Smug Quotes & Sayings

Since there was nowhere else he wanted to be and no one else he wanted touching him, Drake shot Gabriel a smug look over his shoulder as he let Victoria take him wherever she wanted. — Katie Reus

One day, kid, you'll be willing to mortgage your fucking soul for somebody."
"I don't think you should say fucking around me. In case you forgot, I'm only fourteen, And news flash, dude,I've got no soul. There aren't any banks. And there isn't any currency. Ergo. Never. Going. To. Happen."
"I'm not sure you could be any more full of yourself."
I cut him a smug look. "I'm willing to try. — Karen Marie Moning

mighty smug with their present, howsoever unenviable or contemptible their lives and the attitudes might appear others to be. While nearsightedness is not exactly an affliction (but just the thing a good doctor or spiritual healer might prescribe for leading an uncomplicated and happy life), farsightedness is nothing less than a full-blown syndrome. Forever whining, carping, criticizing, castigating, berating and bemoaning every aspect of national-societal life, the lot of the farsighted is pathetic indeed. And, this, when they have far less reasons to cavil, enjoy as they do generally a far better station in life than their nearsighted — D.P. Singh

What really destroyed Tucker Carlson, respected magazine journalist, was TV. TV exposed him as glib, smug, and not nearly as clever as he thought he was. — Alex Pareene

Aaron Sorkin is why people hate liberals. He's a smug, condescending know-it-all who isn't as smart as he thinks he is. — Alex Pareene

Let it not be assumed that the artist is so smug as to dislike true criticism. No sincere artist was ever completely satisfied with his labour. — Walter J. Phillips

We once again man the barricades
alone. Berated by our smug, so-called allies, of the Western Democracies. Islam is going to turn this world inside out before this century is out and you'd better have enough guts to deal with it. — Leon Uris

Crash took a long drag off his cigarette and gave me a smug little smile. He always looked smug. His hair was dyed Kool-Aid green. Maybe that's what he was looking smug about today, despite the fact that it clashed with his olive drab army duster. Or maybe he knew my ass stung with every step I took- either because he was an empath who hot "feelings" about what everyone was experiencing, or because he'd taken it up the ass from Jacob himself. Crash's smirk widened and I looked away. One day I'd probably slap him. And then I'd regret it, because he was probably into stuff like that. — Jordan Castillo Price

M. de Charlus persisted in not replying. I thought I could see a smile flicker about his lips: the smile of the man who looks down from a great height on the characters and manners of lesser men. — Marcel Proust

What he says, even on his knees, about his own sinfulness is all parrot talk. At bottom, he still believes he has run up a very favorable credit-balance in the Enemy's ledger by allowing himself to be converted, and thinks that he is showing great humility and condescension in going to church with these 'smug', commonplace neighbors at all. — C.S. Lewis

Actually," Finn said, sniffing, "I was too good for you. I've ruined you for all other men." "Hardly. I've had longer, deeper, more meaningful relationships with cheeseburgers than I did with you." "Yes, but at least I didn't go straight to your ass," he said in a smug, superior tone. — Jennifer Estep

I wasn't particularly worried; running is overrated anyway, and sport only makes you sweaty and smug and wears out the knees. — Jasper Fforde

I clinked my bottle against his. "To being the only girl a
guy with no standards doesn't want to sleep with." I said,
taking a swig.
"Are you serious?" he asked, pulling the bottle from my
mouth. When I didn't recant, he leaned toward me. "First of
all ... I have standards. I've never been with an ugly woman.
Ever. Second of all, I wanted to sleep with you. I thought
about throwing you over my couch fifty different ways, but I
haven't because I don't see you that way anymore. It's not
that I'm not attracted to you, I just think you're better than
that."
I couldn't hold back the smug smile that crept across my
face. "You think I'm too good for you."
He sneered at my second insult. "I can't think of a single
guy I know that's good enough for you. — Jamie McGuire

This is forever." Pulling back to see her expression, Craig was gratified to see the surprise in her eyes. "You really think so?" she whispered back. "Aye," he told her as he kissed her sweet mouth. "I can't lose you again. No matter what happens I will fight like fuck to keep you." Rain gave him a slow, sweet, and slightly smug smile that made him laugh. "And so the realist becomes a romantic." He — Samantha Young

How obvious can it be? ... The purpose of makeup is to defy the degradations of time, and time is just a synonym for death. — Dean Koontz

I never feel like a smug or a smart-alec film director, and there are plenty of those around. — Martin McDonagh

Cabal took her arm, and they processed towards the cafe like old friends, or at least the sort of old friends in which the lady wears a somewhat smug smile while the gentleman scowls darkly. — Jonathan L. Howard

Let us not speak of tolerance. This negative word implies grudging concessions by smug consciences. Rather, let us speak of mutual understanding and mutual respect. — Dominique Pire

Ove couldn't give a damn about people jogging. What he can't understand is why they have to make such a big thing of it. With those smug smiles on their faces, as if they were out there curing pulmonary emphysema. — Fredrik Backman

We went back to the weird Institute building. At night there was a lot more activity. Erasers coming in non-stop. Nice cars, nice clothes, nice smug faces (that I wanted to smash!).
-Fang's Blog — James Patterson

Do you think I'll ever be better at this?" I wondered, mostly to myself. "That my heart might someday stop trying to jump out of my chest whenever you touch me?"
"I really hope not," he said, a bit smug. — Stephenie Meyer

How smug I was, telling Theo how hard we tried to do right by the other selves we visit. I'm so full of it. I took more than this Marguerite's only night with the man she loved; I took away her choices. — Claudia Gray

My whole life I've harbored a resentment toward those who could ride no-handed. To this day, I can't even sit on an exercise bike without clinging to the handlebars with a serious G.I.-Joe- kung-fu grip. Every time I see someone on the road, all smug and well-balanced, using their cell phone and gesturing while they talk and ride, I secretly want to bash them with my car door. It's — Jen Lancaster

As for my brothers,' Zeus said, 'we are thankful -' he cleared his throat, like the words were hard to get out - 'erm, thankful for the aid of Hades.'
The Lord of the Dead nodded. He had a smug look on his face, but I figure he'd earned the right. He patted his son Nico on the shoulders, and Nico looked happier than I'd ever seen him. — Rick Riordan

But man had changed. He had lost the old knowledge and old skills. His mind had become a flaccid thing. He lived from one day to the next without any shining goal. But he still kept the old vices - the vices that had become virtues from his own viewpoint and raised him by his own bootstraps. He kept the unwavering belief that his was the only kind, the only life that mattered - the smug egoism that made him the self-appointed lord of all creation. — Clifford D. Simak

No child of mine will ever have to be separated from their loved ones," Byron said, his voice like ice. Power flowing off him, and there was no mistake that right there and then, a war sounded great to the shark.
"I will see you dead before I have you touch my grandchild"
The situation might have escalated and a battle might have begun right then and there, but suddenly, Sterling got a strange expression on his face. It was a look of smug satisfaction, as if he knew something they did not.
"Very well, Mr. Cunningham. But there will come a time when you will take your words back. — Scarlet Hyacinth

A smug, satisfied grin stretched Apollo's lips. "I took Hermes' helmet, melted the mother down, and here you go. An invisibility charm just for you."
Apollo dropped the necklace into my palm. It was a reddish-gold color, and a crudely shaped wing was etched into it. "Ha," I said. "It's like Harry Potter and the invisibility cloak."
Everyone stared at me. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

Kai and Thorne were there, too, each of them standing with their hands in their pockets, rocking back on their heels with supremely smug looks on their faces, like they were daring anyone to suggest it wasn't the most beautiful impromptu wedding ever created. And they had done a marvelous job - much better than Cinder would have expected. — Marissa Meyer

I can't believe you know so little about firearms."
"I can't believe you know so much," Devonmont countered. "Never seen a woman as keen on guns as you. It's rather chilling."
"Isn't it, though?" Jackson put in. "Better watch it, Devonmont. Her ladyship is liable to shoot first and ask questions later if she finds you doing anything she doesn't approve of."
"I may just take your caution to heart, Pinter." Devonmont winked at Celia. "Then again, some things are worth risking life and limb for."
Celia looked startled, then cast Jackson a smug smile. With a snort, he drank more ale. Devonmont was really starting to irk him. They all were.
"So, Lord Devonmont," Celia said, turning her back on Jackson, "would you like me to show you the difference between a percussion gun and a flintlock?"
"By all means," Devonmont replied. "Though I can't promise to remember any of it later, explain away. — Sabrina Jeffries

Did you know I never paid taxes before I came here? The Edema don't own property, as a rule." He gestured at the inn. "I never understood how galling it was. Some smug bastard with a ledger comes into town, makes you pay for the privilege of owning something. — Patrick Rothfuss

I wonder what became of you, your Johnny
Rotten skin, no Emerald City eyes.
You'd have been a beauty if you let inferiority
steam your glasses with its candor, sans laughter. — Kristen Henderson

An enlarged global public society, with its many dissenting and corrective voices, can quickly call the bluff of lavishly credentialled and smug intellectual elites. — Pankaj Mishra

In TV, and in particular in commercials, you don't really need to explain very much at all - you just say he's a spy and he's a little bit theatrical and overblown and smug and he's not very good at his job. — Rowan Atkinson

Good with languages," she murmured. With everything she learned about him, he got more and more interesting. Or more mysterious, depending on how you looked at it. "So, good with languages, shovels, and igloos. Anything else?"

The smug look he tossed at her was so wicked it shivered right down her spine. Walked right into that, hadn't she. She shook her head and, looking away to hide her blush, moved her cardboard forward one spot. Without a doubt, he would be good at...other stuff. Jesus. — Laura Kaye

It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn. Maybe that's enlightenment enough - to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom, at least for me, means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go. — Anthony Bourdain

My father has the irritating habit of saying the same thing whenever something bad happens. "This, too, shall pass," he says. What annoys me is that he's always right about it. What annoys me even more is that he always reminds me later when it does pass, as a smug "I told you so."

He doesn't say it to me anymore because Mom told him it was trite. Maybe it is, but I find that I say it to myself now. No matter how bad I'm feeling, I make myself say it, even if I'm not ready to believe it. This, too, shall pass. It's amazing how little things like that can make a big difference. — Neal Shusterman

She gasped as he captured the picture from her hands, "Pining over what could have been? Funny, if you hadn't spread your legs for anyone with a pulse, you might be standing here married to the other Karasphalous brother right now," Nikos growled as he placed the photo back in its original spot and turned just as Adriana's hand made contact with the side of his smug face.
"Go to hell!" she spat as she grasp the long folds of her dress and stormed toward the master bedroom like the hounds of hell were on her heels.
Just before slamming the door behind her she heard him bark, "I'm already there! — Julie Garver

, But the streets need cleaning, brother," Gromph said.
"That is why the gods gave us magic, brother," Jarlaxle replied in the same smug tone. "To perform the mundane tasks of life. — R.A. Salvatore

Conservatism is not a doctrine of contentment. Not a doctrine for the satisfied and the smug. It's a politics that's at war with the world. — Thomas Frank

Every day, the New York Times carries a motto in a box on its front page. "All the News That's Fit to Print," it says. It's been saying it for decades, day in and day out. I imagine most readers of the canonical sheet have long ceased to notice this bannered and flaunted symbol of its mental furniture. I myself check every day to make sure that the bright, smug, pompous, idiotic claim is still there. Then I check to make sure that it still irritates me. If I can still exclaim, under my breath, why do they insult me and what do they take me for and what the hell is it supposed to mean unless it's as obviously complacent and conceited and censorious as it seems to be, then at least I know I still have a pulse. You may wish to choose a more rigorous mental workout but I credit this daily infusion of annoyance with extending my lifespan. — Christopher Hitchens

I hate the world and almost all the people in it. I hate the Labour Congress and the journalists who send men to be slaughtered, and the fathers who feel a smug pride when their sons are killed, and even the pacifists who keep saying human nature is essentially good, in spite of all the daily proofs to the contrary. I hate the planet and the human race - I am ashamed to belong to such a species. — Bertrand Russell

Ruth had come so far and lived so lonely only to learn that she was the daughter of a rapist and a murderer. She was half-sister to a smug fool who would probably have used Phoebe as ill as his father, had he been given the chance. — Anita Diamant

The way you're talking right now, you're aspiring to my fist in your face!' I yelled over my shoulder. I reached the door but he was there in a flash, sliding in front of me. He was so tall. So broad. So immovable. 'Move,' I hissed. 'Or I swear to every god and planetary system I will hit you in your smug face. — Catherine Doyle

I whispered, "Can we kick the aunties out right now?"
I saw the flash of his smug smile before he buried his face in my neck and muttered, "You're adorable."
I wasn't trying to be adorable. I was trying to get laid.
"No, seriously. — Kristen Ashley

Our world was brutal, immoral, smug and conventional. We had unbounded contempt for all those who did not sin as we sinned. — Jim Tully

Atheism: the religion devoted to the worship of one's own smug sense of superiority. — Stephen Colbert

Any woman who has devoted herself to raising children has experienced the hollow praise that only thinly conceals smug dismissal. In a culture that measures worth and achievement almost solely in terms of money, the intensive work of rearing responsible adults counts for little. One of the most intriguing questions in economic history is how this came to be; how mothers came to be excluded from the ranks of productive citizens. How did the demanding job of rearing a modern child come to be termed baby-sitting? When did caring for children become a 'labor of love,;' smothered under a blanket of sentimentality that hides its economic importance? — Ann Crittenden

IN AN OLD YUGOSLAV JOKE mocking police corruption, a policeman returns home unexpectedly and finds his wife naked in their marital bed, obviously hot and excited. Suspecting that he surprised her with a lover, he starts to look around the room for a hidden man. The wife goes pale when he leans down to look under the bed; but after some brief whispering, the husband rises with a satisfied, smug smile and says "Sorry, my love, false alarm. There is no one under the bed!," while his hand is holding tightly a couple of high denomination banknotes. — Slavoj Zizek

But it isn't easy to find the right person. It would have to be someone good with kids and horses, and ho'd be able to pitch in with the administrating to some extent and wouldn't quibble about shoving manure.Plus I'd have to be able to depend on them, and get along with them. And they'd have to be diplomatic with parents, which is often the trickiest part."
Travis picked up his soft drink again. "I might be able to point you in the right direction there."
"Oh? Listen, Dad, I appreciate it, but you know, a friend of a friend or the son or daughter of an aquaintance. That kind of thing gets very sticky if it doesn't work out."
"Actually, I was thinking of someone a little closer to home.Your mother."
"Ma?" With a half laugh, Keeley sat again. "Ma doesn't want this headache, even if she had time for it."
"Shows what you know." Smug now, he drank. "Just mention it to her, casually. I won't say a word about it. — Nora Roberts

God knows how many things a man misses by becoming smug and assuming that matters will take their own course. — Loren Eiseley

I don't want to sound smug but I am reasonably satisfied with how it's gone. I think it's fine. — Colin Firth

If life is music, I sometimes feel as though I was born on the off-beat of the song, and I love it. As Christian numbers reportedly decrease in America, my love for Christ feels as though it increases. Perhaps that is a little strange, yes, but in all honesty, I now want to be thought unfaithful about as much as a smug aristocrat wants to be thought a hobo. — Criss Jami

America is a hurricane, and the only people who do not hear the sound are those fortunate if incredibly stupid and smug White Protestants who live in the center, in the serene eye of the big wind. — Norman Mailer

The character I have in view when I say "smug vulgarian" is, thus, not the part-time philistine, but the total type, the
genteel bourgeois, the complete universal product of triteness and mediocrity. He is the conformist, the man who
conforms to his group, and he also is typified by something else: he is a pseudo-idealist, he is pseudo-compassionate, he is
pseudo-wise. The fraud is the closest ally of the true philistine. All such great words as "Beauty," "Love," "Nature," "Truth,"
and so on become masks and dupes when the smug vulgarian employs them. — Vladimir Nabokov

For the statement of Isaiah (28:19) is true: "Trouble gives understanding"; likewise, hunger is the best condiment. For those who are afflicted have a better understanding of the Holy Scriptures; the smug and prosperous read them as if they were some poem written by Ovid. — Martin Luther

Along with the mystical wonderment and sense of ecological responsibility that comes with the recognition of connectedness, more disturbing images come to mind. When applied to economics, connectedness seems to take the form of chain stores, multinational corporations, and international trade treaties which wipe out local enterprise and indigenous culture. When I think of it in the realm of religion, I envision smug missionaries who have done such a good job of convincing native people everywhere that their World-Maker is the same as God, and by this shoddy sleight of hand have been steadily impoverishing the world of the great fecundity and complex localism of belief systems that capture truths outside the Western canon. And I wonder - if everything's connected, does that mean that everything can be manipulated and controlled centrally by those who know how to pull strings at strategic places? — Malcolm Margolin

Charlotte met eyes with the sofa. That is, if the sofa had eyes, she would have met eyes with it. As it was, she just had the creepy sensation that it *knew* she was looking at it. Which of course it didn't. It was just a sofa after all. A sofa that seemed to have eyes, and if it did have eyes, it would be glaring - kind of smugly. A smug kind of glare
She was still rambling, even in her thoughts.
Shut up, Charlotte, she told herself.
She pointed at the sofa. "It was there."
Eddie didn't speak. Perhaps if he had, he would have rambled too. Instead, he approached the sofa cautiously (almost as if the sofa had eyes and Eddie didn't like the way it was smugly glaring) and lifted the velvet coverlet. — Shannon Hale

But we have arrived at a glistening, smug day when nobody much sins, and those that do are prone to call it something else. — Calvin Miller

Arik passed another smug look to Brian, then to
Megeara. He was getting tired of her mistrust - not that he
didn't deserve it. It was merely causing him aggravation - an
interesting emotion that. He didn't like it. It was too
aggravating. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Being snarky and smug doesn't equate to providing insight, and there's more than one occasion when the filmmakers lose sight of this in their zeal to spread the Gospel According to Maher. — James Berardinelli

I've got such a disgusting, wide, smug grin on my face all the time that my friends just want to slap me. I've never been so happy. — Holly Valance

Having a sister or a friend is like sitting at night in a lighted house. Those outside can watch you if they want, but you need not see them. You simply say, "Here are the perimeters of our attention. If you prowl around under the windows till the crickets go silent, we will pull the shades. If you wish us to suffer your envious curiosity, you must permit us not to notice it." Anyone with one solid human bond is that smug, and it is the smugness as much as the comfort and safety that lonely people covet and admire. — Marilynne Robinson

I knew you'd come around" Bain mused.
"Excuse me?" Izzy asked irritated by his smug tone, but she had been totally checking him out.
"You see something you like sweetheart, I can tell." He smirked.
"You are incredibly arrogant" she accused.
"True. — Magen McMinimy

Think what evil creeps liberals would be if their plans to enfeeble the individual, exhaust the economy, impede the rule of law, and cripple national defense were guided by a coherent ideology instead of smug ignorance. — P. J. O'Rourke

Wait a minute." Daddy sounded amused. "What do you mean 'we'? I thought this was my treasure."
"Technically, I don't think that's possible anymore." Mommy sounded smug. "We're mated, married, and as I just realized the other day, we have no prenup. — Thea Harrison

Too much good fortune can make you smug and unaware. Happiness should be like an oasis, the greener for the desert that surrounds it. — Rachel Field

What was behind this smug presumption that what pleased you was bad or at least unimportant in comparison to other things? ...
Little children were trained not to do "just what they liked' but ... but what? ... Of course! What others liked. And which others? Parents, teachers, supervisors, policemen, judges, officials, kings, dictators. All authorities.
When you are trained to despise "just what you like" then, of course, you become a much more obedient servant of others - a good slave. When you learn not to do "just what you like" then the System loves you. — Robert M. Pirsig

That wasn't so bad," I decided, after downing the shot. Maybe I was getting my rhythm.
"Because you threw it over your shoulder," Scarface told me, looking smug.
"Did not." I looked behind me, only to see an outraged vamp with fey wine dripping down his face. "Oops."
"It was for luck," Ray said defensively, wrapping both my hands around a glass.
"Drink!"
I drank. — Karen Chance

As if etiquette weren't magnificently capable of being used to make others feel uncomfortable. All right. Miss Manners will give you an example, although you are spoiling her Queen Victoria mood: If you are rude to your ex-husband's new wife at your daughter's wedding, you will make her feel smug. Comfortable. If you are charming and polite, you will make her feel uncomfortable. Which do you want to do? On — Judith Martin

She had that look a child has only a few times in its life, when the child has bettered her betters. The expression isn't smug, though adults often take it for smugness. It's something else. Maybe relief at having confirmed through personal experience the long-held suspicion of our species, that the enchanted world of childhood is merely a mask for something else, a more subtle and paradoxical magic.
- p. 157 — Gregory Maguire

Jack glanced at ken. "Lily is a brilliant woman when it comes to academics, but she;'s so blind when it comes to people." It was a small warning to keep Ken's anger from boiling over. "She's struggling to accept that Whitney needs to die, but she needs more time. The pregnancy also probably makes her more emotional when it comes to her father."
"When the hell did you get so smart?" Ken demanded.
"I've been reading all the pregnancy books." jack sounded a little smug. — Christine Feehan

You see, I've read Mr. Grumbine's treatise on auras, and while it does depend on the shade, a green aura can be a mark of deception or dishonesty."
I shoot Kiernan a smug glance. While I'm certain this aura stuff is total bunk, he and Prudence both see the light as green. "Does this Mr. Grumbine say anything about blue auras?"
"Again, it depends on the shade. But it's usually associated with truth. — Rysa Walker

Suicide in the trenches:
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
* * * * *
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go. — Siegfried Sassoon

Seems like a lot of my generation as a whole is more concerned with being the cool kid; sarcastic, smug, or just all together impenetrable. So anyway, it's not always comfortable to be like, the dorky, happy girl at the party ... but that's me. — Hayley Williams

Colt, you're a cop. I'm fairly certain you realize what you are proposing is illegal. As in bigamy."
He laughed. "You don't legally marry us both. Just one of us. Then the three of us make our own private vows."
"Fine," she leaned back and gave him a smug look as if expecting her next question to jar some sense into them. "Who am I going to legally marry?"
He grinned at her transparency. Obviously, she thought this was going to be a sticking point. "We'll arm wrestle to decide that. — Mari Carr

But all this was beside the point. What scared Amy was the mere fact of what looked inescapably like recreational malevolence. The poem had been written by an adult, not some teen with an unfinished brain. Whoever wrote the line bootlicker, sycophant, toady intended damage, understood how Carla would feel, how anybody would feel, being called such names. The line was playful, offhand, the poem itself a smug, imperious cat stretch. The writer was having fun. Amy had been comfortable in the same room with someone whose idea of fun this was. — Jincy Willett

This is about as simple as games get. There isn't even the paltriest context for what you're doing; you're not exacting revenge on limbless pigs or feeding your pet bitch-lizard. You're a ninja, fruit is flying up in front of you, and fuck fruit. Sitting around all smug on trees and in pies. — Yahtzee Croshaw

Entitlement is a precarious place from which to create or perform - it projects the idea that you have nothing to prove, nothing to claim, nothing to show but self-satisfaction, a smug boredom. It breeds ambivalence. It's as if instead of having to prove they are something, these musicians prove they aren't anything. It's an inverted dynamic, one that sets performers up to fail, but also gives them a false sense of having already arrived. I don't understand how someone would not push, challenge, or at least be present, how anyone could get onstage and not give everything. — Carrie Brownstein

I am still clumsy; I should aim to be clumsy only when I wish to be. I must learn to keep silent ... I must learn to take myself seriously; and not to hold any smug opinion of myself. To have more mobile eyes and a less mobile face. To keep a straight face when I make a joke. Not to applaud every joke made by others. Not to show the same colorless geniality toward everyone. To disconcert at the right moment by keeping a poker face. Especially never to praise two people in the same way, but rather to keep toward each individual a distinct manner from which I would never deviate without intending to. — Andre Gide

You're pretty smug, Lord Ares, for a guy who runs from Cupid statues. — Rick Riordan

The scent of Sloth tempts a smug man. — James Boswell

Is it my imagination, or are your admirers making snide comments about your sanity?" This time, Phillip's voice sounded in my ear.
"Apparently, you agree with them" I murmured back.
"If the hammer fits ... " Phillip trailed off.
"Says the man who likes to throw people off his riverboat," Owen cut in.
"You've been holding out on me, Philly," I chimed in again. "That sounds like fun."
"See?" Phillip said in a smug voice. "Your crazy woman agrees with me, Owen. — Jennifer Estep

Someday, if we won, if humanity survived, we'd be in the history books. Me and Jake and Rachel and Cassie and Tobias and Ax. They'd be household names, like generals from World War II or the Civil War. Patton and Eisenhower, Ulysses Grant and Robert E. Lee. Kids would study us in school. Bored, probably.
And then the teacher would tell the story of Marco. I'd be a part of history. What I was about to do. Some kid would laugh. Some kid would say, "Cold, man. That was really cold."
I had to do it, kid. It was a war. It's the whole point, you stupid, smug, smirking little jerk! Don't you get it?
It was the whole point. We hurt the innocent in order to stop the evil. Innocent Hork-Bajir. Innocent Taxxons. Innocent human-Controllers. How else to stop the Yeerks? How else to win?
No choice, you punk. We did what we had to do.
"Cold, man. The Marco dude? He was just cold. — Katherine Applegate

In the real world, I see conservatives volunteering at adoption agencies, at churches, at bake sales and the local American Legion Post while the only charity a progressive sends is a smug sermon on fair share and what fairness is. — Allen West

For almost seventy years the life insurance industry has been a smug sacred cow feeding the public a steady line of sacred bull. — Ralph Nader

If I hadn't liked Logan before, I would now at how he is handling all of this. he chuckles as we reach the door.

"Why are you chuckling?" I ask.

"You were jealous." He's definitely smug, though I can't blame him. — L.A. Fiore

Secret, smug believers! God never gives you
more than you can bear, they like to say, as if
the strong should be punished for their strength:
We can bear it. So we got it.
But what about my baby? How weak does
a newborn have to be to escape God's burdens? — Brenda Shaughnessy

Now, Ani." Whitney was doing that thing I hate, pronouncing my name "Annie" instead of "Ah-nee." "Luke says the wedding is in Nantucket. Why there?" Because of the privilege inherent in the location, Whitney. Because Nantucket transcends all classes, all areas of the country. Go to South Dakota and tell some sad smug housewife you grew up on the Main Line, and she doesn't know she's supposed to be impressed. Tell her you summer on Nantucket - be sure to verb it like that - and she knows who the fuck she's dealing with. That's why, Whitney. — Jessica Knoll

One thing Christians do have in common is that they can't help coming across as smug. — Jo Brand

He paused, his smug grin turning wicked as his eyes met mine. We could always have sex. I hear that uses up a lot of energy. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

The Regime has become so smug it can't tell the difference among the revolutionary, the innovative, or the merely various. The high command knows so little about the outside that if I came back with a fully equipped chemical laboratory and told them I'd found it in a cave, they'd probably believe that, so long as I brought it back peicmeal in my saddle bags, thus proving I hadn't known it was there beforehand. — Sheri S. Tepper

When we lose the contemplative mind, or non-dual consciousness, we invariably create violent people. The dualistic mind is endlessly argumentative, and we created an argumentative continent, which we also exported to North and South America. We see it in our politics; we see it in our Church's inability to create any sincere interfaith dialogue - or even intra-faith dialogue. The Baptists are still fighting the Anglicans as "lost" and the Evangelicals are dismissing the Catholics as the "Whore of Babylon," and we Catholics are demeaning everybody else as heretics, and each of us is hiding in our small, smug circles. What a waste of time and good God-energy, while the world suffers and declines. We have divided Jesus. — Richard Rohr

Smug, exhausted and dumb. He's just what I'd been hoping for. — Pittacus Lore

Squatted beside the fire, with the warmth of it upon his face and hands, he felt a smug contentment that seemed strangely out of place
the contentment of a man who had reduced his needs to the strictly basic
and with the contentment came a full-bodied confidence that was just as out of place. — Clifford D. Simak

I love the character of Jaime Lannister. He's just so complex - a character that we love to hate - but it's a lot more complex than hatred. It starts off, and he seems so arrogant and so smug. — Gwendoline Christie

I do not think you would be so quick to approve if it was your son," he said. The Major frowned as he tried to quell the immediate recognition that the young man was right. He fumbled for a reply that would be true but also helpful. "I do not mean to offend you," added Abdul Wahid.
"Not at all," said the Major. "You are not wrong - at least, in the abstract. I would be unhappy to think of my son becoming entangled in such a way and any people, including myself, may be guilty of a certain smug feeling that it would never happen in our families."
"I thought so," said Abdul Wahid with a grimace.
"Now, don't you get offended, either," said the Major. "What I'm trying to say is that I think that is how everyone feels in the abstract. But then life hands you something concrete - something concrete like little George - and abstracts have to go out the window. — Helen Simonson

The loss of transcendence has left in its wake the flotsam of distrustful, cynical Christians, angry at a capricious God, and the jetsam of smug bibilolatrists who claim to know precisely what God is thinking and exactly what he plans to do. — Brennan Manning

Then you agree that you should keep me." With the smug satisfaction of an argument won, he propped his shoulder against the stall door. Her eyes picked him over as if he were a carved goose on a table. "Aye, I'll have to either keep you ... or kill you." "I vote for keeping me." A glint of humor shone in her eyes. "And I shall so long as you behave yourself." "And if I don't behave? If I try to escape?" "I'll hunt you down and kill you." The conviction in her voice chilled him, and yet he felt something else, an ache of pity that a wonderful creature like Caitlin MacBride should be compelled to have the heart of a murderer. "Then you leave me no alternative," he said lightly. "I shall stay. Think of it, Cait, we'll grow old together. We'll walk on the strand and watch the sunset, and you'll sing songs to me in that lovely voice of yours. — Susan Wiggs

P - Jamie!" I called.
He waded back toward me. "I'm starting to think my name is Pajamie."
"Your name should be Pajerky. You said it wasn't deep."
"Pajerky?" He gave me a skeptical look. "That's Pathetic."
"We'll see how smug you are once I'm on dry land. — Diana Peterfreund

He was all smug about how he'd negotiated flexible hours so he could continue being a hands-on dad, the dad his own father never got to be, and didn't he just lap up all the praise he got for being such an involved father, and laugh sympathetically, but enjoyably, over the fact that Clementine never got any praise for being an involved mother? — Liane Moriarty