Quotes & Sayings About Dueling

I want you to hear a new version of Dueling Banjos. Anyone else is welcome. — James Dickey

I like the dueling club scene, where Daniel and I fight with our wands. I thought it was a brilliant scene to shoot. I think the end product looked really good. — Tom Felton

I have been speaking with Dyhern a great deal on the subject of dueling," Temeraire said, "and it seems plain to me that something must be done. You must give me your word, Laurence, that if anyone ever should insult you again, they must be told at once that I will insist on being your second myself. I am very much indebted to Mr. Hammond for having killed that wretched fellow, but in future, if anyone likes to prove they are not a coward by insulting you, they may fight me, and then they cannot complain of not having had satisfaction: I am sure everyone will agree they were brave, once they are dead. — Naomi Novik

The difference between listening and pretending to listen, I discovered, is enormous. One is fluid, the other is rigid. One is alive, the other is stuffed. Eventually, I found a radical way of thinking about listening. Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you. When I'm willing to let them change me, something happens between us that's more interesting than a pair of dueling monologues. — Alan Alda

Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not hand-wrought dueling pistols, curare and tropical fish. — Raymond Chandler

A man cannot be too careful in selecting the individual who is intrusted with his cartel. He should run over the names of his friends, and endeavour to obtain the services of a staid, cool, calculating old fellow; if possible, one who has seen some few shots exchanged: but I should advise his never choosing an Irishman on any account, as nine out of ten of those I have had the pleasure of forming an acquaintance with, both abroad and in this country, have such an innate love of fighting, they cannot bring an affair to an amicable adjustment. — A Traveller

It is time to end this."
He ducked under her sword, stepped around her with blinding speed until he was at her back. She turned at once. He thrust his sword with great precision to catch the grip just above her hand and flick the sword from her grasp. It was a move he had long ago perfected. Her eyes widened, she stepped back, stumbled, and fell to the ground. He stood over her, aiming his sword at her midsection.
"Have you had enough then?" He smiled smugly down at her.
"No." She rolled quickly, caught his ankle with her foot, and he tumbled to the ground. Before he could recover she scrambled to her knees, grabbed his sword, and held it against his chest. "You're right, it is time to end this."
He looked at the sword and winced. "Do be careful with that. You could inflict a great deal of harm. — Victoria Alexander

Until the Civil War there was scarcely a man in public life in New Orleans or Louisiana who had not fought at least one duel; most of them had engaged in several. — Herbert Asbury

Hammett wrote at first (and almost to the end) for people with a sharp, aggressive attitude to life. They were not afraid of the seamy side of things; they lived there. Violence did not dismay them; it was right down their street. Hammett gave murder back to the kind of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not hand-wrought dueling pistols, curare and tropical fish. He put these people down on paper as they were, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes — Raymond Chandler

I found myself in an unknown universe, whirling far into space. African servants, dogs in hats, platonic ideals, sparkling conversation, and ivy-coated quadrangles with womanizing captains, dueling earls, actors. I met Father Cyprien de Gamache, her majesty's wily confessor; William, a poet, who claimed to be Shakespeare's son; and a giggling dwarf called Jeffry, who'd been presented to the queen in a pie. I met the ladies-in-waiting, too, who hardly looked my way, busy as they were, bickering over who went where and when, who wore what and when, who fetched what and why, who said what and to whom, and who gave her the right to say that. — Danielle Dutton

Good God!" Avery gasped at the bloody wound on Lucien's head and Cedric's grief-stricken expression.
"You were dueling?" Sir John growled. "Fools."
He relieved Lawrence of Lucien's feet to help carry the unconscious Marquess up the stairs to an empty bedroom.
The second Lucien was on the bed Lady Rochester burst into the room, fire in her eyes. "Is he dead?" she asked, panic creeping into her.
"The blow glanced his skull," Lawrence said. "He may still live."
"May? Oh, he will not die. I want to kill him myself and he will not deny me that."

-His Wicked Seduction — Lauren Smith

My knowledge of pain, learned with the sabre, taught me not to be afraid. And just as in dueling when you must concentrate on your enemy's cheek, so, too, in war. You cannot waste time on feinting and sidestepping. You must decide on your target and go in. — Otto Skorzeny

You're never too young to start being a hero. Practice dueling one-handed so you never need to drop your blankie. - THE HERO'S GUIDE TO BEING A HERO — Christopher Healy

Scared?" Malfoy muttered, so that Lockhart couldn't hear him.
"You wish." said Harry out of the corner of his mouth. — J.K. Rowling

Between his dueling and military career, Jackson had been shot so many times that scholars says he "rattled like a bag of marbles" when he walked as a result of all of the never-removed bullets taking up residence in his body. The pieces of shrapnel he carries around like internal medals of honor are about ten times larger than your balls and infinity times as armored. — Daniel O'Brien

I was thinking about honour. It's a thing that changes doesn't it? I mean, a hundred and fifty years ago we would have had to fight if challenged. Now we'd laugh. There must have been a time when it was rather an awkward question."
"Yes. Moral theologians were never able to stop dueling
it took democracy to do that."
"And in the next war, when we are completely democratic, I expect that it will be quite honourable for officers to leave their men behind. It'll be laid down in King's Regulations as their duty
to keep a cadre going to train new men to take the place of prisoners."
"Perhaps men wouldn't take too kindly to being trained by deserters."
"Don't you think that they'd respect them more for being fly? I reckon our trouble is that we're in the awkward stage
like a man challenged to a duel a hundred years ago. — Evelyn Waugh

Pamela pulled off her cloak and Alexei gasped.
"You have on breeches!" He stared in disbelief. "Breeches!"
"I've never worn them before, and they are extremely comfortable. I quite like them." She smoothed the fabric over her hip. "Besides, you don't expect me to duel in a dress, do you?"
"I do not expect you to duel at all!"
Pamela ignored him. "That would be most unfair, dueling in a dress, unless, of course, you would be willing to wear a dress as well?"
"Don't be absurd." He snorted in disdain. "I have no intention of ever wearing women's clothing again."
"Again?" She raised a brow.
"It was an unavoidable disguise," he muttered. — Victoria Alexander

I remembered that you can find joy in work and life, and if you do it right, they fuel each other-like dueling drummers, better and better, one after the other. — Abbi Jacobson

There had been counts in his life before. Counts before dueling pistols were fired. Counts before footraces and horse races. Counts in his head to postpone his release while some beautiful woman lay beneath him. — Julie Anne Long

I was fourteen, watching 'The Princess Bride' for the 254321th time, captivated by Wesley and Inigo dueling on the cliff-top. I had never held a sword in my life, but I phoned my mum and said, 'I want to learn to fence!' — V.E Schwab

But people only die in proper duels, you know, with real wizards. The most you and Malfoy'll be able to do is send sparks at each other. Neither of you knows enough magic to do any real damage. I bet he expected you to refuse, anyway."
"And what if I wave my wand and nothing happens?"
"Throw it away and punch him on the nose," Ron suggested. — J.K. Rowling

The dueling maturity levels in high school is such a source of comedy to me. I was always such a late developer. I was last to walk. I was last to ride a bike. I was last to have sex. That's why it's fun to portray one side of your childhood onscreen. — Paul Feig

I find it rude to laugh at a man with a sword. — Derek Landy

, imagine a loamy earth that starts with genocide, then adds a mix of further disease, wars, hurricanes, murder, great fires, dueling, insurrection and slavery, just to name a few of the many instances of tragedy. What dark seed would take root in such a disturbed and twisted soil? — James Caskey

Swords. That is no faenorn ; that is slaughter."
The Grand Seneschal shrugged. "The Master did not protest. And, indeed, what weapon could he have suggested that would suit him any better?"
"Fire," she said.
"He would not," said the Seneschal. "You know he would not. — Robin McKinley

We should restore the practice of dueling. It might improve manners around here. — Edward Abbey

The edges of the steel blade as Iron glamour flared around her, a maelstrom of deadly power. I saw her lips move, a name on them, perhaps mine, and felt nothing. My glamour rose up to meet hers, cold and dangerous, and our powers slammed into each other with the roar of dueling dragons.
Flashes of images, like broken mirror shards, falling to the earth. Iron and ice, clashing against each other. Rage and hate, swirling in vicious, ugly colors around us. Glamour and pain and blood. — Julie Kagawa

Maybe we should bring back dueling," Ethan mused. "It would really unclog the court system, and thin out the ranks of lawyers. — Shanna Swendson

Paul Taylor's 'Offenbach Overtures' has lots of zip and charm, and its pair of dueling soldiers in red, who end up starry-eyed about each other while their disgusted seconds take up the quarrel, is nonstop funny. — Robert Gottlieb

I don't duel, boy. I kill as a soldier kills, which is as a butcher kills, as quickly, efficiently, and with as least risk to myself as I can arrange. — Lois McMaster Bujold

So while dueling may have begun as a response to high crimes - to treachery, treason, and adultery - by 1900 it had tiptoed down the stairs of reason, until they were being fought over the tilt of a hat, the duration of a glance, or the placement of a comma. In — Amor Towles

This was the first time ever, since the legendary Pangu created the world, that suona players and professional funeral wailers were dueling for territory. — Liao Yiwu

Mammy was soon asleep, leaving Laila with dueling emotions: reassured that Mammy meant to live on, stung that she was not the reason. She would never leave her mark on Mammy's heart the way her brothers had, because Mammy's heart was like a pallid beach where Laila's footprints would forever wash away beneath the waves of sorrow that swelled and crashed, swelled and crashed. — Khaled Hosseini

That I was not dueling with the king, but trying to communicate with him, was itself an incommunicable fact. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Without energy being invested in resisting the unwanted or dueling with fears, we have more energy and attention available for noticing not only the disturbing, but the wonderful ... When we are not fixated on threat and defending ourselves, when we're not exhausted and burned out from chronic stress, we are able to see the daily evidence that we are in the midst of a mind-blowing miracle called Life ... Then we will experience breathtaking, heart-rippling moments that counterbalance every trial and tribulation. When we're fully conscious of the universe's artistry and generosity, who needs psychodelics or Prozac? — Charlette Mikulka

Eena!"
Recognizing Ian's voice, Eena turned to find him approaching her from behind. He was entirely clad in body armor and gauntlets, cradling an open-faced helmet in one arm. Painted on his chest plate was a flaming, gold sword. From his side hung a leather sheath, a golden hilt peeking from the top.
"I'm glad you're back. You are going to stay and watch us play, aren't you?" He looked hopeful she'd say yes.
Eena smiled brightly. "I didn't know you were talented enough to be on a dueling team. Nice sword," she teased.
Ian blushed a degree. "Thanks. They call us the Savage Warriors!" He rasped their team name in a semi-ferocious voice. "Jerin's team captain."
She laughed at the showy designation. "And who's your challenger today?"
"The Dragon Slayers - Derian's team."
Eena's face fell. "Derian is playing?" She groaned internally, knowing she should've guessed as much. This was starting to look like another setup. — Richelle E. Goodrich

The faint pink coating the treetops promised rippling buds, a sure sign of spring hastening in, right on schedule, and the animal world getting ready for its fiesta of courting and mating, dueling and dancing, suckling and grubbing, costume-making and shedding-in short, the fuzzy, fizzy hoopla of life's ramshackle return. — Diane Ackerman

Since bodily strength is but a servant to the mind, it were very barbarous and preposterous that force should be made judge over reason. — Philip Sidney

He couldn't begin his morning writing session until his writing implements and the bric-a-brac on his desk (including an indispensable figurine of two frogs dueling with swords) were perfectly disposed, but in thirty-five years of writing to deadline - all his novels were written as weekly or monthly serials - he missed a deadline only once, and then only because he was stunned by Mary Hogarth's death. — Robert Garnett

The hero's journey can take place on a battlefield or in a cubicle. We can live it out amid public clamor or in the soundless vault between our ears. The demons we are dueling are always the same. They are our own fears of becoming who we are. No one who has ever lived - or ever will - has a journey like ours. And yet our journey is universal. It is every woman's and every man's. — Steven Pressfield

By the age of twenty-five, [Louis T. Wigfall] had managed to squander his considerable inheritance, settle three affairs of honor on the dueling ground, fight in a ruthless military campaign against the Seminoles, consume a small lakeful of bourbon, win an enviable reputation in whorehouses throughout the South, and get hauled before a judge on charges of murder. Three years after that, he took the next logical step and went into Texas politics. — Adam Goodheart

In a duel, man to man, sword against sword, it can be a lack of skill that gets you killed. Often as not, though, it'll be a matter of luck, or if it goes on too long, then it'll be the man who tires first that tends to die.
In the end it's about staying power. They should put that on headstones, Got tired. — Mark Lawrence

Seven...eight...nine...
Some in the crowd shuffled for positions where they could have a better view. By now it was close to four o'clock, and the sun was setting slightly in the west. What that morning had been close to zero weather was now in the mid-forties. The dueling field, which had been sparkling with the morning frost was now dry. — William Roy Pipes

That Englishman who came to challenge me three or four months ago, and whom I killed to stop him bothering me — Alexandre Dumas

The shot was so precise that the bullet went out his forehead and shattered a whisky bottle against the wall behind the counter. — Justin Bienvenue

I wondered if that's what aging felt like. That desire and reality were dueling until the day you die, that nobody every got to a place of peace. I had always wanted to get old so I didn't have to care anymore, but I began to think that it would be best just to skip the getting older part and just die. — Portia De Rossi

In your rare embrace, sometimes I am lost nowadays. In these years, you have changed. I have changed. Every single day, we're fighting our feuds silently; inventing devious ways to hurt one another. Our gazes keep to our feet: wavering, pirouetting and crisscrossing, so as to not stumble, even inadvertently, upon each other. Our windows look out at other windows looking in at us. Mynahs no longer come by in our balconies. Branches, not of a mango tree, but of a conglomerate, surround them instead. The silhouettes of concrete buildings sometimes shine in the rain's aftermath, but remain concrete. Today, as the Ganga rises and rages all over the city, people run for their lives, but I let it wash over my soul and flood my tears.'
('Left from Dhakeshwari') — Kunal Sen

Now standing in one corner of a boxing ring with a .22 caliber Colt automatic pistol, shooting a bullet weighing only 40 grains and with a striking energy of 51 foot pounds at 25 feet from the muzzle, I will guarantee to kill either Gene Tunney or Joe Louis before they get to me from the opposite corner. This is the smallest caliber pistol cartridge made; but it is also one of the most accurate and easy to hit with, since the pistol has no recoil. I have killed many horses with it, cripples and bear baits, with a single shot, and what will kill a horse will kill a man. I have hit six dueling silhouettes in the head with it at regulation distance in five seconds. It was this type of pistol that Millen boys' colleague, Abe Faber, did all his killings with. Yet this same pistol bullet fired at point blank range will not dent a grizzly's skull, and to shoot a grizzly with a .22 caliber pistol would simply be one way of committing suicide — Ernest Hemingway,