Cantankerous Quotes

I get to live down my reputation for being cantankerous if I slowly evolve towards being a really good live show. ~ Ariel Pink

Beware of self-indulgence. The romance surrounding the writing profession carries several myths: that one must suffer in order to be creative; that one must be cantankerous and objectionable in order to be bright; that ego is paramount over skill; that one can rise to a level from which one can tell the reader to go to hell. These myths, if believed, can ruin you.
If you believe you can make a living as a writer, you already have enough ego. ~ David Brin

That black horse we used for packin' up here is the most cantankerous beast alive," Jake grumbled, rubbing his arm.
Ian lifted his gaze from the initials on the tabletop and turned to Jake, making no attempt to hide his amusement. "Bit you, did he?"
"Damn right he bit me!" the older man said bitterly. "He's been after a chuck of me since we left the coach at Hayborn and loaded those sacks on his back to bring up here."
"I warned you he bites anything he can reach. Keep your arm out of his way when you're saddling him."
"It weren't my arm he was after, it was my arse! Opened his mouth and went for it, only I saw him outter the corner of my eye and swung around, so he missed." Jakes's frown darkened when he saw the amusement in Ian's expression. "Can't see why you've bothered to feed him all these years. He doesn't deserve to share a stable with your other horses-beauties they are, every one but him."
"Try slinging packs over the backs of one of those and you'll see why I took him. He was suitable for using as a pack mule; none of my other cattle would have been," ian said, frowning as he lifted his head and looked about at the months of accumulated dirt covering everything.
"He's slower'n a pack mule," Jake replied. "Mean and stubborn and slow," he concluded, but he, too, was frowning a little as he looked around at the thick layers of dust coating every surface. "Thought you said you'd arranged for some village wenches to come up here and clean a ~ Judith McNaught

Even if the Moon didn't exist - even if it had been vaporized billions of years ago by cantankerous Klingons - there would still be (somewhat lower) tides raised by the Sun. For creatures dependent on the oceans' ebb and flow, life could go on. ~ Seth Shostak

For the past thirty-nine years since I had graduated from college, I had called my parents on Sundays. They had expected and looked forward to the ritual. After Dad died, I still called Mom on Sundays. Most of the time I dreaded the call because she had become more and more insular and was full of complaints about the assisted living facility, the other residents, her health, everything. She had become narrow in her interests in life, more negative, more critical, and unhappier. I was reminded of something I had heard from a psychologist about what happens as we age. He said we become more of who we are, not less. Our energy to fight back the negative attributes we all possess is not as strong as we get older. So we can become more cantankerous, more irritable. I also remembered what my father had often said: "There but for the grace of God go I." That Sunday I placed the ~ Janis Heaphy Durham

He was increasingly irritable and suspicious, and a cantankerous mood could fly over him as quickly as the shadow of a bird. But Jesse was neither close-mouthed nor sulky for long, and over the weeks that he and Charley were on the road, he unscrolled yarns and anecdotes that excited interest in Charley only insofar as they permitted him a corresponding reminiscence. ~ Ron Hansen

Few authors have captivated the American penchant for curiosity like Samuel Longhorne Clemens. Many have called his cantankerous alter ego, Mark Twain, the greatest American humorist-philosopher of his age-if not of all times. With his wry observations and forthright humor-unleashed in his particularly pithy paragraphs-Mark Twain became one of the most prolific satirists in American literature.
The New York Times editorial, reporting of his death on April 22, 1910, said. " He has been quoted in common conversation oftener, perhaps, than any of his fellow-countrymen, including Benjamin Franklin and Lincoln.
In 1909, Mark Twain is quoted as saying, " I came in with Haley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Haley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together."
His prediction was accurate-Mark Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, one day after the comet's closest approach to earth.
In Mark Twain's Guide to Audacious Sarcasm-volume 1,
Lowell Smith has assembled twenty of the classic cantankerous tales and wry observations of Mark Twain's celestial career. ~ Lowell Smith

Brenda had been the landlady of the Pied Horse for twenty years and, as Jack, the village grocer, came in every single day, she knew just how cantankerous, stubborn and mean-spirited he could be. It was a common knowledge that his older daughter, Emily, had left home after a beating and had never been home since. His wife, Mary, was a sweet-natured woman who was well liked by everyone, but she was a bag of nerves and too weak to stand up to such a bully. ~ Lesley Pearse

Rebels and dissidents challenge the complacent belief in a just world, and, as the theory would predict, they are usually denigrated for their efforts. While they are alive, they may be called 'cantankerous,' 'crazy,' 'hysterical,' 'uppity,' or 'duped.' Dead, some of them become saints and heroes, the sterling characters of history. It's a matter of proportion. One angry rebel is crazy, three is a conspiracy, 50 is a movement. ~ Carol Tavris

According to Free Trait Theory, we are born and culturally endowed with certain personality traits - introversion, for example - but we can and do act out of character in the service of "core personal projects."
In other words, introverts are capable of acting like extroverts for the sake of work they consider important, people they love, or anything they value highly. Free Trait Theory explains why an introvert might throw his extroverted wife a surprise party or join the PTA at his daughter's school. It explains how it's possible for an extroverted scientist to behave with reserve in her laboratory, for an agreeable person to act hard-nosed during a business negotiation, and for a cantankerous uncle to treat his niece tenderly when he takes her out for ice cream. ~ Susan Cain

Ramsey made the mistake of guessing it didn't and shook his head, gaining him a scowl and a blasphemy from the cantankerous baron ~ Julie Garwood

I don't think that the flesh is necessarily treacherous, evil, bad. It is cantankerous, and it is independent. The idea of independence is the key. It really is like colonialism. The colonies suddenly decide that they can and should exist with their own personality and should detach from the control of the mother country. At first the colony is perceived as being treacherous. It's a betrayal. Ultimately, it can be seen as the separation of a partner that could be very valuable as an equal rather than as something you dominate. ~ David Cronenberg

One little temper tantrum isn't going to scare me away."
"I can't guarantee it won't happen again."
"I work every day with cantankerous beasts who growl and bite, when I'm only trying to help. I think I can handle you."
"I'd like to see you handle me," he said, eyeing her up and down.
She ignored the double entendre, but she was pretty sure he wasn't sizing her up as an adversary on the tae kwan do mat. She put a hand to her stomach, which was doing a strange flip-flop. "Don't think I couldn't take you down," she said seriously. "I've trained in the martial arts."
He smirked. "That I've got to see. ~ Joan Johnston

Showing up unannounced was risky. This guy was known for being cantankerous at best, violent at worst. But she was ready. As soon as the door opened, she let loose a stream of urine right on his doorstep . . . and then ran like hell. A few days more of that, she knew, and he' d be all hers. ~ Marah J. Hardt

Leo stared back at her with a mixture of wary amusement and growing heat. He could no longer deny that he found nothing in the world more entertaining than talking to her. Or just being near her. Cantankerous, stubborn fascinating creature... completely unlike his past lovers. And at times like this, she had all the cuddlesome appeal of a feral hedgehog.
But she challenged him, met him as an equal, in a way that no other woman ever had. He wanted her beyond reason. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I was coming," I said irritably. Fingers handcuffed around my wrist, Barrons dragged me toward the stairs.
"What part of 'directly' didn't you understand?"
"Same part of 'play well with others' you never understand, O cantankerous one," I muttered.
He laughed, surprising me. I never know what's going to make him laugh. At the oddest moments, he seems to find humor in his own bad temper.
"I'd be a lot less cantankerous if you admitted you wanted to fuck me and we got down to it."
Lust ripped through me. Barrons said "fuck" and I was ready. "That's all it would take to put you in a good humor?"
"It'd go a long way."
"Are we having a conversation, Barrons? Where you actually express feelings?"
"If you want to call a hard dick feelings, Ms. Lane. ~ Karen Marie Moning

They were all there (at the airport) - the deaf ammoomas, the cantankerous, arthritic appoopas, the pining wives, scheming uncles, children with the runs. The fiancées to be reassessed. The teacher's husband still waiting for his Saudi visa. The teacher's husband's sisters waiting for their dowries. The wire-bender's pregnant wife. "Mostly sweeper class," Baby Kochamma said grimly, and looked away while a mother, no wanting to give up her good place near the railing, aimed her distracted baby's penis into an empty bottle while he smiled and waved at the people around him... ~ Arundhati Roy

Well, we never expected this!" they all say. "No one liked her. They all said she was pretentious, awkward, difficult to approach, prickly, too fond of her tales, haughty, prone to versifying, disdainful, cantankerous, and scornful. But when you meet her, she is strangely meek, a completely different person altogether!"
How embarrassing! Do they really look upon me as a dull thing, I wonder? But I am what I am. ~ Murasaki Shikibu

Why, oh why, do you hide in shadows?
As a venomous viper you lurk in dark corners.
Waiting, waiting, waiting to spew your hate. cantankerous you are though you haven't a clue.
Spread, spread, spreading over beauty like a poisonous cloak.
At your touch the day is dark. At your touch the dark is death.
Dying, dying, dying, all light is gone, made ash of simmering sulfur no more to see the day, the dawn.
Do we partake of your deceit or do we despise?
Your lies, your lies, I will outlive your lies, and once again color this world in truth.
Pure, so sweet, the taste of revenge.
Be cursed evil shroud for the dark never wins. ~ Anonymous Diva

A beautiful person is not defined by a hair style, a pair of shoes, it's not the logos on the T-shirt, the sport's team on a hat, the designer's name on a hand bag, or even how you smell.

Instead, beauty lies in who you are when no one is watching, the person you are when there's nothing to hide behind. No amount of concealer can cover up a cantankerous heart, but all the make-up in the world can't add a single lumen to the brightness of a beautiful soul. ~ Justin Young

Old men are cantankerous: they like to get their own way. ~ Peter Hook

Vaughn had his back to the entrance, so he turned around to look.
No.
Fucking.
Way.
It was the cantankerous Ms. Doe.
Catching sight of him in that very same moment, she stopped dead in her tracks. Vaughn was pretty
sure she muttered Oh shit under her breath.
His sentiments exactly. ~ Julie James

Fear, born of the stern matron Responsibility, sits on one's shoulders like some heavy imp of darkness, and one is preoccupied and, possibly, cantankerous. ~ William McFee

The more ugly, older, more cantankerous, more ill and poorer I become, the more I try to make amends by making my colours more vibrant, more balanced and beaming. ~ Vincent Van Gogh

Few of the great creators have bland personalities. They are cantankerous egotists, the kind of men who are unwelcome in the modern corporation. ~ David Ogilvy