Gunner Quotes & Sayings

When I was in the gunner's bubble of a B25 bomber, taking off from an aircraft carrier 100 miles off the coast of San Diego, I remember saying to myself how amazing it was to get the chance to do that. — Eric Christian Olsen

You my door gunner?" Dempsey said. "Door gunner, aircrew, combat medic, and ass kicker, sir." "PJ? — Jeffrey Wilson

Gunner shook his head; he wasn't in the mood. He stared down at his bottle as he spoke. "Yeah, and what if I do go after it and what if I find no one, and I'm alone for the next sixty years? What then? Huh? Friends and family will get married. I'll be stuck buying gifts. Years pass: children, birthday parties. At dinner parties, I'll be odd man out, forcing people to arrange five chairs around a table instead of four or six. Or, okay, let's say maybe twenty years down the line I meet someone nice and I've already given up on ever finding true love. Let's say the girl is a few pounds overweight, has fizzy hair and an annoying laugh, but at this point, I'm also a few pounds overweight and my hair is thinning and my laughter is annoying. Maybe then the two of us get married, and both our groups of friends will say, 'See I told you that you'd find true love. It just took a while.' And we'll smile, but we'll both know it's a lie-- — Michael Anthony

He looked like he wanted to lean down and kiss me ... YES! ... Come on!!! ... A little more ... more ... just a little closer ...
What's your favorite dog? Gunner asked as he pulled back and stood away from the door. — Kelly Elliott

They say nothing!" the little captain raged. "They only putrid gunner, ship engineer. I, Ba-Karkar, must speak for all!"

Ogu kicked him again. "Then ask what kind help Asahel wants, untranslatable epithet male. Or no more untranslatable for you! Never again in putrid boomer prison."

Her husband gave a choked gasp. "Cruel female!"

"No more sex, either," she added. — Julian May

Once a gunner, always a gunner — Cesc Fabregas

During the air war of 1944, a four-man combat crew on a B-17 bomber took a vow to never abandon one another no matter how desperate the situation. The aircraft was hit by flak during a mission and went into a terminal dive, and the pilot ordered everyone to bail out. The top turret gunner obeyed the order, but the ball turret gunner discovered that a piece of flak had jammed his turret and he could not get out. The other three men in his pact could have bailed out with the parachutes, but they stayed with him until the plan hit the ground and exploded. They all died. — Sebastian Junger

No one accuses the gunner of maudlin affection for anything except his beasts and his weapons. He serves as least three jealous gods-his horse and all its sadlery and harness; his gun, whose least detail of efficiency is more important than men's lives; and, when these have been attended to, the never-ending mystery of his art commands him. — Rudyard Kipling

Finally, Gunner spoke, his voice so fluid and moving, it could have come from the river itself. I once hear a poem about angling. It say when you send out your line, it is like you cast out your troubles to let the current carry them away. I keep casting. — Clare Vanderpool

You can always tell a gunner by his greasy hands and vacant stare, You can always tell a Bombardier by his manners debonair, You can always tell a Navigator by his pencils, books and such, And you can always tell a Pilot, But you can never tell him much. — Jim Arnold

My dad had a small suitcase stuffed with photos, mementoes from wherever he'd traveled as a Royal Navy gunner. Not that he gunned very much, as it turned out. I'd haul it out and go through it time and time again. — Honeysuckle Weeks

The elements which determine the make of any particular sermon are three; the preacher, the material, and the audience; just as the character of any battle is determined by three elements; the gun (including the gunner), the ammunition, and the fortress against which the attack is made. — Phillips Brooks

I do not care so much for the death of my gunner, as for other passages of my voyage, for I have good friends in England that will bring me off for that. — William Kidd

You should fear me too, Mr. Waist Gunner, with your burn. What a silly thing - waist gunner. You gun from the waist?" She struck a pose, holding her hands in the shape of guns at her waist, face screwed into a scowl that all enemies should fear. She looked like a grandma gunslinger at the O.K. Corral. — Tracy Groot

Was a gunner's mate," said Marty. It was a lie. He had really been a chief yeoman at the time of the mutiny. But he thought now, always, that he had been a gunner's mate. "Ah. I thought you were a first-class yeoman," Karkov said. "I always get my facts wrong. It is the mark of the journalist. — Ernest Hemingway,

Five M4s plus a SAW would be a normal load-out for a standard six-man fire team. But for this job, it was way too light. If I'd had my way, every man on the squad would have been carrying a machine gun. Lacking that, I wanted at least one more heavy weapon. And at the moment, the only other guy in the barracks who had a SAW was Gregory, who was sitting near the west door. "Hey, Greg, we need an assault gunner," said Raz, who'd read my thoughts. "You up for this?" "Honestly? No," replied Gregory, who seemed to be in a state of shock from the ordeals he had already endured. "I don't know if I can do it." Then Jones stepped over to Gregory. — Clinton Romesha

I'm sure nothing more exciting will happen beyond finding some Roman ruins beneath the pasture, Gunner predicted, an excellent example of why he would never be called psychic in any understanding of the word. — Katie MacAlister

A large and ridiculous gunner told me that I looked like an out-of-work chorus boy. He was very startled when I told him that was exactly what I was, but that I found it easier to get work as a naval officer, a job requiring considerably less talent. — William Donaldson

I have a bra on," I said helpfully.
"I noticed. Might I remove that, too?"
"Gunner," I said sternly, or as sternly as a person could while she stood in a man's castle, her hands full of his ass. "You've got your hands on my boobs, and your tongue down my cleavage. At this point if I'm not yelling for the police, you can probably take it for granted that you have my consent to remove my bra."
"I like to make sure," he said, pulling his head out of my breasts for a moment. "Some women have limits. — Katie MacAlister

I built a cannon out of ice, and wrapped myself in the funeral carpet which my husbands and wives had woven for me out of their own hair, and one of my wives was my gunner. I came back here, after many adventures, and once, when I'd been drinking, donated the funeral carpet to the national museum. When I was sober again, I asked for it back, but they claimed not to know what I was talking about. — Kelly Link

Victory was never in doubt. Its cost was ... What was in doubt, in all our minds, was whether there would be any of us left to dedicate our cemetery at the end, or whether the last Marine would die knocking out the last Japanese gun and gunner. — Graves B. Erskine

Well, because I want to be the person who gives you all of your firsts. I want to experience them with you so I can see that beautiful smile of yours light up every time you do something new. I want to make all of your dreams come true." "Oh ... ." WOW ... .I was not expecting that at all. Maybe Gunner was — Kelly Elliott

Do they expect us to have sex right here on the kitchen table?"
Gunner, who was chewing a piece of toast, paused, considered the idea, and then shook his head. "Too messy. We'd get sugar everywhere. Plus, Cressy might walk in, and then I'd have to get her a second horse. — Katie MacAlister

One of the most interesting female characters I've written about was Meg Riddoch, the lead character in 'The Thompson Gunner'. — Nick Earls

My lord, I will tell you what the case was. I was coming up within a league of the Dutchman, and some of my men were making a mutiny about taking her, and my gunner told the people he could put the captain in a way to take the ship, and be safe. — William Kidd

Sunshine is just beyond the clouds Carl Joesph Gunner — Karen Kingsbury

Fire had come to know more about the insignificant habits and tastes of Lord Mydogg, Lord Gentian, Murgda, Gunner, all their households and all their guests than any person could care to know. She knew Gentian was ambitious but also slightly featherbrained at times and had a delicate stomach, ate no rich foods, and drank only water. She knew his son Gunner was cleverer than his father, a reputable soldier, a bit of an ascetic when it came to wine and women. Mydogg was the opposite, denied himself no pleasure, was lavish with his favorites and stingy with everyone else. Murgda was stingy with everyone including herself, and was said to be exceedingly fond of bread pudding. — Kristin Cashore

Basia floated next to the gunner's seat watching the hateful math spool out across the screen. She — James S.A. Corey

Guns' aka Luke Gunner had a record as long as my cock. Believe me, it was impressive." ~Lloyd Ledbetter — Eva LeNoir

Envy is a gun with a faulty breech-lock which flares back and burns the gunner. — Austin O'Malley

You're not in a pissing match with a seven-year-old, are you? Gunner called. — Lizzy Ford

Gunner Ainslie made a face at his sister-in-law. "'Amateur' is a bit rough, Alice. I took a degree in archaeology, after all."
She looked even more confused. "Then why are you a photographer now instead of an archaeologist?"
"Because he didn't want to be a burden to the estate like all my other siblings," his brother Elliott, the current Baron Ainslie, answered, giving his wife a squeeze. "Or so he said. Frankly, I think it was a cover so he could take pictures of unclothed women. — Katie MacAlister

Rather than sleep, Tibbets crawled through the thirty-foot tunnel to chat
with the waist crew, wondering if they knew what they were carrying. "A
chemist's nightmare," the tail gunner, Robert Caron, guessed, then "a
physicist's nightmare." "Not exactly," Tibbets hedged. Tibbets was leaving
by the time Caron put two and two together:
'Tibbets stayed a little longer, and then started to crawl forward up the tunnel. I remembered something else, and just as the last of the Old Man was disappearing, I sort of tugged at his foot, which was still showing. He came sliding back in a hurry, thinking maybe
something was wrong. "What's the matter?"
I looked at him and said, "Colonel, are we splitting atoms today?"
This time he gave me a really funny look, and said, "That's about it. — Richard Rhodes

Life is like invading Russia. A blitz start, massed shakos, plumes dancing like a flustered henhouse; a period of svelte progress recorded in ebullient despatches as the enemy falls back; then the beginning of a long, morale-sapping trudge with rations getting shorter and the first snowflakes upon your face. The enemy burns Moscow and you yield to General January, whose fingernails are very icicles. Bitter retreat. Harrying Cossacks. Eventually you fall beneath a boy-gunner's grapeshot while crossing some Polish river not even marked on your general's map. — Julian Barnes

Now listen, Gunnar," Cara is saying, "Jon told me you thought you needed to move out, but you don't have to, you know. It's not a big deal. Plus, we'll be engaged for a while before we actually get married so it's not - "
"Actually, Vance asked me to move in with him," Gunnar says, going for casual and missing it by a mile.
Cara steps back, eyebrows raised, "Wanna run that by me again?"
"Vance. He asked me to move in with him."
"And you said?"
"I said yes."
Cara lets out a shriek that sends Jon and Gunnar into a defensive crouch. "That's. Well that's fantastic, Gunnar. I didn't think you had it in you!"
"Oh, thanks so much," Gunnar says (although to be fair, even he didn't think he had it in him). — Seventhswan

Now I was shocked! The old shibboleth, intelligence! Had not our government been culpable enough in pampering the high-IQ draftees as though they were too intelligent to fight for their country? Could not Doctor Gentle see that I was proud to be a scout, and before that a machine gunner? Intelligence, intelligence, intelligence. Keep it up, America, keep telling your youth that mud and danger are fit only for intellectual pigs. Keep on saying that only the stupid are fit to sacrifice, that America must be defended by the low-brow and enjoyed by the high-brow. Keep vaunting head over heart, and soon the head will arrive at the complete folly of any kind of fight and meekly surrender the treasure to the first bandit with enough heart to demand it. — Robert Leckie

It was not the same as charging down a machine-gun nest armed only with a Bowie knife, or strapping in to the tail-gunner seat of a four-engined heavy bomber. And no one else would ever know, since one did not get a medal for letting go of a woman's hand on a gray Saturday morning in the middle of a European war. But to have faith - that a lover would be constant and life clement - this did require courage in a city more disposed to beginnings than safe continuations. As — Chris Cleave

I'm a bit of a gunner on the QWERTY keyboard. — Jay Watson

The gunner's mate came up and started breaking the locks on the ammunition. Everything was locked up for fear that someone might go in there with a cigarette or something. — Barney Ross

They went Indian file. First came the scouts, clever, graceful, quiet. They had rifles. Next came the antitank gunner, clumsy and dense, warning Germans away with a Colt .45 automatic in one hand and a trench knife in the other.
Last came Billy Pilgrim, empty-handed, bleakly ready for death. Billy was preposterous - six feet and three inches tall, with a chest and shoulders like a box of kitchen matches. He had no helmet, no overcoat, no weapon, and no boots. On his feet were cheap, low-cut civilian shoes which he had bought for his father's funeral. Billy had lost a heel, which made him bob up-and-down, up-and-down. The involuntary dancing, up-and-down, up-and-down, made his hip joints sore. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by. A writer is a gunner, sometimes waiting in the blind for something to come in, sometimes roaming the countryside hoping to scare something up. — E.B. White

With his ship faced with the danger of sinking, the Richard's chief gunner screamed to the Serapis, "Quarter! quarter! for God's sake!" Jones hurled a pistol at the man, felling him. But the cry had been heard by Pearson, the Serapis' commander, who called, "Do you ask for quarter?" Through the clash of battle, gunshot and crackle of fire the famous reply came faintly back to him: "I have not yet begun to fight!" Making good his boast, Jones sprang to a 9-pounder whose gun crew were killed or wounded, loaded and fired it himself, aiming at the Serapis' mainmast, then loaded and fired again. As the mast toppled, Pearson, surrounded by dead, with rigging on fire, hauled down his red ensign in token of surrender. Escorted to Richard's quarterdeck, he handed over his sword to Jones just as the Serapis' mainmast crashed over the side and its sail, nevermore to carry the wind, collapsed in a dying billow into the sea. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Machismo requires Latin blood. I'd say I never experienced machismo up close until I worked in a French office; the typical Wall Street gunner has the soul of a coffee filter in comparison. — Rosecrans Baldwin

I have to say that you're the last person I'd have expected would have a seventeen-year-old daughter. You're so ... " Alice stopped, suddenly looking guilty.
"Dashing?" Gunner supplied. "Debonair?"
"A bit of a dawg, actually. — Katie MacAlister

Busty' Roberts had joined the Royal Artillery in 1914 and since then had steadily risen to the rank of Gunner. Now the crunch: someone with a perverted sense of humour made him a Lance Bombardier. Roberts went insane with power. The war now consisted of two people, him and Hitler. — Spike Milligan