Mockingly Quotes & Sayings

I distrust summaries, any kind of gliding through time, any too great a claim that one is in control of what one recounts; I think someone who claims to understand but who is obviously calm, someone who claims to write with emotion recollected in tranquility, is a fool and a liar. To understand is to tremble. To recollect is to reenter and be riven. An acrobat after spinning through the air in a mockery of flight stands erect on his perch and mockingly takes his bow as if what he is being applauded for was easy for him and cost him nothing, although meanwhile he is covered with sweat and his smile is edged with a relief chilling to think about; he is indulging in a show-business style; he is pretending to be superhuman. I am bored with that and with here it has brought us. I admire the authority of being on one's knees in front of the event.
- Innocence, from My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead — Harold Brodkey

Mr. Lisbon knew his parental and neighborly duty entailed putting the retainer in a Ziploc bag, calling the Kriegers, and telling them their expensive orthodontal device was in safe keeping. Acts like theses
simple, humane, conscientious, forgiving
held life together. Only a few days earlier he would have been able to perform them. But now he took the retainer and dropped it in the toiler. He pressed the handle. The retainer, jostled int he surge, disappeared down the porcelain throat, and, when waters abated, floated triumphantly, mockingly, out, Mr. Lisbon waited for the tank to refill and flushed again, but the same thing happened. The replica of the boy's mouth clung to the white slope. — Jeffrey Eugenides

Betsy liked to read her stories aloud and she read them like an actress. She made her voice low and thrillingly deep. She made it shake with emotion. She laughed mockingly and sobbed wildly when the occasion required. — Maud Hart Lovelace

Like millions of others, he mockingly calls himself, in evocative modern street slang, a diaosi, the term for a loser that literally translates as "male pubic hair". — Anonymous

A: Absorbed in our discussion of immortality, we had let night fall without lighting the lamp, and we couldn't see each other's faces. With an offhandedness or gentleness more convincing than passion would have been, Macedonio Fernandez' voice said once more that the soul is immortal. He assured me that the death of the body is altogether insignificant, and that dying has to be the most unimportant thing that can happen to a man. I was playing with Macedonio's pocketknife, opening and closing it. A nearby accordion was infinitely dispatching La Comparsita, that dismaying trifle that so many people like because it's been misrepresented to them as being old ... I suggested to Macedonio that we kill ourselves, so we might have our discussion without all that racket.
Z: (mockingly) But I suspect that at the last moment you reconsidered.
A: (now deep in mysticism) Quite frankly, I don't remember whether we committed suicide that night or not. — Jorge Luis Borges

so alone was almost spiritual - but something in Abby's voice makes her pause. "You might have a better idea," she says. "But you two were 'best friends,'" Abby says mockingly. She taps ash from her cigarette into a chipped teacup on the table. Kathryn looks at her. "I thought so." She swallows hard. "But — Christina Baker Kline

Serafina, Ava, Ling, and Becca swam inside. Neela followed them, but at the very last second, shield. "I can't," she said. "Once I go in, there's no way out again. This is real. You're real. All this time, a part of me was hoping you were only a dream."

The witch cocked her head. "Only a dream?" she said mockingly. "Long ago, a great mage dreamed of stealing the gods' powers. Abbadon was born of that dream. Atlantis died because of it. Now, because of a new dreamer, all the waters of the world may fall. There is nothing more real than a dream." She nodded at the waters behind Neela. Silt was rising in the distance, a great deal of it. "The merman Traho knows this. He's coming. If you do not believe me, perhaps he can convince you. — Jennifer Donnelly

You understand, don't you, Mrs. Mackenzie?" Blackwell murmured, his hard mouth barely moving as the intensity of his regard pinned her to her seat. "The deeds of a willful youth."
A thrill of danger kissed her spine.
"Horseshit!" Morley roared.
Dorian turned back to face him, and Farah was able to let out a breath she hadn't been aware she'd been holding as the black spell he'd woven over her suddenly dissipated.
"For shame, Morley," he mockingly chided. "Such language in front of a lady."
"She is my employee," Sir Morley gritted through clenched teeth. "And I'll thank you not to bother about her if you want to keep the vision in the eye you have left."
"I can hardly help myself. She's such a ripe piece of skirt. — Kerrigan Byrne

The other held a hand toward the wretched boy in the dung-heap. "Father Uhtred," he said. "His name is not Uhtred," I snarled, "and if he dares call himself Uhtred," I looked at him as I spoke, "then I will find him and I will cut his belly to the bone and I will feed his lily-livered guts to my swine. He is not my son. He's not worthy to be my son." The man who was not worthy to be my son clambered wetly from the dung-heap, dripping filth. He looked up at me. "Then what am I called?" he asked. "Judas," I said mockingly. — Bernard Cornwell

Clearing his throat, Kai murmured, "You have no idea how to dance, do you?"
Cinder fixed her gaze on him, mind still reeling. "I'm a mechanic."
His eyebrows raised mockingly. "Believe me, I noticed. Are those grease stains on the gloves I gave you? — Marissa Meyer

I asked Anne to make me a dress that looked innocent, which made her eyebrows pucker.
"You make it sound like we've been sending you out in lingerie," she said mockingly. — Kiera Cass

This case was too full of skewed, slippery parallels, and I couldn't shake the uneasy sense that they were somehow deliberate. Every coincidence felt like a sea-worn bottle slammed down on the sand at my feet, with my name engraved neatly on the glass and inside a message in some mockingly indecipherable code. — Tana French

He had learned from experience that what he succeeded in putting down on paper was only ever a pale reflection of what he had imagined, and so he had come to accept that this would only be half as good as the original, half as acceptable as the flawless, unachievable novel that had acted as a guide, and which he imagined pulsating mockingly behind each book like some ghostly presence. — Felix J. Palma

The diorama was even more enthralling than Annabelle had hoped it would be. However, she wasn't able to lose herself in the unfolding spectacle - she was too acutely aware of the man standing beside her. It hardly helped that he occasionally bent down to murmur some inappropriate comment in her ear, mockingly reproving her for displaying such unseemly interest in the sight of gentlemen dressed in pillow-cases. No matter how sternly Annabelle tried to hold back her amusement, a few reluctant giggles escaped, earning disapproving glances from people around them. And then, naturally, Hunt chided her for laughing during such an important lecture, which made her want to giggle all the more. — Lisa Kleypas

The lion snorted. 'You treat all as a game. That is why they sent for me - Malcador cannot trust you. No one can trust you. Your Legion is a rabble that would brawl among themselves if you were not there to smack their heads together.' 'If only they were more like yours,' said Russ, mockingly. 'Yes,' replied the Lion, exasperated. 'Yes. Is that so hard to imagine?'

Russ loosened his arms, letting Krakenmaw swing lazily before him. 'I know why you do this. I know why you conquer, world after world, driving your sons after every campaign Malcador finds for you. But our father won't do it, brother. He won't choose a favourite. And if He did, it wouldn't be you - it would be Sanguinius, or Rogal, or Horus. So you're wasting yourself, trying to be noticed. It doesn't work like that.'

The Lion let slip a scornful laugh. 'Not all of us are so without friends in the Palace, Leman, and you have no idea who our father favours. — Chris Wraight

Harry Potter. But Dumbledore won't always be there to protect you." Harry looked mockingly all around the shop. "Wow . . . look at that . . . he's not here now! So why not have a go? They might be able to find you a double cell in Azkaban with your loser of a husband! — J.K. Rowling

Stay, Sophie. Looking at you makes me feel better." Cody shot a more energetic grin at his employer and friend.

"Why?" she asked.

"You're hot, babe." Cody shot a wicked smirk at his boss.

"Cody, find your own hot woman to drool over." A war of looks began between the two men, half sneers and mockingly threatening scowls.

"Can't. Stuck in this damn bed. So I'll borrow yours. — Lauren Smith

Many of those who pontificate about "acculturation" are inclined to underestimate this element of choice. Such processes are often described in terms suggesting that the "dominant" culture is simply imposed on unwitting, passive minorities, rather than focusing on the extent to which individuals quite consciously, deliberately, cleverly and even mockingly pick and choose amongst the behaviours and customs of their host culture — Kate Fox

The real satire starts when I'm shockingly mocked,not mockingly shocked. — Munia Khan

But he became known as a bad luck ship, mockingly called the Pariah. — Robin Hobb

It came to him that he had turned away from the buffalo not because of a womanish nausea at blood and stench and spilling gut; it came to him that he had sickened and turned away because of his shock at seeing the buffalo, a few moments before proud and noble and full of the dignity of life, now stark and helpless, a length of inert meat, divested of itself, or his notion of its self, swinging grotesquely, mockingly, before him. It was not itself; or it was not that self that he had imagined it to be. That self was murdered; and in that murder he had felt the destruction of something within him, and he had not been able to face it. So he had turned away. — John Edward Williams

Our life's a moment and less than a moment, but even this mite nature has mockingly humored with some appearance of a longer span. — Seneca The Younger

You have that look on your face," she whispered mockingly, "that Beast-just-gave-Beauty-a-whole-frickin'-library look and now she's going to spin around like she can read them all at once through osmosis. — Victoria Kahler

My father toasted me mockingly with his glass. "Then eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you die."

"Next week," Hades interrupted.

Zeus glowered at him. "Yes, obviously, but I was using a metaphor."
"No," his brother replied. "You were paraphrasing. Badly. — Tellulah Darling

But how glum he looks now." She threw some daisies at him. Then, after a pause, she added mockingly: "It's hunger, my dear. Good Lord, how dependent men are on food! — John Dos Passos

New York City is the most fatally fascinating thing in America. She sits like a great witch at the gate of the country, showing her alluring white face, and hiding her crooked hands and feet under the folds of her wide garments,
constantly enticing thousands from far within, and tempting those who come from across the seas to go no farther. And all these become the victims of her caprice. Some she at once crushes beneath her cruel feet; others she condemns to a fate like that of galley slaves; a few she favors and fondles, riding them high on the bubbles of fortune; then with a sudden breath she blows the bubbles out and laughs mockingly as she watches them fall. — James Weldon Johnson

Dazzlement and enchantment are Bester's methods. His stories never stand still a moment; they're forever tilting into motion, veering, doubling back, firing off rockets to distract you. The repetition of the key phrase in "Fondly Fahrenheit," the endless reappearances of Mr. Aquila in "The Star-comber" are offered mockingly: try to grab at them for stability, and you find they mean something new each time. Bester's science is all wrong, his characters are not characters but funny hats; but you never notice: he fires off a smoke-bomb, climbs a ladder, leaps from a trapeze, plays three bars of "God Save the King," swallows a sword and dives into three inches of water. Good heavens, what more do you want? — Alfred Bester

Now my playmates never failed to wink and smile mockingly at me when one of them called 'Man flies!' for at the word I would always lift my finger very high, as a sign of absolute conviction; and I refused with energy to pay the forfeit. The more they laughed at me, the happier I was, hoping that some day the laugh would be on my side. — Alberto Santos-Dumont

With the compelling convincingness of dreams, which are vague yet exact, the ghost voice draws us (to ourselves and all of our component selves), lifts them casually out of the well of the past
the well wherein nothing is lost, the deep well of forgetfulness, and remembrance
and tosses them mockingly on the glassy table surface of our consciousness. There we are forced to consider them. There we are forced to regard, analyze, and re-understand. — Heinrich Robert Zimmer

Wait." Isabelle suddenly sat up straight. "What did you say that name was?" she demanded, turning to Jace. "The name in Clary's head."
"I didn't," said Jace. "At least, I didn't finish it. It's Magnus Bane." He grinned at Alec mockingly. "Rhymes with 'overcareful pain in the ass.'"
Alec muttered a retort into his coffee. It rhymed with something that sounded a lot more like "ducking glass mole." Clary smiled inwardly. — Cassandra Clare

He mockingly gave her the raised eyebrow back. "You never gave me an answer."
"Yeah. I did. In fact, my exact words were 'no'."
"Yes, but I've chosen to ignore that until I hear what I want. — Shelly Laurenston

Could unsheathe from her arsenal a mockingly grave way of talking about things she found either portentous or frivolous. She could shrink your aspirations before your very eyes. — Khaled Hosseini

Perfect worlds do not exist. There are only the funny, strange, weeping, singing, truncated, and imperfect universes created by the gods of paintbrush and musical instruments, the gods who infuse their creations with their own blood, their own soul. When he looks at these worlds, the true Lord of Hosts, the creator of the universe, probably cannot help but smile mockingly — Vasily Grossman

Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you fore defeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems. — Robinson Jeffers

You already made your point," I say with a mouthful of fruit.
"Did I?"
"Oh, for the love of dick, yes. Now leave me alone."
"Never. If you want, I'll fuck you now."
The gall. I wouldn't fuck him now if my clit was on fire and needed to be doused with nub-saving cum. I roll my eyes at him.
"No thanks, we have a lifetime of fucking ahead of us," I say mockingly.
He shrugs and starts to walk away as if it makes no difference to him one way or the other. He's such a jackass sometimes. Before I can stop myself I throw my half-eaten banana at him and it hits him on the back of his neck.
He spins around, wipes his neck and looks down at the banana on the floor.
"Did you really just fruitally assault me?"
He thinks he's so damned funny with his wordplay. — Ella Dominguez

It's Magnus Bane." He grinned at Alec mockingly. "Rhymes with 'overcareful pain in the ass'. — Cassandra Clare

few years after Ball was herded south, a slave trader marched a coffle past the US Capitol just as a gaggle of congressmen took a cigar break on the front steps. One of the captive men raised his manacles and mockingly sang "Hail Columbia," a popular patriotic song. — Edward E. Baptist

Don't. I'm all sweaty and bloody," I protested.
"Heavens, not sweat and blood," he replied mockingly. I managed to smile. Smartass vampire. — Jeaniene Frost

The pale Usher - threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality. — Herman Melville

When a certain shameless fellow mockingly asked a pious old man what God had done before the creation of the world the latter aptly countered that he had been building hell for the curious. — John Calvin

Come see my mommy, Becky!" Will said and Bree stopped in her tracks. "Oh hell no!" she exclaimed staring at 'Becky'. Rebecca, the bane of Bree's existence. The blonde woman smiled mockingly at Bree. "How ya doing?" "What?" Bree asked but the question was directed at her brother and not the skank in front of her. "So how was Paris?" Rebecca asked moving right past Bree to practically press her body against Alessandro. "Seriously, what?" Bree demanded, glaring at Brian. "Hey, Alessandro. Great to see you again." "Stop talking. Stop talking now before I ram your botoxed head through this table!" Bree hissed lunging at her. Brian grabbed her quickly and held her back. "Sorry. Bree's a little bit touchy about that whole Vegas thing I guess. But hey, looks like it all worked for the best, huh?" Rebecca winked at Alessandro — E. Jamie

Besides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It wouldn't allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it wouldn't hear of accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it would lean forward with a drunken air and dribble, a very Idiot of a kettle, on the hearth. It was quarrelsome, and hissed and spluttered morosely at the fire. To sum up all, the lid, resisting Mrs. Peerybingle's fingers, first of all turned topsy-turvey, and then with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a better cause, dived sideways in - down to the very bottom of the kettle. And the hull of the Royal George has never made half the monstrous resistance to coming out of the water, which the lid of that kettle employed against Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it up again.
It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then: carrying its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle as if it said, I won't boil. Nothing shall induce me! — Charles Dickens

I reach around his body and cup his ass. When my hand finds the toy lodged there, I groan into his mouth. "Do it," he pants. Everything begins to happen very fast. With a firm grasp, I remove the toy, while Wes slicks up my dick. He yanks me off the sofa's back and braces himself against it. "Go," he orders. I come up behind him and grip his hips, the head of my cock sliding between his taut ass cheeks. Just like the other night, I'm floored by the sensation of being skin to skin. There's no barrier between my throbbing dick and his tight ass, and when I drive deep on the first stroke, we both groan with abandon. "Fuck me," he demands when I go still. But I'm too busy savoring the incredible feeling of being inside him without a condom. I roll my hips and he growls like a grumpy bear. "I swear to God, Canning, if you don't move, I'm gonna - " I pull out, then slam right back in. He makes a choked sound, his entire body trembling. "You're gonna what?" I ask mockingly. — Sarina Bowen

On a strange and devious way, Siddhartha had gotten into this final and most base of all dependencies, by means of the game of dice. It was since that time, when he had stopped being a Samana in his heart, that Siddhartha began to play the game for money and precious things, which he at other times only joined with a smile and casually as a custom of the childlike people, with an increasing rage and passion. He was a feared gambler, few dared to take him on, so high and audacious were his stakes. He played the game due to a pain of his heart, losing and wasting his wretched money in the game brought him an angry joy, in no other way he could demonstrate his disdain for wealth, the merchants' false god, more clearly and more mockingly. — Hermann Hesse

I don't hear peeing," Jamie said mockingly.
"Eat me," I muttered.
"What's that?"
"Leave me," I said louder. — Michelle Hodkin

The invariable question, asked only half-mockingly of reporters by editors at the Post (and then up the hierarchical line of editors) was 'What have you done for me today?' Yesterday was for the history books, not newspapers.
Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward — Carl Bernstein

Like other secret lovers, many speak mockingly about popular culture to conceal their passion for it. — Mason Cooley

Why do you care? I've ignored you for days."
His smile fades. He looks serious, mockingly so. "Yeah. You got to stop that. — Sophie Jordan

Exaggerating?" Silk sounded shocked. "You don't mean to say that horses can actually lie, do you? Hettar shrugged. "Of course. They lie all the time. They're very good at it." For a moment Silk looked outraged at the thought, and then he suddenly laughed. "Somehow that restores my faith in the order of the universe," he declared. Wolf looked pained. "Silk," he said pointedly, "you're a very evil man. Did you know that?" "One does one's best," Silk replied mockingly. — David Eddings