Quotes & Sayings About Ornery

A girl," Red whispered. "She'll be as beautiful and ornery as her mama. — Mary Connealy

Calm down? You shot me in the back, you son of a bitch. (Zarek)
Boy, don't you dare insult my mama, and you better stop and think about that one for a minute. I was a paid killer since I was old enough to hold a gun. Had I shot your dumb ass, you wouldn't have a head right now. Having been shot in the back by a friend, I sure wouldn't want to return that favor to anyone. Not even an ornery cuss like you. And why the hell would I hurt myself just to get to you anyway? Lord, boy, use your head. (Jess) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Low down dirty ornery rotten skunk of a cussed mule-headed soldier! What's he want with my book anyway? And what kind of a way is that to write a congratulations? I am so mad I could walk clear to that fort and take him on single handed. — Nancy E. Turner

Well, there is rough old Albert, as ornery as any big brother a girl could have, putting his arm around Savannah and cooing to her like a repenting hound dog, and promising her she is not common nor shameful. I watched all this and thought you just never know sometimes what's in a man's heart. When you think he is all tough nails and boards he can be different on the inside. It makes me wonder about other men I know, too. — Nancy E. Turner

The paleoclimate record shouts to us that, far from being self-stabilizing, the Earth's climate system is an ornery beast which overreacts even to small nudges. — Wallace Smith Broecker

Harold had become, over the past week, a connoisseur of silences. He was an expert at differentiating the particulars; was this a Tranquil Silence, marked by slow sighs and peaceful smiles? Or was it a Tired Silence, marked by ornery chair shifting? Or a Tense Silence, full of tight breaths and cautious glances? — Graham Moore

Well, you never can tell with a twister. They are as mean, as ornery, and as unpredictable as an unhappy woman. — John Joseph Adams

Nothing should be overlooked in fighting for better education. — Roy Wilkins

Curiously, the righteous Pharisees had little historical impact, save for a brief time in a remote corner of the Roman Empire. But Jesus' disciples - an ornery, undependable, and hopelessly flawed group of men - became drunk with the power of a gospel that offered free forgiveness to the worst sinners and traitors. Those men managed to change the world. — Philip Yancey

Two things happen when you get to be old. One, you gather experience and knowledge. You learn from your mistakes, and thereby offer wisdom to others. The second thing that happens is that you grow forgetful, ornery and senile, and when you offer advice, well, you sometimes just don't know what you're talking about. Often it's hard for everyone-including me-to know the difference. — Camron Wright

Curran was looking at her. Not in the same way he looked at me, but he was looking. An odd feeling flared in me, hot and angry, prickling my throat from the inside with hot sharp needles, and I realized it was jealousy. I guess there was a first time for everything. "Have you seen my father?" Lorelei asked. "How is he?" "I saw him last year," Curran said. "He's the same as always: tough and ornery." I came to stand next to him. Lorelei raised her eyebrows. Her eyes widened, and a sheen of pale green rolled over her irises. "You must be the human Consort." Yes, that's me, the human invalid. "My name is Kate." "Kate," she repeated, as if tasting the word. "It is an honor to meet you." Curran was smiling at her, that handsome hot smile that usually made my day better. Pushing Lorelei into the ocean wouldn't be diplomatic, even if I really wanted to do it. "Likewise. — Ilona Andrews

I asked my doctor how many more years I have left and he said, 'You're too ornery to die.' — Jimmy Piersall

Unconditional parental love is the indespensible nutrient for the child's healthy emotional growth. The first task is to create space in the child's heart for the certainty that she is precisely the person the parents want and love. She does not have to do anything or be any different to earn that love - in fact, she cannot do anything, since that love cannot be won or lost ... The child can be ornery, unpleasant, whiny, uncooperative, and plain rude, and the parent still lets her feel loved. Ways have to be found to convey the unacceptability of certain behaviors without making the child herself feel unaccepted. She has to be able to bring her unrest, her least likable characteristics to the parent and still receive the parent's absolutely satisfying, security-inducing unconditional love. — Gordon Neufeld

Lucky Tyler: "Yeah, you're here, looking more like the preacher's wife come calling than an overnight alibi. Who's gonna believe I tumbled you?" The devil in him was kicking up his heels, goading him to say things he knew damn well would rub her the wrong way. But he felt he was justified in being ornery. He didn't particularly like her attitude either.
Devon Haines:"What did you expect me to wear? A negligee?"
Lucky Tyler: "I
— Sandra Brown

The more we love, and the more unlikely people we love, the more we resemble God - who, after all, loves ornery creatures like us. — Philip Yancey

There's a line in the Bible about perfect love casting out fear. That I don't know about, but orneriness will do it every time. — Peter S. Beagle

Day blame ornery youngins. — L.Douglas Muncy

Why couldn't my heart have picked him? Life would have been so much easier."
"Because hearts are ornery, sneaky little bastards, designed to cause misery. They want what they want, and they don't give a damn about what would make life easier or harder for the heart's owner." Della snapped. — C.C. Hunter

Don't make a feller wait too long. A feller waiting on a gal can get ornery'er than a huntin' dog that's tree'd it's squirrel. — Colleen Houck

She can be ornery now and then, vain for sure, petulant and impetuous, silly at times, ill disposed toward the help, even malicious and malevolent when angry, but, still, she has always been the one for me. — Rabih Alameddine

Brooke stared in surprise. "You brought me lunch?"
"I was in the neighborhood."
She checked out the label on the bag. "DMK is twenty minutes from here."
"I was in that neighborhood, and now I'm here," he said in exasperation. "Seriously, woman, you are impossible to feed." He strode over and set the bag on her desk. "One cheeseburger with spicy chipotle ketchup and a side of sweet potato fries - chosen specifically for a certain spicy and sweet girl I know - and a green dill pickle for your eyes. So there." He crossed his arms over his chest.
Brooke studied him. "You seem very ornery right now."
"As a matter of fact, I am."
"Why?"
"I don't know," he huffed. "Just ... eat your Brooke Burger. Stop asking so many questions. Sometimes a guy just wants to buy a girl lunch. Any objections to that? Good. Enjoy your Sunday, Ms. Parker."
He strode out of her office, gone as quickly as he'd appeared.
Brooke stared at the doorway and blinked. — Julie James

I haven't been out driving at this time of night in many years, much less in an unfamiliar area. These are the things that scare you as you get older. You understand night all too well, all its attendant meanings. You try to avoid it, work around it, keep it from entering your house. Your weary, ornery body tells you to stay up late, sleep less, keep the lights on, don't go into the bedroom - if you have to sleep, sleep in your chair, at the table. Everything is about avoiding the night. Because of that, I suppose that I should be scared out here in the dark, but I am finally past that, I think.
(p.204) — Michael Zadoorian

I'm going to have to watch every word I say around you." "Impossible. You talk far too much to succeed at that." "I'm not going to worry about you any longer, Karl Van der Vort. You're feeling well enough to be ornery. It just serves to prove what a fine physician I am - even if I wear red shirtwaists. — Cathy Marie Hake

I've been ridiculed by silk-suited lawyers, jailed by ornery judges, and occasionally paid for services rendered. I never intended to be a hero, and I succeeded. — Paul Levine

Mary Jane she set at the head of the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried chickens was - and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to force out compliments; and the people all knowed everything was tiptop, and said so - said 'How do you get biscuits to brown so nice?' and 'Where, for the land's sake, did you get these amaz'n pickles?' and all that kind of humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at a supper, you know. — Mark Twain

...five minutes later she and Keane walked out to his truck. He set the cat carrier carefully in the backseat like maybe it was a ticking bomb but made her smile when he hesitated and then locked a seatbelt around it.

When he caught her watching, he shrugged. "She's just ornery enough to knock herself off the seat and die and then come back to haunt me, so I'm taking all necessary precautions. — Jill Shalvis

Nothing seems to me more tragic than the pressures we put on artists to do what we think we'll like, and our refusal to prize what is most ornery and special about them. — Marcia B. Siegel

The world is just as concrete, ornery, vile, and sublimely wonderful as before, only now I better understand my relation to it and it to me. — Ralph Ellison

I'm sorry, I says.
Fer what? he says.
Fer always bein ... you know ... so-
Ungrateful? he says.
Yeah, I says.
Ornery?
I guess so.
Rude? Pig-headed? Violent?
I ain't violent!
Oh yes, you are. Very. But I like that in a woman.
I laugh. Yer crazy, I says.
I was fine till I met you, he says. — Moira Young

Ain't you been listening? I'm YUSUKE URAMESHI... the same ornery dawg you've always known and loved. So I have a DEMON ANCESTOR! Big Deal! I'm still going To KICK Sensui's sorry butt! -Yusuke — Yoshihiro Togashi

I suppose she's right. It's like a metaphor for life: No one wants an ornery old goat, but we can't resist opening the door ayway. We can't keep from hoping. — Lauren Myracle

[I am] just a common everyday man whose instincts are to be ornery, who's anxious to be right. — Harry Truman

Junior, stop being orner." It's what Mama used to say to us when we were little, and I say it to Junior out of habit. Daddy used to say it sometimes, too, until he said it to Randall one day and Randall started giggling, and then Daddy figured out Randall was laughing because it sounded like 'horny'. About a year ago I figured out what it was supposed to be after coming across its parent on the vocabulary list for my English class with Miss Dedeaux: 'ornery'. It made me wonder if there were other words Mama mashed like that. They used to pop up in my head sometime when I was doing the stupidest things: 'tetrified' when I was sweeping the kitchen and Daddy came in dripping beer and kicking chairs. 'Belove' when Manny was curling pleasure from me with his fingers in mid-swim in the pit. 'Freegid' when I was laying in bed in November, curled to the wall like I was going to burrow into another cover or I was making room for a body to lay behind me to make me warm. — Jesmyn Ward

I said, Well, looks like he's pretty ornery. I wonder where he gets it?
Jack just shrugged and kissed my cheek, and then whispered in my ear, He gets it from his mother. — Nancy E. Turner

She shot him a look.

"What?" he asked.

"Where's my journal? I want to jot this down for posterity."

Huh?

He lifted a confused brow and she smirked, ornery light glinting in her amber brow.

"You just spoke, like what? A whole four sentences? Not to mention there were a few adjectives thrown in there. That must be some sort of record. It should be memorialized accordingly, don't you think? She batted her lashed.

Jesus, the woman was too much. — Julie Ann Walker

You tell me that yes, I can do it. I know.
And I may do it, if I so choose.
You tell me that no, I cannot. I say, Oh?
I shall do it, since you refuse! — Richelle E. Goodrich

When I saw the sun bears at the Oakland Zoo, I immediately was drawn to them. Not to be ornery, but regarding what you said about the speaker identifying with the bear: I'm not sure it's exactly right to say that the speaker feels that the bear must share his sadness, or whatever else he is feeling. That would be classic pathetic fallacy, which is certainly generative for poetry, but here the speaker appears actually to be rejecting that idea. — Matthew Zapruder

What insanity causes a king abandon the comforts of his kingdom and willfully discard the privileges of royalty in order to save an ornery and rebellious people who have spent a lifetime rejecting him? We have yet to understand that such an action is nothing of insanity. Rather, it is everything of love. — Craig D. Lounsbrough