Squabbling Quotes

Here we are, squabbling over tuna fucking sandwiches and there she is – almond-shaped green eyes, snub nose, lopsided grin, the hint of a dimple in her cheek. 'MISSING' is stamped over her face in large black letters. ~ Sanjida Kay

Economics pretends to be a science. Its practitioners fill blackboards with equations and clog computers with data. But it is really a faith, or more accurately a set of overlapping and squabbling faiths, each with its own doctrines. ~ Alex Berenson

Nina's eyes narrowed. "I'll remind you, Holden Maxwell, father of my children, love of my life, that we just met Reece and perhaps he doesn't wish to listen to us squabbling."
Max looked at Ham. "Kiss that good-bye. We'll be fightin' on and off through dinner. Prepare. She gets riled, we're all fucked. ~ Kristen Ashley

Maybe individual people seem irrational because they aren't really individuals! Each one of us is a little nation-state, doing our best to settle disputes and broker compromises between the squabbling voices that drive us. ~ Jordan Ellenberg

You can see a few of them can't believe this is really happening. That they're about to win a battle because the enemy started squabbling like children.
It's a terrible way to lose a war, a terrible way to end.
Not with a bang but a whimper. ~ Amie Kaufman

Beautiful,' [his wife] would murmur, nudging Septimus that he might see. But beauty was behind a pane of glass. Even taste had no relish to him. He put down his cup on the little marble table. He looked at people outside; happy they seemed, collecting in the middle of the street, shouting, laughing, squabbling over nothing. But he could not taste, he could not feel. In the tea-shop among the tables and the chattering waiters the appalling fear came over him
he could not feel. ~ Virginia Woolf

Money.. Its nothing really worth squabbling about. I mean, this is what puts people six feet under! ~ Burt Shavitz

I pictured Becs and myself together, squabbling, but always over little things, while I rotted away at the core from love of Ferris.
It was hopeless.
'Here.' I laid my hands on the table, palms up, and jerked my head at them, 'put yours on top.'
Ferris did not move.
'Please,' I said.
He laid his cold hands on mine and I curled my fingers, folding his within them.
'Now,' I said, 'I've neither accepted nor refused. Speak it out plainly, tell me and I'll do it.'
He cried, 'Don't put it onto me! Choose for yourself.'
'This is choosing. Tell Aunt I will do whatever you'll have me do, and that's my answer.' I kept hold of his fingers. We stayed there silent and motionless for some time, while the candles burnt down.
At last he said quietly, 'It is a lot to give up.'
'Well. My history is bad enough without bigamy,' I replied, at which he smiled but made no reply. The candles were half burnt. I took one and rose.
'Goodnight, Ferris.'
'Goodnight, Jacob. ~ Maria McCann

When activists say we need to move past the partisan divide, what they mean is: Shut up and get with my program. Have you ever heard anyone say, "We need to get past all of this partisan squabbling and name-calling. That's why I'm going to abandon all my objections and agree with you"? ~ Jonah Goldberg

I can't help but wonder why leaders are so often hesitant to lead. I guess it takes a lot of conviction and trusting your gut to get ahead of your peers, your staff and your employees while they are still squabbling about which path to take, and set an unhesitating, unequivocal course whose rightness or wrongness will not be known for years. Such a decision really tests the mettle of the leader. By contrast, it doesn't take much self-confidence to downsize a company - after all, how can you go wrong by shuttering factories and laying people off if the benefits of such actions are going to show up in tomorrow's bottom line and will be applauded by the financial community? ~ Andrew S. Grove

The wind stirred the drying leaves of wild grapevines with a papery rustle behind me, and in the distance a murder of crows passed, squabbling in shrill cries. ~ Diana Gabaldon

Jesus did not come to the Earth to start 285 squabbling denominations fighting over the Bible. How like the devil to divide Christians over the Bible. ~ John Hagee

Galen Werner, you may choose one of my daughters to be your bride, and when I die, you shall sit beside her as co-ruler of Westfallin."
"Your Majesty.... I - I don't know - "
Rose felt her knees shaking. Did he not love her after all?
"Psst, Galen?" Pansy tugged on his arm. Galen leaned down. "If Rose doesn't want you," the little girl whispered loudly, "you can marry me."
Galen laughed shakily. "Thanks, Pansy."
"Oh, Rose! Don't just stand there like a lump," Poppy said, poking her in the back. "If he's too embarrased, you should be the one to say something."
"Poppy!" Daisy looked scandalized. "It's not Rose's place to - "
Under cover of their squabbling, Rose took Galen's hand and moved closer to him. "Do you want to marry me?" she whispered in a much quieter tone than Pansy had used.
"Yes," he said.
"If neither of you is going to speak up," King Gregor said, "I shall simply have to decide it for myself!"
"Father," Rose protested, "that won't be necessary!"
"I choose Rose," Galen blurted out at the same time.
"There. Done. Easy." King Gregor clapped his hands. ~ Jessica Day George

Things were definitely going badly. The night looked like ending in disaster. In one corner of the room Maria Blond had started squabbling with Léa de Horn, whom she accused of sleeping with men who weren't really rich. ~ Emile Zola

But if there is to be a fifth wave of feminism, I would hope that the main thing that distinguishes it from all that came before is that women counter the awkwardness, disconnect, and bullshit of being a modern woman not by shouting at it, internalizing it, or squabbling about it - but by simply pointing at it and going "HA!" instead. ~ Caitlin Moran

Squabbling over too little is just human nature. But it says a great deal about a person, what they do with abundance. ~ Tessa Dare

Messengers wait outside the door, to carry urgent orders for release. It is difficult, when the pen skips over a name, to associate it with the corpse it might belong to, tomorrow or the day after that. There is no sense of evil in the room, just tiredness and the aftertaste of petty squabbling. Camille drinks quite a lot of Fabre's brandy. Towards daybreak, a kind of dismal camaraderie sets in. ~ Hilary Mantel

If life is a movie most people would consider themselves the star of their own feature. Guys might imagine they're living some action adventure epic. Chicks maybe are in a rose-colored fantasy romance. And homosexuals are living la vida loca in a fabulous musical. Still others may take the indie approach and think of themselves as an anti-hero in a coming of age flick. Or a retro badass in an exploitation B movie. Or the cable man in a very steamy adult picture. Some people's lives are experimental student art films that don't make any sense. Some are screwball comedies. Others resemble a documentary, all serious and educational. A few lives achieve blockbuster status and are hailed as a tribute to the human spirit. Some gain a small following and enjoy cult status. And some never got off the ground due to insufficient funding. I don't know what my life is but I do know that I'm constantly squabbling with the director over creative control, throwing prima donna tantrums and pouting in my personal trailor when things don't go my way.

Much of our lives is spent on marketing. Make-up, exercise, dieting, clothes, hair, money, charm, attitude, the strut, the pose, the Blue Steel look. We're like walking billboards advertising ourselves. A sneak peek of upcoming attractions. Meanwhile our actual production is in disarray--we're over budget, doing poorly at private test screenings and focus groups, creatively stagnant, morale low. So we're endlessly tinkering, touching u ~ Tatsuya Ishida

They had found the seven volumes of Rowling with no help at all, but there was no squabbling. ~ Erika Johansen

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

On the other side of the curtain, children were squabbling, a baby was crying, and there was the smell of rat-and-cabbage casserole. Someone was sharpening an axe. And someone else was snoring. For a dwarf in Ankh-Morpork, solitude was something that you had to cultivate on the inside. Books ~ Terry Pratchett

Squabbling in public will eventually ruin football; there's no doubt it's hurting us already. Polls taken by Louis Harris - polls as valid as any political polls - indicate that very clearly. ~ Pete Rozelle

It was a while before my mind was quiet enough for reading. The conversation with Shevraeth I was determined not to think about. What was the use? It was over, and it was clear it wasn't going to be repeated.
Recalling the name he'd mentioned, Lady Trishe
one of the names Bran had spoken earlier that morning
I realized it was Shevraeth they were planning to go riding with. She wouldn't enjoy this ride was what Nee had said, meaning that I wouldn't enjoy it because Shevraeth would be along. What it probably also meant, I realized glumly, was that they wouldn't enjoy having me along if I glared at Shevraeth and started squabbling. ~ Sherwood Smith

Money is nothing really worth squabbling about. This is what puts people six feet under. You know, I don't need it. ~ Burt Shavitz

Perhaps the most crucial stage is that of 'intraspecies chaos.' This is the proving ground, the awkward adolescence when a species either learns to come together on a global scale, or dissolves into squabbling factions doomed to extinction, whether through war or ecological disasters too great to tackle divided. ~ Becky Chambers

If it were left to men, there'd be nothing in the world but mating and squabbling. ~ Judith Tarr

Life is calmness with squabbling,
accumulating traditions and self-consciousness.
elaborate meals, medicine, law,
pretty pictures unspoiled,
rocking the cradle and holding the hammer,
impressive skies of gray and blue,
believing in what we can't settle,
the mystery of iniquity,
the absolutely sincere predictions of fools,
lighter moods like these. ~ Brian D'Ambrosio

If humanity is annihilated because we were too busy squabbling with one another to manage a proper stand, we probably deserve the annihilation. ~ G.S. Jennsen

The Democratic party is really just a giant day care center for squabbling little groups. ~ Pat Buchanan

Nothing more excruciating when you are fighting for your life than to have healthy people round you, squabbling over futilities. Who do you love best, and who most do you want with you? Blithering idiots: it's life itself, can't you see? It's life I love best, and life I want with me. Go hang yourselves, all of you, you're only sapping my strength when most I need it. Leave me in peace and let me grapple. ~ A.P.

Mr. Cat and Mr. Dog were neighbors who fought like, well, cats and dogs. That is until Mr. Rat moved in. It's fascinating how easily two enemies ally at the introduction of a third. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

According to Ommaney, prior to their departure Zinat Mahal had been squabbling loudly with Jawan Bakht after the latter had fallen in love with one of his father's harem women. He also began using the family's now scarce financial resources to bribe the guards to bring him bottles of porter: 'What an instance of the state of morals and domestic economy of Ex-Royalty,' wrote a disapproving Ommaney to Saunders. 'Mother and son at enmity, the son trying to form a connection with his father's concubine, and setting at nought the precepts of his religion, buying from, and drinking, the liquor of an infidel. ~ William Dalrymple

She was thrilling to a desire that urged her to go forward, to be in closer to that fire, to be squabbling with the dogs, and to be avoiding and dodging the stumbling feet of men. ~ Jack London

Your opponent's wrong doesn't automatically make you right. Most fights aren't about who's right; they are contention over degrees of wrongness. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Emil and Jack established rival claims to a certain thick patch, and while they were squabbling about, Stuffy quickly and quietly stripped the bushes and fled to the protection of Dan ~ Louisa May Alcott

Nature is not simply a technical or economical resource, and human beings are not mere numbers. To suggest that one can somehow align all the squabbling institutions of science, environmental management, government and diplomacy in an alliance of convenience to regulate the global climate seems to me optimistic. ~ James Buchan

I feel that if I could sweep all this away ... all the buildings and the sects and the fierce squabbling churches ... that I might see Christ's quiet figure riding into Jerusalem on a donkey
and believe in him. ~ Agatha Christie

You see, in times of trouble, even gods can lose faith. They start putting their trust in the wrong things. They stop looking at the big picture and start being selfish. But [. . .] I'm used to perseverance. You have to rise above the squabbling and chaos, and keep believing. You have to always keep your goals in mind. ~ Rick Riordan

Often, economists spend their energies squabbling with one another, but arguably the more important contrast is between our broadly liberal economic worldview and the various alternatives - common around the globe - that postulate natural hierarchies of religion, ethnicity, caste and gender, often enforced by law and strict custom. ~ Tyler Cowen

But then, staring at the label on one crate, which read

SWORD-CANE-DLUBECK SHOE TREE-HORA
SUITS (3)-HORA
ASSORTED HANDKERCHIEFS (6)-HORA

Josef felt a bloom of dread in his belly, and all at once he was certain that it was not going to matter one iota how his father and the others behaved. Orderly or chaotic, well inventoried and civil or jumbled and squabbling, the Jews of Prague were dust on the boots of the Germans, to be whisked off with an indiscriminate broom. Stoicism and an eye for detail would avail them nothing. In later years, when he remembered this moment, Josef would be tempted to think that he had suffered a premonition, looking at those mucilage-caked labels, of the horror to come. At the time it was a simpler matter. The hair stood up on the back of his neck with a prickling discharge of ions. His heart pulsed in the hollow of his throat as if someone had pressed there with a thumb. And he felt, for an instant, that he was admiring the penmanship of someone who had died. ~ Michael Chabon

Children"

Years back here we were children
and at the stage of running
in gangs about the meadows--
here to this one, there to that one.
Where we picked up violets
on lucky days,
you can now see cattle gadding about.

I still remember hunching
ankle deep in violets,
squabbling over which bunches were fairest.
Our childishness was obvious--
we ran dancing rounds,
we wore new green wreaths.
So time passes.

Here we ran swilling strawberries from oak to pine
through hedges, through turnstiles--
as long as day was burning down.
Once a gardener
rushed from an arbor:
"O.K. now, children, run home."

We came out in spots
those yesterdays, when we stuffed on strawberries;
it was just a childish game to us.
Often we heard
the herdsman
hooing and warning us:
"Children, the woods are alive with snakes."

And one of the children breaking
through the sharp grass, grew white
and shouted, "Children, a snake
ran in there. He got our pony.
She'll never get well.
I wish that snake
would go to hell!"

"Well then, get out of the woods!
If you don't hurry away quickly,
I'll tell you what will happen--
if you don't leave the forest behind you by daylight,
you'll lose yourselves;
your pleasure will end in bawling."

Do you know how five virgins
dawdled ~ Robert Lowell

Later, it would take me a minute to remember how exactly it happened. If I turned around and moved forward first, or he did. I just knew we didn't meet halfway. It was just a short distance really, not worth squabbling over. And maybe it didn't matter so much whether he took the step or I did. All I knew was that he was there. ~ Sarah Dessen

You'd never have gotten it right. You have to hit the door just so. It took me weeks to learn."
"And what were you doing sneaking out at night?" he demanded.
"I fail to see how that is your business."
"You became my business when you took up residence
in my house."
"Well, I wouldn't have moved in if you hadn'tkidnapped me!"
"I wouldn't have kidnapped you if you hadn't been wandering about the countryside with no thought to
your own safety."
"I was certainly safer in the countryside than I was at Prewitt Hall, and you well know it."
"You wouldn't be safe in a convent," he muttered.
"If you two lovebirds can stop snapping at each other," James cut in, "I'd like to search the study before
Prewitt returns home."
Blake glared at Caroline as if this entire delay were her fault, causing her to hiss, "Don't forget that if it
weren't for me-"
"If it weren't for you," he shot back, "I would be a very happy man indeed."
"We are wasting time," James reminded them. "The both of you may remain here, if you cannot cease
your squabbling, but I am going in to search the south drawing room."
"I'll go first," Caroline announced, "since I know the way."
"You'll go behind me," Blake contradicted, "and give me directions as we go along."
"Oh, for the love of Saint Peter," James finally burst out, exasperation showing in every line of his body.
"I'll go first, if only to shut the ~ Julia Quinn