Grimly Quotes & Sayings

There's nothing, of course, more damaging and hurtful to the psyche than that - searching grimly for things to despise and revile in a person you once loved. You may destroy the beloved image but at the same time you destroy part of the basis of your self-respect, plus a whole vital chunk out of your past. Because, if he is hateful now, what aberration once caused you to waste so much love on him? — Lynne Reid Banks

You're right," he said, jerking open the portal. "There is one place she's sure to go."
"Yes."
"And you.You should take your own advice and leave this place," Daniel said grimly. "You're rotting in here."
"At least this body's pain distracts me from the pain in my soul," his past self said. "No.I wish you luck, but I won't leave these walls now.Not until she's settled in her next incarnation."
Daniel's wings bristled at his neck. He tried to sort out time and lives and memories in his head, but he kept circling around the same irksome thought. "She-she should be settled now. In conception. Can't you feel it?"
"Oh," his imprisoned past self said softly. He closed his eyes. "I don't know that I can feel anything anymore." The prisoner sighed heavily. "Life's a nightmare."
"No,it's not. Not anymore. I'll find her.I'll redeem us both," Daniel shouted, desperate to get out of there, desperately taking another leap of faith through time. — Lauren Kate

Jezal swallowed and hunched his shoulders, watching the chunks of long dead wood file slowly past like rows of tombstones. "I don't like this," he muttered under his breath.
"You think I do?" Bayaz frowned grimly over at him. "You think any of us do? Men must sometimes do what they do not like if they are to be remembered. It is through struggle, not ease, that fame and honor are won. It is through conflict, not peace, that wealth and power are gained. — Joe Abercrombie

And infatuated be damned. He was near to being blinded by his attraction to her. He was in love, damn it all. He disliked her, he resented her, he disapproved of almost everything about her, yet he was head over ears in love with her, like a foolish schoolboy.
He wondered grimly what he was going to do about it.
He was not amused.
Or in any way pleased. — Mary Balogh

When are you going to marry her?

"As soon as I can find a preacher willing to perform a ceremony with a handcuffed and gagged bride," Zach replied grimly. — Kori David

We are a city of charming little parkettes, she thinks grimly, that nobody ever visits. Named for local heroes that nobody remembers. — K. D. Miller

Jayden laughed grimly. 'Press the attack and hope for the best.'
'Hope is not a strategy,' said Kira
'It's not plan A,' said Jayden, 'and it shouldn't be plan B, but it is every plan C that has ever been made. — Dan Wells

For that matter, all this, is there a God? Corlis
I don't care!"
"Huh," I considered. "I guess I don't either".
"Most people don't! All they care about," he added grimly, "is being right". — Lionel Shriver

Euro currency to dissolve due to sovereign debt crisis," the talking heads grimly proclaimed. — L. Todd Wood

One step at a time," Vorkosigan returned grimly, "I can walk around the world. Watch me. — Lois McMaster Bujold

I saw it begin; even so, after battle, Ambrosious' very presence had give the wounded strength and the dying comfort. Whatever it was he had had about him, Arthur had the same; I was to see it often in the future; it seemed that he shed brightness and strength round him where he went, and still had it ever renewed in himself. As he grew older, I knew it would be renewed more hardly and at a cost, but now he was very young, with the flower of manhood still to come. After this, I thought, who could maintain that youth itself made him unfit for kingship? Not Lot, stiffened in his ambition, grimly scheming for a dead king's throne. It was Arthur's very youth which had whistled up today the best that men had in them, as a huntsman calls up the following back, or an enchanter whistles up the wind. — Mary Stewart

Glimpses do you seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?
But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God
so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing
straight up, leaps thy apotheosis! — Herman Melville

Don't listen to the ramblings of fools," he said, smiling grimly. "When it comes down to it, if they knew the truth, no one would want to live on this earth forever. — Melika Dannese Lux

It was no way to think about her best friend's boyfriend. But every time she saw Andy, her body reacted.
My gaydar is defective, she thought grimly. — Virginia Nelson

You will leave Starkiller at once and come to me with Kylo Ren. Leave immediately." He added grimly, "It appears that he may have been right about the girl. — Alan Dean Foster

This thing wants to spread, Henry. It wants to get bad enough - " " - to attract a Prince," I finished grimly. "Some opportunistic son of a bitch out to nail a Princess for the sake of a payoff. I hate Princes. The goddamn things are worse than rats. — Seanan McGuire

I nearly forgot, Ragnak had a further message for you. He said if we lose this battle and loses his slaves as well, he's going to kill you for it," he said cheerfully.
Halt smiled grimly. "If we lose this battle, he may have to get in line to do it. There'll be a few thousand Temujai cavalrymen in front of him. — John Flanagan

Wounded and nearly blind with fear, I clung to the Scriptures:
'Ask and you shall receive ... '
'Pray without ceasing ... '
'I will do whatever you ask for in My name ... '
Grimly, I shut out another verse, this one from the book of Job: 'The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. — Ron Hall

To a woman flattery is not flattery.It is a compliment, which unfortunately in these miserable days has become all to rare. A woman is not a piece of steel furniture; she is a flower - she does not ask for reality; she wants the warm, gay sun of flattery.It is better to say something pretty to her every day, than to slave grimly for her all your life. — Erich Maria Remarque

His secretary heard Lincoln authoritatively remind a caller on November 15 that "this government possesses both the authority and the power to maintain its own integrity." Here was Jacksonian firmness to spare. "That, however, is not the ugly point of this matter," Lincoln added grimly. "The ugly point is the necessity of keeping the government by force, as ours ought to be a government of fraternity. — Harold Holzer

Like many visitors, they had been unnerved by the inimitable creepiness of the Holy Sepulchre, a grimly gaudy, theopathical Turkish bathhouse where their childhood saints glared like demented spooks from every moldering wall. — Robert Stone

I was just saying goodnight." Logan quipped and pecked Sienna on the cheek before slipping something in to her hand. She looked down to see it was a sleek new cellphone. He turned to leave but Mrs. Rivers interrupted him.
"Your fly is undone." She told him grimly giving him her the full extent of her medusa glare. If looks could kill, Mrs. Rivers had homicide down to a science. When had that happened? Sienna thought. Probably sometime when they were too busy pressing themselves against each other. Sienna was mortified. Logan however looked mildly amused. He zipped up his trousers and quietly thanked her.

"Oh and Logan, you left your souvenir behind." She added now giving Sienna the full extent of the medusa glare. Logan and Sienna both frowned momentarily before realizing what she meant. He snatched the condom and put it back in his pocket and quickly left the house leaving Sienna to battle with the Gorgon. — Ali Harper

Gabriel didn't need to look back. To see. He trusted his friend. He smiled grimly. And wasn't that the crux? — Anne Mallory

Gods curse it, Kel, you heard what he said!"
"I heard a fart," Kel said grimly. You know where those come from. Let it go." -Faleron and Kel — Tamora Pierce

What is so often laughable, in the stories of Kundera's Czechoslovakia, is how grimly serious just about everything turns out to be, jokes and games and pleasure included; what's laughable is how terribly little there is to laugh at with any joy. — Philip Roth

Richie looked at each other grimly. Everything Eddie said — Stephen King

Hello, Harry," he said grimly, "I see you've met my mother. — J.K. Rowling

If I can't laugh at the fool I am I'll despair at the beast I am. You must laugh at yourself, Michael."
"I expect you're right," he said. "One must come out on the other side of despair before one can find that stony sanctuary."
"And laughing at yourself gives you freedom."
"From what?" asked Michael grimly.
"From hating yourself. One can be just as self-engrossed in self-hatred as self-love, and either way be as blind to the quality of those about you ... — Elizabeth Goudge

This wasn't in the histories", Raistlin murmured to himself, staring down at the little wretched bodies, his brow furrowed. His eyes flashed. "Perhaps", he breathed, "this means time has already been altered?"
For long moments he sat there, pondering. Then suddenly he understood.
None saw Raistlin's face, hidden as it was by his hood, or they would have noted a swift, sudden spasm of sorrow and anger pass across it.
"No," he said to himself bitterly, "the pitiful sacrifice of these poor creatures was left out of the histories not because it did not happen. It was left out simply because-"
He paused, staring grimly down at the small, broken bodies. "No one cared ... — Tracy Hickman

The other two groaned. "Over my dead body," Lillian said grimly. "You realize we'll have to resort to creative measures if we're to pry Evie out of her family's clutches and find a good match for her."
"We will," came Daisy's confident reply. "Believe me, dear, if we can find a husband for you, we can do anything."
"That does it," Lillian said, and sprang from the settee to advance menacingly toward her with an upraised cushion.
Giggling, Daisy scrambled behind the nearest piece of furniture and cried, "Remember, you're a countess! Where's your dignity?"
"I've misplaced it," Lillian informed her, and chased after her with glee. — Lisa Kleypas

I think men mostly have to learn to be anarchists. Women don't have to learn."
Vokep shook his head grimly. "It's the kids," he said. "Having babies. Makes 'em propertarians. They won't let go." He sighed. "Touch and go, brother, that's the rule. Don't ever let yourself be owned. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Get down,' Bunty says grimly. 'Mummy's thinking.' (Although what Mummy's actually doing is wondering what it would be like if her entire family was wiped out and she could start again.) — Kate Atkinson

You're not playing the game," he said grimly. "English gossip isn't supposed to get back to the person it's about. — Elaine Dundy

What? A family?" Ninefingers frowned, rubbing grimly at the stump of his middle finger. "I did have one. And now I've got another. You don't pick your family, you take what you'er given and you make the best of it." He pointed at
Ferro, then at Quai. "You see her, and him, and you?" He slapped his hand down on Jezal's shoulder. "That's my family now, and I don't pal on losing a brother today, you understand? — Joe Abercrombie

I used to think that English-speaking who conveniently look, dress, and act human only turned up in lazy science fiction. But as Carly and Frampton dematerialized, I became grimly aware of how well they'd also fit into a psychotic hallucination. — Rob Reid

I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror as we glided p. I looked as eroded as the groaning lift. What had happened to the fresh-faced belle from Boston, Mass.? The woman who stared back at me was at the dreaded age between forty-five and fifty, that no-man's land of sag, oncoming wrinkle, and stealthy approach of menopause.
"I hate this elevator, too," I said grimly.
Zoe grinned and pinched my cheek.
"Mom, even Gwyneth Paltrow would look like hell in that mirror."
I had to smile. That was such a Zoe-like remark. — Tatiana De Rosnay

Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud. No other city is so spitefully incoherent. Whereas other cities flaunt there history - their presumed glory - in vividly placed monuments, squares, parks, plaques, and boulevards, such history as New York has been unable entirely to obliterate is to be found, mainly, in the backwaters of Wall Street, in the goat tracks of Old and West Broadway, in and around Washington Square, and, for the relentless searcher, in grimly inaccessible regions of The Bronx. — James Baldwin

You're back early from Chicago," Jim remarked, seemingly oblivious to his friend's cold reserve. "I wonder why?"
"You know damned well why," Nick retorted grimly.
Jim's brows lifted, but he turned his tawny, appreciative gaze on Lauren. "I'd tell you how gorgeous you look,but at the moment,Nick is already restraining the urge to knock my teeth down my throat.
"Why?" Lauren gasped, her own gaze flying to Nick's granite features.
Jim answered with a chuckle. "It has something to do with two dozen red roses and a kiss he witnessed.He's forgotten about a girl I was in love with once but couldn't quite get up the nerve to ask to marry me. He got tired of waiting for me to bolster my courage, so he sent Ericka two dozen-"
Nick's breath exploded in laughter. "You bastard," he said good-naturedly, and this time his handclasp was sincere. — Judith McNaught

Leave it to him to fall in love with probably the only female in all of England who would refuse to marry him because he had wealth, he thought with disgust as he stomped inside.
Honestly, he did always seem to choose the hardest route to everything. So, of course, he would find himself in love with the most difficult woman he could probably find. But if Suzette thought she was going to back out of this wedding, she had another think coming, he told himself grimly as he mounted the stairs to the bedchambers. — Lynsay Sands

He smiled grimly, though there was no glee in it, as though for once he understood how heartbreaking this was for me. 'No serum can change who you are. Nor should you change. Genius or madness-it all depends on who's telling the story.' His hand stopped tapping, and that humanity flickered again in his eye. 'You're perfect as you are, my love. — Megan Shepherd

Liberated in Germany by the Americans, seven-year-old Valya Brekeleva and her family of slave labourers went home to Novgorod as non-persons. "Most of the people from our village who went to Latvia survived. But most of those who were sent to Germany had died. For those of us who remained, the suspicion was always there." Most of her family were killed by one side or the other in the course of the war. Her mother died in 1947, worn out by the struggle to keep her daughters alive. She was thirty-six. Her father completed his sentence for "political crimes" and came home from the Urals in 1951, an old man. Even after Valya had completed university and applied for work at a Kazan shipbuilders in the 1960s, when the manager saw that her papers showed her to be an ex-Nazi prisoner he said grimly: "Before we consider anything else, we have got to establish whether you have done damage to the state. — Max Hastings

We should ask our commanders ... " Elayne trailed off. "If there are any we trust not to be under Compulsion."
"There's only one," Mat said grimly, meeting her eyes. "And he's telling you we are finished if we continue as we have. The earlier plan was a good enough one, but after what we lost today ... Elayne, we're dead unless we choose one place to stand, gather together, and fight."
One last toss of the dice. — Robert Jordan

After all, when one approaches Middle Age ... "
"Middle Age? Has anyone ever boxed your ears Miss Thane?"
"No, never," said Miss Thane, looking blandly up at him.
"You have been undeservedly fortunate," said Sir Tristram grimly. — Georgette Heyer

The human mind is a fearful instrument of adaptation, and in nothing is this more clearly shown than in its mysterious powers of resilience, self-protection, and self-healing. Unless an event completely shatters the order of one's life, the mind, if it has youth and health and time enough, accepts the inevitable and gets itself ready for the next happening like a grimly dutiful American tourist who, on arriving at a new town, looks around him, takes his bearings, and says, Well, where do I go from here? — Thomas Wolfe

I labor grimly on these sentences, wondering all the while if prose is but the gravestone marking the forsaking of wildness — Maggie Nelson

They got to him," Ewan said, needlessly. "Must have been a midnight snack," Tim said, smiling grimly. Ewan frowned. "Don't be so morbid. — Guido Baechler

Perhaps there is something good that had come from this war: everything has been turned around, all the unfairness made grimly plain. It has given us everyday women a voice - dared us to stand up for ourselves, and to stand up for others. We have less to lose in this world of chaos and death, after all. — Jennifer Ryan

Dawn, slowly filling Church Street with grey light, disclosed another day of war. Because it did this, this dawn bore no more resemblance to a peace-time dawn than the aspect of nature on a Sunday bears a resemblance to the aspect of nature on a weekday. Thus it seemed that dawn itself had been grimly harnessed to the war effort. — Patrick Hamilton

Oliver sat huddled together, in a corner of the cart; bewildered with alarm and apprehension; and figuring strange objects in the gaunt trees, whose branches waved grimly to and fro, as if in some fantastic joy at the desolation of the scene. — Charles Dickens

The Council agrees," Zeus said. "Percy Jackson, you will have one gift from the gods."
I hesitated. "Any gift?"
Zeus nodded grimly. "I know what you will ask. The greatest gift of all. Yes, if you want it, it shall be yours. The gods have not bestowed this gift on a mortal hero in many centuries, but, Perseus Jackson-if you wish it-you shall be made a god. Immortal. Undying. You shall serve as your father's lieutenant for all time."
I stared at him, stunned. "Um ... a god?"
Zeus rolled his eyes. "A dimwitted god, apparently. But yes. With the consensus of the entire Council, I can make you immortal. Then I will have to put up with you forever."
"Hmm," Ares mused. "That means I can smash him to a pulp as often as I want, and he'll just keep coming back for more. I like this idea. — Rick Riordan

We're going nowhere, " Joan said grimly. Traffic on the narrow street was at a complete standstill.
A chill settled in Sophie's stomach: it was the appalling fear that her brother was going to die.
"Sidewalk," Nicholas said decisively. "Take it."
"But the pedestrians - "
"Can get out of the way. Use your horn. — Michael Scott

American universities are organized on the principle of the nuclear rather than the extended family. Graduate students are grimly trained to be technicians rather than connoisseurs. The old German style of universal scholarship has gone. — Camille Paglia

This book is written in blood.
Is it written entirely in blood?
No, some of it is written in tears.
Are the blood and tears all mine?
Yes, they have been in the past, but the future is a different matter.
As the bear swore in Pogo after having endured a pot shoved on her head, being turned upside down while still in the pot, a discussion about her edibility, the lawnmowering of her behind, and a fistful of ground pepper in the snoot, she then swore a mighty oath on the ashes of her mothers (i.e. her forebears) grimly but quietly while the apples from the shaken apple tree above her dropped bang thud on her head:
OH, SOMEBODY ASIDES ME IS GONNA RUE THIS HERE PARTICULAR DAY. — Joanna Russ

Damn little gadflies think they can buy the sun out the sky, don't they?"
"This particular one could probably afford it," I said grimly. "And the moon too, if he wanted the matched set to use as bookends. — Patrick Rothfuss

Oh, well that can't have been me," Harry smiled grimly, clapping a hand on Malone's shoulder as he moved past the big man. "You're still alive. . ." 7:03 — Stephen England

Jesus Pietro wasn't used to dealing with ghosts. It would require brand new techniques. Grimly he set out to evolve them. — Larry Niven

That present sucked," I muttered.
Dad slipped an arm around my shoulder and helped me sit up. As he did, his sleeve fell back to reveal several slivers of demonglass embedded in his forearm.
"I'm fine," he said before I could ask. "Cal can get them out later. Are you all right?"
My shoulder was still on fire, but there was no pain anywhere else, and other than the shock of being blown backward and stabbed, I was peachy. "I think so. What was that, like a magic pipe bomb?"
The present lay in tatters on the floor, its ribbon coiling and snapping like a snake. Cal stomped on the ribbon, and it went still. "Seems like it," he said grimly.
"And it was ensorcelled to seek you out," Dad added. He looked so worried and angry that I decided not to give him a hard time for using a word like ensorcelled. — Rachel Hawkins

A piratical ghost story in thirteen ingenious but potentially disturbing rhyming couplets, originally conceived as a confection both to amuse and to entertain by Mr. Neil Gaiman, scrivener, and then doodled, elaborated upon, illustrated, and beaten soundly by Mr. Cris Grimly, etcher and illuminator, featuring two brave children, their diminutive but no less courageous gazelle, and a large number of extremely dangerous trolls, monsters, bugbears, creatures, and other such nastiness, many of which have perfectly disgusting eating habits and ought not, under any circumstances, to be encouraged. — Neil Gaiman

Raw toast," Lucas said grimly, shaking his head. "It goes against the very nature of man. — Julia Quinn

Frodo raised his head, and then stood up. Despair had not left him, but the weakness had passed. He even smiled grimly, feeling now as clearly as a moment before he had felt the opposite, that what he had to do, he had to do, if he could, and that whether Faramir or Aragorn or Elrond or Galadriel or Gandalf or anyone else knew about it was beside the purpose. He took his staff in one hand and the phial in his other. When he saw that the clear light was already welling through his fingers, he thrust it into his bosom and held it against his heart. Then turning from the city of Morgul, now no more than a grey glimmer across a dark gulf, he prepared to take the upward road. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Ruin, weariness, death, perpetually death, stand grimly to confront the other presence of Elizabethan drama which is life: life compact of frigates, fir trees and ivory, of dolphins and the juice of July flowers, of the milk of unicorns and panthers' breath, of ropes of pearl, brains of peacocks and Cretan wine. — Virginia Woolf

It's an unfortunate fact of life," Niko said with grimly amused resignation. "Where there are graveyards, there are flesh-eating revenants. Where there are cars, there are car salesmen. — Rob Thurman

Are you armed?" Oliver asked her. She glanced down at her backpack and instantly, instinctively held back. "No." "Lie to me again and I'll put you out on the street and do this myself." Claire swallowed. "Uh, yeah." "With what?" "Silver-coated stakes, wooden stakes, a crossbow, about ten bolts ... oh, and a squirt gun with some silver-nitrate solution." He smiled grimly at the dark windshield. "What, no grenade launchers?" "Would they work?" "I choose not to comment. — Rachel Caine

Won? He's one of them! How exactly is that winning?"
Michael shook his head, moved up behind her, and put his hands on her shoulders. He kissed the nape of her neck gently. "I don't know, Eve. I'm just telling you what I heard. He got some kind of agreement out of the vampires. And it was because Amelie loved him."
"Yeah, loved him enough to kill him and turn him into a bloodsucking fiend," Eve said grimly. "How sweet. Romance isn't dead. Oh, wait. It is. — Rachel Caine

She wasn't satisfied by the play she saw the following Saturday either. All right. The long lost lover came home just in time t pay the mortgage. What if he had been held up and couldn't make it? The landlord would have to give them thirty days to get out - at least that's how it was in Brooklyn. In that month something might turn up. If it didn't and they had to get out, well, they'd have to make the best of it. The pretty heroine would have to go out peddling papers. The mother would have to do cleaning by the day. But they'd live. You betcha they'd live, thought Francie grimly. It takes a lot of doing to die. — Betty Smith

intelligent woman," he remarked grimly. "You — Nora Roberts

Her lack of maidenly scruple would have amused me at another moment, but just now her face was so grimly determined that I could only wonder what she had in mind. Nothing could have been less seductive, anyway, than her expression at that moment. — Elizabeth Kostova

It is not a sentimental, but a grimly literal fact that unless we share this terrestrial globe with creatures other than ourselves, we shall not be able to live on it for long. — Joseph Wood Krutch

In London, theatregoers expect to laugh; in Paris, they wait grimly for proof that they should. — Robert Dhery

Not if I can help it," said Hermione grimly. "Flitwick told me in secret that I got a hundred and twelve percent on his exam. They're not throwing me out after that. — J.K. Rowling

God is most great! Allahu akbar! God is most great!" and sending the most faithful grimly shuffling through the dusky, unlit streets to salat al-'isha, the evening prayer. The Sabbath — Brian Catlos

What most people find festive - a weekend at a beach shack with friends, a boat trip down a river, a crackling bonfire on a summer night - I see as a bleak nightmare to be grimly endured. I would sooner put lit cigarettes in my eyes than share a vacation house with a crowd. — Jancee Dunn

At the moment developing a nice little inoffensive cancer somewhere on dry land seemed infinitely preferable to what she was grimly convinced was soon to be her death by drowning way too far out at sea. — Dana Stabenow

She's an awful woman," said Hermione in a small voice. "Awful. You know, I was just saying to Ron when you came in . . . we've got to do something about her." "I suggested poison," said Ron grimly. — J.K. Rowling

The sleepless hum of the city was abidingly in his ears, and the lamps that dotted the misty pavements stared at him blinkingly all along the route. The tall black buildings rose up grimly into the night; the faces that flitted to and fro along the pavements, kept ever sliding past him, melting into the darkness; and the cabs and 'buses, still astir in the streets, had a ghostly air as they vanished in the gloom.

("An Unexpected Journey") — J.H. Pearce

But it wasn't a sentimental romance. It was more like a battered estate wagon in which they bounced along together, sometimes cheerfully amused by the same joke, other times grimly tolerating one another and determined to get where they were going. — William Kuhn

The worst can always be true," Papa said grimly. — Kristin Hannah

Women shouldn't be in combat," said Vorkosigan, grimly glum. "Neither should men, in my opinion. — Lois McMaster Bujold

Hey, if you don't want to tell me, don't. But I can tell when you lie."
Ok, that was super creepy. "You can?"
He smiled grimly down at the dirty dishwater. "Nope. But see? You fell for it anyway. Careful, or I'll read your mind with my incredible vampire superpowers. — Rachel Caine

Then who is it?" said Arthur. "Well," said Ford, "if we're lucky it's just the Vogons come to throw us in to space." "And if we're unlucky?" "If we're unlucky," said Ford grimly, "the captain might be serious in his threat that he's going to read us some of his poetry first ... . — Douglas Adams

Suddenly the whole imagination of writing and editorial and newspaper and all these presumptions about who am I reading this, and who else other people may be, and all that, it's so grimly brutal! — Robert Creeley

Did it?" said Harry in surprise. "Sounded like a load of waffle to me." "There was some important stuff hidden in the waffle," said Hermione grimly. — J.K. Rowling

Then she added in a sort of childish delight: 'We'll be poor, won't we? Like people in books. And I'll be an orphan and utterly free. Free and poor! What fun!' She stopped and raised her lips to him in a delighted kiss.
'It's impossible to be both together,' said John grimly. 'People have found that out. And I should choose to be free as preferable of the two ... — F Scott Fitzgerald

The key word is shouldn't," he said grimly. "It isn't a word I like to hear when it comes to battle. That word has killed more men than any other word, except perhaps one." He waited for my inevitable question. I sighed and asked, "What word is that?" "Charge," he replied with a smile. — Michael G. Manning

The genie leaned forward to whisper to them.
"Sorry. You guys seem like a nice couple."
"The sultan is my father," Jasmine snapped.
"Oh. Whoops. My bad. It's not so unusual, you know- old kings, young girls. That whole May-December thing. Not totally my fault."
"At least I won't be married to anyone against my will now. Not even Jafar," Jasmine said grimly.
"Yeah, how about we not give Mr. Revengey-pants here ideas?" the genie suggested archly. "There's a substantial legal and magical difference between forcing to love and forcing to marry."
He had a point. Jasmine kept her mouth shut. — Liz Braswell

We are the rocks and reefs of the human sea, tumultuous outcrops, magnets for wrecks. The peaks of mountains you cannot see: that's us, all right. Dark even on the brightest day. Stony and defiant of the prevailing currents until we are eventually worn down and dissolved. Sometimes soaked and sometimes dry as a bone. Hammered by tides and grimly standing our ground against the pounding. Probably even secretly enjoying the pounding. — Brian Doyle

You know how to kill." "Not people," I say. "How different can it be, really?" says Gale grimly. The awful thing is that if I can forget they're people, it will be no different at all. The — Suzanne Collins

A woman with a voice like that should have the face of an angel, the body of a Greek sculpture, and the skills of a courtesan. Chances were, she was a haggard old crone.
The hulking workman began to gather his tools. "I hope ye and yer pa know what ye're doin'. Fop or no, no man takes well to losin' his belongings."
"Psht," the woman said airily. "It's not as if we plan on knocking him in the head and peeling his pockets."
That was something,at least, Dougal thought grimly. — Karen Hawkins

The reason why time plays a great part in so many of my tales is that this element looms up in my mind as the most profoundly dramatic and grimly terrible thing in the universe. — H.P. Lovecraft

Dark wings, dark words," Ned said grimly. — George R R Martin

The face that looked back was narrow, and although it was not beautiful, it was not ugly. I am nondescript, she thought. Nondescript features with shoulder-length dark hair. Hmm. She opened the robe and looked critically at her body. Lots of adjectives beginning with the letter S are appropriate here, she thought grimly. Short. Scrawny. Small breasts. Skinned knees (although presumably those were only temporary). — Daniel O'Malley

Have you had contact with any other survivors?"
"Only one," the Alderaanian senator said grimly. "Lock onto my coordinates. He's waiting for you. — Matthew Woodring Stover

The longer I do this job, the less I like people. The species, of course," he adds grimly. "There are individuals I like just fine. — Sara Gruen

Bridget cried for the leavers and the left. For the people, like herself, grimly forsaking what precious gifts they would ever get. — Ann Brashares

Frank nodded grimly. Well ... any goddess who throws a Ding Dong at a giant can't be all bad. Let's go. — Rick Riordan

Zee replies grimly, 'I understand that problem ... Buns is a force of nature.'
'She is,' I say with a reluctant smile, 'you're kind of screwed, dude. She's definitely got her own ideas.'
Zee grins too. 'Do not laugh too hard, playa, yours is a Throne..karma ... ' he says, noddin' his head before grimacin' and addin', 'ouch'.
My smile broadens involuntarily. 'Zee, when did you become funny?' I ask.
'It is difficult to be funny in Human,' he says, before lookin' at his watch and than graspin' the cover of the portal computer. 'Learn my language and you will think I am hysterical. — Amy A. Bartol

Grimly, she realized that clocks don't make a sound that even remotely resembles ticking, tocking. It was more the sound of a hammer, upside down, hacking methodically at the earth. It was the sound of a grave. — Markus Zusak

Asking himself how this had happened and what could be done about it, Peter came to understand that the roots of Western technological achievement lay in the freeing of men's minds. He grasped that it had been the Renaissance and the Reformation, neither of which had ever come to Russia, which had broken the bonds of the medieval church and created an environment where independent philosophical and scientific inquiry as well as wide-ranging commercial enterprise could flourish. He knew that these bonds of religious orthodoxy still existed in Russia, reinforced by peasant folkways and traditions which had endured for centuries. Grimly, Peter resolved to break these bonds on his return. — Robert K. Massie

Unanswered vox hails requested medical aid and supply, but the line of Astartes at the top of the north ridge was grimly silent as the exhausted warriors of the Raven Guard and Salamanders came to within a hundred metres of their allies. A lone flare shot skyward from inside the black fortress where Horus had made his lair, exploding in a hellish red glow that lit the battlefield below like a madman's vision of the end of the world. And the fire of betrayal roared from the barrels of a thousand guns. — Graham McNeill

For those learning English as a second language, there is little to do but roll the eyes, tear at the hair, and grimly memorize each one. — Anne Stilman