Grizzled Quotes & Sayings

There never was a man with such a face as yours, unless it was your father, and I suppose he is singeing his grizzled red beard by this time, unless you came straight from the old un without any father at all betwixt you; which I shouldn't wonder at, a bit. — Charles Dickens

The appearance of Professor Benjamin Peirce, whose long gray hair, straggling grizzled beard and unusually bright eyes sparkling under a soft felt hat, as he walked briskly but rather ungracefully across the college yard, fitted very well with the opinion current among us that we were looking upon a real live genius, who had a touch of the prophet in his make-up. — William Elwood Byerly

From a blueblood noble house. Only the blueblood man was allowed to enter. He sat in their kitchen, an older grizzled warrior with a sword on his waist, and laid it all out. Only bluebloods — Ilona Andrews

The door opened, and we were met by a fifty-something man with a grizzled blond beard. He was wearing Bermuda shorts and a Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt. Also, he had an eye patch. "This is incredible," I heard Adrian murmur. "Beyond my wildest dreams. — Richelle Mead

He wondered if he would live to see the blossom on his apple trees and felt an answering pop inside himself. Ah, so it would not be long now. It began to snow lightly, the last flakes to fall before the spring. He put on his wedding finery, the clothes he had worn so long ago when he married his beloved Pamposh, and which he had kept all this time wrapped in tissue paper in a trunk. As a bridegroom he went outdoors and the snowflakes caressed his grizzled cheeks. His mind was alert, he was ambulatory and nobody was waiting for him with a club. He had his body and his mind and it seemed he was to be spared a brutal end. That at least was kind. He went into his apple orchard, seated himself cross-legged beneath a tree, closed his eyes, heard the verses of the Rig-Veda fill the world with beauty and ceased upon the midnight with no pain. — Salman Rushdie

Next thing she knows she's lying flat on her back and three grizzled Mexicans are standing over her, trying — Ben Fountain

This man bore no resemblance to the bearded, grizzled Akeley of the snapshot; but was a younger and more urban person, fashionably dressed, and wearing only a small, dark moustache. — H.P. Lovecraft

There might, after all, be a grizzled old man with fire in his fists on the road. — Robert Lautner

The hunt for spouses is an activity on a par with fox-hunting or hawking, though the weapons and dramatis personae differ. Just as grizzled old men know the habits of hares and quail, so do elegant society gossips know every titbit about the year's eligible men and women. — Marie Brennan

He's twenty-nine. And what did you think he was going to look like?"
She shrugged.
"You know-old. Grizzled. Long white beard. Scruffy robes. Loveable, smart, a little absent minded."
I bit back a grin.
" I said 'sorcerer,' not 'Dumbledore.' So he's hot. It could be worse. — Chloe Neill

I've been described as a grizzled political veteran. — Joe Klein

Whatever these futilities of mine may be, I have no intention of hiding them any more than I would a bald and grizzled portrait of myself. These are my humours, my opinions, things which I believe, not to be believed. My aim is reveal myself which may well be different tomorrow. — Michel De Montaigne

A pale sun poked impudent marmalade fingers through the grizzled lattice glass, and sent the shadows scurrying, like convent girls menaced by a tramp. — Vivian Stanshall

Ohhhhhhh," she groaned, jerking up from the reclining seat as the tears exploded. She felt as devastated as if she were still in the body of the grizzled fighting man. Convulsing sobs of remorse tortured her energy body and she rocked it like a baby, holding her midsection, feeling as if her stomach would turn inside out. She struggled to speak, gulping in habit for air that didn't exist, which would have been useless to her energy lungs anyway.
She had to know.
"Who? Who ... was ... he?" she managed in spurts. "The boy - "
"You know the answer already, don't you?" Coriskancsia replied gently. — Lianne Downey

I'm always getting forgotten," said the grizzled doctor sadly. "I must have a very inconspicuous personality. — Agatha Christie

He was nothing but a shadow on the horizon when that old basset hound of his escaped from the sheriff's office and went loping down the street. When she reached the edge of town, she sank down on her grizzled haunches, threw back her head, and let out a howl that broke nearly every heart that heard it.
Later, there would be many who would swear he'd reined in his mare and stood silhouetted against the sunset for a timeless moment. — Teresa Medeiros

Grizzled old bastard like him don't go providing death-bed transformations. — Sebastian Barry

Will was worth at least a few tears from a grizzled old wreck like himself, he thought, and made no move to wipe them away. — John Flanagan

I'm imagining the reader, whom I conjure as an aspiring artist much like my own younger, less grizzled self, to whom I hope to impart a little starch and inspiration and prime, a little, with some hard-knocks wisdom and a few tricks of the trade. — Steven Pressfield

He remembered the old-timers from his navy days. Grizzled lifers who could soundly sleep while two meters away their shipmates played a raucous game of poker or watched the vids with the volume all the way up. Back then he'd assumed it was just learned behavior, the body adapting so it could get enough rest in an environment that never really had downtime. Now he wondered if those vets found the constant noise preferable. A way to keep their lost shipmates away. They probably went home after their twenty and never slept again. — James S.A. Corey

When a grizzled yeoman worker appeared one morning to complain that as a state legislator many years earlier, in hard times, young Lincoln had inexcusably voted to raise his government salary from two to all of four dollars a day," Lincoln listened to the reproach calmly. "Now, Abe, I want to know what in the world made you do it?" demanded the old Democrat. With deadpan seriousness, Lincoln explained: "I reckon the only reason was that we wanted the money. — Harold Holzer

His father's last word, which Sean had never told anyone, not even his mother, hadn't been goodbye: it had been hello. He hadn't died; he'd been set free from the constraints of history and flesh. And while the fathers of other children could only be the people they were, and were forced to live the lives they'd made for themselves, the Philip Steiner of his son's daydreams was all the possible versions of himself that Sean could imagine. He was always near, always ready to listen, always offering solace. He was all the possible fathers. He was a dragonslayer and a titan of industry; he was a cunning detective and a grizzled gunfighter; he was an astronaut and a priest and a jailer of thieves. He lived in the shadows, and he filled his son's world with light. — Dexter Palmer

Tell any grizzled old cutthroat a sob story about a double-cross and a broken heart and he'll eat right out of your hand. — Cassandra Rose Clarke

The clear suggestion is that there ought not to be civilian control of the military. What have callow noncombatants giving brisk orders to grizzled soldiers? How could Lincoln have fired the slavery-loving Gen. George B. McClellan, or Truman dismissed the glorious Douglas MacArthur? — Christopher Hitchens

I think it would be cool if we wore suits while we committed these violent acts of retribution. Not fancy suits. No. Cheap suits that we won't mind ruining. Then if we're caught by the police, well, think how amazing we'll look! All bloody and torn and grizzled.
Plus, suits look official. They would add an air of credibility to our campaign of blood drenched disproportionate responses. — Joey Comeau

Above the sink in the scratched mirror he looked grubby and bloated, his beard a grizzled mess. He knew what these men could never know: A man is who he is. That doesn't change. A thief is a thief. A bad man stays a bad man underneath. He'd been set at seventeen. "You want to end — Rae Meadows

I was always attracted to the type of cinema hero as an adolescent growing up in Ireland. Robert Mitchum springs to mind. Later on, it was Steve McQueen to a certain extent and Charles Bronson. They're these types of grizzled characters who had one foot on the side of law and order and the other foot in the bad guy's camp. — Liam Neeson

Mrs. Figg, their batty old neighbor, came panting into sight. Her grizzled gray — J.K. Rowling

Now, some guys' five minutes are worth other guys' fifty years, and while burning out in one brilliant supernova will send record sales through the roof, leave you living fast, dying young, leaving a beautiful corpse, there is something to be said for living. Personally, I like my gods old, grizzled and here. — Bruce Springsteen

As a boy, he had dreamed of taking a man's place among men; and, as a boy, had deemed himself well fit to do so. Now, amid the grizzled, battle-wise warriors, his strength seemed feeble, his knowledge clouded. — Lloyd Alexander

I'm not adorable," Wade protested. "I am manly and grizzled and have no emotions. None. — Molly Harper

After a week he was moved to a different wing and into a shared six-by-eight with a grizzled old con called Alf. He had faded tattoos that stained most of the visible skin on his hands, arms and neck a dull blue, sharp eyes and a thick beard that made his mouth look like an axe wound on a bear. — R.D. Ronald

They were looking after themselves, living with rigid economy; and there was no greater proof of their friendship than the way their harmony withstood their very grave differences in domestic behaviour. In Jack's opinion Stephen was little better than a slut: his papers, odd bits of dry, garlic'd bread, his razors and small-clothes lay on and about his private table in a miserable squalor; and from the appearance of the grizzled wig that was now acting as a tea-cosy for his milk-saucepan, it was clear that he had breakfasted on marmalade.
Jack took off his coat, covered his waistcoat and breeches with an apron, and carried the dishes into the scullery. 'My plate and saucer will serve again,' said Stephen. 'I have blown upon them. I do wish, Jack,' he cried, 'that you would leave that milk-saucepan alone. It is perfectly clean. What more sanitary, what more wholesome, than scalded milk? — Patrick O'Brian

Ancient, grizzled, wild-eyed, emaciated by fever, dragged his weary frame up the veranda steps and collapsed in a steamer-chair. Whisky and soda kept him going while he made report and turned in his accounts. — Jack London