Gruff Quotes & Sayings

French, spoken by a number of people at a distance, strongly resembles the quacking conversation of ducks and geese, with its nasal elements. English, on the other hand, has a slower pace, and much less rise and fall in its intonations. Spoken at a distance where individual voices are impossible to distinguish, it has the gruff, friendly monotony of a sheepdog's barking. — Diana Gabaldon

She was standing before a fine portrait of the old gentleman when the door opened again, and, without turning, she said decidedly, 'I'm sure now that I shouldn't be afraid of him, for he's got kind eyes, though his mouth is grim, and he looks as if he had a tremendous will of his own. He isn't as handsome as my grandfather, but I like him.' 'Thank you, ma'am,' said a gruff voice behind her, and there, to her great dismay, stood old Mr. Laurence. — Louisa May Alcott

The sky is as gruff as a Chinese waiter. It keeps slamming the silverware against the horizon. — Tom Robbins

I'm afraid I'm a practical man,' said the doctor with gruff humour, 'and I don't bother much about religion and philosophy.'
'You'll never be a practical man till you do,' said Father Brown. 'Look here, doctor; you know me pretty well; I think you know I'm not a bigot. You know I know there are all sorts in all religions; good men in bad ones and bad men in good ones. — G.K. Chesterton

Words are freeborn, and not the vassals of the gruff tyrants of prose to do their bidding only. They have the same right to dance and sing as the dewdrops have to sparkle and the stars to shine. — Abraham Coles

Twenty-five, six-foot-something Colombian-American. Unshaven jaw, windswept brown hair, and a never-ending gruff expression. Like the universe just took a giant shit on his head. — Becca Ritchie

He would always make her feel too big and too gruff and too shocking; she would forever be trying to watch her words when she was with him. He was not the kind of person who liked her true self, for better or worse. — Anne Tyler

How I hate the Beautiful Game! I hate its cry-baby players and its gruff, joyless managers, its blokish supporters and its sinister owners, its whistle-peeping referees and its chippy little linesmen, its excitable commentators and - perhaps most of all - its unpluggable 'analysts.' — Craig Brown

Our facility is state of the art. There are half a dozen big cozy offices that Chad Jensen could've parked his ass in, but for some reason he chose this modest office tucked away near the laundry room.

I knock on the door, only opening it when I hear Coach's gruff, "Get in here." The last player who waltzed in without knocking got a tongue-lashing that the rest of us could hear all the way from the showers. I like to think Coach uses the office to jack off and that's why he insists on privacy. Logan hypothesizes that he has a secret office family that's only allowed to venture out in the wee hours of the night.

Logan is an idiot. — Elle Kennedy

He also had a version of Billy Goat's Gruff where the troll under the bridge ended up the winner. — Stephen King

My grandmother was very fierce and gruff. She was quite small, but she was very wide. — Salman Rushdie

Are you serious right now?" Hailey asks. "What's wrong with saying his life matters too?" "His life always matters more!" My voice is gruff, and my throat is tight. "That's the problem!" "Starr! — Angie Thomas

I missed him with an intensity that made his absence painful and his return a celebration. In the dark or the light, in the great hall or in our bedchamber, he was gruff but gentle, arrogant yet attentive, and he made love with a ferocity and focus that made it impossible not to bend myself to his will, even as I found ways to challenge and defy him. — Amy Harmon

If I asked you to do something for me, I don't suppose you'd listen?" When he had my attention, he continued, "I'm going to take you home. Try to forget tonight happened. Try to act normal, especially around Hank. Don't mention my name."
By way of an answer, I shot him a black look and swung out of the Tahoe. He followed suit, coming around to my side.
"What kind of answer is that?" He asked, but his voice wasn't nearly so gruff. — Becca Fitzpatrick

I want you to know everything about me, Lexi, to see inside me, beyond my gruff arrogance, beyond the hurt and loneliness, to the man underneath it all.There are things about me no one knows, but I want to share them with you. — Victoria Michaels

Cope had caused office ripples when he first took over as county prosecutor and stunned all by promoting Muse to be his county chief investigator. The job was usually given to a gruff old-timer, always male, who was supposed to show the political appointee through the system. Loren Muse was one of the youngest investigators in the department when he selected her. When asked by the media what criteria he had used to select a young female over more seasoned male veterans, he answered in one word: "Merit." Now here she was, in a room with four of those same passed-by old-timers. "I — Harlan Coben

I'll tell the others I lost you." His voice gruff, and in it I can hear all the emotion he despises, all the emotion he's trying so hard to contain. "And it won't be a lie. — Virginia Boecker

And I'm also talking about kindness, not just about being nice. You can be gruff or abrupt and still be kind. Kindness has much more to do with what you do than how you do it. — Will Schwalbe

There are some women who need a different kind of romance. They need the angst, Alpha male, who takes what he wants and makes no apologies for his gruff behavior — Suzanne Steele

I don't think these men know that it's illegal,"she said. "They're very liberal and they have daughters and I think we should talk to them."The gruff-voiced woman barked back, "Don't be a naive little girl. People who have power don't like to give up that power. — Lynn Povich

I want you," he says with a gruff tenderness. "I want more of you. And I don't care how I get it."
I search his eyes, greener now than they have ever been. They're bright and burning and I know he wants me. I can feel it in my bones, and the thrill is like a million bombs going off at once. How did this even happen? I'm absolutely spellbound by him.
I clear my throat, but even so my words are quiet. "You have me. — Karina Halle

Uncle Jeb," we croaked in surprise. "You found us."
"Well, now," he said, and his gruff voice brought back a hundred memories. "Well, now, here's a pickle. — Stephenie Meyer

This club's no place for you, tibby," he had told her with gruff fondness. "You has to stay away from a milling cove like me, and find some rum cull to marry."
"Papa," she had begged, stammering desperately, "d-don't send me back there. Pl-please, please let me stay with you."
"Little tangle-tongue, you belong with the Maybricks. And no use to hop the twig and run back here. I'll only send you off again. — Lisa Kleypas

One of the reasons why I liked living in Manhattan was that the city would share your mood the moment you walked out the door. If you were in a hurry, everything else was too, even the pigeons. You shared the same speed and sense of urgency to get wherever you were going.
When you had time to kill, it was happy to give you things to look at and do that easily took up whole days. I didn't agree with people who said Manhattan was a cold, indifferent town. Sure it was gruff, but it was also playful and sometimes very funny. — Jonathan Carroll

He fell quiet, but she understood this was his way. He was not a talkative man. Once, she'd imagined him sitting alone in his house, a monster ready to devour anyone who came near. What she imagined now was a man who had both his rank and his natural reticence working against him.
She smiled at him. If he continued in his gruff ways the rest of his life, she would defend him to anyone. Anyone. — Carolyn Jewel

However he'd found his way here, it didn't matter. I knew then that the boy under the tree had to be mine. That floppy hair should be mine to touch. That big, knuckly boy hand should be mine to hold. That gruff voice should be mine to hear, and those ears should be mine to tell all my secrets to. Except for the biggest secret. That I loved him. More than the crush I was dealing with for years. More than I should've loved a best friend. More than he would ever love me back. I was gone for him. — Brodi Ashton

Are you saying you want to be my girlfriend?" His voice was gruff, almost teasing.
I leaned into him and whispered against his lips. "Are you saying you want me to be your girlfriend?"
"Fuck yeah," he whispered back, and pressed his mouth to mine. — Samantha Young

Like a glutton for punishment, he reached behind his seat and pulled out the ten-year-old answering machine that he'd kept in his apartment the entire time he'd been deployed. He took another chug on the bottle and closed his eyes, pressing play. Ackerman's gruff voice filled his tiny trailer and flooded his mind with memories and pain. "What's — A.E. Via

Ty." It was only one word, but a gruff plea that said everything. I lifted my gaze from his lips to his eyes and saw the hurt in them, the miss, the need. Need that I couldn't step away from. Need that I felt in every part of my body. "Take me somewhere, Chase. — Alessandra Torre

Oh my God, I can totally see it," says Britt. She scrunches her face into a frown and glares at herself in the mirror. "Jael ... ," she says, in a pretty good imitation of Jael's father's flat, gruff voice. "Jael, money is tight. Do you really need these things?"
"No, you're right, Dad," says Jael in a chipper, squeaky voice. "It's actually really convenient that I can store all my pens and pencils in my hair. In fact, you know what? I'll just grow my hair a little longer so you don't even have to get me folders this year! — Jon Skovron

I'm a sucker for the big, gruff, distant, emotionally closed-off hero who sloooowly warms up to the feisty, awesome, sweet heroine. — MaryJanice Davidson

Ah dearest heart if you will but wait
I'll become the ideal soulmate
nevermore causing you a moment's trouble
and I but a mere ectoplasmic bubble
swaying above your gorgeous head
gruff and garrulous and safely dead. — Christy Brown

There was a perception of me, and I earned it because I was really intense, really gruff. I treated certain people poorly at times. It was because of who I was. It was almost my strength. I came in all business. I tried to find ways to fit in with that demeanor, but it's not easy. — Kirk Gibson

Kiersten ... " Voice gruff, he leaned against my door. "I don't want to be your friend." "Oh." I hated how my stomach dropped to my knees, like he'd just told me he hated Christmas and wanted to burn every last romance book on my Kindle. "More, — Rachel Van Dyken

As in 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff'?" The skull howled with laughter. "You just got your ass handed to you by a nursery tale?"
"I wouldn't say they handed me my ass," I said.
Bob was nearly strangling on his laughter, and given that he had no lungs it seemed gratuitous somehow. "That's because you can't see yourself," he choked out. "Your nose is all swollen up and you've got two black eyes. You look like a raccoon. Holding a dislocated ass. — Jim Butcher

He glanced at her, his hair wild and his eyes red. 'May I give ye pleasure?'
Still a gentleman. Emma smiled. But his voice sounded gruff and his appearance was that of an untamed barbarian. She grabbed handfuls of his hair and pulled his head close to hers. 'Make me scream.'
His eyes gleamed hotter. 'Ye will. Many times ere the night is over. — Kerrelyn Sparks

I think, uh, I might be in love with you, I said, my voice sounding gruff and awkward even to my own ears. — Stacey Kade

I don't know if I would be a good cop. As gruff as I come off, I take things very emotionally. — Michael Cudlitz

Gage's low gruff voice whispered back. "Don't you get it by now? You carry my heart with you wherever you go. Whether you're right by my side or half a world away from me, you carry everything I am with you. So I need you to protect that by keeping yourself alive, because if you die, I die with you." - Gage — Jessie Lane

There were people in the world who, for all their gruff arrogance, can, with scarcely a few notes, easily persuade you they are inherently kind, candid, and vulnerable - with unsettling reminders, though, that their ability to flip from one to the other is what ultimately makes them deadly. — Andre Aciman

I'm going to be everything you never wanted,' I warn on a gruff breath, 'nothing that you need.'
I slide my other hand farther up her thigh.
'Sometimes my work will take me away, and I won't call, and I'll piss you off.'
I graze my longest finger over the silky V covering her sex.
'I'll be selfish. I'll take everything I want, whenever I want it. I'm not the man of your dreams, Melanie, I'm your worst nightmare. — Katy Evans

Dude, want to give me a little room here?" "No. I like being close to you." Detective Johnson ran one long finger slowly down Day's chest. "Well fuckin' unlike it." They both jumped at the sound of God's gruff voice. God — A.E. Via

He grabbed my hair hard with both hands, tugging sharply, and looked me dead in the eyes. He was all fire and hard angles.
"I love you," he said, his voice gruff. "And I'll have you. Keep you. Own you. You belong to me, only to me, from now on. — Karina Halle

Dread that she would meet some other man and see in him all the joy of life that he lacked.
"I will see you home." The words came out all wrong, with gruff emphasis on the word will. One look at her, and he lost all chance at serenity. Because he had never in his life cared whether anyone liked him. He'd never thought about it. Until her. — Carolyn Jewel

His eyes glow in the shadows as he slides the soft liquid semen dripping down my thigh in a path leading back into my swollen entry, as if he doesn't want to come out of my body. "Sticky?" he asks in a gruff murmur, bending his head and licking my shoulder as he pushes his semen back inside with one finger. — Katy Evans

You must excuse my gruff conduct," the watchdog said, after they'd been driving for some time, "but you see it's traditional for watchdogs to be ferocious. — Norton Juster

Among the peoples of the world I am not universally admired for the bell-like clarity of my diction. Words slide out of my mouth like fat fish. Having lived my life in various parts of Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas and having been sired by a gruff-talking Marine from Chicago and a grits-and-gravy honey from Rome, Georgia, what has remained is an indefinable nonspeech, flavored subtly with a nonaccent, and decipherable to no one, black or white, on the American continent. — Pat Conroy

"Now, do I dare ask what you guys are doing hiding out up here? Or is it going to make me jealous?"
Simon was smiling as he said it, but Derek glanced away with a gruff "Course not."
"So you weren't having another adventure?" Simon lowered himself on my other side, so close he brushed against me, hand resting on mine. "It sure looks like a good spot for one. Rooftop hideaway, old widow's walk. That is what that is, huh? A widow's walk?"
"Yeah. And it's rotting, so stay off it," Derek said.
"I did. So, adventure?"
"A small one," I said.
"Oh, man. I always miss them. Okay, break it to me gently." — Kelley Armstrong

Blind Willie Johnson is a pretty big vocal influence. He can be very harsh, like gargly, gruff vocals, but also just slip into some very delicate, vulnerable soft stuff. I like that combination. — Benjamin Booker

He could put up a gruff front and he was no angel, but he was really just trying to hide his sensitivities so that he could hang on to them. — Norah Vincent

The owner of the Post Office was called Maurice. A sixtyish-year-old with a large red nose that was pebble-dashed with broken capillaries, and a smooth bald head with a fuzz of grey hair around the side like the tide mark on a dirty bath. He had a gruff manner, distrusting eyes and a cough like kicked gravel. — R.D. Ronald

He's a clever little thing, isn't he?"
She leaned in to drop a kiss on the kitten's soft head, reaching to move him off Griffin's chest. He reached for her hand, stopping her.
"And what about me?" he asked, his eyes burning into hers.
"What about you?"
"Am I not clever enough for a kiss?" His voice was gruff.
She favored him with a shy smile.
"You're more than clever enough, Griffin Channing. — Michelle Zink

Being aloof, gruff, or stern never got anyone anywhere. Who wants to be treated like that? Certainly not you. And surely not the people you meet. — Wayne D. Dosick

You have business here?' the gruff voice asked.
Rafe didn't relish the thought of a musket ball piercing his heart. His mother, and scads of London ladies, would be terribly upset. — Suzanne Enoch

I've been rereading your story. I think it's about me in a way that might not be flattering, but that's okay. We dream and dream of being seen as we really are and then finally someone looks at us and sees us truly and we fail to measure up. Anyway: story received, story included. You looked at me long enough to see something mysterioso under all the gruff and bluster. Thanks. Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them. — Richard Siken

Don't you get it?" he said, his voice gruff with emotion. "I've never met anyone like you before. There's no one like you. I keep waiting to not feel like this, because there are times I can't bear it. To care this much. To worry about you day in and day out, even before the attack. I love you so fucking much. I sometimes . . . I feel consumed by it. — Samantha Young

Dorian panted, dropping his head to her shoulder, he
whispered, his voice gruff, "Will you be mine for all eternity? — Amanda J. Greene

I assume we'll make a stop in London?" Ainsley asked. "I can't imagine you'd run straight through to Paris tonight, would you? If I could find a room at a respectable hotel, I can sort through my things and decide what I truly need to take. Isabella thought the lot, but I think she is optimistic."
Cameron unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth. "We'll stop in London," he said, his voice gruff. "Not in a hotel. In Hart's house; he keeps it ready. In the morning, we'll marry. — Jennifer Ashley

Our personalities are often molded by how we are treated: if a parent or spouse is defensive or argumentative in dealing with us, we tend to respond the same way. Never mistake people's exterior characteristics for reality, for the character they show on the surface may be merely a reflection of the people with whom they have been most in contact, or a front disguising its own opposite. A gruff exterior may hide a person dying for warmth; a repressed, sober-looking type may actually be struggling to conceal uncontrollable emotions. That is the key to charm - feeding what has been repressed or denied. — Anonymous

Hey,darling", I say quietly,my
voice gruff and low, thick with emotion.
"You get lost?"she blushes. — Ashley Stoyanoff

Perry, I love you," he said, voice gruff and full of conviction. "I love you absolutely, resolutely. There is no question, no doubt. This love just is. It exists and because it exists, I exist ...
"You, only you, just you as you are, are my reason for being. — Karina Halle

Beckett's gruff voice moved her veil as he spoke, Happy wedding, Whitebread. But please, don't worry about this. — Debra Anastasia

I think politics is deadly to write about, frankly. If you have a political agenda and you set out to write a novel to prove that, say, capitalism should crumble, then it's going to be a really bad novel. Very few people have been able to deal with political fiction - Dickens, Dostoyevsky. But even Tolstoy got really tiresome when he was talking about the serfs. You have to let characters be characters, not [gruff voice] Mr Capitalism or [girlie voice] Miss Anti-Fur. — Donna Tartt

His dad's gruff voice interrupted his pitiful thoughts.
"Can I be frank?"

"Sure. Can I be beans?" Without even having to look up, Dex knew what his dad was doing. "Stop. You know how I hate when you do that."

"Do what?" Tony grunted.

"Do that puckered ass thing with your lips."

"And you know all about puckered asses."

Dex arched an eyebrow at his dad. "You know, at times I wonder who the grown-up is here."

The elevator pinged and they exited into a long white hall with dark gray flooring. "And I wonder if you've lost more than a few marbles. Like the entire bag. — Charlie Cochet

I love how he sometimes gets embarrassed by the mushy stuff between us and then his voice gets all gruff and he tickles me or kisses me to shut us both up. Boy, do we ever kiss. We make out like champions. — Cynthia Hand

Matt hissed her name as she moved above him, sliding along the hardened length of him. "What is it you want, baby?" he asked, his voice gruff.
"You," she replied honestly. "I want more of you."
"You have me. All of me. — Samantha Chase

We're not going to argue about this, Al. That's what he wants. Won't let him do it."
"Do what?"
He wraps the hair I'm playing with around his wrist and tugs me close, bowing his head so our brows touch. "Come between us."
My entire body goes soft and warm at the gruff possessiveness in his voice, but he doesn't have a right to it. "Did you forget? There's already someone between us. You're moving with her to London."
"I was an idiot. To think for one second that being on the other side of the ocean could give me any control. — A.G. Howard

Don't worry, due'ane," He murmured lowly...."Who's Dewey Anne." I asked him, voice gruff. He was so familiar, this Bracken, but so strange, naked next to me. I could touch
him, I realized with wonder. I could run my hands from his flank to his shoulder, and he would welcome the touch because he was mine.
You are." He whispered, and I met his eyes. "It's elfish, the feminine noun
for 'other equal half'. You are my other. My everything."
--Wounded
(Bracken and Cory) — Amy Lane

What?" his gruff voice scolded. "You were expecting to see Drake Junior?"

He clucked his tongue at her.

"You have'nt even bought me dinner yet."

~Drake — Jennifer Turner

Belle saw now that his gruff, sometimes-frightening exterior masked a kind and loyal heart. — Jennifer Donnelly

For a moment, the color leeched from his face, then he blinked and smiled. Margaret, for a second I thought it was your mama standing there. He gave a gruff laugh. You look lovely, my dear.
Her father's praise brought tears to her eyes. His approving words came far too infrequently. Was her appearance all that mattered to him-to anyone? It seemed to be the way of the world. No one cared about who she was on the inside. No one saw the heart longing to be loved and to love in return. She sometimes even doubted God's love for her. — Colleen Coble

You want to know if that's the only reason I called, Vivian? he asked finally, his voice octaves and octaves lower than Daytime Clark. Raspy, gruff, rough-and-tumble. — Alice Clayton

Had I known then what I know now, I would have clung to him. I would have looked him in the eyes to see that spark of mischief, that undying intelligence that belied his gruff exterior. If I'd known the inevitable, I would have said everything I felt in my heart and soul. I would have told him thank you for being my father. I would have said that if I'm ever going to be a good man, it's going to be because of the way he'd raised me ...
... I would have told him I loved him.
But I didn't. I didn't because I didn't know. I didn't even say goodnight. Or goodbye. — T.J. Klune

You're asking for trouble, woman." At the gruff tone of his voice, I raised my head and met his dark, chocolate-brown eyes, rimmed by long lashes that didn't take an ounce away from his masculinity. I wanted to drown in those eyes.
"I like trouble, remember? — Suzanne Johnson

Shaken from sleep, and numbed and scarce awake,
Out in the trench with three hours' watch to take,
I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then
Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men
Crouching in cabins candle-chinked with light.
Hark! There's the big bombardment on our right
Rumbling and bumping; and the dark's a glare
Of flickering horror in the sectors where
We raid the Boche; men waiting, stiff and chilled,
Or crawling on their bellies through the wire.
"What? Stretcher-bearers wanted? Some one killed?"
Five minutes ago I heard a sniper fire:
Why did he do it? ... Starlight overhead
Blank stars. I'm wide-awake; and some chap's dead. — Siegfried Sassoon

Sorry," he said, his voice thick and gruff. "It's morning and you're sitting on me. That's a combination meant to bring any man down. — J. Lynn

Archie." He was gruff. "No man can hold himself accountable for the results of his psychological defects, especially those he shares with all his fellow men, such as lack of omniscience. It is a vulgar fallacy that what you don't know can't hurt you; but it is true that what you don't know can't convict you. — Rex Stout

We kiss for a long time, a good long time. I don't even notice that it's cold and I forget to be afraid because that's just how good a kisser he is. His lips move above my lips. My lips ache for the touch of him, the softness of his skin. We keep kissing. My hands wrap themselves in his hair. His hand presses me close into him, as close as I can be against him, and he is solid, strong, amazing. My hands leave his hair and journey down to the sides of his face, still tingling.
"We should keep going," he says, voice gruff and husky again. I love when his voice sounds like that, deeper than normal. His lips puff out a little more, too. "You're blushing."
I pull my lips in against each other like I'm still trying to taste him. I move my snowshoes off of his snowshoes. It's tricky.
"You're a good kisser," I say.
"So are you. — Carrie Jones

The gruff gryphon's voice turned gentle. What am I, chopped liver? You beat the crap out of me this afternoon. That pretty much makes us pals in my book. — Thea Harrison

I think he decided to be one kind of guy but liking us is rattling that kind of guy and that's why he's gruff and grumpy. I think maybe we just leave him alone and be gentle and maybe things will work out. You can't make people be who they don't want to be yet. You just be gentle and let them get there themselves. — Brian Doyle

They would have been still more amazed if they had seen what Beth did afterward. If you will believe me, she went and knocked at the study door before she gave herself time to think, and when a gruff voice called out, "come in!" she did go in, right up to Mr. Laurence, who looked quite taken aback, and held out her hand, saying, with only a small quaver in her voice, "I came to thank you, sir, for ... " But she didn't finish, for he looked so friendly that she forgot her speech and, only remembering that he had lost the little girl he loved, she put both arms round his neck and kissed him. — Louisa May Alcott

He was so very large and so very gruff that he rather terrified her, but he always behaved correctly in public, and there was a lot to be said for a man who sported such well-tailored jackets
even if he did change into a ferocious beast once a month. — Gail Carriger

You think you need me, little firecracker?" The gruff question travels all the way through me, and I have to press my thighs together to stop the tremor in me. "Baby, the way you need me can only barely cover half of the way I need you." The unexpected sadness in his voice yanks my gaze back to his. — Katy Evans

For the first part of the journey Maia kept her eyes on the side of the road. Now that she was really leaving her friends it was hard to hold back her tears.
She had reached the gulping stage when she heard a loud snapping noise and turned her head. Miss Minton had opened the metal clasp of her large black handbag and was handing her a clean handkerchief, embroidered with the initial A.
"Myself," said the governess in her deep gruff voice, "I would think how lucky I was. How fortunate."
"To go to the Amazon, you mean?"
"To have so many friends who were sad to see me go."
"Didn't you have friends who minded you leaving?"
Miss Minton's thin lips twitched for a moment.
"My sister's canary, perhaps. If he had understood what was happening. Which is extremely doubtful. — Eva Ibbotson

Family of friends, people she knows only by their voices. She especially likes Griswald, gruff old butler for wealthy Zack Givens. Meeting Griswald is a shock; he is neither gruff nor old, but a powerful, handsome man. In fact, he is Zack Givens, cold, heartless - and charmed by the artless young woman who brings him chicken soup, treats him like a friend ... and falls in love with the humble man she imagines him to be. Inevitably, she will face his betrayal. Then — Christina Dodd

Alby had a gruff, unavailable way of teaching. He did the action as he wanted it done and your job was to copy it. He didn't suffer questions well and preferred to increase the work rather than stop and clarify technique. It was early March when I started. The only other students were a myopic woman, who was clearly better suited to yoga, and Crazy Chris. Alby called him this openly. Chris didn't mind. He was crazy. He couldn't generally remember his right from his left and anything past the most basic punches was beyond him. It didn't stop him talking constantly about how he was going to join the Turkish army. It didn't stop him hitting anything he could as hard as he could whenever he could, either. — Heath Lander

Gruff," I said, "I find myself largely clueless about why mortal women do what they do. It will take a wiser man than me to understand what's in a fae woman's mind. — Jim Butcher

I have a gruff side. This is not exactly news ... At the same time, anyone who wants to judge me for this can walk a mile in my moccasins. And then we'll talk. — Marianne Williamson

Thus, Dev and Gruff Jon. Desperate men. Desperate times. — Steven Poore

Later, years later even, sometimes I might say, "How about the duel on the cliff with Inigo and the man in black?" and my father would gruff and grumble and get the book and lick his thumb, turning pages till the mighty battle began. — William Goldman

I read the miserable story of the play in which she was the one true loving soul. It obviously described the spread of an epidemic brain fever which, like typhoid, was perhaps caused by seepings from the palace graveyard into the Elsinore water supply. From an inconspicuous start among sentries on the battlements the infection spread through prince, king, prime minister and courtiers causing hallucinations, logomania and paranoia resulting in insane suspicions and murderous impulses. I imagined myself entering the palace quite early in the drama with all the executive powers of an efficient public health officer. The main carriers of the disease (Claudius, Polonius and the obviously incurable Hamlet) would he quarantined in separate wards. A fresh water supply and efficient modern plumbing would soon set the Danish state right and Ophelia, seeing this gruff Scottish doctor pointing her people toward a clean and healthy future, would be powerless to withhold her love. — Alasdair Gray

So it was done to the general contentment; and if Gruff and Glum didn't in the course of the afternoon splice the main brace, it was not for want of the means of inflicting that outrage on the feelings of the Infant Bands of Hope. — Charles Dickens

Why are you doing this to me?"
"Because you are not forgettable." His voice deepened and sounded gruff with frustration. "I can't have you believing that. I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since Will's birthday party, and trust me, I've tried. I have a spider plant at home that is very much alive as proof. — L. H. Cosway

Damn, you're good,' he said and rolled onto his back. The man wasn't much for flowery speech, Alesandra thought with a smile. It didn't matter. She was arrogantly proud of herself because she'd pleased him. Perhaps she should give him a little praise too. She rolled onto her side to face him, put her hand on his chest directly over his pounded heart, and whispered. 'You're good, too. 'Tis the truth, you're the best I've ever had.'
He opened his eyes to look at her. 'I'm the only one you've ever had, remember?' His voice was gruff with affection.
'I remember,' she said.
'No other man is ever going to touch you, Alesandra. You're mine. — Julie Garwood

He was younger than Iseult had imagined. No older than twenty, if she had to guess. Yet he felt old, with his voice so gruff. His language so formal.
It was in the way he carried himself too, as if he'd walked for a thousand years and planned to walk a thousand more. — Susan Dennard

Redd Foxx was the same gruff old codger you saw on television. — Charley Pride