Splutter Quotes & Sayings

I can live this life. I can. I can. It's a spark I want to cherish, a splutter of life in the flat battery; but just at the wrong moment I catch a glimpse at the night sky ... , and I can see that there's nothing out there at all. — Nick Hornby

Little bits of Norwegian came to me by a kind of aural osmosis. The most surprising linguistic fact I learned was the impoverishment of that language in swear words. In fact, there is only one- 'farn'- which merely means something like 'devil take it!', but is considered very rude by a well brought-up Viking. It has to pass muster for most of the everyday tragedies that beset an expedition. If a finger is hammered, you jump up and down and cry 'farn'; if you drop an outstanding fossil irretrievably into the sea, you splutter for a while and then mutter 'farn' under your breath. If all your provisions were carried away by a hurricane and death were guaranteed, all the poor Norwegian could do would be to stand on the shingle and cry 'farn' into the wind. Somehow this does not seem adequate for the occasion. — Richard Fortey

Beside her, her husband could only splutter, and he stopped even that when she half turned to flash him a smile - the instinctive, brilliant smile of a woman who knows what feeble creatures men can be. You couldn't learn to smile like that. It was something a woman either knew the minute she was born, or never knew at all. ("I'm Dangerous Tonight") — Cornell Woolrich

Alec shrugged "Look who's talking. 'Oh, I love her. Oh, she's my sister. Oh why,why,why
"
Jace threw a handful of dead leaves at Alec, making him splutter.
Isabelle was laughing. "You know he's right, Jace. — Cassandra Clare

I'll pack these for you," Hermione said brightly, taking Harry's presents out of his arms as the three of them headed back upstairs. "I'm nearly done, I'm just waiting for the rest of your underpants to come out of the wash, Ron--"
Ron's splutter was interrupted by the opening of a door on the first-floor landing. — J.K. Rowling

Writing, for me, is like trying to restart an engine that has rested for years, silent and rusting, in an empty lot
choked with water and dirt, infiltrated by ants and spides and cockroaches. Vines and weeds shoved into it and sprouting of it. A kind of coughing splutter, an eruption of leaves and dust, a voice that sounds a little like mine but is not the same as it was before. — Jeff VanderMeer

Science is a match that man has just got alight. He thought he was in a room - in moments of devotion, a temple - and that his light would be reflected from and display walls inscribed with wonderful secrets and pillars carved with philosophical systems wrought into harmony. It is a curious sensation, now that the preliminary splutter is over and the flame burns up clear, to see his hands lit and just a glimpse of himself and the patch he stands on visible, and around him, in place of all that human comfort and beauty he anticipated - darkness still.'The Rediscovery of the Unique' Fortnightly Review (1891) — H.G.Wells

Give us, Lord, a bit o' sun, A bit o' work, and a bit o' fun. Give us all in the struggle and splutter, Our daily bread and a bit o' butter. Origin unknown, submitted by Margie Mode Clarksville, Indiana — Ken Beck

It's my baby. I can't just let her give it away - — Tammara Webber

You don't have to be worried, okay? You don't have to be scared." His voice is twinkling again. "I'm not flirting with you."
Embarrassment sweeps through me. Flirting. A dirty word. He thinks I think he's flirting. "I'm not - I don't think you were - I would never think that you - " The words collide in my mouth, and now I know there's no amount of darkness that can cover the rush of red to my face.
He cocks his head to the side. "Are you flirting with me, then?"
"What? No," I splutter. My mind is spinning blindly in a panic, and I realize I don't even know what flirting is. I just know about it from textbooks; I just know that it's bad. Is it possible to flirt without knowing you're flirting? Is he flirting? My left eye goes full flutter. — Lauren Oliver

I'm not a fan of the wimple; you can't hear much when you've got it on. — Judy Parfitt

Splutter, splutter. Yes - we're off - we're rising. But why start off with an engine like that? But it smooths out now, like a long sigh, like a person breathing easily, freely. Like someone singing ecstatically, climbing, soaring - sustained note of power and joy. We turn from the lights of the city; we pivot on a dark wing; we roar over the earth. The plane seems exultant now, even arrogant. We did it, we did it! — Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Holding back a cough and splutter I cover my mouth with my hand, so as not to lose any of the precious nectar I'm holding. Oh my! I intently watch the next guest to arrive in the reception, mesmerised, for all I know he could be walking on water for how his streamlined and buff body glides to the desk. — A.J. Walters

So ... " Heather nodded slowly. "We're still here."
"Yep. I think your team of SWAT guys got lost. Probably looking for their shirts."
She made a face at him. "You're effing hilarious."
"I try. — Chelsea Fine

There is a change coming I think in the lives of girls and women. Yes. But it is up to us to make it come. All women have had up till now has been their connection with men. All we have had. No more lives of our own, really, than domestic animals. He shall hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, a little closer than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. Tennyson wrote that. It's true. Was true. You will want to have children, though. — Alice Munro

I don't believe the United States is going through a midlife crisis. The United States is going through an adolescent crisis. — Marianne Williamson