Acerbic Quotes

Vik?"
The little metallic bird postured on the windowsill, eyeing him coldly. Vik's paint was iridescent and glossed-something the mecha had never liked, since he said it made him look like a girlie bird. "I'm surprised you remember my name." Vik paused before he added an acerbic, "Asshole."
Syn laughed as he rolled away from Shahara. "You prickly little shit, get over here."
Vik swooped in to land between the two of them on the bed. He burst apart, shifting from bird form to that of a more traditional mechbot. With his hand, he smacked Syn in the arm. "I thought you were coming back for me."
"I tried. I really did, but by the time I could, I figured you'd be gone."
Vik hissed then looked at Shahara. "He lie to you like that?"
-Syn & Vik ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

If human pleasure did not have both a lid and a time limit, we would not bestir ourselves to do things that were not pleasurable, such as toiling for our subsistence. And then we would not survive. By the same token, should our mass mind ever become discontented with the restricted pleasures doled out by nature, as well as disgruntled over the lack of restrictions on pain, we would omit the mandates of survival from our lives out of a stratospherically acerbic indignation. And then we would not reproduce. As a species, we do not shout into the sky, "The pleasures of this world are not enough for us." In fact, they are just enough to drive us on like oxen pulling a cart full of our calves, which in their turn will put on the yoke. As inordinately evolved beings, though, we can postulate that it will not always be this way. "A time will come," we say to ourselves, "when we will unmake this world in which we are battered between long burden and brief delight, and will live in pleasure for all our days." The belief in the possibility of long-lasting, high-flown pleasures is a deceptive but adaptive flimflam. It seems that nature did not make us to feel too good for too long, which would be no good for the survival of the species, but only to feel good enough for long enough to keep us from complaining that we do not feel good all the time. ~ Thomas Ligotti

The rancid, acerbic smell of burning flesh rasped in the throats of the shocked onlookers, an odour once breathed never forgotten. ~ Stanley Goldyn

Madge, her eldest sister, looked about forty, rather than thirty two. Her black dress drained her of colour; her shoulders had adopted their perpetual hunched position, which she had adopted to compensate for her height. As a child Madge had towered over her peers, stopping only when she reached five foot eleven. Lesley knew, without seeing them, that she would be wearing the usual flat shoes, the only footwear she would allow anywhere near her size eight feet. Sitting beside Madge, Pamela, her youngest sister, blonde hair flowing over her shoulders, was thankfully dressed fairly decorously in a black coat over a black pinstripe tunic dress with a high neckline. Remembering Pamela's usual mode of dress, Lesley could only deduce that their mother must have prevailed upon her this time, in deference to the occasion. To her left Alan, at twenty four, the baby of the family, was talking in low tones to his girlfriend Erica, his fair hair and her dark locks forming a striking contrast. From Erica's expression however, she guessed that Alan was currently on the receiving end of her infamous (and often malicious) acerbic wit.


~ Phyl Wright

I understood where I had come from: from a dreary tangle of sadness and pretense, of longing, absurdity, inferiority and provincial pomposity, sentimental education and anachronistic ideals, repressed traumas, resignation, and helplessness. Helplessness of the acerbic, domestic variety, where small-time liars pretended to be dangerous terrorists and heroic freedom fighters, where unhappy bookbinders invented formulas for universal salvation, where dentists whispered confidentially to all their neighbors about their protracted personal correspondence with Stalin, where piano teachers, kindergarten teachers, and housewives tossed and turned tearfully at night from stifled yearning for an emotion-laden artistic life, where compulsive writers wrote endless disgruntled letters to the editor of Davar, where elderly bakers saw Maimonides and the Baal Shem Tov in their dreams, where nervy, self-righteous trade-union hacks kept an apparatchik's eye on the rest of the local residents, where cashiers at the cinema or the cooperative shop composed poems and pamphlets at night. ~ Amos Oz

Her voice was a thread, but still she managed to sound acerbic. "I believe it's the devil's job to tempt me. Not yours."
"And the difference between the devil and I would be . . . ?"
"None that I can detect. ~ Julie Anne Long

Miss Tarabotti felt such rules did not entirely apply to her, as she was a spinster. Had been a spinster for as long as she could remember. In her more acerbic moments, she felt she had been born a spinster. ~ Gail Carriger

Cameron found himself smiling as he thought about the two tough, acerbic FBI agents. "It's so cute. They're in love."
"It's like watching two kittens fight with machetes," Julian muttered.
"Julian."
"What? Its weird!"
"No its not. They're perfect for each other. Poor Zane though," Cameron murmured. "In love with Ty Grady." He couldn't imagine how frustrating that would be. Then Julian inhaled, and Cameron chuckled slightly. Yeah, he could actually. ~ Abigail Roux

They entered the summer parlor, where the Ravenels chatted amiably with his sisters, Phoebe and Seraphina.
Phoebe, the oldest of the Challon siblings, had inherited their mother's warm and deeply loving nature, and their father's acerbic wit. Five years ago she had married her childhood sweetheart, Henry, Lord Clare, who had suffered from a chronic illness for most of his life. The worsening symptoms had gradually reduced him to a shadow of the man he'd once been, and he'd finally succumbed while Phoebe was pregnant with their second child. Although the first year of mourning was over, Phoebe hadn't yet returned to her former self. She went outdoors so seldom that her freckles had vanished, and she looked wan and thin. The ghost of grief still lingered in her gaze.
Their younger sister, Seraphina, an effervescent eighteen-year-old with strawberry-blonde hair, was talking to Cassandra. Although Seraphina was old enough to have come out in society by now, the duke and duchess had persuaded her to wait another year. A girl with her sweet nature, her beauty, and her mammoth dowry would be targeted by every eligible man in Europe and beyond. For Seraphina, the London Season would be a gauntlet, and the more prepared she was, the better. ~ Lisa Kleypas

As some find picking on people a treasured entertainment, 'recreational bullying' has become their devious tool, to satisfy an exhibitionist urge to outdo themselves, by dredging up acerbic stories for score-settling and airing dirty laundry. ("On a doggy day") ~ Erik Pevernagie

Finally, the intercom crackles and Hatmitch's acerbic laugh fills the studio. He contains himself just long enough to say, 'And that, my friends, is how a revolution dies. ~ Suzanne Collins

Now that I think about it, you'd have to be a glutton for punishment to keep coming near me given my acerbic personality where you're concerned. (Tory) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

I thought I had not been out for long; I showed no symptoms of concussion or other ill effects from the blow, save a sore patch on the base of my skull. My captor, a man of few words, had responded to my questions, demands and acerbic remarks alike with the all-purpose Scottish noise which can best be rendered phonetically as "Mmmmphm." Had I been in any doubt as to him nationality, that sound alone would have been sufficient to remove it. ~ Diana Gabaldon

Those old adages - you attract more with honey; do unto others - are true. You can get attention by being acerbic or mean or making a bizarre comment. But by being nice, being empathetic, building relationships and listening, people begin to recognize that you're thoughtful and respectful of their position. ~ Shelley Moore Capito

Every Day Is for the Thief, by turns funny, mournful, and acerbic, offers a portrait of Nigeria in which anger, perhaps the most natural response to the often lamentable state of affairs there, is somehow muted and deflected by the author's deep engagement with the country: a profoundly disenchanted love. Teju Cole is among the most gifted writers of his generation. ~ Salman Rushdie

Grace Murphy, defender of the downtrodden! Snarking one villain at a time with her acerbic wit and pointy boobs! If there was going to be super-natural mojo involved in my life, the least I could ask for was non-sagging boobs. ~ Nicole Hamlett

Humor is rare in science fiction ... there's so little of it that it automatically reminds you of other heroes with that acerbic humor when you find it. ~ John Scalzi

I'm enchanted by your beauty, my lady. Welcome aboard. You make a most welcome addition to our acerbic company ... a lovely-smelling one, too. (Vik) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

They fire lots of bullets very, very quickly. Quicker than anything else."
I looked up and around the bedroom, the mismatched furniture, the weirdly firm light. "Why? What could you hunt with those? What could they have to do with anything?"
"I don't know," he replied. "That's what's so unnerving."
I rubbed a hand to my forehead, feeling an ache beginning to build behind my skull. "Armand."
His eyes went to mine.
I had to say this carefully; I had no wish to add to his despair, but I couldn't let it go. "Do you think…do you suppose it's possible that your father might…mean to do you any harm?"
But I'd actually made him smile. A real one, too, even if it came acerbic and thin. "With a pair of Vickers? Not unless he means to mount them in the hallway and spry me with bullets when I'm not paying attention. Seems like rather a spot of work for him. Surely even an unwelcome heir is better than none."
I returned his smile as I pulled away my hand. "I think we need to teach you how to Turn to smoke, just in case. It's a handy thing to be able to vanish in a hurry."
His smile widened, but there was no humor left to it. "Handy." He fell back against the blankets of the bed, his eyes gone shiny and hard. "If I could vanish into smoke, Eleanore, I'd leave this place and never return. That's a promise."
"Just like Rue," I said softly. ~ Shana Abe

I can be a little acerbic. ~ Mary McCormack

I've always tried to walk a line between being incisive and acerbic, but not mean. Sometimes I'm going to tip over the line a little bit, but that's usually a line I try not to cross. ~ Mark Leibovich

There was is Arthur Nicholls much to recommend him to Charlotte Bronte, not least of which was the disparity between surface and soul, and it might be argued that Mr. Nicholls was the hidden gem of the two. Behind a veneer of quiet, ladylike demeanor, Charlotte concealed an acerbic mind and ruthlessly harsh opions on the weaknesses of the human species. Arthur, on the other hand, was the blustery, bigoted sort who could barely open his mouth without offending someone. Yet when the gloves came off, he had a great and tender heart, and was capable of love that would bear all wrongs, endure all tempests - in short, the very stuff that Charlotte took great pains to fabricate in her stories and that she was convinced she would never find. ~ Juliet Gael

Mostly, however, we've got it smooth and efficient now. We don't have to think. She says, 'What are you doing?', I peer at her with irritation and expel air, we go on about our business. This morning, though, she came upstairs to the attic here while I was sitting in front of the computer doing some work on the net.

'What are you doing?' she asks.

Trying to concentrate on something, distracted and harassed, I reply with some degree of acerbic aggravation.

'What does it look like I'm doing?'

There's a beat, during which we hold each others eyes, unblinking.

It's immediately after this beat has passed that I realize I'm wearing no trousers. ~ Mil Millington

In three weeks, the women's team had done more for soccer in the United States than any team had ever done. Yet, the United States Soccer Federation was unprepared and unwelcoming in its acerbic response to the women's success. With petty, resentful, chauvinistic behavior, the federation would bungle what should have been its greatest moment as a national governing body. Its leaders would criticize DiCicco instead of congratulating him, they would threaten to sue the women over an indoor victory tour and they would wait an unacceptably long period before entering into contract negotiations with the team. Then, at the end of the year, the federation would offer a deal that the women found insulting. Unwilling to trust that the federation was bargaining in good faith, the women would boycott a trip to a tournament in Australia. They would become champions of the world, embraced by the president, by the largest crowd ever to watch women play and by the largest television audience for soccer in this country, embraced by everyone, it seemed, but the officials who ran the sport with the vision of a student council. Increasingly, it appeared, the only amateurs left in sports were the people running the federations that governed them. ~ Jere Longman

I'm keeping my acerbic wit completely fueled. ~ Janice Dickinson

The sheer delight of peering through a magnifying glass at a mouse bite, a moth hole or the zigzag channel carved by a woodworm, while breathing in the acerbic fragrance of the mould. It has here he came alive; here in the past. ~ Dezso Kosztolanyi