Pesky Quotes & Sayings

But sex ... that was the opposite of control. There were emotions, and attraction, and that pesky other person that just had to be involved. Not my idea of fun. — Cora Carmack

When you win you eat better, sleep better and your beer tastes better. And your wife looks like Gina Lollobrigida. — Johnny Pesky

We must acknowledge that bearing and raising children is not some pesky, peripheral activity that we engage in, but the whole point. — Susan Maushart

When I began my career as a writer I thought it would be fun to put my imagination to the page. Now I am finding out that my imagination is able to fill in those pesky holes called details all on its own, and then neglecting to tell me how it did it. — Jonathan Bender

It was the wife, John thought. And she was giving this tough guy a tongue-lashing. And the man was taking it. "Okay. I love you. Bye." Tohrment flipped the phone closed and put it in his pocket. When he focused on John again, he clearly respected his wife enough not to roll his eyes and make some macho, shithead comment about pesky women. — J.R. Ward

Red remembered growing up in that house as heaven. There were enough children on Bouton Road to form two baseball teams, when they felt like it, and they spent all their free time playing out of doors - boys and girls together, little ones and big ones. Suppers were brief, pesky interruptions foisted on them by their mothers. They disappeared again till they were called in for bed, and then they came protesting, all sweaty-faced and hot with grass blades sticking to them, begging for just another half hour. "I bet I can still name every kid on the block," Red would tell his own children. But that was not so impressive, because most of those kids had stayed on in the neighborhood as grown-ups, or at least come back to it later after trying out other, lesser places. Red — Anne Tyler

Think it's very easy for me to focus my attention on myself. I don't mean that I just sit around thinking about me and how wonderful I am (although I'm not above that!). No, I mean that I tend to focus my thought on my Christianity - how I'm doing, what I'm learning, how my prayer time was today, how I avoided that pesky sin or fell into it again. I think about what I'm supposed to accomplish for Christ, and I interact with others on that same works-oriented ground. But this day isn't about me at all. It's about him: his sinless life, death, resurrection, ascension, and reign and the sure promise of his return. It's the gravity of his life that should attract my thought toward him. — Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

Being hurt is a pesky part of being human. You are bound to meet people who will hurt you again and again. Instead of asking them why again and again, ask yourself why you let them again and again. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, "Nobody can hurt you without your permission." — Rita Zahara

If you left out the sadistic serial killer part of him, he was a great guy. He was clean and orderly. He was kind. He catered to the woman he loved. He was a great cook. He had high hopes for his career. He didn't plop down in front of the television for hours at a time. He enjoyed playing games and great conversation. His sexual stamina was impressive. And he was a handsome man. It's just that pesky habit of his where he raped, tortured, killed, and dismembered women that was a turn off. — Kimberly A. Bettes

The quickest way to a man's heart really is through his stomach, because then you don't have to chop through that pesky rib cage. — Jeph Jacques

I had let her dab a little makeup on my face, but she'd freaked out when I asked her to cover up the pesky freckle at the end of my upper lip. Are you crazy? Don't ever cover your beauty mark! Why did people call it that? A freckle was not beautiful. It was a small, dark attention grabber. I hated the way everyone's eyes went to it when they talked to me. — Wendy Higgins

As well. One of them was quite pesky, insisting — Elif Shafak

Barbie was no longer afraid of anything. It was like the thing Mab had said about belief. The belief is sometimes the biggest part of it all. You can choose to believe in your published book being held in the loving hands of strangers, your name tattooed forever on the heart of the one you adore; you can choose to believe in tiny red-haired pesky piskies--all the things 'they' may tell you not to believe in. But who are they anyway? What do they know? What makes them any more real? — Francesca Lia Block

Remember: You are the common denominator in all your relationship problems. Wherever you go, your pesky repeated issues go - until you shed a blazing light of insight upon them. — Karen Salmansohn

That pesky acting career has always gotten in the way of me doing something with music. — Michael Chiklis

Thanks to those pesky laws of physics, when things aren't sustainable, they stop. — Paul Gilding

Then she would be done with J. D. Jameson forever. No more having to prove herself; no more of those pesky jitters she felt whenever she saw him at work - something like butterflies in her stomach, it was actually quite annoying; no more stress; no more fights in the library; and definitely no more sexy I'm-gonna-kiss-you-now-woman blue-eyed heated gazes.
She had no idea why she just thought that. — Julie James

It was almost enough to make me turn vegetarian, except for the pesky fact that I loved cheeseburgers. — Rick Riordan

We're always upstairs. We're not the madwomen in the attic
they get lots of play, one way or another. We're the quiet woman at the end of the third-floor hallway, whose trash is always tidy, who smiles brightly in the stairwell with a cheerful greeting, and who, from behind closed doors, never makes a sound. In our lives of quiet desperation, the woman upstairs is who we are, with or without a goddamn tabby or a pesky lolloping Labrador, and not a soul registers that we are furious. We're completely invisible. I thought it wasn't true, or not true of me, but I've learned I am no different at all. The question now is how to work it, how to use that invisibility, to make it burn. — Claire Messud

Time after time we're told corporations should have freedom from pesky job safety regulations, environmental protections and labor standards - giving working people the freedom to be crushed in collapsing mines, choke on filthy air and get paid too little to live on. — Richard Trumka

I have a pesky little critic in the back of my mind. He's a permanent fixture and passes judgment on everything I write.
In order to placate him, especially when I'm endeavoring to write anything as ambitious as a novel, I have to constantly mutter, 'I'm not writing a masterpiece, I'm not writing a masterpiece.'
This mantra lulls him into a kind of stupor so that he pays no attention to what I'm doing, because after all, I'm not claiming it's any good. Slowly, and secretly, one page at a time, I write my story.
I know I've succeeded when he grudgingly admits, 'That's pretty good.' And if I'm lucky, every once in a while, I blow him away. — Rukhsana Khan

No, you are not because I am going to," Roxbury said darkly, probably still angry about those pesky rumors about his preferences. "How could you deny me that satisfaction?" she asked. "Very well, my dear wife, we shall seek and destroy the Man About Town together," Roxbury agreed. "That's the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me," Julianna said sweetly, and her husband grinned. — Maya Rodale

The Pesky Prince — Drae Box

Time is an imp - a pesky, little, hellish troll that hastens the clock when I smile but then delays the passing of minutes when I frown. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Your dreams have to be like a cockroach, they have to be hard to kill and you have to be like that pesky mosquito that doesn't know when to give up. — James Jean-Pierre

Whether it's just a pesky little annoying behavior you'd like to tweak or a major problem that has you at the end of your rope, you must shift your thinking in order to look at the possible true cause, as well as determine whether its truly a behavior problem or a normal behavior that needs a better alternative. — Pam Johnson-Bennett

The library, with its Daedalian labyrinth, mysterious hush, and faintly ominous aroma of knowledge, has been replaced by the computer's cheap glow, pesky chirp, and data spillage. — P. J. O'Rourke

France in August when you can travel through the entire country without encountering a single pesky Frenchman or being bothered with anything that's open for business. — P. J. O'Rourke

The emotions of men, however, were of a different order. They were pesky annoyances, small dust devils at her feet. Her knack for causing heartbreak was innate, but her vitality often made people forgive her romantic misdeeds. — Steve Martin

It was made clear to me that I wasn't supposed to trouble the moody Creator with any pesky questions about the eccentricities of His cosmic system ... Thus my idea of heaven was that I got to spend eternity sitting at the feet of God, grilling Him. "Let me get this straight," I'd say, by way of introduction. "It's your position that every person born has to suffer because Eve couldn't resist a healthy between-meals snack? — Sarah Vowell

The Housefly
I'm just a little pesky thing,
Flying to eke out a living.
So round and round and round I hiss,
And fill the air with busy bliss.
Of hand and swatter steering clear,
I venture to light on crumbs and beer.
In salad days I was a Grecian king.
War and famine make me sing.
How much they'd like to whack me flat,
With a newspaper or even a baseball bat.
Splat! — David B. Lentz

I'd love to help you, but I'm understaffed." His big, white toothed grin screamed, 'I'm lying.'
"I've got a video of you doing the Macarena."
He scowled. "I hate you. You're just like another pesky daughter to me. Fine. Twist my arm. I'll give you a tracker to use. But it will cost you."
She arched a brow.
"Or not. Now get out."

-Lucifer & Ysabel — Eve Langlais

Grayson looked at me again. This time his gaze traveled form my hair down, and he let me see that he was looking. What he meant by this was that he thought I was beautiful, it was not just my miraculous hair, and we shouldn't be distracted from our true love by the pesky detail that he was blackmailing me into dating his brother.
Right. — Jennifer Echols

Change is a pesky notion. For many folks, the biggest challenge in changing their eating habits isn't money, time, or education; it's reframing their connection between food and love. — Kris Carr

Derek Lowe and Curt Schilling were veterans when Boston won the 2004 World Series, but they were quick to recognize Johnny Pesky by name - and for good reason. Pesky last played for Boston in 1952, but his close ties to the organization since his career ended in 1954 are legendary. His presence was so great, among rookies and veterans alike, that Lowe and Schilling understood that the championship belonged to Pesky just as much as it did to the guys on the playoff roster. — Tucker Elliot

I'm that grumpy old guy yelling at all those pesky little Grizzly Bear fans to get offa my lawn. — Chuck Eddy

I propose a limitation be put on how many sqares [sic] of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. Now, I don't want to rob any law-abiding American of his or her God-given rights, but I think we are an industrious enough people that we can make it work with only one square per restroom visit, except, of course, on those pesky occasions where 2 to 3 could be required.' — Sheryl Crow

One might - if one were, say, a gay sex writer - make a case that there's still a vibrant role for queer dirty words. While highly commodified mass-market DVD porn and its kinkier "specialty" cousins shows how sex looks, erotic texts are still the best mode to convey how sex - and its pesky cousin, desire - feels, and what it all means. — Simon Sheppard

I think if you're Red Sox, well, it's something you're born with, and affection you have. — Johnny Pesky

It's open season; a season that lasts all year round. There are no permits required, no restrictions levied. Grab yourself a shotgun and head out into the open software fields to root out those pesky varmints, the elusive bugs, and squash them, dead. OK, reality is not as saccharin as that. — Anonymous

I, for one, am happy to see the end of Christendom. I'm glad that we can no longer rely on temporal, cultural supports to reinforce our message or the validity of our presence. I suspect that the increasing marginalization of the Christian movement in the West is the very thing that will wake us up to the marvelously exciting, dangerous, and confronting message of Jesus. If we are exiles on foreign soil - post-Christendom, postmodern, postliterate, and so on - then maybe at last it's time to start living like exiles, as a pesky, fringe-dwelling alternative to the dominant forces of our times. As the saying goes, "Way out people know the way out."[8 — Michael Frost

The church latched on to that old doctrine of original sin like a dog to a stick, and before you knew it, the whole gospel got twisted around it. Instead of being God's big message of saving love for the whole world, the gospel became a little bit of secret information on how to solve the pesky legal problem of original sin. — Brian D. McLaren

I know it may come as a shock, but it's sort of considered polite to wait for the consent of the woman. In fact, I'm pretty sure that if you don't wait, you may have to deal with pesky criminal charges like kidnapping and rape. — Ilona Andrews

Johannes Cabal would kill me for saying this, but he's my favorite Zeppelin-hopping detective. The fellow has got all the charm of Bond and the smarts of Holmes
without the pesky morality. — Daniel H. Wilson

Wouldn't it be great if attacking others to feel better about ourselves was something we outgrew like acne or crying when we have to go to bed? The fact is, many men still exhaust themselves in critiquing and attacking others. Maybe we fear that other people's success will somehow diminish ours. Maybe we take responsibility for more than we really need to and have appointed ourselves protectors of some kingdom. Deeper down, though, men are driven to stand in judgment of others because we have a deeply engrained bent and a pesky, persistent pattern of seeming to be wise in our own eyes. This makes love an impossibility. — James MacDonald

Good afternoon, residents! A reminder that our salsa dance class starts in ten minutes."
"Shall we go to that, Gram-Gram?" I said. "A lot of times, meeting someone in person is best."
"Only women go to salsa dancing."
"Maybe you should become a lesbian, then. It would solve that pesky life expectancy problem. — Kristan Higgins

I used to think of myself in terms of who I'd be if I didn't have this pesky old disability. — Stella Young

Not just Ricky, all my past relationships with men had been like a spate of pesky diseases - each more formidable than the other. It was almost as if I had run a 'sucky boyfriends marathon' or something, and won. — Shuchi Singh Kalra

Then there's Johnny Pesky, hit me countless number of ground balls and improved my fielding so much. — Wade Boggs

Each week, I post a video about some 'Pigeon of Discontent' raised by a reader. Because, as much as we try to find the 'Bluebird of Happiness,' we're also plagued by those small but pesky 'Pigeons of Discontent.' — Gretchen Rubin

I'm one of those pesky Brits. — Damian Lewis

Baseball can build you up to the sky one day and the next day you have to climb a stepladder to look up at a snake. — Johnny Pesky

One day Shizuo Kakutani was teaching a class at Yale. He wrote down a lemma on the blackboard and announced that the proof was obvious. One student timidly raised his hand and said that it wasn't obvious to him. Could Kakutani explain?

After several moments' thought, Kakutani realized that he could not himself prove the lemma. He apologized, and said that he would report back at their next class meeting.

After class, Kakutani, went straight to his office. He labored for quite a time and found that he could not prove the pesky lemma. He skipped lunch and went to the library to track down the lemma. After much work, he finally found the original paper. The lemma was stated clearly and succinctly. For the proof, the author had written, 'Exercise for the reader. — Steven G. Krantz

The original and very basic 'Law & Order' series has always seemed to me to be 100-percent exposition, with no filler, no pesky nuances and almost no background about the series' continuing characters - just the hard nuts and bolts of pure storytelling. — Tom Shales

I'm serious, Jim. You need to put this crap away. You walk into school on Monday talking to me, or anyone else, about the city's pesky troll problem, and you're not exactly going to get a lot of people saying, 'Gee, thanks for the warning.' It'll spread faster than mono. You think things are tough for us now? Jim, this will be the end. I'm sorry if you had a crazy nightmare. I really am. But I can't let you ruin our lives. — Guillermo Del Toro

Don't be afraid to write. I think a lot of writers of all ages have a fear that they aren't any good at writing. That fear is normal. I feel it. Most writers who care about what they are writing feel it. When you feel like you're not good enough, write anyway. It's just a pesky bug that's whispering lies. The best way to swat the bug is with your pen. — Tanya Anderson

Finn regarded pesky little things like wedding bands, engagement rings, and jealous, hulking menfolk more as amusing challenges than immovable obstacles that could be hazardous to his health. — Jennifer Estep