Quotes & Sayings About Surly

All romances ended exactly the same way: a girl realized the surly boy she had hated all along was the only person in the universe who could complete her soul. I did not believe for a minute that my soul could be completed by some surly boy. And I would not wish my curse to harm anyone else. So how could I dare long for love? — Robin Bridges

Nature is no sentimentalist, - does not cosset or pamper us. We must see that the world is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman; but swallows your ship like a grain of dust. The cold, inconsiderate of persons, tingles your blood, benumbs your feet, freezes a man like an apple. The diseases, the elements, fortune, gravity, lightning, respect no persons. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

On the National Executive sat Charles Clarke, looking like a rather manky chimpanzee with his unkempt beard, jug ears and his air of surly aggression. — Tony Benn

And sure enough,the youth in question was not his usual dapper self. His face was puffy, his eyes red and wild; his shirt(distressingly unbuttoned)hung over his trousers in sloppy fashion. All very out of charactar: Mandrake was normally defined by his rigid self-control. Somthing seemed to have stripped all that away. Well, the poor lad was emotionally brittle.He needed sympathetic handling. "You're a mess," I sneered "You've lost it big time. What's happened? All the guilt and self-loathing suddenly get to you? It can't just be that someone else called me, surly? — Jonathan Stroud

What are you two doing in here?" Mike Iglehart wore an eye-blistering white lab coat and a surly expression. "This isn't some teenage make-out room."
My face flushed scarlet. "Excuse me?"
"We were using the computer!" Ben barked. "That's it. — Kathy Reichs

New Rule: If you can force a woman to look at a sonogram - to see what will happen if she has an abortion - you also have to let her see a crying baby, a bratty five-year-old, and a surly teenager to see what will happen if she doesn't. And you have to tell her it costs $204,000 to raise it until it turns eighteen, in 2028, where it will be a slave to the Chinese, in a radioactive world with no animals, fish, or plants. — Bill Maher

A surly and moody Ethan was darkly sexy. But a smiling Ethan was lethal. — Nikka Michaels

Life is a system of relations rather than a positive and independent existence; and he who would be happy himself and make others happy must carefully preserve these relations. He cannot stand apart in surly and haughty egoism; let him learn that he is as much dependent on others as others are on him. — George Augustus Henry Sala

Have you ever found your heart's desire and then lost it? I had seen myself, a portrait of myself as a reader. My childhood: days home sick from school reading Nancy Drew, forbidden books read secretively late at night. Teenage years reading -trying to read- books I'd heard were important, Naked Lunch, and The Fountainhead, Ulysses and Women in Love ... It was as though I had dreamt the perfect lover, who vanished as I woke, leaving me pining and surly. — Audrey Niffenegger

He has impressed upon our natures or states - must be an imitation of God incarnate: our model is the Jesus, not only of Calvary, but of the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the clamorous demands and surly oppositions, the lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions. For this, so strangely unlike anything we can attribute to the Divine life in itself, is apparently not only like, but is, the Divine life operating under human conditions. — C.S. Lewis

I love a gay and sociable wisdom, and shun harshness and austerity in behaviour, holding every surly countenance suspect. — Michel De Montaigne

I remember as a child hearing of the horrors of life in the Soviet Union. There was supposedly only one kind of store, a gigantic windowless dispensary staffed by listless, surly functionaries selling cheaply made, generic goods. It sounds a lot like Wal-Mart. — Charles Eisenstein

Understand me: I wish to be a man from somewhere, a man among men. You see, a slave, when he passes by, weary and surly, carrying a heavy load, limping along and looking down at his feet, only at his feet to avoid falling down; he is in his town, like a leaf in greenery, like a tree in a forest, argos surrounds him, heavy and warm, full of herself; I want to be that slave, Electra, I want to pull the city around me and to roll myself up in it like a blanket. I will not leave. — Jean-Paul Sartre

O grant me a house by the beach of a bay,
Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play
With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers!
And I'd leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray,
For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers. — Andrew Lang

The service in L.A. is the best. You don't get sarcastic, surly, fed-up waiters and waitresses like you do in England. They're good at their job and they're there for the customer. The only depressing thing is a lot of them have written more screenplays than me. — Ricky Gervais

Anyway, whacking a surly bartender ain't much of a crime. — Larry McMurtry

We all accuse Vladimir Putin of Cold War nostalgia, but Washington's elites - politicians and intellectuals - miss the old days as well. They wish for the world in which the United States was utterly dominant over its friends, its foes were to be shunned entirely, and the challenges were stark, moral, and vital. Today's world is messy and complicated. China is one of our biggest trading partners and our looming geopolitical rival. Russia is a surly spoiler, but it has a globalized middle class and has created ties in Europe. — Fareed Zakaria

I am my own rakish seducer. I do serve as my own surly, brutish bounder. — Chuck Palahniuk

For our Titanic purposes of faith and revolution, what we need is not the cold acceptance of the world as a compromise, but some way in which we can heartily hate and heartily love it. We do not want joy and anger to neutralise each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre's castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, to which we can return at evening. — G.K. Chesterton

You did the right thing." "Yes, I did." He stroked her cheek with his thumb. "But with you, Arabella Anne Westfall, I have done everything wrong, from the moment we met, at nearly every turn. I have been arrogant and overly confident and short-tempered and deeply, insatiably lustful"-a bystander gasped-"and afraid of this between us. I was everything that must have been abhorrent to you when all you wished was to find your prince charming. Instead you ended up with a blind, surly, autocratic fool. If I could turn back time, if I could so what I should have done-" "Before I fell in love with you?" "-b-before I stole your virtue." His brow cut down. "By God, woman, you will always say what I least expect, won't you?"

-Arabella & Luc — Katharine Ashe

Dost thou verily think that the Earl of Birmingham is low enough to plead for his life?' Sir Robert returned angrily, the wrathful blood coloring his handsome face. 'I wouldst scorn in the knowledge that I owed my life and liberty to a scurrilous murderer and knave. Do with me what thou wilt, surly knave, but rest in the knowledge that no plea for mercy shall be wrung from my lips. — Alicia A. Willis

They could hear people complaining; one surly voice said, "I can't see no gas ... "
"That's because it's colorless," said Ginny in a convincingly exasperated voice, "but if you want to walk through it, carry on, then we'll have your body as proof for the next idiot who didn't believe us ... — J.K. Rowling

Here is how to sit through small openings of your father's first art films, surrounded by surly foreign cigarette smoke and conversations so pretentious you literally cannot believe them, you're sure you have misheard them. — David Foster Wallace

You're all Helen talks about. She's been reading Welsh history books and plaguing the family with accounts of Owain Glynd and something called the Eistedfodd." His eyes sparkled with friendly mockery. "Helen was hacking and spitting so much the other day that we thought she was coming down with a cold, until we realized she was practicing the Welsh alphabet."
Ordinarily Rhys would have made some sarcastic retort, but he'd barely noticed the gibe. His chest had gone tight with pleasure.
"She doesn't have to do that," he muttered.
"Helen wants to please you," Devon said. "It's her nature. Which leads to something I want to make clear: Helen is like a younger sister to me. And although I'm obviously the last man alive who should lecture anyone about propriety, I expect you to behave like an altar boy with her for the next few days."
Rhys gave him a surly glance. "I *was* an altar boy, and I can tell you that reports of their virtue are highly exaggerated. — Lisa Kleypas

All men, even the most surly are influenced by affection. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

People do not belong to others, either. How can the huincas buy and sell people if they do not own them. Sometimes the boy went two or three days without speaking a word, surly, and not eating, and when asked what was the matter, the answer was always the same: There are content days and there are sad days. Each person is a master of his silence. — Isabel Allende

Very slowly, she peeked around the tree trunk. Saw a slim, petite figure, flanked by two very large, very dangerous-looking soldier of fortune types picking their way through the bodies and the rubble.
"Amy?"
Oh, God. It was Amy.
"Get away from her," Jenna ordered, stepping out from behind the conifer, wielding the iron pan like a club.
Both men stopped. Glanced at her. Glanced at each other over Amy's head.
"What?" The biggest one grunted out a surly laugh. "Or you'll souffle us?"
Okay. She was definitely going after him first. — Cindy Gerard

How did a man like you ever end up at a table of negotiation?" "I was trained by a surly Mistborn, a sarcastic Terrisman, and a group of disrespectful thieves," Elend said, sighing. "Plus, on top of that, I was a fairly insufferable person to begin with. But, kindly continue with your insult - I didn't mean to interrupt. — Brandon Sanderson

You know, Drake, I seem to recall this impertinent young pup who once told me that problems shared are problems solved. (Jake)
And I seem to recall a surly pirate telling me to mind my own business or I'd find myself gutted. (Morgan) — Kinley MacGregor

Begin your story with a sentence that will immediately grab hold of your listener's ears like a surly nun in a Catholic school. — Amy Sedaris

I want my team to have my personality: surly, obnoxious, and arrogant. — Al McGuire

My Mistake - i trusted
My fault - i believed
My Bad - i open my heart
My Muff - i was honest
My Lapse - i was caring
Good People of today's world do not have all that things.So if someone have .surly deserve Punishment ,Betrayal , cheating and wounds on Heart and Soul — Mohammed Zaki Ansari

So long, Geralt. Look after yourself." The witcher's smile was surly. "I prefer to look after others. It turns out better in the long run." From — Andrzej Sapkowski

I had the heaviest paper round in Ilkley, West Yorks, and if you look at my shoulders one is still lower than the other. I also did a milk round for a day. It was awful. I was a very surly milkman, because it was very cold, very dark and very early. I am a lark, not an owl, but not in winter when it's chilly. Apart from that I went straight into gardening at 15. — Alan Titchmarsh

A young boy shouldn't be given up for hopeless just because he's lazy, surly, and good for nothing. Don't be discouraged by those things - maybe he's just trying to be like his daddy. — Gracie Allen

John was the ne'er-do-well father, Paul was the hardworking mother trying to keep everything together. George was a slightly surly teenager, and Ringo was this happy-go-lucky young kid with his model airplane. That's really how it was. — Ray Connolly

If you can fall in love again and again, if you can forgive your parents for the crime of bringing you into the world, if you are content to get nowhere, just take each day as it comes, if you can forgive as well as forget, if you can keep from growing sour, surly, bitter and cynical, man you've got it half licked. — Arthur Miller

Vin snorted, kneeling in the low tent as she pulled her belt tight; then she crawled over to him. "I don't know how you read while riding," she said. "Oh, it's quite easy - if you aren't afraid of horses." "I'm not afraid of them," Vin said. "They just don't like me. They know I can outrun them, and that makes them surly. — Brandon Sanderson

I think I found your vampire," Andrew said, except this time he wasn't so amused.
However, Gabriella was, her smile huge as she laughed, the sound a trill in the densely packed cold air.
"You think this is funny?" The words came out surly, but Andrew couldn't stop his lips from twitching over her amusement.
"I thought they'd be bigger," she said, stifling another round of giggles. "Are you okay?"
"Just a flesh wound. — Laura Kreitzer

I've inherited the worst of each parent. I have my father's hypochondria and lack of concentration. I have his amorality. I have everything bad that he had. Then I have my mother's surly, pill-like, complaining, whining attitude. — Woody Allen

I do not deny that he was eccentric; the mania he had for keeping that cat and teasing her until she flew at his face like a demon, was certainly eccentric. I never could understand why he kept the creature, nor what pleasure he found in shutting himself up in his room with this surly, vicious beast. I remember once, glancing up from the manuscript I was studying by the light of some tallow dips, and seeing Mr. Wilde squatting motionless on his high chair, his eyes fairly blazing with excitement, while the cat, which had risen from her place before the stove, came creeping across the floor right at him. Before I could move she flattened her belly to the ground, crouched, trembled, and sprang into his face. Howling and foaming they rolled over and over on the floor, scratching and clawing, until the cat screamed and fled under the cabinet, and Mr. Wilde turned over on his back, his limbs contracting and curling up like the legs of a dying spider. He was eccentric. — Robert W. Chambers

Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where they are not sure of foes. — Emily Bronte

Oh, come off it. That surly cunt is squirming like a snake."
"Could there be some sort of Freudian symbolism in your choice of similes?"
"What?"
"Forget it ... — Stieg Larsson

Like an animal, cancer sleeps, prowls, hibernates, turns surly or placid. — Marni Jackson

It's a dirty little secret that most New Yorkers are pleasant, thoughtful, patient, and polite. The Chamber of Commerce must work overtime to maintain the surly, off-putting image that is widely believed to define the city. In truth, niceness is nearly epidemic in this town. — Judith Kelman

The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God. — Ronald Reagan

I have been called a curmudgeon, which my obsolescent dictionary defines as a 'surly, ill-mannered, bad-tempered fellow'. Nowadays, curmudgeon is likely to refer to anyone who hates hypocrisy, cant, sham, dogmatic ideologies, and has the nerve to point out unpleasant facts and takes the trouble to impale these sins on the skewer of humor and roast them over the fires of fact, common sense, and native intelligence. In this nation of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, it then becomes an honor to be labeled curmudgeon. — Edward Abbey

I was kind of like the Rhea Perlman of the bar. I was like Carla on 'Cheers.' People were more afraid of me. There was a point where I got a little surly. There were only so many chicken wings I could serve before losing the smile on my face. — Melissa Rauch

Books are savaged and careers destroyed by surly snots who write anonymous reviews and publishers can't be bothered to protest this institutionalized corruption. — Warren Murphy

Americans will smile at you and be extremely friendly but if your name is not Cory or Chad, they make no effort at saying it properly. The Brits will be surly and will be suspicious if you're too friendly but they will treat foreign names as though they are actually valid names." "That's interesting, — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Ali was a lucky, lucky girl having those two big hot men at her disposal. Not that Roslyn wasn't content with her one surly man, but still ... two. Some people were enjoying their apocalypse a little too much. — Kylie Scott

What we need is not the cold acceptance of the world as a compromise,
but some way in which we can heartily hate and heartily love it.
We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a
surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent — G.K. Chesterton

Malone is surly, scary and ugly," I say. "So I'm gonna pass on him, if you don't mind." "I don't know," Chantal says. She looks past me. "What do you say, Malone? Want to go out with Maggie? — Kristan Higgins

The fawning courtier and the surly squire often mean the same thing,
each his own interest. — George Berkeley

No one knows why dwarfs, who at home in the mountains lead quiet, orderly lives, forget it all when they move to the big city. Something comes over even the most blameless iron-ore miner and prompts him to wear chain-mail all the time, carry an ax, change his name to something like Grabthroat Shinkicker and drink himself into surly oblivion. — Terry Pratchett

Devyn opened the channel to let Sway and Vik know what was coming. "Batten down. It's going to be a rough landing." Sway buzzed him back. "Dev, are you trying to say we're about to crash?" "Yeah, we're crashing." Sway had one last surly comeback to that. "Asshole." Shaking — Sherrilyn Kenyon

He bathed in icy water and scrubbed and scratched his body with a block of pumice stone, and the pain
of his scraping seemed good to him. He knew that he had to tell his guilt to his father and beg his forgiveness. And he had to humble himself to Aron, not only now but always. He could not live without that. And yet, when he was called out and stood in the room with Sheriff Quinn and his father, he was as raw and angry as a surly dog and his hatred of himself turned outward toward everyone - a vicious cur he was, unloved, unloving. — John Steinbeck

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural. — Marcus Aurelius

The Scots are poor, cries surly English pride; True is the charge, nor by themselves denied. Are they not then in strictest reason clear, Who wisely come to mend their fortunes here? — Charles Churchill

You can't keep rescuing me like this. You're supposed to be the angsty, surly cripple, and I'm supposed to be the one who comforts you and shows you life is still worth living. — Molly Mirren

Who was the real Adrian? The oddly charming man who'd asked me for a date right after he kidnapped me? The heroic one who'd saved my life two times in four days? Or the surly one who acted like I was a venereal disease he couldn't wait to be cured of? — Jeaniene Frost

We do not want joy and anger to neutralize each other and produce a surly contentment; we want a fiercer delight and a fiercer discontent. We have to feel the universe at once as an ogre's castle, to be stormed, and yet as our own cottage, to which we can return to at evening. — G.K. Chesterton

Been in a lot of time zones. Been on a lot of planes. Had a lot of complimentary honey-roasted peanuts whapped onto my tray table by hostile flight attendants. "Would you care for some peanuts, sir?" WHAP. Like that. The flight attendants hate us passengers, because we're surly to them because our flight is delayed. Our flight is always delayed. The Russians will never be able to get their missiles through the dense protective layer of delayed flights circling over the United States in complex, puke-inducing holding patterns. — Dave Barry

I had never been allowed to invite friends on my birthday, and nor was I on this one. I was sullen and surly, I ate the cake without a word ... — Karl Ove Knausgard

You don't have to take upon yourself the burden of murder or madness to be free of this place. Surly there must be other ways. — Anne Rice

Before Westcliff could launch into an unwanted diatribe regarding Annabelle, Simon sought to distract him. "You don't seem to rub on well with Miss Bowman," he remarked.
As a diversionary tactic, the mention of Lillian Bowman was supremely effective.
Westcliff responded with a surly grunt. "The ill-mannered brat dared to imply that Miss Peyton's mishap was my fault," he said, pouring a brandy for himself.
Simon raised his brows. "How could it be your fault?"
"Miss Bowman seems to think that, as their host, it was my responsibility to ensure that my estate wasn't 'overrun with a plague of poisonous vipers,' as she put it."
"How did you reply?"
"I pointed out to Miss Bowman that the guests who choose to remain clothed when they venture out of doors don't usually seem to get bitten by adders."
Simon couldn't help grinning at that. — Lisa Kleypas

He knows too much about himself to subject her to a morning after, when he will be cold, surly, impatient to be alone. — J.M. Coetzee

Lord, confound this surly sister, blight her brow with blotch and blister, cramp her larynx, lung and liver, in her guts a galling give her. — John Millington Synge

You haven't asked me about Arin," Roshar said as he rode alongside him.
"What?"
"The tiger. Not the surly human. — Marie Rutkoski

I wish there really was such a thing as a Time-Clock Puncher, though. I wish some gigantic, surly, stone-fisted Soap Mahoney-type guy went around the world smashing every clock in sight till there weren't any more and people got so confused about when to go to the mill or school or church that they gave up and did something interesting instead. — David James Duncan

Bluidy hell. Charlie's seen my woman naked," he said in a surly tone. "I almost liked him better when I thought he was a machete murderer. — Kresley Cole

Winter is on the road to spring. Some think it a surly road. I do not. A primrose road to spring were not as engaging to my heart as a frozen icicled craggy way angered over by strong winds that never take the iron trumpets from their lips. — William Alfred Quayle

What is the matter with you?"
"You want an alphabetical list? — Elisa Nader

I was a theater geek, and I was a surly cheerleader, and that's really kind of a contradiction. — Natalie Zea

If the creator of the universe is spending all his time watching you, it must surly be because he loves you. — David Mazzucchelli

You know how it is between sisters in their middle age? that old old friendship, how loose-fitting it is? the comfort and safety in it? how you can let silence lie between you without it taking on any weight? how you can let words out of your mouth without wariness or precision because you know your sister will listen to what's worthwhile and let the rest fall out of her ears into the air? how you can be surly, unreasonable, stupid, in the certainty of her grace? — Molly Gloss

Choose a good disagreeable friend, if you be wise
a surly, steady, economical, rigid fellow. — William Makepeace Thackeray

As Vishous seemed to find a partner in surly crime with Rhamp, Qhuinn found himself staring at the brother. For a lot of reasons. One, — J.R. Ward

No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell. — William Shakespeare

A brawl was in progress near the threshold of the tavern, a writhing mixture of arms, legs, flying hats, and bottles and canes. Anytime there was a fight, the greatest likelihood was that her brother had started it.
"Merripen," she said anxiously, "you know how Leo is when he's foxed. He's probably in the middle of the fray. If you would be so kind - "
Before she had even finished, Merripen made to leave the carriage.
"Wait," Rohan said. "You'd better let me handle it."
Merripen gave him a cold glance. "You doubt my ability to fight?"
"This is a London rookery. I'm used to the kind of tricks they employ. If you - " Rohan broke off as Merripen ignored him and left the carriage with a surly grunt. "So be it," Rohan said, exiting the carriage and standing beside it to watch. — Lisa Kleypas

He was not surly by temperment, and in fact did not find it difficult to form friendships, nor to allow those friendships to deepen, once they had been formed; he simply preferred to answer to himself. He disliked all burdens of responsibility, most especially when those responsibilities were expected, or enforced
and friendship nearly always devolved into matters of debt, guilt, and expectation. — Eleanor Catton

The surly orphan of American politics ... the grim joker in the deck, whose nightrider candidacy [is] a rough approximation of the potential for an American fascism. People — Hampton Sides

He really just wanted to go about his business. I would put Eddie Murray in the same category as Andre Dawson. He would like to kid around with the press and (be surly), but he was a total professional. I see why he is a Hall of Famer. I am just glad I had the pleasure of playing for Eddie (Murray) for one year. — Gary Carter

It was standard procedure in most households and most fathers went along with it, treating these strange, surly beings as an alien life form temporarily exchanged for their precious little darlings. They knew that they had no choice but to go along with the derision and the tantrums and that, before long, if they played their part accordingly, their loving, sweet-natured daughters would be returned — Erica James

Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort. — Robert A. Heinlein

Surly. I eyed him, biting my tongue, wanting to tell him to back the hell up and go talk to — Cambria Hebert

So, what should I call you before you die?" she asked over the sound of the rain. "Bull-headed Mule? Surly Bastard?
"Mallor."
"The Mallor?"
He didn't answer.
"You're supposed to be dead!"
He pulled the collar up on his long coat and stepped out into the driving rain. "Someday, I'll get it right. — Shawn Wickersheim

You stand with the least likely to succeed until success is succeeded by something more valuable: kinship. You stand with the belligerent, the surly and the badly behaved until bad behavior is recognized for the language it is: the vocabulary of the deeply wounded and of those whose burdens are more than they can bear. — Greg Boyle

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, - and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air ... — John Gillespie Magee Jr.

When chill November's surly blast make fields and forest bare. — Robert Burns

As well as myself there was a young Norwegian couple who worked on an oil-rig, Paul, an engineer from Dublin whom I had taken to at once and a Swiss pot-holer, a rather surly fellow who was used to carrying out unbelievable dives on his own. — L.K. Brass

A ward, and still in bonds, one day
I stole abroad;
It was high spring, and all the way
Primrosed and hung with shade;
Yet was it frost within,
And surly winds
Blasted my infant buds, and sin
Like clouds eclipsed my mind. — Henry Vaughan

I'm still a scarred and surly Irishman. — Kresley Cole

One hobby I did not pick up was crocheting, an obsession among prisoners throughout the system. Some of the handiwork was impressive. The inmate who ran the laundry was a surly rural white woman named Nancy whose dislike for anyone but "northerners" was hardly a secret. Her personality left a lot to be desired, but she was a remarkable crochet artist. One day in C Dorm I happened upon Nancy standing with my neighbor Allie B. and mopey Sally, all howling with laughter. "What?" I asked, innocently. "Show her, Nancy!" giggled Allie. Nancy opened her hand. Perched there in her palm was an astonishingly lifelike crochet penis. Average in size, it was erect, fashioned of pink cotton yarn, with balls and a smattering of brown cotton pubic hair, and a squirt of white yarn ejaculate at the tip. — Piper Kerman

If your master is surly, from getting up early
(And tempers are short in the morning),
An inopportune joke is enough to provoke
Him to give you, at once, a month's warning. — W.S. Gilbert

For such a worldly, surly bastard, Bas had always been incredibly innocent. Always seen the best in people. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

If a farmer and his family can get up at 5:30 every morning to milk cows, surly we can get up at that time to practice basketball. — Don Meyer

I don't think anything can help me socially, to be honest: I have this terrible personality. I don't really know how to describe it ... maybe I'll go with surly. — Helen Oyeyemi

Knowledge of physical laws can, in some cases, give you the confidence to confront surly people. A few years ago I was having a hot-cocoa nightcap at a dessert shop in Pasadena, California. I had ordered it with whipped cream, of course. When it arrived at the table, I saw no trace of the stuff. After I told the waiter that my cocoa was plain, he asserted I couldn't see the whipped cream because it sank to the bottom. Since whipped cream has a very low density and floats on all liquids that humans consume, I offered the waiter two possible explanations: either somebody forgot to add the whipped cream to my hot cocoa or the universal laws of physics were different in his restaurant. Unconvinced, he brought over a dollop of whipped cream to test for himself. After bobbing once or twice in my cup, the whipped cream sat up straight and afloat. What better proof do you need of the universality of physical laws? — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Slowly but surly I want to strip her of every kind of happiness as to make a saint of her. — Jean Genet