Jolly By Quotes & Sayings

The landscape was snow and green ice on broken mountains. These weren't old mountains, worn down by time and weather and full of gentle ski slopes, but young, sulky, adolescent mountains. They held secret ravines and merciless crevices. One yodel out of place would attract, not the jolly echo of a lonely goatherd, but fifty tons of express-delivery snow. — Terry Pratchett

Senator [Stephen] Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post offices, land offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands. — Abraham Lincoln

By Jove ... ' he said to himself: 'It's true! What a jolly little mistress she'd make! — Ford Madox Ford

Nowhere can I think so happily as in a train. I am not inspired; nothing so uncomfortable as that. I am never seized with a sudden idea for a masterpiece, nor form a sudden plan for some new enterprise. My thoughts are just pleasantly reflective. I think of all the good deeds I have done, and (when these give out) of all the good deeds I am going to do. I look out of the window and say lazily to myself, "How jolly to live there"; and a little farther on, "How jolly not to live there." I see a cow, and I wonder what it is like to be a cow, and I wonder whether the cow wonders what it is to be like me; and perhaps, by this time, we have passed on to a sheep, and I wonder if it is more fun being a sheep. My mind wanders on in a way which would annoy Pelman a good deal, but it wanders on quite happily, and the "clankety-clank" of the train adds a very soothing accompaniment. So soothing, indeed, that at any moment I can close my eyes and pass into a pleasant state of sleep. — A.A. Milne

And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!" "By it and with it and on it and in it," said the Rat. . . . "It's my world, and I don't want any other. What it hasn't got is not worth having, and what it doesn't know is not worth knowing." - KENNETH GRAHAME, The Wind in the Willows — Kevin Fedarko

Seniors get to do all the jolly things," Owen complained as they walked to archery practice that first day.
Neal glared at the chubby second-year with all the royal disdain of a vexed lion. He was limping from a staff blow to the knee. "You are a bloody minded-savage," he informed Owen sternly. "I hope you are kidnapped by centaurs. — Tamora Pierce

They can certainly expect to be very impressed with the technical aspects of the show, fooled and led up the garden path by the story and ultimately have a jolly good laugh! — Louise Jameson

Bush put both arms round Hornblower's shoulders and walked with dragging feet. It did not matter that his feet dragged and his legs would not function while he had this support; Hornblower was the best man in the world and Bush could announce it by singing 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow' while lurching along the alleyway. — C.S. Forester

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.
I lie in bed beside my little sister, listening to the singing in the yard. Life is transformed, by these voices, by these presences, by their high spirits and grand esteem, for themselves and each other. My parents, all of us, are on holiday. The mixture of voices and words is so complicated and varied it seems that such confusion, such jolly rivalry, will go on forever, and then to my surprise - for I am surprised, even though I know the pattern of rounds - the song is thinning out, you can hear the two voices striving.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.
Then the one voice alone, one of them singing on, gamely, to the finish. One voice in which there is an unexpected note of entreaty, of warning, as it hangs the five separate words on the air. Life is. Wait. But a. Now, wait. Dream. — Alice Munro

Clearly it is God's will to place me in such a predicament," declared Philias loudly to a procession of stunned passers-by, "So God can jolly well point me towards salvation. — Stephen J. Day

I stood there for a second, savouring the smell of stale sweat and cheap beer. My feet stuck to the floor as I made my way over to the bar. I guessed cleanliness was at the bottom of the list of priorities for maintaining this shit-hole. I felt sorry for the old wooden floor and wondered when was the last time it had been caressed by a mop and some hot soapy water.
- FRANK DENVER, RANCID — Grant Jolly

Lucky Luke: I wonder how you manage to read with everything that's going on.

Jolly Jumper: By turning the pages just like everyone else. — Morris

By the way,' she added, 'you were talking about an ocarina. I have one if you'd care to have it. It belongs to my daughter who is in Las Palombas with her husband and I know she won't want it.' 'I say, that's awfully jolly of you,' said Bill. 'Funny thing, I know a chap in Las Palombas called Fairweather. I wonder if your daughter knows him. His wife is a peach. I saw her at the Barchester Palais de Danse with Fairweather last time I was on leave.' Mrs. — Angela Thirkell

I need but say that my most vivid impression in that respect was a mere trifle: one day, on Million Street in St. Petersburg, a truck packed with jolly rioters made a clumsy but accurate swerve so as to deliberately squash a passing cat which remained lying there, as a perfectly flat, neatly ironed, black rag (only the tail still belonged to a cat
it stood upright, and the tip, I think, still moved). At the time this struck me with some deep occult meaning, but I have since have occasion to see a bus, in a bucolic Spanish village, flatten by exactly the same method an exactly similar cat, so I have become disenchanted with hidden meanings. — Vladimir Nabokov

In itself a wall on which a panoramic view of a non-existent world is drawn does not change. But for a great deal of money you can buy a view from the window with a painted sun, a sky-blue bay and a calm evening. Unfortunately the author of this fragment will again be Ed - but even this is not important, because the very window the view is bought for is also only drawn in. Then perhaps the wall on which it is drawn is a drawing too? But drawn by whom and on what?
He raised his eyes to the wall of the toilet as though in hopes of an answer there. Traced on the tiles in red felt-tip pen were the jolly, rounded letters of a brief slogan: Trapped? Masturbate! — Victor Pelevin

By day I taught Sahjara, who brought me unceasing small presents ranging from orange flower cakes to bouquets of jolly red berries; by night, I imagined my employer making the sort of inappropriate advances which would have made most governesses flee the estate forthwith, and in graphic detail, complete with bare thighs and calloused fingers and the diagonal notches which rest so sweetly above the hipbones when a gentleman is in training, as I had no doubt whatsoever Mr. Thornfield was. — Lyndsay Faye

By the way, I may have misled you by using the word 'tea'. None of your wafer slices of bread-and-butter. We're good trencher-men, we of the Revolution. What we shall require will be something on the order of scrambled eggs, muffins, jam, ham, cake and sardines. Expect us at five sharp."
"But, I say, I'm not quite sure - "
"Yes, you are. Silly ass, don't you see that this is going to do you a bit of good when the Revolution breaks loose? When you see old Rowbotham sprinting up Piccadilly with a dripping knife in each hand, you'll be jolly thankful to be able to remind him that he once ate your tea and shrimps. — P.G. Wodehouse

So much depends, of course, on what the individual hears when he gives himself over to the electronic tides breaking on the shore of his Seashell. The voice of conscience and reason? An echo of morality? A new thought? A fresh idea? A morsel of philosophy? Or bias, hatred, fear, prejudice, nightmare, lies, half-truths, and suspicions? Or, perhaps even worse, the sound of one emptiness striking hollowly against yet another and another emptiness, broken at two-minute intervals by a jolly commercial, preferably in rhymed quatrains or couplets? In — Ray Bradbury

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It's always been my way of expressing what, for me, is inexpressible by any other means. — David Bowie

By high school, I was already tall - 5-foot-8 - and one day I made the mistake of wearing green tights. The football players all started calling me the Jolly Green Giant. — Rene Russo

How do I love thee? wondered Orion. "Let me see. I love thee passionately and eternally ... obviously eternally-that goes without saying." Holly blinked sweat from her eyes. "Is he serious?" she called over her shoulder to Foaly. "Oh, absolutely," said the centaur "If he asks you to look for birthmarks, say no immediately." "Oh, I would never." Orion assured her. "Ladies don't look for birthmarks; that is work for jolly fellows like the Goodly Beast and myself. Ladies, like Miss Short, do enough by simply existing. They exude beauty, and that is enough." "I am not exuding anything." said Holly, through gritted teeth. Orion tapped her shoulder. "I beg to differ. You're exuding right now, a wonderful aura. It's pastel blue with little dolphins." Holly gripped the wheel tightly. "I'm going to be sick. Did he just say pastel blue?" "And dolphins, little ones," said Foaly. — Eoin Colfer

I was brought up by a Victorian Grandmother. We were taught to work jolly hard. We were taught to prove yourself; we were taught self reliance; we were taught to live within our income. You were taught that cleanliness is next to Godliness. You were taught self respect. You were taught always to give a hand to your neighbour. You were taught tremendous pride in your country. All of these things are Victorian values. They are also perennial values. You don't hear so much about these things these days, but they were good values and they led to tremendous improvements in the standard of living. — Margaret Thatcher

People who always feel jolly, no matter where they are or what happens to them-who have the organ of hope preposterously developed-who are endowed with an uncongealable sanguine temperament-who never feel concerned about the price of corn-and who cannot, by any possibility, discover any but the bright side of a picture-are very apt to go to extremes, and exaggerate with 40-horse microscopic power. — Mark Twain

All American politicians are bought and paid for by American lobbyists. We no longer have representative government here. We breed monsters like Kissinger and Nixon and Ronnie Reagan. Our senate and congress are run by pay-offs and special interest money. And the fun part is that most Americans are asleep about it. Give 'em a new SUV and a good J-Lo or Tom Cruise kung-fu flick and a few jolly abortion clinic bombing news clips on the six o'clock news and everybody seems to stay content. Wasn't it Churchill that said any society gets exactly the government it deserves? — Dan Fante

After her came jolly June, arrayed
All in green leaves, as he a player were;
Yet in his time he wrought as well as played,
That by his plough-irons mote right well appear.
Upon a crab he rode, that did him bear,
With crooked crawling steps, an uncouth pace,
And backward rode, as bargemen wont to fare,
Bending their force contrary to their face;
Like that ungracious crew which feigns demurest grace. — Edmund Spenser

I am pitching it feebly," said young Bingo earnestly. "You haven't heard the thing. I have. Rosie shoved the cylinder on the dictating-machine last night before dinner, and it was grisly to hear the instrument croaking out those awful sentences. If that article appears I shall be kidded to death by every pal I've got. Bertie," he said, his voice sinking to a hoarse whisper, "you have about as much imagination as a warthog, but surely even you can picture to yourself what Jimmy Bowles and Tuppy Rogers, to name only tow, will say when they see me referred to in print as "half god, half prattling, mischievous child"?"
I jolly well could
"She doesn't say that?"I gasped.
"She certainly does. And when I tell you that I selected that particular quotation because it's about the only one I can stand hearing spoken, you will realise what I'm up against. — P.G. Wodehouse

And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. — Herman Melville

Loser"
"Father directed choir. When it paused on a Sunday,
he liked to loiter out morning with the girls;
then back to our cottage, dinner cold on the table,
Mother locked in bed devouring tabloid.
You should see him, white fringe about his ears,
bald head more biased than a billiard ball
he never left a party. Mother left by herself
I threw myself from her car and broke my leg ...
Years later, he said, 'How jolly of you to have jumped.'
He forgot me, mother replaced his name, I miss him.
When I am unhappy, I try to squeeze the hour
an hour or half-hour smaller than it is;
orphaned, I wake at midnight and pray for day
the lovely ladies get me through the day — Robert Lowell

Bibliomancy: Divination by jolly well Looking It Up. — Marilyn Johnson

You? Really now, Mr. McGee. You are spectacularly huge, and a tan that deep is almost vulgar, and you have a kind of leathery fading boyish charm, but this is not and never was a game for dilettantes, for jolly boys, for the favor-for-an-old-buddy routine. No gray-eyed wonder with a big white grin can solve anything or retrieve anything by blundering around in my life. Thanks for the gesture. But this isn't television. I don't need a big brother. So why don't you just go on back to your fun and games? — John D. MacDonald

I had four blak arrows under my belt,
Four for the greefs that I have felt,
Four for the number of ill menne
That have oppressid me now and then.
One is gone; one is wele sped;
Old Apulyaird is dead.
One is for Maister Bennet Hatch,
That burned Grimstone, walls and thatch.
One for Sir Oliver Oates,
That cut Sir Harry Shelton's throat.
Sir Daniel, ye shull have the fourt;
We shall think it fair sport.
Ye shull each have your own part,
A blak arrow in each blak heart.
Get ye to your knees for to pray;
Ye are ded theeves, by yea and nay!
JON AMEND-ALL
Of the Green Wood,
And his jolly fellaweship — Robert Louis Stevenson

What makes a good family? Well, I suppose obviously love. Love lubricated often I think by humor. I think a family that can laugh at each other and tease themselves and who are able to be jolly with each other I think is the key. — Stephen Fry

About a year before this, K had had several nasty falls, and Jolly had said that either the Alzheimer's or the medicine for it was somehow affecting her balance. Perhaps K's fear of falling made her over compensate and walk hunched forward; perhaps it made her feel more balanced, more in control of her body. Bit it also made her look like hell--almost to the "hump" stage.........(end of quote)

Connie's comment: My dad was aggravated by a physical therapist who tried to re-teach him to walk. My dad did not appreciate someone telling him how to walk. He finally explained to us that he walked hunched over so he would be closer to the ground if he fell. — John West

No matter how many times we read "King Lear," never shall we find the good king banging his tankard in high revelry, all woes forgotten, at a jolly reunion with all three daughters and their lapdogs. Never will Emma rally, revived by the sympathetic salts in Flaubert's father's timely tear. Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds ... — Vladimir Nabokov

If you pass life by it's jolly well going to pass you by in the future. If you're frightened it's all right--that's no harm; fear is an emotion. — E. M. Forster

Aye, aye! good-natured, jolly, full of fun; there are a number of other names for the good qualities the devil leaves his children, as bait to catch gudgeons with. D'ye think folk could be led astray by one who was every way bad? — Elizabeth Gaskell

Give to me the life I love, Let the lave go by me, Give the jolly heaven above And the byway nigh me. Bed in the bush with the stars to see, Bread I dip in the river There's the life for a man like me, There's the life for ever. — Robert Louis Stevenson

After the alarm clock, it is the turn of Mr Kellogg to shame us into action. 'Rise and Shine!' he exhorts us from the Corn Flakes packet. The physical act of crunching cornflakes or other cereals is portraied in TV advertising as working an amazing alchemy on slothful human beings: the incoherent, unshaven sluggard (bad) is magically transformed into a smart and jolly worker full of vigour and purpose (good) by the positive power of cereal. Kellogg himself, tellingly, was a puritanical health-nut who never had sex (he preferred enemas). Such are the architects of our daily life. — Tom Hodgkinson

And if you expect you'll gain anything from us by your way of approachin' us, you're jolly well mistaken. That's all. Good-night.'
They clattered upstairs, injured virtue on every inch of their backs.
'But - but what the dickens have we done?' said Harrison, amazedly, to Craye.
'I don't know. Only - it always happens that way when one has anything to do with them. They're so beastly plausible. — Rudyard Kipling

I think you and I ought to publish our letters (they'd be a jolly good book by the way) under the title of lamentations, as we are always jawing about our sorrows. — C.S. Lewis

Away thou fondling motley humorist,
Leave mee, and in this standing woodden chest,
Consorted with these few bookes, let me lye
In prison, and here be coffin'd, when I dye;
Here are Gods conduits, grave Divines; and here
Natures Secretary, the Philosopher;
And jolly Statesmen, which teach how to tie
The sinewes of a cities mistique bodie;
Here gathering Chroniclers, and by them stand
Giddie fantastique Poets of each land.
Shall I leave all this constant company,
And follow headlong, wild uncertaine thee? — John Donne

Monstrosities of tall "monuments" and draped urns. One of the latter, the biggest and ugliest in the graveyard, was sacred to the memory of a certain Alec Davis who had been born a Methodist but had taken to himself a Presbyterian bride of the Douglas clan. She had made him turn Presbyterian and kept him toeing the Presbyterian mark all his life. But when he died she did not dare to doom him to a lonely grave in the Presbyterian graveyard over-harbour. His people were all buried in the Methodist cemetery; so Alec Davis went back to his own in death and his widow consoled herself by erecting a monument which cost more than any of the Methodists could afford. The Meredith children hated it, without just knowing why, but they loved the old, flat, bench-like stones with the tall grasses growing rankly about them. They made jolly seats for one thing. They were all sitting on one now. Jerry, tired of leap frog, was playing on — L.M. Montgomery