Clever Bastard Quotes & Sayings

I succeed in almost everything I do. My secret is persistence. — Debasish Mridha

I woke up in the hospital. Doctor Cunningham was bending over me. I thought, "We have to stop meeting like this," but didn't even try to say it out loud.
"You've lost blood and had your stitches redone. Do you think you can stay in here long enough for me
to actually release you this time?"
I think I smiled. "Yes, Doctor."
"Just in case you got any funny ideas about leaving, I've doped you up with enough pain killers to make you feel really good. So sleep, and I'll see you in the morning."
My eyes fluttered shut once, then opened. Edward was there. He bent over me and whispered, "Crawling through bushes on your belly, threatening to cut off a man's balls. Such a hard ass."
My voice came faintly even to me. "Had to save your ass."
He bent over me and kissed on my forehead. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Without the witty, potent dialogue and the puzzling shape of the story, the movie would have been merely an American version of the kind of brooding, shadow-filled, Ufa-style expressionist stuff that Joe had grown up watching in Prague. Without the brooding shadows and cold adventurings of the camera, without the theatrical lighting and queasy angles, it would have been merely a clever movie about a rich bastard. It was much, much more, than any movie really needed to be. In this one crucial regard--its inextricable braiding of image and narrative--Citizen Kane was like a comic book. — Michael Chabon

Back therefore we find ourselves returning. Back to the wisdom of the plough; back to the wisdom of those who follow the sea. It is all a matter of the wheel coming full-circle. For the sophisticated system of mental reactions to which we finally give our adherence is only the intellectualised reproduction of what more happily constituted natures, without knowing what they possess, possess. Thus between true philosophers and the true simple people there is a magnetic understanding; whereas, the clever ones whose bastard culture only divorces them from the wisdom of the earth remain pilloried and paralysed on the prongs of their own conceit. — John Cowper Powys

These boots are worth more than you, damn it!'
Shadikshirram was sitting on her bed, eyes shining wet, straining forward and trying to grab her foot but so drunk she kept missing. When she saw him she sagged back.
'Give me a hand, eh?'
'As long as you don't need two,' said Yarvi.
She gurgled with laughter. 'You're a clever little crippled bastard, aren't you? I swear the gods sent you. Sent you ... to get my boots off. — Joe Abercrombie

Every society needs particular individuals to do its dirty work for it. — Kevin Dutton

A bad conscience makes a very good ghost. — Hope Mirrlees

Gorgeous I called him and that he is, Maeve: you'd be surprised. And nasty I called him, and that, Maeve, was a shrewd piece of insight, for nasty he certainly is. And a clever bastard, I called him. ... Not to his face, dear. We're not all born to be heroes. But what he may not know, Maeve, is that I'm a clever bastard as well. — Dorothy Dunnett

Once a rebel, always a rebel. You can't help being one. You can't deny that. And it's best to be a rebel so as to show 'em it don't pay to try to do you down. Factories and labour exchanges and insurance offices keep us alive and kicking - so they say - but they're booby-traps and will suck you under like sinking-sands if you're not careful. Factories sweat you to death, labour exchanges talk you to death, insurance and income tax offices milk money from your wage packets and rob you to death. And if you're still left with a tiny bit of life in your guts after all this boggering about, the army calls you up and you get shot to death. And if you're clever enough to stay out of the army you get bombed to death. Ay, by God, it's a hard life if you don't weaken, if you don't stop that bastard government from grinding your face in the muck, though there ain't much you can do about it unless you start making dynamite to blow their four-eyed clocks to bits. — Alan Sillitoe

Agres look!" Tria pointed Agres looked around "Very clever...." cheeky bastard Tria and Agres now found themselves back on a mountain top oh on not again — Charon Lloyd-Roberts

Unless you loosen the hold that your past has on you, your future will unfold in much the same way ... it is time to begin writing a new script that accurately reflects the beautiful, powerful, and worthy being you are. — David Simon

Have the courage to speak your mind and tell the truth from a position of love rather than anger or fear, being open to accept the views of others without feeling threatened or defeated, relinquishing the ego's need to be in control by demonstrating the willingness to do whatever it takes to establish peace. — Iyanla Vanzant

Rumors spread fast, and they grow. I know. You want to either deny them, or disarm them — L.J.Smith

I take politics only medicinally, as a cure of occasional attacks of insomnia. — Kenneth Hare