To you, who stand between her and all her early morning troubles— Between her and the before-breakfast grouch— Between her and the morning-after headache— Between her and the cold-gray-dawn scrutiny? To you, who supply the golden nectar that stimulates the jaded masculine soul, Soothes the shaky masculine nerves, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers |
