Quotes & Sayings About Swagger

It's no surprise that the Bush administration's bullying swagger and blithe ignorance have caused much of the Muslim world to hold the U.S. in rock-bottom regard. — Graydon Carter

The philanthropist can never forget classes and callings. He says, with a modest swagger, 'I have invited twenty-five factory hands to tea.' If he said 'I have invited twenty-five chartered accountants to tea,' everyone would see the humour of so simple a classification. — G.K. Chesterton

Every job I take, within minutes I'm thinking, 'I can't do this.' I think it's what makes me work. People think I just swagger in and do it. But I doubt myself all the time. It's what pushes me, what makes me work harder. The older I get, the less I take for granted. — Ray Winstone

The best thing to do was to brazen it out, throw your head back, walk with a swagger ... — Sarah Waters

You know, I'm a modern day Harry Belafonte; I got the swagger of the island. — Wyclef Jean

To be a star and stay a star, I think you've got to have a certain air of arrogance about you, a cockiness, a swagger on the field that says, "I can do this and you can't stop me." I know that I play baseball with this air of arrogance, but I think it's lacking in a lot of guys who could have the potential to be stars. — Joe Morgan

God expects you to have the mentality of a conqueror. See yourself as a victor in Christ Jesus, and go about life with a holy swagger! — Pedro Okoro

The officious swagger in her gait might have been some flavor of self-possession or the cool skedaddle of a shoplifter making for the door. In either case, the streamer of toilet paper that trailed from the waistband of her tiny skirt like the banner of an advertising airplane pretty much spoiled the effect. — Michael Chabon

Badassery: 1. (noun) the practice of knowing one's own accomplishments and gifts, accepting one's own accomplishments and gifts and celebrating one's own accomplishments and gifts; 2. (noun) the practice of living life with swagger : SWAGGER (noun or verb) a state of being that involves loving oneself, waking up "like this" and not giving a crap what anyone else thinks about you. Term first coined by William Shakespeare. — Shonda Rhimes

Bode Gazzer was five feet six and had never forgiven his parents for it. He wore three-inch snakeskin shitkickers and walked with a swagger that suggested not brawn so much as hemorrhoidal tribulation. — Carl Hiaasen

It was much easier for him now that he was smaller to negotiate his way through his crammed shop but he still tried to swagger past the shelves like he used to in the past. The attempt looked so strange that Scipio started to mimic him behind his back. "What's the silly giggling about?" Barbarossa asked when Prosper and Renzo bust out laughing. — Cornelia Funke

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. — Robert F. Kennedy

I think Lady Gaga is great and is changing pop music and bringing back a certain rock 'n' roll spirit, swagger to the game. — Adam Lambert

I don't really go for the swagger thing too much. — Will Sergeant

Tall and fair, with blue-green eyes, sandy hair streaked by the sun, and a lean and comely body, Gerris Drinkwater had a swagger to him, a confidence bordering on arrogance. — George R R Martin

They were all content - like pirates - to go around demanding favours as if this were their right; and all of them of course claimed to have the blood of the Goths flowing in their veins; and all were in pursuit of the dream nurtured by every Spaniard: to live without doing a stroke of work, to pay no taxes and to swagger about with a sword at their belt and a cross embroidered on their doublet. — Arturo Perez-Reverte

I came out alone on my way to my tryst. But who is this that follows me in the silent dark?

I move aside to avoid his presence but I escape him not.

He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger; he adds his loud voice to every word that I utter.

He is my own little self, my lord, he knows no shame; but I am ashamed to come to thy door in his company. — Rabindranath Tagore

It's not my fault I have vampire swagger. — Delilah S. Dawson

Bast, who has little of the swagger common to so many denialists, is equally honest about the fact he and his colleagues did not become engaged with climate issues because they found flaws in the scientific facts. Rather, they became alarmed about the economic and political implications of those facts and set out to disprove them. — Naomi Klein

Men swagger around calling themselves "cattlemen" but abuse their grass like a rapist. And abuse their cattle with concrete fecal feedlots without any regards to rumen function. Vegetable growers plow thousands of acres, planting monocrops of annuals in a never-ending tillage routine that totally annihilates carbon wealth. Why? Why are we so enamored of things that destroy carbon and disrespect the animals under our care? Grass. Lowly grass. It just gets no respect. And yet it is the lifeblood of the planet. — Joel Salatin

I do chores around the house, but I don't get an allowance for them. I wash the dishes and sweep the floor ... I'm sweeping the floor quite a lot, and my mum always expects me to get a broom and swagger it across the floor all the time. — Callan McAuliffe

Drinkwater had a swagger to him, a confidence bordering on arrogance. He never seemed ill at ease, and even when he did not speak the language, he had ways of making himself understood. — George R R Martin

I wanted a little of that swagger that comes with being able to gaze at a far horizon through eyes of chipped granite and say with a slow, manly sniff, Yeah, I've shit in the woods. — Bill Bryson

Victor Mature was a big man; he had a great swagger. I liked him and I knew we'd be good together on screen. — Esther Williams

She had the swagger of a girl. She blushed like a boy. She had a girl's toughness. She has a boy's gentleness. She was as meaty as a girl. She was as graceful as a boy. She was as brave and handsome and rough as a girl. She was as pretty and delicate and dainty as a boy. She turned boys' heads like a girl. She turned girls' heads like a boy. She made love like a boy. She made love like a girl. She was so boyish it was girlish, so girlish it was boyish, she made me want to rove the world writing our names on every tree. I had simply never found someone so right. Sometimes this shocked me so much that I was unable to speak. — Ali Smith

Here people cycled with a reckless swagger, talking on the phone and eating breakfast. — David Nicholls

If I've sounded a wee bit overwrought in recent columns, it's because America is seizing up before our eyes. And I'm a little bewildered by how many Americans can't see it. I see that chap at LaGuardia with Don't Tread on Me on his chest and government bureaucrats in his pants. And I wonder if America's exceptional attitudinal swagger isn't providing a discreet cover for the withering of liberty. Sometimes an in-your-face attitude blinds you to what's going on under your nose. — Mark Steyn

In all we do, almost the first thing we think about is, what will people say; and nearly half the troubles and bothers of life may be traced to our anxiety on this score; it is the anxiety which is at the bottom of all that feeling of self-importance, which is so often mortified because it is so very morbidly sensitive. It is solicitude about what others will say that underlies all our vanity and pretension, yes, and all our show and swagger too. Without it, there would not be a tenth part of the luxury which exists. — Arthur Schopenhauer

You start on Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself. You wave an airy adieu to the boys on shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you were Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all rolled into one. On Tuesday, you wish you hadn't come. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead. On Saturday, you are able to swallow a little beef tea, and to sit up on deck, and answer with a wan, sweet smile when kind-hearted people ask you how you feel now. On Sunday, you begin to walk about again, and take solid food. And on Monday morning, as, with your bag and umbrella in your hand, you stand by the gunwale, waiting to step ashore, you begin to thoroughly like it. — Jerome K. Jerome

Oceans recede and coastlines wither and crack. Nations lapse; others soon swagger in their places. Mountains crumble to dust, rains vanish into the sea, winds return whence they came, and every city men build has but a jumble of bones for its foundation. What is your need to me? I am the Watcher in the Dark. — J. Aleksandr Wootton

If only media people would stop reaching for the low-hanging fruit, which is cynicism and pessimism, and stopped trying so hard to be hip and cool and have a swagger. — Emilio Estevez

Charlie Bourdel stood five foot nothing without his combat boots. His long, black, curly hair was caught up in a high ponytail that reached the middle of his back. He kept a switchblade in his right combat boot and a .45 in his guitar case and could and would willingly hurt anybody who made the mistake of messing with him. Between the badass attitude and the fifty-pound chip on his shoulder you'd think he had a fatal case of little man syndrome; you'd be dead wrong. He was one hundred and thirty pounds sopping wet of swagger and confidence. — W.E. DeVore

The stiff-backed prig, with his dandified airs and West End swagger. — William Makepeace Thackeray

But, gentlemen, whoever can pride himself on his diseases and even swagger over them? — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There are too many people today who instead of feeling hurt are acting out their hurt; instead of acknowledging pain, they're inflicting pain on others. Rather than risking feeling disappointed, they're choosing to live disappointed. Emotional stoicism is not badassery. Blustery posturing is not badassery. Swagger is not badassery. Perfection is about the furthest thing in the world from badassery. — Brene Brown

He felt ready to face the devil, and strutted in the ballroom with the swagger of a cavalier. — Robert Louis Stevenson

Rimbaud held the keys to a mystical language that I devoured even as I could not fully decipher it. My unrequited love for him was as real to me as anything I had experienced. At the factory where I had labored with a hard-edged, illiterate group of women, I was harassed in his name. Suspecting me of being a Communist for reading a book in a foreign language, they threatened me in the john, prodding me to denounce him. It was within this atmosphere that I seethed. It was for him that I wrote and dreamed. He became my archangel, delivering me from the mundane horrors of factory life. His hands had chiseled a manual of heaven and I held them fast. The knowledge of him added swagger to my step and this could not be stripped away. I tossed my copy of Illuminations in a plaid suitcase. We would escape together. — Patti Smith

Joaquin was almost ten years older than me, born in Philadelphia, and possessed a swagger that seemed unearned, considering he was wearing a FUCKING FEDORA. — Lena Dunham

She wasn't going there again. Ever. Nope, she needed transparency from a man. And Parker, for all his bad-boy, cowboy 'tude and cocky swagger, wasn't anything close to transparent. At all. And that made him downright dangerous to her. — Jill Shalvis

He'd followed Dasha once before and remembered which door was hers. He knocked, peered inside, then jumped in and shut the door, quiet as brushing two feathers together. He smiled at his own stealth, then swaggered right into a chair, banging it against the wall.
You oaf. He cut short his swagger and begin to move with exaggerated sneakiness. There was a certain pleasure in that, too. — Shannon Hale

Boys had something else ... a sort of swagger about them. — Scott Westerfeld

[Speaking to 29-year-old ex-guerrilla]

'I see it as a process. First, yes, you do negotiate. But if that does not work, then you have to use violence to get what you need. Even if you have to bomb a school.' There was a swagger to that statement, a perverted machismo: only a real man understands the necessity of bombing a school. — Samanth Subramanian

Amanda was probably in her mid-fifties, a small woman, maybe five-three on a good day. Her attitude filled the room, and she walked with a swagger that rivaled a bullfighter's. She wore a simple diamond ring on her wedding finger, though Will knew she wasn't currently married. She had no children, or perhaps she had eaten them when they were young. — Karin Slaughter

Not exactly what I wanted, but you know what they say about getting what you want."
"That you should want what you have instead?" I guessed.
"No! That's ridiculous advice. Jesus, who told you that? Never mind, don't even answer that. Just forget you ever heard it. They, and by 'they' I am referring to those who know what the hell they're talking about, say that you can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes ... " He held out his hand for me to finish.
"You just might get what you need?"
He shucked me under the chin and gave me his best cocky smile. "There's hope for you yet."
He walked away from me with a determined swagger and didn't look back. — Liz Reinhardt

I actually shivered at the insincerity that gripped me as I spoke these words: their falseness was shameful. I was sure my coolness would return. I'd just been caught with my guard down. But at the moment I was in shambles. Walking along the deck (adopting my old casual swagger), I jollied up the troops with small talk, put on a frozen grin, and kept murmuring to myself with rhythmic fatuity: You love the marine Corps, it's a terrific war, you love the Marine Corps, it's a terrific war ... — William Styron

It's all in her walk, a cartoon swagger. Part Jayne Mansfield, part Muhammad Ali. Men never know if it's an invitation upstairs or an invitation outside. — Emma Forrest

I think it's genetically impossible not to be kind of in love with him when you come equipped with a vagina. It's just something about all that angsty, moody swagger he has that makes you want to cuddle him up and make him feel better. — Jay Crownover

The masculine imagination lives in a state of perpetual revolt against the limitations of human life. In theological terms, one might say that all men, left to themselves, become gnostics. They may swagger like peacocks, but in their heart of hearts they all think sex an indignity and wish they could beget themselves on themselves. Hence the aggressive hostility toward women so manifest in most club-car stories. — W. H. Auden

You gotta love Rick Perry's swagger. The Texas Governor is out there in the Iowa cornfields, unabashedly going to toe-to-toe with President Obama, doing his best to instantly cast himself as the big dog in the Republican pack. — Jeff Goodell

I'm currently single, so I want to have fun! As for what guys need to do to date out of their league, it's all about the swagger. If you have confidence, you can get pretty much any girl. — Krysten Ritter

And Barcelona. You should see Barcelona." "How is it?" "It is all still comic opera. First it was the paradise of the crackpots and the romantic revolutionists. Now it is the paradise of the fake soldier. The soldiers who like to wear uniforms, who like to strut and swagger and wear red-and-black scarves. Who like everything about war except to fight. Valencia makes you sick and Barcelona makes you laugh. — Ernest Hemingway,

Thanks pal, but I tend to avoid any substance that makes me feel smarter, stronger, or better looking than I know I actually am. There were, in his opinion, drugs that diminished ego and drugs that engorged ego, which is to say, revelatory drugs and delusory drugs, and on a psychic level, at least, he favored awe over swagger. Should he ever aspire to become voluntarily delusional, then good old-fashioned alcohol would do the job effectively and inexpensively, thank you, and without the dubious bonus of jaw-clenching jitters. — Tom Robbins

Faith, doubt, humility, and confidence - this is the stuff and substance of theology at its best. Swagger, smugness, and certainty - this is the stuff and substance of ideology at its worst. — Austin Fischer

Men don't traipse. We... Swagger — Jodi Picoult

Jeremy brought you halfway, but the rest is mine. I've had you the rest of the way." He said as Jeremy handed me over and pressed a kiss to my cheek.
I looked up at Cage as he tucked my arm into his and bestowed me with one of his soul-stealing grins. "It's time we start our always, Eva."
I turned to face him. I stood on my tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his lips. Then I whispered, "We already have. We've been working on our always since you walked into my world with a cocky swagger and a smile. — Abbi Glines

I may even swagger a little, and, as I read in a book somewhere, 'push myself forward like a train. — Eldridge Cleaver

I'm tall with broad shoulders, and therefore, I like clothes with a bit of a swagger - mannish clothes that you can wear with a lot of feminine, sweet tops. I put my own looks together - a favourite coat, a bit of vintage, a bit of high street. — Joanna Lumley

You can't cover up the swagger of a cowboy. — Jaycee Ford

I worked in a grocery store my whole life, Honey-girl. I know what lonely housewives think of this."
"I meant the baby, Jerk."
"Attached to me."
"You think you're cute, don't you?"
"Are you honestly asking me this? I know you're not debating it. — Pella Grace

When you win, don't swagger. When you lose, don't sulk. — Rick Warren

the cape held within its folds something of what she imagined was a quality possessed exclusively by man: some dash, some audacity, some swagger of freedom denied to woman — Anais Nin

I think you can tell the difference between "swagger" and real confidence immediately. You can smell it, like bad body spray versus nice cologne. — Stephanie Beatriz

Storm returns with close-cropped hair the color of corn silk and a new swagger. — Rae Carson

Sir Swagger Douchington the Fuck — Karina Halle

The only way to ever truly get your confidence and swagger back, I've learned, is to fight for them. — Georges St-Pierre

HOW TO TRIUMPH LIKE A GIRL I like the lady horses best, how they make it all look easy, like running 40 miles per hour is as fun as taking a nap, or grass. I like their lady horse swagger, after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up! But mainly, let's be honest, I like that they're ladies. As if this big dangerous animal is also a part of me, that somewhere inside the delicate skin of my body, there pumps an 8-pound female horse heart, giant with power, heavy with blood. Don't you want to believe it? Don't you want to lift my shirt and see the huge beating genius machine that thinks, no, it knows, it's going to come in first. — Ada Limon

Perhaps it increased his annoyance that there was a certain unusual liveliness about the usually languid figure of Fisher. The ordinary image of him in March's mind was that of a pallid and bald-browed gentleman, who seemed to be prematurely old as well as prematurely bald. He was remembered as a man who expressed the opinions of a pessimist in the language of a lounger. Even now March could not be certain whether the change was merely a sort of masquerade of sunshine, or that effect of clear colors and clean-cut outlines that is always visible on the parade of a marine resort, relieved against the blue dado of the sea. But Fisher had a flower in his buttonhole, and his friend could have sworn he carried his cane with something almost like the swagger of a fighter. With such clouds gathering over England, the pessimist seemed to be the only man who carried his own sunshine. — G.K. Chesterton

"Only with effort can the camera be forced to lie: basically it is an honest medium: so the photographer is much more likely to approach nature in a spirit of inquiry, of communion, instead of with the saucy swagger of self-dubbed "artists"." — Edward Weston

Finally here, Imma star with the timing. My swagger is chill and my flow is reclining. — Drake

Even bloody and bruised, he had an odd sort of swagger, as if he crash-landed in giant air ships every day. — Scott Westerfeld

Death is the common right Of toads and men, - Of earl and midge The privilege. Why swagger then? The gnat's supremacy Is large as thine. — Emily Dickinson

He loves the rough men in the romance novels. The mysterious guys with all the swagger." Trevor's cheeks flushed. "Men like that don't exist," Denver said matter-of-factly. "Women write those books because they don't want to deal with the reality that their hero has dirty laundry, belches, and doesn't worship the ground they walk on. — Dannika Dark

Love me or hate me. It's one or the other. Always has been. Hate my game, my swagger. Hate my fadeaway, my hunger. Hate that I'm a veteran, a champion. Hate that. Hate it with all your heart. And hate that I'm loved for the exact same reasons. — Kobe Bryant

Men who make money rarely saunter; men who save money rarely swagger. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

The gestures and the swagger and the attitude of black men is imitated everywhere in American culture, but people still find black men intolerable. — Jess Row

When we remove ego, we're left with what is real. What replaces ego is humility, yes - but rock-hard humility and confidence. Whereas ego is artificial, this type of confidence can hold weight. Ego is stolen. Confidence is earned. Ego is self-anointed, its swagger is artifice. One is girding yourself, the other gaslighting. It's the difference between potent and poisonous. — Ryan Holiday

Of course, growing up, I was a big fan of rap so that was something that I got into. I was a fan of a lot of artists. You can be a fan, but at the same time, you gotta carve your own swagger and carve out your own style. — Kirko Bangz

The door to the courtroom burst open and Lancelot swept in. Dressed in a full suit of armour, the idiot looked like an idiot. His idiot blond hair and idiot chiseled jaw line further contributed to his idiocy. The idiot cleft on his too pretty face and the idiot swagger to his too swaggering proclaimed to anyone that he was the biggest idiot in the kingdom. And, given that the Northlands was full to bursting with idiots, that was quite a feat of idiocy. — Cassandra Gannon

She had a woman's swagger at twelve-and-a-half. Hair: strawberry-blonde, and I vaguely recall a daisy in the crook of her ear. She was an inch taller than me, two with the ponytail; smooth cheeks and darling brown eyes that marbled in luscious contrast with her magnolia skin; cream, melting to peach, melting to pink. She beamed like a cherub without the baby fat; a tender neck; pristine lips that would never part for a dirty word. Her body
of no interest to me at the time
was wrapped from neck to toes with home-made footie pajamas, the kind they make for toddlers, but I didn't laugh; the girl filled that silly one-piece ensemble as if it were couture. — Jake Vander Ark

The Southern man has a certain swagger about him that every woman craves in a man, whether she is willing to admit it or not. in this depressingly utilitarian age, when young lovers remove identical faded jeans and pea jackets before getting into bed together, the thought of a beau sabreur lover is not unappealing, Neither the overbearing male chauvinist nor the supportive gelding are capalbe of stirring the female blood, but a dashing cavalier is. — Florence King

I thought I'd be edgy and dye my hair red. And I dyed my hair, like, Jessica Rabbit red. It kind of allowed me to have this whole new confidence and this whole new swagger and this whole new sense of self. It kind of brought out the inner rock star in me. I had never dyed my hair like that, and no one forgot me after that. — Candice Accola

Rocker dudes dont have swagger — Demi Lovato

I have a natural swagger. — Kevin Bacon

I think swagger's a confidence. It's a confidence of you knowing that you work hard for your success. A lot of times, you can't develop swagger if you haven't worked hard to succeed. — Amar'e Stoudemire

Unchecked pride evolves into swagger, a hypnotizing mask of insecurity that can and does compromise our ability to make progress and attain power. Pride stands in the way of forgiveness and a strategic approach to navigating a chessboard rigged to prevent pawns from becoming kings and queens. — Jason Whitlock

I do walk with a bit of a swagger. I do swear a lot. And people are going to be offended by that. But in this PC world, you can't be honest. — Danny Dyer

When Jack Swagger copies my Ankle Lock and Randy Orton does my Angle Slam, it's disrespectful. I didn't come up with the Ankle Lock; Ken Shamrock came up with the Ankle Lock, but I waited until he retired to do the Ankle Lock. — Kurt Angle

Too many churches have become entertainment halls where star speakers strut and swagger for their fans. For too many houses of worship, the platform has become a performance stage for musicians - and I mean that in the most ignoble sense. Even when they shout and sing the name of Jesus Christ, somehow the focus of attention is upon them and public praise stays with them. — Charles R. Swindoll

I tell my kids in the Academy at Newcastle to watch Henry. He plays with such a swagger, not an arrogance, and that is a great quality. He always looks so comfortable. You talk about cars going from 0 to 60 in a matter of seconds, and he is like that. He just explodes. I could sit there for hours and watch him. — Peter Beardsley

As a result, the only sensible course of action for trade on a void station was to talk loudly, swagger noticeably, wear your weapons openly, and check everything twice; or, failing that, see who the people who could manage those things bought from and do the same, on the basis that those merchants were likely to be fairly honest at least some of the time. "Let's — Mike Brooks

The best teams I've had had a little bit of swagger. — John Calipari

In a world of constant conformity, God has called us to be different (Romans 12:2), set apart (Jeremiah 1:5), walking tall with a righteous swagger, a Jesus swagger. — Jarrid Wilson

He had a certain air of being a handsome man
which he was not; and a certain air of being a well-bred man
which he was not. It was mere swagger and challenge; but in this particular, as in many others, blustering assertion goes for proof, half over the world. — Charles Dickens

Yeah, that went really well. What, I wasn't gentle enough for you? Were you looking for flowers and candles? You don't like to sweat? Are you really a romantic under the tough guy swagger?"

Gabriel straightened. "No, but Oz said that you are."

~Dev/Gabe — Sydney Croft

Damn it's a shame you're the mighty queen of vials,
With a wide-eyed look and a rotten-toothed smile.
Used to walk with a swagger, now you simply stagger
From one spot on, to the next spot on, to the next spot on, to the next ... — Sadat X

I think you'd better stay extra alert tonight."

"Okay."

"I'm serious, Jeff. Someone snuck up on both Hampton and Martin, and neither of them are shirkers."

He grins. "You're worried for me, aren't you?"

"Course I am."

"Know what I think?"

I scowl at him, which only widens his grin.

He steps closer, puts a hand to my chin, and lifts it so I can't avoid his gaze. "I think you're in love with me," he says.

I stare at his lips. What comes out of my mouth is: "Jefferson McCauley Kingfisher, you have the swagger of a rooster and the swelled head of a melon. — Rae Carson

She was wary, trained to expect little of life, grateful for small pleasures, on her guard against promises, accustomed to making the best of things, in the habit of both wanting and not daring to want something more. Now Miracle Polish has come along, with its air of swagger and its taunting little whisper. Why not? it seemed to say. Why on earth not? But the mirrors that strengthened me, that filled me with new life, made Monica bristle. Did she feel that I preferred a false version of her, a glittering version, to the flesh-and-blood Monica with her Band-Aids and big knees and her burden of sorrows? What drew me was exactly the opposite. In the shining mirrors I saw the true Monica, the hidden Monica, the Monica buried beneath years of discouragement. Far from escaping into a world of polished illusions, I was able to see, in the depths of those mirrors, the world no longer darkened by diminishing hopes and fading dreams. There, all was clear, all was possible. — Steven Millhauser

Grant glanced down at his khaki jacket. Since he'd slipped on the US Navy uniform in Agent Bounter's office, he'd felt a confident swagger possess him. His spine lengthened, and his shoulders retracted. He should've been wearing this every day, not the stupid dress shirt and slacks of a lounge singer. — Jennifer Lane

RG III a victim of his own swagger, — Jason Whitlock

There were, in his opinion, drugs that diminished ego and drugs that engorged ego, which is to say, revelatory drugs and delusory drugs; and on a psychic level, at least, he favored awe over swagger. — Tom Robbins