Wily Quotes & Sayings

The personal inevitably trumps the political, and the erotic trumps all: We will remember that Cleopatra slept with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony long after we have forgotten what she accomplished in doing so, that she sustained a vast, rich, densely populated empire in its troubled twilight in the name of a proud and cultivated dynasty. She remains on the map for having seduced two of the greatest men of her time, while her crime was to have entered into those same "wily and suspicious" marital partnerships that every man in power enjoyed. She did so in reverse and in her own name; this made her a deviant, socially disruptive, an unnatural woman. To these she added a few other offenses. She made Rome feel uncouth, insecure, and poor, sufficient cause for anxiety without adding sexuality into the mix. — Stacy Schiff

Well, you devious little woman you. Do you know what I do to wily women?
"You ... leave them panting and oneless after a world-class orgasm?" she guessed.
"Why yes. Yes, ma'am, I do." Picking her up, I carried her back to my room and kicked the door shut behind me. — Linda Kage

An Autobiography is the truest of all books,for while it inevitably consists mainly of extinctions of the truth, shirkings of the truth, partial revealments of the truth, with hardly an instance of plain straight truth, the remorseless truth is there, between the lines, where the author-cat is raking dust upon it which hides from the disinterested spectator neither it nor its smell (though I didn't use that figure)
the result being that the reader knows the author in spite of his wily diligences. — Mark Twain

Pastors are starting to get wily. When people tell my friend, 'I'm not being fed,' he replies, 'I'm prefectly happy to spoon feed my one-year-old. But if I'm still spoon-feeding him when he's five, we've got a problem. Here's a fork. Feed yourself. — Jon Acuff

Stalky,' in their school vocabulary, meant clever, well-considered and wily, as applied to plans of action; and 'stalkiness' was the one virtue Corkran toiled after. — Rudyard Kipling

The People's' historic duty was to become a nameless herd and submit to the absolute control of a small pack of wily and vicious intellectuals. — Charles Portis

Samantha turned on a coy smile and the wily charm of a coquettish girl. A little shiver went through me. The one thing she wasn't was coy or coquettish. More like a cold hearted killer who only smiled at the thought of violence. — Kaden Brown

You are not entering this world in the usual manner, for you are setting forth to be a Dungeon Master. Certainly there are stout fighters, mighty magic-users, wily thieves, and courageous clerics who will make their mark in the magical lands of D&D adventure. You however, are above even the greatest of these, for as DM you are to become the Shaper of the Cosmos. It is you who will give form and content to the all the universe. You will breathe life into the stillness, giving meaning and purpose to all the actions which are to follow. — Gary Gygax

The Hedgehog Concept comes from the Greek fable about the fox and the hedgehog: while the wily fox knows many things, the simple hedgehog only knows one thing, but that one knowledge bite is highly impactful in protecting itself against danger. Discovering that simple but essential element is what created the success of the good-to-great companies. — Eighty Twenty Publishing

This coyote is a wily dog born
from ancient trickster bones,
Loki, Hermes, the northwestern Raven of lore — Toby Barlow

The competition for the future of crime fiction is fierce, as it should be, but don't take your eyes off Craig McDonald. He's wily, talented and-rarest of the rare-a true original. He writes melancholy poetry that actually has melancholy poets wandering around, but don't turn your backs on them, either. I am always eager to see what he's going to do next. — Laura Lippman

To-morrow is that lamp upon the marsh, which a traveller never reacheth;
To-morrow, the rainbow's cup, coveted prize of ignorance;
To-morrow, the shifting anchorage, dangerous trust of manners;
To-morrow, the wrecker's beacon, wily snare of the destroyer.
Reconcile conviction with delay, and To-morrow is a fatal lie;
Frighten resolutions into action, To-morrow is a wholesome truth. — Martin Farquhar Tupper

Truth can hardly be expected to adapt herself to the crooked policy and wily sinuosities of worldly affairs; for truth, like light, travels only in straight lines. — Charles Caleb Colton

I found myself in an unknown universe, whirling far into space. African servants, dogs in hats, platonic ideals, sparkling conversation, and ivy-coated quadrangles with womanizing captains, dueling earls, actors. I met Father Cyprien de Gamache, her majesty's wily confessor; William, a poet, who claimed to be Shakespeare's son; and a giggling dwarf called Jeffry, who'd been presented to the queen in a pie. I met the ladies-in-waiting, too, who hardly looked my way, busy as they were, bickering over who went where and when, who wore what and when, who fetched what and why, who said what and to whom, and who gave her the right to say that. — Danielle Dutton

I'm sorry about these two," Mike told the waitress. "Just so you know, I'll be embarrassed with you."
"It's just that we haven't seen each other since summmer camp," Becky said.
"And we'd formed such a bond playing wily tricks on our camp counselors," Felix said.
"Remember how you replaced Miss Pepper's shampoo with liquid Jell-O and turned her hair green?"
"It was sheer genius when you stretched cling film over all the toilet seats."
"Oh." The waitress turned to Mike, as if to address the only sane member of the group. "So, are ya'll ready to eat now, or are you waiting for your date to arrive?"
Mike played with the menu. "Actually, she's my date."
"These are my two husbands," Becky said. "We're from Utah. You know, Mormom. — Shannon Hale

Taunting Death ... means pitting oneself against a wily enemy who cannot lose. — J.K. Rowling

The concept of marketing is almost as old as humanity itself ... suffice it to say here that it took almost no time for a wily serpent to sell Adam and Eve on a shiny apple from the Tree of Knowledge, at which point they became not only the first humans but also the first marketing demographic, and God expelled them from the Garden of Eden for being total consumerist dupes. (p. 40) — BikeSnobNYC

Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of the wily agitator who induces him to desert? I think that in such a cse to silence the agitator and save the boy is not only constitutional but withal a great mercy. — Abraham Lincoln

You don't drink?" Samantha asked, clearly surprised.
Jack shrugged easily. "Occasionally. But it's not my poison."
"And what is your poison?"
He eyed her dress.
Samantha laughed, a husky, sexy sound. "So your reputation is earned."
"Which one is that?"
"The one about you being a wily, unapologetic, womanizing rake."
"That's a mouthful. — Alexi Lawless

What does democracy come down to? The persuasive power of slogans invented by wily self-seeking politicians. — W. Somerset Maugham

Maybe God is only the most powerful poetic idea we humans're capable of thinkin'," he said one night, after a few drinks. "Maybe God has no reality outside our minds and exists only in the paradox of Perfect Compassion and Perfect Justice. Or maybe," he suggested, slouching back in his chair and favoring her with a lopsided, wily grin, "maybe God is exactly as advertised in the Torah. Maybe, along with all its other truths and beauties, Judaism preserves for each generation of us the reality of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Moses - the God of Jesus." A cranky, uncanny God, D.W. called Him. "A God with quirky, unfathomable rules, a God who gets fed up with us and pissed off! But quick to forgive, Sofia, and generous, — Mary Doria Russell

I think the Internet is an awful lot like FM radio was when it broke out in the late '60s. It's kind of a wild and wily kind of format. They could play 20 songs in a row that had the word 'blue' in them, or whatever they wanted to do. — Roger McGuinn

If you are not careful you will find yourself actually in the employ of the devil. He is powerful, slick, crafty, wily, and subtle. — Billy Graham

You can't make me do anything. I'm an adult. And I'm much stronger than you."
"Upper body strength isn't everything; I have wiles."
"Not really."
"Yes, I do. I'm a woman. Women have wiles."
"Some women. It's not like every woman is born wily."
"If I don't have wiles, she said, "how come I can get you to do most anything I want?"
"You don't get me to do anything. I just do things. Because I love you."
"Oh."
"Christ, Georgie, don't sound so disappointed. — Rainbow Rowell

I am so wily and feminine that I could live by your side for a lifetime and deceive you afresh each day. — Jane Bowles

Diplomacy, of course, is a subtle and nuanced craft, so much so that it's said that when the most wily diplomat of the nineteenth-century passed away, other diplomats asked, on reports of his death, What do you suppose the old fox meant by that? — Ronald Reagan

But correspondents are a wily bunch. Having stashed their typewriters, crossed the border, changed their clothes, and counted to ten, they began slipping back into the country one by one. So in 1928, the Foreign Press Office was opened anew on the top floor of a six-story walk-up conveniently located halfway between the Kremlin and the offices of the secret police - a spot that just happened to be across the street from the Metropol. Thus, — Amor Towles

With age, the mind grows slower and more wily. — Mason Cooley

Ask a fellow if he favors organized prayer in the public schools. If he says 'No' he's a liberal. If he says 'Yes' he's a conservative. If he says, 'Public schools? The Constitution grants the government no power to run any mandatory tax-funded youth propaganda camps,' you have your hands on the wily libertarian. — Vin Suprynowicz

Anything that happens after this party breaks up is nothing. Everything is now. It's like war. Everyone is handsome, shining, just thinking about other people's blood. As though the red was flying from veins not theirs is facial makeup patented for its glow. Inspiriting. Glamorous. Afterward there will be some chatter and recapitulation of what went on; nothing though like the action itself and the beat that pumps the heart. In war or at a party everyone is wily, intriguing; goals are set and altered, alliances rearranged. Partners and rivals devastated; new pairings triumphant. The knockout possibilities knock Dorcas out because here
with grown-ups and as in war
people play for keeps. — Toni Morrison

My default answer to everything is no. As soon as I hear the inflection of inquiry in your voice, the word no forms in my mind, sometimes accompanies by a reason, often not. Can I open the mail? No. Can I wear your necklace? No. When is dinner? No. What you probably wouldn't believe is how much I want to say yes. Yes, you can take two dozen books home from the library. Yes, you can eat the whole roll of SweeTarts. Yes, you can camp out on the deck. But the books will get lost, and SweeTarts will eventually make your tongue bleed, and if you sleep on the deck, the neighborhood racoons will nibble on you. I often wish I could come back to life as your uncle, so I could give you more. But, when you're the mom, your whole life is holding the rope against those wily secret agents who never, ever stop trying to get you to drop your end. — Kelly Corrigan

Accidentally consumed five biscuits when I wasn't paying attention. Those biscuits are wily fellows - they leap in like sugary ninjas — Charles Dickens

Sylvia smiled at her like a wily fox. — Tasha Blue

But doubt is wily and cunning and never, as it is sometimes said to be, loud or defiant. It is unassuming and sly, not bold or assertive - and the more unassuming, the more dangerous. — Soren Kierkegaard

I like games where you can use stealth and guile. As you get older, it's like the difference between playing squash and racketball. Squash is an older man's game, because if you're stealthy and wily, you can beat a better-co-ordinated and stronger, younger person. — Nolan Bushnell

He is lost in Agamemnon and Odysseus' wily double meanings, their lies and games of power. They have confounded him, tied him to a stake and baited him. I stroke the soft skin of his forehead. I would untie him if I could. If he would let me. — Madeline Miller

America is not a wily, sneaky nation. We don't think that way. We don't think much at all, thank God. — P. J. O'Rourke

The subterranean lair of the wily human relationship: a dark maze of pop-up demons, fun house mirrors, spooky dead ends, multiple false bottoms. — Stephen Wright

All the Jews of Polish origin were being sent back to the land of their forefathers, and so the two gentle sisters kissed us and packed and left. We sent them packages in care of the Jewish community in Warsaw, but of course the packages were returned because it was illegal to send anything to Jews. So we took the advice of a wily neighbor, wrote the address in Polish, and like magic the packages arrived. — Edith Hahn Beer

Rebel against the flesh and bone,
The word of the blood, the wily skin,
And the maggot no man can slay. — Dylan Thomas

He dreamed big but understood that dreams become reality only when their champions are strong enough and wily enough to bend history to their purposes. — Jon Meacham

At home there tarries like a lurking snake,
Biding its time, a wrath unreconciled,
A wily watcher, passionate to slake,
In blood, resentment for a murdered child. — Aeschylus

When my father was vigorous and lucid, (my mother) regarded medicine as her wily ally in a lifelong campaign to keep old age, sickness, and death at bay. Now ally and foe exchanged masks. Medicine looked more like the enemy, and death the friend. (p. 184) — Katy Butler

It's not that I'm being shy. It's just that
well, for one, I don't even remember the event. It's a blank: a white slate, a black hole. I have vague images, half-impressions: of being, or having been
or, more precisely, being about to be
hit; blue light; railings; lights of other colours; being held above some kind of tray or bed. But who's to say that these are genuine memories? Who's to say my traumatized mind didn't just make them up, or pull them out from somewhere else, some other slot, and stick them there to plug the gap
the crater
that the accident had blown? Minds are versatile and wily things. Real chancers. — Tom McCarthy

For pomp is a tenacious force. And a wily one too. How — Amor Towles

the Impostor Phenomenon, originally described by Dr. Pauline Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes: "an internal experience of intellectual phoniness." I think we're all familiar with this belief and its wily ways. It's that voice that tells you you're not good enough, that some day soon everyone will find out you're a fraud, that you need to do a little more research or get a little more training to be successful. And it's favorite tactic is having you pursue the "right" way instead of your way. — Anonymous

Foxes are rats in expensive coats. What are foxes associated with? Evil, wily, conniving, duplicitous, Fox News - worst news service on the planet and the evilest. — Rich Hall

Srinagar is a medieval city dying in a modern war. It is empty streets, locked shops, angry soldiers and boys with stones. It is several thousand military bunkers, four golf courses, and three book-shops. It is wily politicians repeating their lies about war and peace to television cameras and small crowds gathered by the promise of an elusive job or a daily fee of a few hundred rupees. It is stopping at sidewalks and traffic lights when the convoys of rulers and their patrons in armored cars, secured by machine guns, rumble on broken roads. It is staring back or looking away, resigned. Srinagar is never winning and never being defeated. — Basharat Peer

His fame as an artist requires very tender care. Look what a mask of diplomacy is painstakingly formed by the whole of that fine profile; he is as wily as a cardinal. He has scented in Miss White a useful agent of celebrity, and he has come solely to harness her to the cause of his glory. It is himself that he courts by means of the salaams he offers to her; he only ever flirts with himself. He is the Narcissus of the inkpot ... — Jean Lorrain

Oh Satan you're a wily one. — Craig Ferguson

Weary of wily politicians who say one thing and do another, voters and advocacy groups insist presidential contenders commit to the cause du jour in writing, but candidates are foolish to comply. Words matter. — Mark McKinnon

Miley Cyrus made some chinky eyes
Standing behind an Asian guy
I don't know if this should fly
As if there wasn't enough to despise
I wasn't necessarily a fan of
Her, her dad, or Hannah Montana
I tend to prefer the songs of Rihanna
Racism against Asians is simply bananas!
Oh Miley!
Chinky eyes make you look wily
prejudice isn't thought of so highly
it doesn't make us all smiley
Why is there nothing that Asians can do?
To make fun of other races as easily as you
Why isn't racism against Asians taboo?
Why are we always so racially screwed!
All you have to do is pull at your face
To make your eyelids resemble our race
This kind of joke has no proper place
Miley Cyrus is a disgrace! — Margaret Cho

Death always wins. Life is just a blip. It's a shiny, hyperactive blip, but a blip nonetheless, and no matter how strong or wily or rich a life may be, the slippery slope always leads to the great nothing. — Daniel Jose Older

In short, the wily old Jew had the boy in his toils. Having prepared his mind, by solitude and gloom, to prefer any society to the companionship of his own sad thoughts in such a dreary place, he was now slowly instilling into his soul the poison which he hoped would blacken it, and change its hue for ever. — Charles Dickens

The Fox And The Crow
A CROW having stolen a bit of meat, perched in a tree and held it in her beak. A Fox, seeing this, longed to possess the meat himself, and by a wily stratagem succeeded. "How handsome is the Crow," he exclaimed, in the beauty of her shape and in the fairness of her complexion! Oh, if her voice were only equal to her beauty, she would deservedly be considered the Queen of Birds!" This he said deceitfully; but the Crow, anxious to refute the reflection cast upon her voice, set up a loud caw and dropped the flesh. The Fox quickly picked it up, and thus addressed the Crow: "My good Crow, your voice is right enough, but your wit is wanting. — Aesop

Nature is a wary wily long-breathed old Witch, tough-lived as a Turtle and divisible as the Polyp, repullulative in a thousand Snips and Cuttings, integra et in toto! She is sure to get the better of Lady MIND in the long run, and to take her revenge too transforms our To Day into a Canvass dead-colored to receive the dull featureless Portait of Yesterday. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Thorn looks scrawny, but he's wily, and as fast as a ferret. — Erin Hunter

The will of the nation is one of those expressions which have been most profusely abused by the wily and the despotic of every age. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Hunters will tell you that a moose is a wily and ferocious forest creature. Nonsense. A moose is a cow drawn by a three-year-old. — Bill Bryson

As humans, after all, we become that which we seek. Dairy farming makes men steady and reliable and temperate; deer hunting makes men quiet and fast and sensitive; lobster fishing makes men suspicious and wily and ruthless. — Elizabeth Gilbert

We carry adolescence around in our bodies all our lives. We get through the Car Crash Age alive and cruise through our early twenties as cool dudes, wily, dashing, winsome ... shooting baskets, the breeze, the moon, and then we try to become caring men, good husbands, great fathers, good citizens. — Garrison Keillor

NO way was she crying in front of Ike. He already treated her like an overprotective big brother as it was. And that was really freaking annoying because it meant her fantasy of climbing him like a tree and having her wily way with him weren't ever coming true. Unrequited lust sucked big hairy donkey balls. — Laura Kaye

Everything casts two shadows.

The suns had determined this at the dawn of creation. Brothers, they were, until the younger sun showed his true face to the tribe. It was a sin. The elder sun attempted to kill his brother, as was only proper.

But he failed.

Burning, bleeding, the younger sun pursued his sibling across the sky. The wily old star fled for the hills and safety, but it was his fate never to rest again. For the younger brother had only exposed his face. The elder had exposed his failure. — John Jackson Miller

Well, a funny thing, there are three that I like all for the same reason, golf, fishing, and shooting, and I do because first, they take you into the fields. There is mild exercise, the kind that an older individual probably should have. And on top of it, it induces you to take at any one time 2 or 3 hours, if you can, where you are thinking of the bird or that ball or the wily trout. Now, to my mind it is a very healthful, beneficial kind of thing, and I do it whenever I get a chance, as you well know. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

PhD, MFA, self-taught - the only things you must have to become a writer are the stamina to continue and a wily, cagey heart in the face of extremity, failure, and success. — Alexander Chee

There is no ending, no neatness ... where water is concerned. It is wild, febrile, kind, ambiguous; it is dark and carries the mud, and it is clear and the cleanest thing. Too much of it kills us, and not enough kills us, and it is what makes us, mostly. Water is the cleverest substance, wily beyond the stretch of our mortal imaginations. And no matter where it is pent, no matter if it is air or liquid or solid, it will someday, inevitably, find its way out. — Lauren Groff

Despair keeps no clocks. If you ask him the time, he will always say it is too late to complete your journey. He will tell you his is the last stop there is, anywhere. Do not trust the wily old shopkeeper. Instead, rest a while and thank him for his stories of lost glory. Then it is best to be on your way. — Alvin Pang

Mick required far less hand-holding than Michael. Signing the Stones, though, had required a full frontal assault worthy of General Patton, one of my heroes. The final battle exploded at the Ritz Hotel in Paris back in '83. After months of relentless pursuit, I had them. All they had to do was sign when suddenly at 3 A.M. Mick goes mental and calls me a "stupid motherfuckin' record executive." I lose it. I reach for his throat. I have a vision of punching out all ninety-eight pounds of him. I stop myself, envisioning tomorrow's headline - "Yetnikoff Kills Jagger." Jagger relents, signs and from then on it's wine and roses. It was Mick - wily and witty Mick - who later that year plotted with my girlfriend, the one called Boom Boom, to throw me a surprise fiftieth birthday bash where Henny Youngman emceed and Jon Peters, Barbra — Walter Yetnikoff

(Young girls) are taught to not see, and instead to "make pretty" all manner of grotesqueries whether they are lovely or not. This training is why the youngest sister can say, "Hmmm, his beard isn't really that blue." This early training to "be nice" causes women to override their intuitions. In that sense, they are actually purposefully taught to submit to the predator. Imagine a wolf mother teaching her young to "be nice" in the face of an angry ferret or a wily diamondback rattler. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

the wily Machiavelli had always believed that any clod could have the facts - having an opinion was an art. — Ashwin Sanghi

In his dark suit, white shirt, and rep tie, he looked - and sounded - utterly professional. There was little chance he would make a mistake on direct or get tripped up on cross by a pettifogger, such as my own wily self. — Paul Levine