Turnip Quotes & Sayings

She was too proud to eat her share of what little food we had. She told me she had. She swore she did. But every time I complained about being so hungry it hurt, she always offered me a nut or a partially rotted turnip, claiming she had just found two and already ate hers."

Rose sniffled and wiped her eyes again.

"After she was gone, I left my pride in that little hut and begged my way to Medford. I'd do anything. Once you've spent an afternoon chasing a fly around your house for dinner, once you've eaten spiders whole and drooled over worms found while burying your mother with your bare hands, there's nothing beneath you. All I wanted was to live-I'd forgotten everything else. A clod of dirt doesn't have dreams. A bit of broken stone doesn't understand hope. Each morning, all I wanted was to see the next dawn. — Michael J. Sullivan

All human beings are vines. But especially the idealist. He is a vine, and he needs to clutch and climb. And he despises the man who is a mere potato, or turnip, or lump of wood. — D.H. Lawrence

There is an uncommonly harsh beauty to the Tibetan landscape. Its nakedness makes it seem incapable of deception, but under its calm deportment it conceals winds so brutal that yaks are known to die while their jaws are in masticating bliss. On hot summer days the sun licks up the rain within minutes. No puddles are formed; no moisture lingers in the air. It is only the droplets on tiny leaves of the baby turnip plant that betray rain. — Tsering Wangmo Dhompa

The turnip cannot thrive in the tulips patch of soil. — Jessie Burton

My dearest Pudding pie" I read aloud.
"Yes, my little turnip?"
"Hilarious," I muttered. "If you ever call me anything of the sort again we shall have words. — Jordan L. Hawk

Get off me you dirty turnip!" "Dirty turnip? well, pardon me Signor Cabbage-Head! — Elle Newmark

Winter was every kid's favorite season in Kabul, at least those whose fathers could afford to buy a good iron stove. The reason was simple: They shut down school for the icy season. Winter to me was the end of long division and naming the capital of Bulgaria, and the start of three months of playing cards by the stove with Hassan, free Russian movies on Tuesday mornings at Cinema Park, sweet turnip qurma over rice for lunch after a morning of building snowmen. — Khaled Hosseini

I figure it's almost like a balance. We're eating these wonderful collard greens and turnip greens which are so medicinally good for you and, OK, so what if it has a little ham hock in it? — Paula Deen

A cloud, the exact color of the boy's hat and shaped like a turnip, had descended over the sun, and another, worse looking, crouched behind the car. Mr. Shiftlet felt that the rottenness of the world was about to engulf him. — Flannery O'Connor

The only really sane person in there is Igor, and possibly the turnip. And I'm not sure about the turnip. — Terry Pratchett

Would you like a nice cold fish head? They're frozen solid: frozen head of fish, the eyeballs in there and the skeleton's coming out. It comes with a turnip and a spork." "I was wishing you had one of them left; wishing upon a star. — Brian Regan

Women. You'll interpret anything as love. You see a man wearing an idiotic expression, and you assume he's been struck by Cupid's arrow when in reality, he's digesting a bad turnip. — Lisa Kleypas

I look like a turnip with hair in the morning! — Dominic Cooper

Quite definitely a Bingley — Lauren Willig

Alongside getting faith out of a heart that is utterly hostile and unbelieving, making a silk purse out of a sow's ear or getting blood from a turnip is child's play. — John Gerstner

The turnip is a capricious vegetable, which seems reluctant to show itself at its best. — Waverley Root

A turnip would have grasped it quicker. — George R R Martin

This diamond has so many carats it's almost a turnip. — Richard Burton

I'm a floating TURNIP HEAD — Mo Willems

It was as true," said Mr. Barkis, " as turnips is. It was as true," said Mr. Barkis, nodding his nightcap, which was his only means of emphasis, " as taxes is. — Charles Dickens

An ex-tragedy queen named Miss Glynn, who, having no visible external ears, reared a head like a turnip. — Oscar Wilde

Sweeping from butcher's stalls, dung, guts, and blood,
Drown'd puppies, stinking sprats, all drench'd in mud,
Dead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood. — Jonathan Swift

You should get a better boyfriend. One with an IQ higher than a turnip. — Robyn Carr

In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print - I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books: "Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip? "Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen. "Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden? "Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera. — Mark Twain

[There is] one distinctly human thing - the story. There can be as good science about a turnip as about a man ... [Or philosophy, or theology] ... There can be, without any question at all, as good higher mathematics about a turnip as about a man. But I do not think, though I speak in a manner somewhat tentative, that there could be as good a novel written about a turnip as a man. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Someone who doesn't care if they get Tater Tots or turnip slurry is a person who has given up on life. — Charlie Jane Anders

What's a Somnubuvorus?'
'It looks like a cross between a boabab and a turnip, and about the size of a telephone box. It's actually not a plant at all but a fungus that releases puffs of hallucinogenic spores into the breeze. Anyone who inhales them suddenly becomes convinced that being near the Somnubuvorus will enlighten and enrich them with hard-hitting and devastatingly relevant social and political commentary. Then, of course, you are soon overcome with a sense of listlessness and torpidity, and fall fast asleep'.
'It sounds like what would happen if you weapoinised French cinema — Jasper Fforde

Giant Wimbleweather burst into one of those not very intelligent laughs to which the nicer sort of Giants are so liable. He checked himself at once and looked as grace as a turnip by the time Reepicheep discovered where the noise came from. — C.S. Lewis

Pyp had stabbed a turnip with his knife. "The night is dark and full of turnips," he announced in a solemn voice. "Let us all pray for venison, my children, with some onions and a bit of tasty gravy. — George R R Martin

I am Prince Horace!"
"And I'm the Grand Turnip of China!" cutwater snickered.
"Dim-witted villains!" shouted the Prince. "I command you to turn us loose. — Sid Fleischman

Good Gad! It looks like the last act of Hamlet in here.
Turnip banged his head against his clenched fists, making inarticulate moaning noises.
Pinchingdale gave him an odd look. 'I had no idea you felt so strongly about the play, Fitzhugh. — Lauren Willig

It had never occurred to him that the body of a woman of fifty, blown up to monstrous dimensions by childbearing, then hardened, roughened by work til it was coarse in the grain like an overripe turnip, could be beautiful. But is was so, and after all, he thought, why not? — George Orwell

I suppose the implication of that is the president and the vice president and myself and Colin Powell just fell off a turnip truck to take these jobs. — Donald Rumsfeld

I've always liked root vegetables because most of them have a natural sweetness. They have a high fructose content, especially when you cook them and caramelize them in a saute pan. Or you can take a turnip and cook it slowly in the oven until it's browned, and it takes on a kind of sweetness. These vegetables are pretty easy to like. — Charlie Trotter

Don't think you'll shame me with your prim silence. I'm not ashamed in the least. Just because you make friends by acting as though you were found under a turnip leaf and raised by gnomes, it doesn't mean everyone takes pleasure in being prudish. — Tessa Dare

Word of advice, sister mine. If you want to keep your papers private, don't write 'Private' on the cover. It set the mater right off. It was all I could do to stop her sniffing around like some great sniffing thing. — Lauren Willig

In German, a young lady has no sex, but a turnip has — Mark Twain

I was the fattest baby in Clark County, Arkansas. They put me in the newspaper. It was like a prize turnip. — Billy Bob Thornton

My father had all these great names for our cows. Bossy and Daisy and Petunia and Turnip. One of my jobs was to round up the cows before milking. I'd go out back with the dog and bring them in. — Bobbie Ann Mason

A lot of chefs don't have a natural sense of economy. I was with one guy the other day, and I had to show him how to peel a turnip, because the way he was peeling turnips, he was throwing half of it in the garbage. It's not about being cheap. It's about being proper. — Daniel Boulud

Like a turnip such a head could be blown away very easily. For where a man was weak, a woman has unmanned him. It would be a mercy to blow such a man away. — Joyce Carol Oates

There is a great deal more to be got out of things than is generally got out of them, whether the thing be a chapter of the Bible or a yellow turnip, and the marvel is that those who use the most material should so often be those that show the least result in strength or character. — George MacDonald

There's no getting blood out of a turnip. — Frederick Marryat

Sitting there in the Alabama winter with my mouth full of cold turnip and mud, I could see at least for a moment how if you ever took truly to heart the ultimate goodness and joy of things, even at their bleakest, the need to praise someone or something for it would be so great that you might even have to go out and speak of it to the birds of the air. — Frederick Buechner

If you'd take your head home and boil it for a turnip it might be useful. I can't say. But it might. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

If the man who turnips cries, Cry not when his father dies, 'Tis proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father. — Samuel Johnson

Besides its content and methods, the cuisine devised by squaws and hillbilly women, as well as slave women, had another thing in common, which was the belief that you made do with whatever you could lay hands on
pigs' entrails, turnip tops, cowpeas, terrapins, catfish
anything that didn't bite you first. — Shirley Abbott

He dug and ploughed over his piece of land, and then sowed some turnip seed. Soon the seed began to show itself above ground, and there grew on turnip immensely large and thick, which seemed as if it would never have done growing, but was a princess among turnips; and as there had never before been seen such a turnip, so also there has never been such another since. — Jacob Grimm

Turning to Turnip, Miss Dempsey said, 'Do you think?'. 'As little as I can,' Turnip replied honestly. — Lauren Willig

You can't squeeze blood from a turnip. — Cheryl Strayed

I still wanna know who to sue to get my store fixed. (Bubba)
I'm a turnip. Sue the rich kid who started it. (Nick) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

You'll pardon me," he finally said, "if the suggestion that the minuscule black turnip you call a heart is suddenly overflowing with generosity toward me leaves me wanting to arm myself and put my back against a wall. — Scott Lynch

I really appreciate an actor who has paid their dues and who has learned hard knocks and has been rewarded in the end. I don't understand young actors who get off the turnip truck and land in Hollywood and get a great job. They do not realize how fortunate they are. — Enrico Colantoni

Such frankness, even over good tidings, was a further offense to Mr. Fremlin. He felt that it was casual and indecent. Like most countrymen, he had a great respect for traditional mysteries. A little skill decently wrapped up impressed him far more than twice the amount flung nakedly at his feet. Old Dr. Milsom had satisfied his sense of propriety. Never, never would he have told a patient whether or not she was going to live or die; the temperature was his secret, even the name of the complain transpired only in dark hints. Standing by the bedside he would shake his head and purse his lips and consult his gold turnip-watch, so that you felt you were getting the benefit of a rare and esoteric wisdom. — Dennis Parry

Hallo, Bertie."
"Hallo, old turnip. Where have you been all this while?"
"Oh, here and there! Ripping weather we're having, Bertie."
"Not bad."
"I see the Bank Rate is down again."
"No, really?"
"Disturbing news from Lower Silesia, what?"
"Oh, dashed!"
He pottered about the room for a bit, babbling at intervals. The boy seemed cuckoo.
"Oh, I say, Bertie!" he said suddenly, dropping a vase which he had picked off the mantelpiece and was fiddling with. "I know what it was I wanted to tell you. I'm married. — P.G. Wodehouse

To him who is stinted of food a boiled turnip will relish like a roast fowl. — Saadi

You just cannot reason with a turnip. It's fruitless. — Gary Hays

What are our conductors giving us year after year? Only fresh corpses. Over these beautifully embalmed sonatas, toccatas, symphonies and operas the public dance the jitterbug. Night and day without let the radio drowns us in a hog-wash of the most nauseating, sentimental ditties. From the churches comes the melancholy dirge of the dead Christ, a music which is no more sacred than a rotten turnip. — Henry Miller

Slynt looked about the solar, at the other Eastwatch men. Does this boy think I fell off a turnip wagon onto my head? — George R R Martin

Rollins held up his watch chain. A turnip was hanging from the fob where his diamond-studded time piece should have been. "That little bastard
" Then a thought came to him. He reached for his wallet. It was gone. So was his tie pin, the Kaelish coin pendant he wore for luck, and the gold buckles on his shoes. Rollins wondered if he should check the fillings in his teeth.
"He picked your pockets?" Doughty asked incredulously.
No one got one over on Pekka Rollins. No one dared. But Brekker had, and Rollins wondered if that was just the beginning. — Leigh Bardugo

I didn't just come in on a load of turnips! — Phillip C. McGraw

Yeah, right. I don't believe that one for a minute. What do you think? I fell off a turnip truck? (Simone)
Honestly? All I was thinking about was how beautiful you are. How much I wanted to feel your skin against mine and how I've never been this attracted to a woman before. (Xypher) — Sherrilyn Kenyon