Bad Uncle Quotes & Sayings

'James and the Giant Peach' magnificently starts out Dahl's career as a blithe and droll Bad Uncle corrupter and affirmer of youth. Its influence can be subsequently traced down the decades in everything from Maurice Sendak to Lemony Snicket to J. K. Rowling. — Paul Di Filippo

Trust me, dear, with the amount that you read, I guarantee that your eyes will never go bad. — Lindsey Renee Backen

And even if all that other bullshit were true, why me? What makes you think that a walking calamity such as myself would be even a fraction of a smidgen qualified to Kill people?"

"Well, you did just shiv your own uncle with a stick."

Lex shrank a little. "That's . . . different."

"And you beat up all those kids at school."

"Yeah, but - hey, that's not fair. It's not like I wanted them dead or anything."

He raised an eyebrow. "So what you're saying is that maybe you're not really as bad a kid as everyone thinks you are. — Gina Damico

These days, the phone only carries bad news. It's all "your student loan is past due" and "your uncle Chris is in the hospital." If it's anything fun or exciting, like an invitation to a party or a secret project in the works, it will come through the internet. — Robin Sloan

If Uncle Monty had known known what bad luck was soon to come, he wouldn't have wasted a moment thinking about Gustav. I wish - and I'm sure you wish as well - we could go back in time and warn him, but we can't, and that's that. — Lemony Snicket

It was a huge misconception that my father created all the chaos and evil on Earth. Mortals were given free will by my Uncle God, and they created evil all by their lonesome. My dad got to punish the you know what out of those idiots who choose to be heinously bad. And quite honestly some of them deserved my dad's wrath. He loved his job. Another misconception is that Hell is below and Heaven is above. What does that even mean? Nothing is up or down, that's just human mythology. Most likely the mistake was made because Hell was occasionally called the Underworld. Hell and Heaven are simply on different planes, accessible through portals. Earth was modeled after a combination of the seasons, climates and terrains of Heaven and Hell. We all shared the same moon and sun and stars. — Robyn Peterman

I told myself that in the country of my birth, from which I was disengaged in an increasingly irreversible way, there undoubtedly were many men and women like him, basically decent people who had dreamed all their lives of the economic, social, cultural, and political progress that would transform Peru into a modern, prosperous, democratic society with opportunities open to all, only to find themselves repeatedly frustrated, and, like Uncle Ataulfo, had reached old age - the very brink of death - bewildered, asking themselves why we were moving backward instead of advancing and were worse off now with more discrimination, inequality, violence, and insecurity than when they were starting out — Edith Grossman

Uncle Fitzy!" the girl yells. "Gingersnap is being bad!" Eisenhower hates it when she calls him Gingersnap. He complains about it with a statesman's pomp: "Gentlemen, there exists no more odious appellation than"
nose crumpling, black lips curling
"Gingersnap."
From The Barn at the End of Our Term — Karen Russell

It's a myth that if you're liked by only four people it must be good. It might also be very bad: they might be your mother, your brother, your uncle and your aunt. — David Hockney

Hermione, if Harry's seen a Grim, that's - that's bad," he said.
"My - my uncle Bilius saw one and - and he died twenty-four hours later!"
"Coincidence," said Hermione airily, pouring herself some pumpkin juice.
"You don't know what you're talking about!" said Ron, starting to get angry. "Grims scare the living daylights out of most wizards!"
"There you are, then," said Hermione in a superior tone. "They see the Grim and die of fright. The Grim's not an omen, it's the cause of death! And Harry's still with us because he's not stupid enough to see one and think, right, well, I'd better kick the bucket then! — J.K. Rowling

Uncle Sam is not often called a fool in business matters, yet he has sold millions of acres of timber land at two dollars and a half an acre on which a single tree was worth more than a hundred dollars. But this priceless land has been patented, and nothing can be done now about the crazy bargain ... a bad, black business from beginning to end. — John Muir

He was thinking about men like his Uncle Ted, a Cornishman to his bones, who lived and would die in St. Mawes, part of the fabric of the place, remembered as long as there were locals, beaming out of fading photographs of the Life Boat on pub walls. When Ted died - and Strike hoped it would be twenty, thirty years hence - they would mourn him as the unknown Barrovian Grammar boy was being mourned: with drink, with tears, but in celebration that he had been given to them. What had dark, hulking Brockbank, child rapist, and fox-haired Laing, wife-torturer, left behind in the towns of their birth? Shudders of relief that they had gone, fear that they had returned, a trail of broken people and bad memories. — Robert Galbraith

Brother dear," I said, "did your soul leave your body while Amos was talking, or did you actually hear him? Egyptian gods real. Red Lord bad. Red Lord's birthday: very soon, very bad. House of Life: fussy magicians who hate our family because dad was a bit of a rebel, whom you could take a lesson from. Which leaves us - just us - with Dad missing, an evil god about to destroy the world, and an uncle who just jumped off the building - and I can't actually blame him." I took a breath. [Yes, Carter, I do have to breathe occasionally.] — Rick Riordan

My uncle's a lawyer and I remember going to see him in court and thinking, 'That's cool, too bad I could never be a lawyer.' — Lena Dunham

The good news is that there are things we can do right now to restore civility. But it starts with a personal choice to change bad habits - being more congenial, communicating better, anticipating concerns; the following are all ways to improve every aspect of life - personal relationships, friendships, families, bosses, and dealing with your crazy uncle (everyone has one - ours is called Uncle Bob). — Dana Perino

I got into hip hop from my uncle; he was always playing us Kool G Rap and Big Daddy Kane. He was a bad boy, and my mum was not really happy that I was hanging out with him. — Estelle

Once upon a time ... a long time ago ... things that happened once perhaps but have been talked about for so long that nobody really knows. And underneath all the bits that people have added the magic swords and lamps they're all about one thing - the good hero fighting the giant or the witch or the wicked uncle. Good against bad. Good against evil. — Susan Cooper

Sometimes I take her food from the Iranian restaurant she and Ollie liked - the Sunny Acres kitchen staff is happy to warm it up - and sometimes I bring her a DVD or two. She likes the oldies, like with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. I always bring her something, and she's always happy to see me. On her good days she does see me. On her bad ones, she's apt to call me Olivia. Or Charlotte. That's my aunt. I also have an uncle. — Stephen King

Harry was particularly keen to avoid trouble with his aunt and uncle at the moment, as they were already in an especially bad mood with him, all because he'd received a telephone call from a fellow wizard one week into the school vacation. — J.K. Rowling

His Uncle Gaston came around the building, looking impossibly angry as he bellowed his impossibly angry words. "How do the Jacobsons keep cheating death? It's not possible and it's not fair. There is no way that you two should be alive." He peeked back inside and back at us, shaking his head. "Of course. You ascended. Of course!" he yelled. "Lilith, take them out." "I haven't charged," she said and backed away. "What?" he growled. "I thought they were going to die like you said they were. It takes a long time to charge, Uncle Gaston, you know that. I can't help it. I wasn't going to charge up on the off chance that your little plan fell through. You know how bad it sucks." "You — Shelly Crane

Rosalind: "Elias told me that you met with your uncle this morning. Whatever did he say to put you in such a bad temper?"
Christopher: "Do you really want to know?"
Rosalind: "Of course I do."
Christopher: "He told me to seduce you."
Rosalind: "How strange. That's exactly what my grandfather told me to do to you." She bobbed a curtsy "Goodnight. Sir Christopher. — Kate Pearce

Really? Well, you'd definitely be interested in the fact that I just read To Kill A Mockingbird."
I smiled and elbowed him. "Everyone's read that."
I've read it five times."
Nu-uh."
Yep. I can even quote parts of it."
That's bullpoopie."
And then Stark, my big, bad, macho Warrior raised his voice, put on a little girl's Southern drawl, and said, "'Uncle Jack? What's a whore-lady?'"
I do not think that's the most important quote from that book," I said, but laughed anyway.
Okay, how about: 'Ain't no snot-nosed slut of a schoolteacher ever born c'n make me do nothin.!' That one's really my favorite."
You got a twisted mind, James Stark. — Kristin Cast

Among liberals and Democrats, there is this notion that the poor - especially the black poor - can do no wrong. If you criticize any poor and black person who displays inappropriate, boorish or egregiously bad conduct, you'll be dismissed as a racist if you're not black. And as an Uncle Tom or sellout if you are. — Gregory Kane

My dear children!"
Nellie whopped him upside the head with her backpack.
"Ow!" Uncle Alistair curled over, cupping his hand over his good eye.
"Nellie!" Amy said.
"Sorry," Nellie muttered. "I thought he was one of the bad guys. — Rick Riordan

Sadie got up and kissed Amos on the forehead. "Leave it to us, Uncle. I've got a plan."
"That," I said, "sounds like very bad news. — Rick Riordan

A guy comes home from college to find his mother sleeping with his uncle, and there's a ghost running around. Write it good, it's Hamlet; write it bad, it's Gilligan's Island. — Lorne Michaels

They say that time is relative. I think the way it's treating me it's a distant one, maybe a bad uncle, and not welcome in my house this Christmas!! — Neil Leckman

Uncle Drew?"
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"Where do babies come from? — Emma Chase

The rich and large corporations get richer, the CEOs earn huge compensation packages, and when things get bad, don't worry; Uncle Sam and the American taxpayers are here to bail you out. But when you are in trouble, well, we just can't afford to help you, if you are in the working class or middle class of this country. — Bernie Sanders

He says when you're smoking a cigarette with someone, and you have a lighter, you should light their cigarette first. But if you have matches, you should light your cigarette first, so you breathe in the 'harmful sulfur' instead of them. He says it's the polite thing to do. He also says it's bad luck to have "three on a match." He heard that from his uncle who fought in Vietnam. Something about how three cigarettes was enough time for the enemy to know where you are. Bob says that when you're alone, and you light a cigarette, and the cigarette is only halfway lit that means someone is thinking about you. — Stephen Chbosky

With our collective shock, what we saw seemed to be frozen into a state of suspended animation. Indelibly etched into our memories in terror, forever! My life was in slow motion, it was as if I was no longer in my body and this was a rather bad dream! It is almost impossible to describe with words what I saw, but I will try. This very experience is the one that has continued to shake me awake during the dense night of my lifetime. — Alfred Nestor

It was called 'We Wear the Mask', by Paul Laurence Dunbar. I transcribed the first stanza and then started jotting down my reaction to it.

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes, -
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

I used to wear masks so subtle I barely noticed them. A compliment to my mother after a dismal meal, a smile at my best friend when she sang out of tune, a forced laugh at my uncle's bad jokes. I wore small masks that came and went, like fleeting expressions.

I am stuck inside the mask I wear now. I want to rip it off. I want to show my scars to the world, to unveil the ugliness that breathes inside me. I want to be unashamed. I want to be unafraid. But every day the mask gets tighter, and I suffocate a little more.

I stopped writing. — Catherine Doyle

Beldin sighed. "Since you're going to be such a spoilsport for this, Pol, I found a
group of sheephenders below the snow line."
"Shepherds, uncle," she corrected.
"It means the same thing. If you really look at it, it's even the same word,"
"Shepherd sounds nicer."
"Nicer." He snorted. "Sheep are stupid, they smell bad, and they taste worse.
Anybody who spends his life tending them is either defective or degenerate. — David Eddings

I've had some good times, had some bad. Took some lumps. Scored some points. Half-way through life, at 43, I still say, 'go for broke.' No government, no FBI, no judge, no jailer is ever gonna make me say 'uncle.' Now, as then, let the game continue. I bet my stake on freedom's call; I'll play these cards with no regrets. — Abbie Hoffman

You learned good, Uncle Fifty," Lou said, shoveling beans onto her plate. "You get an A-plus. Will you teach Mattie how to cook? She can only make mush and pancakes. And a pea soup that's so bad, it's more pee than soup."
Uncle Fifty roared. My sisters laughed. Especially Lou. Pa raised an eyebrow at her, but that didn't quiet her. She knew she was safe because our uncle was laughing.
"Don't mind them, Mattie," Abby said, petting me.
"You like my pea soup, don't you Ab?" I asked, hurt.
She looked at me with her kind eyes. "No, Mattie, I don't. It's awful. — Jennifer Donnelly

The Gong Show provided me with five years of the happiest times of my life, but that's that. And to be known as the guy who gave the world The Gong Show - listen, my Uncle George isn't known as anything. So I guess it isn't so bad in that context. — Chuck Barris

But we are the good guys. Aren't we, Uncle?"
"I hope so. I hope we are. — Anthony Doerr

Work, my boy! forget me for a few years; I'd only give you bad advice; don't mention our meeting to your uncle- it might do you harm; don't think about an old man who would be dead long since, were it not for his dear habit of coming here every day and finding his old friends on these shelves. — Jules Verne

Indira was surrounded by people who had given up hope, who blamed their own misery on the influence of Christianity and western cultures, and yet, literally in the midst of squalor, her family had created a place of real beauty. It really makes you stop and think. Uncle Google should be spitting out eight hundred million things American schools have done right. The fact things are so screwed up makes no sense. If you believe Uncle Google, then we've done the exact opposite from Indira's family - in the land of hope and plenty we've created a place that's ugly. We have so much. Can things really be so bad? Maybe we can't fix our schools because as individuals we've never truly been broken. Or maybe Chinese lanterns make everyone wax philosophical. — Tucker Elliot

My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and so can papa and mama: they know how you shut me up all day long, and how you wish me dead. Mrs. Reed soon rallied her spirits: she shook me most soundly, she boxed both my ears, and then left me without a word. Bessie supplied the hiatus by a homily of an hour's length, in which she proved beyond a doubt that I was the most wicked and abandoned child ever reared under a roof. I half believed her; for I felt indeed only bad feelings surging in my breast. — Charlotte Bronte

It doesn't work if the bad guys kill his mother's uncle's friend's neighbor's pet dog. You've got to make the stakes high. — Steven Seagal

Life!' Vito exploded, making me jump. Up and down, good and bad, birth and death, celebration and devastation. If you got any balls at all, you roll with the punches and get the fuck on with it, pardon my French — Kristen Ashley

I lost it in the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet, I started to panic when I noticed the graveyard of empty toilet paper rolls. The brown cylinders had ostensibly been placed vertically to form a half oval on top of the flat shiny surface of the stainless steel toilet paper holder. It was like some sort of miniature-recycled Stonehenge in the women's bathroom, a monument to the bowel movements of days past. Actually, it was sometime around 2:30 p.m. when my day exited the realm of country song bad and entered the neighboring territory of Aunt Ethel's annual Christmas letter bad. Last year Aunt Ethel wrote with steady, stalwart sincerity of Uncle Joe's gout and her one - no, make that two - car accidents, the new sinkhole in their backyard, their impending eviction from the trailer park, and Cousin Serena's divorce. To be fair, Cousin Serena got divorced every year, so that didn't really count toward the calamitous computation of yearly catastrophes. I — Penny Reid

It was impossible to imagine a time when [Fielding's] dry wit wouldn't be around to make me laugh, or to imagine someone else being the one to see the joy on his face when he learned something new. I thought about all of that, and then I thought about never holding him again, never kissing him again, never again experiencing Fielding pushy and demanding and needing me so bad he trembled with it.
And man, it fucking hurt.
"Okay," I said out loud, swallowing hard. "Okay, I give. Uncle."
It was time to admit defeat, to lay down my cards, and concede the game.
For the first time in my life, I was in love. I was in love with a guy. I was in love with Fielding Monroe. — Eli Easton

I would have loved to have been a footballer like my great uncle Matt Busby, but I knew quite early on that I wasn't going to make the grade. Luckily I was told by the age of 13 that I wasn't good enough. That's not a bad thing. You see this 'X Factor' generation of kids now who don't accept that they're not good enough. — Brendan Coyle

I can teach them little things that may not be in any of the great books on writing. For instance, I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned that December is traditionally a bad month for writing. It is a month of Mondays. Mondays are not good writing days. One has had all that freedom over the weekend, all that authenticity, all those dreamy dreams, and then your angry mute Slavic Uncle Monday arrives, and it is time to sit down at your desk. — Anne Lamott