Braying Quotes & Sayings

Lawyers have to make a living, and can only do so by inducing people to believe that a straight line is crooked. — Alfred Nobel

Fran? Frances Hill, you stop that right now! What the devil's got into you? Ada, you should be ashamed! Braying like a mule, you are! And you, Mattie Gokey ... would you like to tell me what could possibly be so funny? — Jennifer Donnelly

At their worst, message boards can subject you to mindless braying or outright stock scams. But at their best, they provide meaty insights on just about every stock imaginable. — Gary Weiss

Cuddles screamed. It wasn't a braying noise, it was an ear-slapping shriek of pure donkey outrage, like someone got hold of a foghorn and tried to strangle it. — Ilona Andrews

He did not enjoy speaking about women with other men, a practice which, in his estimation, was always clownish and braying. — Eleanor Catton

It is forbidden to walk on the grass. It is not forbidden to fly over the grass. — Augusto Boal

A gang of teenage boys had gathered on the steps of the Odeon. Boys Collin knew, from the fourth and fifth year, boys with braying laughs and sudden, falsetto giggles, boys who stood on street corners and watched girls walk past, who punched each other with painful tenderness, who cultivated small moustaches that broke down, when shaved, into crusts of acne thicker than the moustaches had ever been, who lit cigarettes behind cupped hands, narrowing their eyes in pretended indifference to the smoke. — Pat Barker

I'll be in position. Vadim left the building, struggling with the emotion, fuck, Dan kissing him like that hat shaken him, deeply. He'd needed that touch, that oath, that everything, but coudln't have responded any other way. Not in Russian, not in English. Couldn't have just held on to him for a moment longer. He wanted to hold him, fuck him, be fucked, he wanted to rest at Dan's shoulder after sex and think nothing but that they were both alive. Fuck the war, fuck the past, fuck the money. — Aleksandr Voinov

There are braying men in the world, as well as braying asses; for what is loud and senseless talking any other than away of braying? — Roger L'Estrange

Arch, giggling women and braying young men who'd been at the back of the line when the chins were handed out. — Terry Pratchett

In the woods, if you stopped, if you grew still, you'd hear a whole new set of sounds, wind rasping through silhouetted leaves and the cries and chatter of blue jays and brown thrashers and redbirds and sparrows, the calling of crows and hawks, squirrels barking, frogs burping, the far braying of dogs, armadillos snorkeling through dead leaves ... — Tom Franklin

Most of the time, I see what I see, I search my feelings, and then I make my decisions based on my gut - and I don't always make the right ones. — Pharrell Williams

There was a noise above us like an airplane zoom, but it was getting too dark to see. People started laying on the horn, braying like bad geese in a panic. "I am here," Lila said with a trembly smile. Our driver's ed teacher had told us that's what the horn should mean. Not Move along, buddy or I am displeased but I am here. I am here, I am here, I am here! — Daniel Handler

Chris Cooper once told me to never have any regrets. After Chris said that to me, I walk into every scene thinking, 'exhaust every possibility.' Once you get to a certain place, it's like you just deliver everything you've got. Don't have any regrets. It pops up in my mind over and over and over again. — Jake Gyllenhaal

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. — Winston S. Churchill

Consider the roots of a simple and mundane action, for instance, buying bread for your breakfast. A farmer has grown the grain in a field carved from wilderness by his ancestors; in the ancient city a miller has ground the flour and a baker prepared the loaf; the vendor has transported it to your house in a cart built by a cartwright and his apprentices. Even the donkey that draws the cart, what stories could she not tell if you could decipher her braying? And then you yourself hand over a coin of copper dug from the very heart of the earth, you who have risen from a bed of dreams and darkness to stand in the light of the vast and terrifying sun. Are there not a thousand strands woven together into this tapestry of a morning meal? How then can you expect that the omens of great events should be easy to unravel? The Pseudo-Iamblichus Scroll — Katharine Kerr

I have been called a curmudgeon, which my obsolescent dictionary defines as a 'surly, ill-mannered, bad-tempered fellow'. Nowadays, curmudgeon is likely to refer to anyone who hates hypocrisy, cant, sham, dogmatic ideologies, and has the nerve to point out unpleasant facts and takes the trouble to impale these sins on the skewer of humor and roast them over the fires of fact, common sense, and native intelligence. In this nation of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, it then becomes an honor to be labeled curmudgeon. — Edward Abbey

I'M SCURRYING AROUND THE HOUSE, TRYING TO DECIDE WHAT I should pack (cloth diapers, knitted booties, cotton jumpers?) and what I should leave behind (cloth diapers, knitted booties, cotton jumpers?) when I'm stopped in my tracks by the lowing and braying of the animals in the barn. — Megan McCafferty

The choking, sweltering, deadly, and killing rule of no rule; the consecration of cupidity and braying of folly, and dim stupidity and baseness, in most of the affairs of men. Slopshirts attainable three-halfpence cheaper by the ruin of living bodies and immortal souls. — Thomas Carlyle

Braying of arrogant brass, whimper of querulous reeds. — William Watson

I think I throw the ball as hard as anyone. The ball just doesn't get there as fast. — Eddie Bane

Too many people are overly respectful, braying, 'You're so brave' and Irv fell smack into that trap. After all what's so courageous about having cancer? Once we have it, what choice do we have? But the worst thing of all - and thank God Irv doesn't do this, at least not yet - is all this nonsensical talk about a patient's courageous struggle with cancer that all too often ends in defeat. How many obituaries do you see stating that so-and-so lost their courageous battle with cancer? I hate that! I absolutely hate it! If someone put that in my obituary, I'd come back and kill him! — Irvin D. Yalom

The voice of a donkey braying in the neighbouring meadow seemed like the mocking laughter of demons. — P.G. Wodehouse

A fortune-teller means a braggart anyway. Don't you know that a donkey can't do but braying, a wolf can't do but howling, a horse can't do but neighing, and a fortune-teller can't do but telling lies? — Mehmet Murat Ildan

In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shite fundamentalists. — Barbara Ehrenreich

In the land of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, one brave and honest man is bound to create a scandal. — Edward Abbey

and braying multitudes of wild asses. The — Alfred W. Crosby

To know the piano is to know the universe. To master the piano is to master the universe. The spectrum of piano sound acts as a prism through which all musical and non-musical sounds may be filtered. The grunts of sheep, the braying of mules, the popping of champagne corks, the sighs of unrequited love, not to mention the full lexicon of sounds available to all other instruments-including whistles, scrapes, bleatings, caresses, thuds, hoots, plus sweet and sour pluckings-fall within the sovereignty of this most bare and dissembling chameleon. — Russell Sherman

According to a new study, Botox injections can help back pain. So you see, that's why John Kerry had all that Botox - his back was killing him from all that flip-flopping on issues. — Jay Leno

With the sun rising on the distant sea horizon, she could almost forget the braying of the donkeys. — Alexandra Brenton

A person who ... does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.
[Foreward to Georg Rhau's (1488-1548) Collection Symphoniae iucundae, 1538] — Martin Luther

A streak of presence surrounded by a dim glow of absence. — John Crowley

After the brightness of the morning, the interior of the pavilion seemed cool and dim. Stannis seated himself on a plain wooden camp stool and waved Davos to another. "One day I may make you a lord, smuggler. If only to irk Celtigar and Florent. You will not thank me, though. It will mean you must suffer through these councils, and feign interest in the braying of mules."
"Why do you have them, if they serve no purpose?"
"The mules love the sound of their own braying, why else? And I need them to haul my cart. — George R R Martin

Other players and at least one great composer - Beethoven - had lived with deafness, but hearing loss wasn't where Hugh's woes ended. There was the vertigo, the trembling, the periodic loss of vision. There was nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, galloping pulse. Worst of all was the almost constant tinnitus. He had always thought deafness meant silence. This was not true, at least not in his case. Hugh Yates had a constantly braying burglar alarm in the middle of his head. — Stephen King

I tried to smile back, but I was trying not to stare at the ribbon of skin that was showing beneath his T-shirt as he bent over. As usual, my mouth went a little dry and my breathing sped up, and that weird, almost sad feeling settled in my stomach. I never thought I'd be glad to hear Vandy's braying voice, but when she shouted, 'All right! That's it for today!' I could have kissed her.
Well, on second thought, no. Maybe a firm handshake. — Rachel Hawkins

B, I swear, if you call her a cougar to her face, I will buy you a car." Carwyn snickered. "A house. Maybe even an island. — Elizabeth Hunter

But it would be broadcast, and in the great public theatre of his age; that unregulated market of braying narcissists, that Wild West of disinformation and fraud, that infinite sea of piracy, the great electorate where the constituency of billions voted their approval with a click of a mouse. The internet. It brought governments down and rewrote history ... — Adam Nevill