Best Lad Quotes & Sayings

Daniel swept Ainsley into a strong hug. "I knew you'd come back. Didn't I say so? Dad!" he bellowed up the stairs as he set Ainsley on her feet. "It's Ainsley!"
"He knows, lad". Mac laughed. "I think the whole county knows. — Jennifer Ashley

One must not be shy where language is concerned. — Ann Patchett

Persuasion comes in many forms," said Lord Vetinari. "No, I agree with Archchancellor Ridcully, sending Captain Carrot would be an excellent idea."
"What? Did I say something?" said Ridcully.
"Do you think that sending Captain Carrot would be an excellent idea?"
"What? Oh. Yes. Good lad. Keen. Got a sword."
"Then I agree with you," said Lord Vetinari, who knew how to work a committee. — Terry Pratchett

Grave this on your memory, lad: A world is supported by four things ... " she held up four big-knuckled fingers. " ... the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these things are as nothing ... " She closed her fingers into a fist. " ... without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. Make that the science of your tradition! — Frank Herbert

Remember the flame, lad, and the void. It was an odd thing Tam had taught him. Concentrate on a single flame and feed all your passions into it - fear, hate, anger - until your mind became empty. Become one with the void, Tam said, and you could do anything. — Robert Jordan

Wisdom of the ages you seek, lad? I offer but one word: treasure. At what price does this treasure come, you ask, for not all does silver and gold make? If it be treasure you seek then you are a pirate! — Kerry Lynne

When the lad for longing sighs,
Mute and dull of cheer and pale,
If at death's own door he lies,
Maiden, you can heal his ail.
Lovers' ills are all to buy:
The wan look, the hollow tone,
The hung head, the sunken eye,
You can have them for your own.
Buy them, buy them: eve and morn
Lovers' ills are all to sell.
Then you can lie down forlorn;
But the lover will be well. — A.E. Housman

Oh, now my Erin, she'd smile down on me no matter where I walked." Grandpop smiled that little smile again. "But I'd be separated from her, and I'd feel that separation in my soul, you see?"
Nathan shook his head.
Grandpop sighed. "You have the Irish eyes, boy. One of these days, you'll see from eyes, not your own, feel with a heart outside your chest. Wild Irish eyes. Nathan. When you love, love well and love true, and take care, lad, because those Irish eyes are windows into not just your own soul, but the soul of the one you love." Grandpop looked out at his Erin's grave.
"And when you lose that heart, you can't leave the places where your memories are the best. And if I left her, I'd not be buried beside her. — Lora Leigh

Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber
Sunlit pallets never thrive;
Morns abed and daylight slumber
Were not meant for man alive. — A.E. Housman

Because I liked you better Than suits a man to say, It irked you, and I promised I'd throw the thought away. To put the world between us We parted stiff and dry: 'Farewell,' said you, 'forget me.' 'Fare well, I will,' said I. If e'er, where clover whitens The dead man's knoll, you pass, And no tall flower to meet you Starts in the trefoiled grass, Halt by the headstone shading The heart you have not stirred, And say the lad that loved you Was one that kept his word. — A.E. Housman

You know, all the evil in the world, all the sadness comes from not having a good answer to that question: What do I do next? You just keep thinking of good things to do, lad. You'll be all right. We'll all be all right. I wanted you to know that. — Geoff Ryman

Tis said if under a waxing moon a maid weaves a chain of bluebells within the stone circle, the next lad she sees will be her true love." She held up her handiwork. "Tis no' quite finished, so I believe ye are safe from me... — Willa Blair

We live in a very special, yet very dangerous time, wherein a new global culture is painfully struggling to be born. It — Vasant Dattatray Lad

Intellectual growth is when you surpass the barrier of puerility, puzzling people with your dazzling creativity. — Michael Bassey Johnson

Yes, the lad was premature. He was gathering his harvest while it was yet spring. — Oscar Wilde

Throttle it down a bit, mate, and don't crush that pint. You're gonna need that hand tomorrow. I'm not telling you not to do this, I'm saying stop trying to be Shadow and just be you. When you're in the cockpit you can race 'for him' but you can't 'be him.' You always had great potential, lad, but we both spent so much time making sure the lead horse ran the best race you got left behind."
- Luther 'Blackbird' Gregg — T. August Green

The less one knows about meat, the more one is able to enjoy it. Meat tastes wonderful, of course, but as with the lad hawking hard-to-find wares at unbelievable prices, it's best not to ask too many questions. — Brian South

Charity knew there was nothing more coarse and common than an afternoon in bed with a total stranger
but the lad installing the telephone had a grin that made her heart turn flips. — Elizabeth Jane Howard

Let the winds blow, lad
Let fall the deep snow.
Let the stars fall, lad
We'll answer the call.
Let the dark come, lad
Ask not where it's from.
After the fight, lad
We'll see morning's light — Jennifer A. Nielsen

One thing I will say, they often take it better than a man. Pain, that is. Probably the residue of tolerance from when they were all bloody witches and got stoned or burned or drowned for it, eh lad? Never tell your mother I said that, by the way. — Sarah Hall

unless you take the view that footballers should be picked on their form as players, and not for personal considerations.' 'Ah!' said Mr Bowles, 'but that's what Vicar would call a counsel of perfection. People talk a lot about the team spirit and let the best side win, but if you was to sit in this bar and listen to what goes on, it's all spite and jealousy, or else it's how to scrape up enough money to entice away some other team's centre-forward, or it's complaints about favouritism or wrong decisions, or something that leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. The game's not what it was when I was a lad. Too much commercialism, and enough back-biting to stock an old maids' tea-party. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Will sat where he was, gazing at the silver bowl in front of him; a white rose was floating in it, and he seemed prepared to stare at it until it went under. In the Kitchen Bridget was still singing one of her awful sad songs; the lyrics drifted in through the door:
"Twas on an evening fair I went to take the air,
I heard a maid making her moan;
Said, 'Saw ye my father? Or ye my mother?
Or saw ye my brother John?
Or saw ye the lad that I love best,
And his name it is Sweet William?"
I may murder her, Tessa thought. Let her make a song about that. — Cassandra Clare

In youth, it was a way I had, to do my best to please, and change with every passing lad to suit his theories. But now, I know the things I know and do the things I do, and if you do not like me so, to hell my love, with you." - Dorothy Parker — Nicole Archer

Culloden, Scotland, April 1746
All around was the awful sound of moaning. It was not just mournful, but the sound of immense suffering, the cries of dying men. The battle had waged on, and the day was far spent. In dirt and blood, the soldiers waded on. Horizontal rain, snow, and wind made the normal battle conditions much worse.
Near the edge of the field I stood holding a gun, pointing it at the lad who had once been my best friend. He was dressed in the red coat of a government soldier; I was not. — David Holdsworth

We marched him to the turfy shack where he lived with his parents and while the youth sulked Petronius Longus put the whole moral issue in succinct terms to them: Ollia's father was a legionary veteran who had served in Egypt and Syria for over twenty years until he left with double pay, three medals, and a diploma that made Ollia legitimate; he now ran a boxers' training school where he was famous for his high-minded attitude and his fighters were notorious for their loyalty to him ... The old fisherman was a toothless, hapless, faithless cove you would not trust too near you with a filleting knife, but whether from fear or simple cunning he co-operated eagerly. The lad agreed to marry the girl and since Silvia would never abandon Ollia here, we decided that the fisherboy had to come back with us to Rome. His relations looked impressed by this result. We accepted it as the best we could achieve. — Lindsey Davis

Sheh walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes. Another bit of bread and cheese, he said to the lad behind the bar. — P.G. Wodehouse

Ah, the rheumy-eyed grandpa on the terraces inducting the lad into the mysteries of soccer: how to loathe people wearing different coloured shirts, how to feign injury, how to blow your snot onto the pitch - See, son, you press hard on one nostril to close it, and explode the green stuff out of the other. How to be vain and overpaid and have your best years behind you before you've even understood what life's about. Oh yes, I look forward to taking Lucas to the football. But — Julian Barnes

'Twas on an evening fair I went to take the air,
I heard a maid making her moan;
Said, 'Saw ye my father? Or saw ye my mother?
Or saw ye my brother John?
Or saw ye the lad I that I love best,
And his name it is Sweet William? — Cassandra Clare

People rarely pay attention to what is happening right in front of them, lad," Corin told Gabriel. "Best place to do something you want to hide, is right in front of their arse! — Andrew Lorino

I love roundabouts. I absolutely think they're the best invention, and I don't care who invented the pen, the biro; whoever invented the roundabout, they should be up there on that plinth that they've got going on in Trafalgar Square. You can have a little bit of fun with it, you know. Will I go? Will I not go? The other car might go in my lane. There's a bit of a dance going. It's like a samba. Because in this city, sometimes you just come to a sudden gridlock and you think, well I'm waiting for him, he's waiting for me, he's waiting for him, and you've got everyone looking at everyone - who will make the first move? And you begin to move and he begins to move and then you stop, and everyone's being really polite. But every day you get somebody who just doesn't care, a young lad and he doesn't give a monkey's. — Craig Taylor

That is who I want you to remember, lad. The man so filled with Arman's love that he could forgive his son for taking his life and the life of his bride. That is the man I knew. The king I served. Just you remember it.'
'But a man with many mistresses. A man who wouldn't have had that problem if he'd
'
'Aye, he was no porcelain saint. He was mixed, torn, pulled by light and darkness, as is every follower of Arman. That is what it is to know Arman and yet still live in this world. Pity those who do not know Arman, because in them there is nothing at all pulling them toward light. — Jill Williamson

"I am not afeard, my Heart's-delight," resumed the Captain. "There's been most uncommon bad weather in them latitudes, there's no denyin', and they have drove and drove and been beat off, may be t'other side the world. But the ship's a good ship, and the lad's a good lad; and it ain't easy, thank the Lord," the Captain made a little bow, "to break up hearts of oak, whether they're in brigs or buzzums." — Charles Dickens

Football in itself is a grand game for developing a lad physically and also morally, for he learns to play with good temper and unselfishness, to play in his place and 'play the game,' and these are the best of training for any game of life. — Robert Baden-Powell

A sampler of England's hottest 'chefs' would include a mostly hairless young blond lad named Jamie Oliver, who is referred to as the Naked Chef. As best as I can comprehend, he's a really rich guy who pretends he scoots around on a Vespa, hangs out in some East End cold-water flat, and cooks green curry for his 'mates'. He's a TV chef, so few actually eat his food. I've never seen him naked. I believe the 'Naked' refers to his 'simple, straightforward, unadorned' food; though I gather that a great number of matronly housewives would like to believe otherwise. Every time I watch his show, I want to go back in time and bully him at school. — Anthony Bourdain

But I'm afraid it can't be done."
"Certainly not; it can't be done," repeated the Humbug.
"Why not?" asked Milo.
"Why not indeed?" exclaimed the bug, who seemed equally at home on either side of an argument.
"Much too difficult," replied the king.
"Of course," emphasized the bug, "much too difficult."
"You could if you really wanted to," insisted Milo.
"By all means, if you really wanted to, you could," the Humbug agreed.
"How?" asked Azaz, glaring at the bug.
"How?" inquired Milo, looking the same way.
"A simple task," began the Humbug, suddenly wishing he were somewhere else, "for a brave lad with a stout heart, a steadfast dog, and a serviceable small automobile. — Norton Juster

Right you guessed the rising morrow
And scorned to tread the mire you must:
Dust's your wages, son of sorrow,
But men may come to worse than dust.
Souls undone, undoing others,-
Long time since the tale began.
You would not live to wrong your brothers:
Oh lad, you died as fits a man. — A.E. Housman

Sheesh, so melodramatic. He was boring, both in and out of bed. He, what, played the bagpipes, or something? Just because he fulfilled your dream of dating a Scottish lad does not mean you can't find someone new, who can fulfill other fantasies of yours. Other men will be begging for you to play their pipes in no time. — Adelaide Penne

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose. — A.E. Housman

Why do I need TV when I have forty-eight apartment windows to watch across the vacant lot, and a sliver of Lake Erie? I've seen history out this window. So much. I was four when we moved here in 1919. The fruit-sellers' carts and coal wagons were pulled down the street by horses back then. I used to stand just here and watch the coal brought up by the handsome lad from Groza, the village my parents were born in. Gibb Street was mainly Rumanians back then. It was "Adio" - "Good-bye"- in all the shops when you left. Then the Rumanians started leaving. They weren't the first, or the last. This has always been a working-class neighborhood. It's like a cheap hotel - you stay until you've got enough money to leave. — Paul Fleischman

Meanwhile the old Marquess, visibly moved, was charging Odo to respect his elders and superiors, while in the same breath warning him not to take up with the Frenchified notions of the court, but to remember that for a lad of his condition the chief virtues were a tight seat in the saddle, a quick hand on the sword and a slow tongue in counsel. "Mind your own business," he concluded, "and see that others mind theirs." The Marchioness thereupon, with many tears, hung a — Edith Wharton

That, lad," he said proudly, "was some of the worst poetry I have heard for a long time. It was offensive to the ear and a torrrture to the soul ... We'll make a gonnagle out of ye yet! — Terry Pratchett

I'd been a fanatic of movies since I was a wee lad, so I got into the films before I got into the comics. — Josh Helman

A man met a lad weeping. "What do you weep for?" he asked. "I am weeping for my sins," said the lad. "You must have little to do," said the man. The next day, they met again. Once more the lad was weeping. "Why do you weep now?" asked the man. "I am weeping because I have nothing to eat," said the lad. "I thought it would come to that," said the man. — Robert Louis Stevenson

Ye have to be bold, lad. We're told that ladies want cringing politeness from a gentleman, but what they really want is a bit of forwardness, even carnality. It's exciting for them. — Jennifer Ashley

You're no fun at all, you boys, you do nothing but worry. You need to think on the sunny side o' this. The worst that can happen is that Bethod don't show!'
'The worst?' Dogman stared at him. 'You sure? What about if Bethod does come, and his Carls kick your wall over like a pile o' turds and kill every last one of us?'
Crummock's brow furrowed. He frowned down at the ground. He squinted up at the clouds. 'True,' he said, breaking out in a smile. 'That is worse. You got a fast mind, lad.'
Dogman gave a long sigh, and stared down into the valley. — Joe Abercrombie

Unless Sophronia missed her guess, the poor lad was already developing romantic feelings toward her friend. Many of the sooties probably were. Dimity was so pretty and chattery, she quite overpowered the average male. Many gentlemen were unable to cope with abundant chatter, which is why they so often married it. — Gail Carriger

God's providence is not in baskets lowered from the sky, but through the hands and hearts of those who love him. The lad without food and without shoes made the proper answer to the cruel-minded woman who asked, "But if God loved you wouldn't he send you food and shoes?" The boy replied, "God told someone, but he forgot." — George Arthur Buttrick

Lad stood to attention anyhow, he said with a sigh. She's a gamey mare and no mistake. Bloom was pointing out all the stars and the comets in the heavens to Chris Callinan and the jarvey: the great bear and Hercules and the dragon, and the whole jingbang lot. But, by God, I was lost, so to speak, in the milky way. He knows them all, faith. At last she spotted a weeny weeshy one miles away. And what star is that, Poldy? says she. By God, she had Bloom cornered. That one, is it? says Chris Callinan, sure that's only what you might call a pinprick. — James Joyce

We're dealing here," said Vimes, "With a twisted mind."
"Oh, no! You think so?"
"Yes."
"But ... no ... you can't be right. Because Nobby was with us all the time."
"Not Nobby," said Vimes testily. "Whatever he might do to a dragon, I doubt if he'd make it explode. There's stranger people in this world than Corporal Nobbs, my lad."
Carrot's expression slid into a rictus of intrigued horror.
"Gosh," he said. — Terry Pratchett

Remember, lad," said the newt, "If it's going to be tommorow, it might as well be today. And if it is today, it could have been yesterday. If it was yesterday, then you're over and done with it, and can write your own book. Think about that. — Avi

A line comes back to Marie-Laure from Jules Verne: Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth. Etienne — Anthony Doerr

Shoulder the sky,'" said Nan smiling. "Do you know A. E. Housman's poems? I think it helps a lot to find that other people have troubles, and understand what it feels like to be unhappy. Poets seem to know a lot about unhappiness. Here's something that has helped me." She hesitated for a moment and then quoted the lines: "The troubles of our proud and angry dust Are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale." "'Shoulder — D.E. Stevenson

Look," she sighed. "You might be a lovely lad, in fairness you look like a lovely lad, but I can't take the chance. My kids wouldn't even be able to remember what I was wearing to tell the police. And all the recent photographs of me are bad, very jowly. I couldn't have them stuck to the lamp posts around the city. On your way, son." (Woman to Matt, when he tried to give her a lift.) — Marian Keyes

The Water Babies "Young and Old" When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green; And every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen; Then hey for boot and horse, lad, And round the world away: Young blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day. — Charles Kingsley

Then Charon looked at me. That cold stare behind his glasses seemed to bore a hole through my chest. "Here now," he said. "You couldn't read my name correctly. Are you dyslexic, lad?"
"No," I said. "I'm dead. — Rick Riordan

I was a young lad when I was growing up. — David O'Leary

Had I known that these legs were to carry a Lord Chancellor, I would have taken better care of them when I was a lad. Duke of Grafton — Barbara W. Tuchman

Love is sacred. Beauty is sacred. Flowers are sacred. Birds are sacred. And sacredness brings the perfume of love and compassion. Therefore love and compassion is the perfume of sacredness. It sounds rather poetic, but ... God IS poetry. — Vasant Lad

A Christian mother's first duty is to soil her child's mind, and she does not neglect it. Her lad grows up to be a missionary, and goes to the innocent savage and to the civilized Japanese, and soils their minds. Whereupon they adopt immodesty, they conceal their bodies, they stop bathing naked together. — Mark Twain

What does she look like?"
"Glasses," I said. "Snobbish face. Usually has her hair in a bun."
"The glasses," Grandpa Smedry said slowly. "Did they have ... horn rims?" "Usually." "Hyperventilating Hobbs!" he exclaimed. "A Librarian! Quickly, lad, we have to go! Get dressed; I'll go steal some food from your foster parents! — Brandon Sanderson