Grunt Quotes

• Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal thought.

  William Osler

  Wise, Science, Looks

  Sir William Osler, Mark E. Silverman, T. J. Murray, Charles S. Bryan, American College of Physicians--American Society of Internal Medicine (2003). “The Quotable Osler”, p.29, ACP Press

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• That's what supporting the troops is really all about - making sure American grunts get the right stuff!

  David Hackworth

  Stuff, Troops, Right Stuff

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• Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.

  Pierre Trudeau

  Sleep, Elephants, Friendly

  Pierre Trudeau's address to the Press Club in Washington, D.C., March 25, 1969.

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• It is because the public are a mass inert, obtuse, and passive that they need to be shaken up from time to time so that we can tell from their bear-like grunts where they are and also where they stand. They are pretty harmless, in spite of their numbers, because they are fighting against intelligence.

  Alfred Jarry

  Fighting, Numbers, Psychology

  Alfred Jarry (1961). “Ubu Roi”, p.175, New Directions Publishing

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• You can get far in North America with laconic grunts. "Huh," "hun," and "hi!" in their various modulations, together with "sure," "guess so," "that so?" and "nuts!" will meet almost any contingency.

  Ian Fleming

  Nuts, America, Together

  Ian Fleming (2012). “For Your Eyes Only”, Vintage Digital

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• How the little piglets would grunt if they knew how the old boar suffered.

  Ragnar Lodbrok

  Piglet, Littles, Last Words

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• Never, however, do I take shortcuts. There is not path of least resistance in my training. What I do equates to hard manual labor, disciplined grunt work. Once you permit yourself to compromise, you fail yourself. You might be able to fool some people, but you can never fool yourself. Your toughest critic is the one you face every morning in the mirror.

  Dean Karnazes

  Morning, Mirrors, People

  Dean Karnazes (2012). “Run!: 26.2 Stories of Blisters and Bliss”, p.98, Rodale

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• Perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  War, Gun, Pigs

  "Cat's Cradle". Book by Kurt Vonnegut (Chapter 114), 1963.

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• If you feel like keeping a journal-that neither you nor anyone else on earth will ever want to read-be my guest. But if you want to write something that may eventually see the light of day, that a magazine might buy or a publisher publish, then you'll have to knock off the journaling and do the grunt work that real writing requires.

  Robert Masello

  Real, Writing, Light

  Robert Masello (2005). “Robert's Rules of Writing”, p.11, Writer's Digest Books

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• I'm still trying to find the perfect Nirvana song that's an example of that, but you do hear a lot of their songs start with an extremely emotional death grunts.

  Ian Christe

  Song, Emotional, Perfect

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• From my image of digging around in the mud like a grunt, I preferred fighting the war from ships.

  Haskell Wexler

  War, Fighting, Digging

  "Remembering Oscar-Winning Cinematographer Haskell Wexler". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. December 29, 2015.

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• In a way, it is I who must do the grunt work. I want to work with kids... I hope we can grow so much that someone else can take care of what I do now.

  Sofia Hellqvist

  Kids, Care, Want

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• Speech as known to us was unnecessary. A fragment of a sentence amounted almost to a long-winded redundancy. A gesture, a grunt, the curve of a facial line--even a significantly timed pause yielded informational juice.

  Isaac Asimov

  Curves, Long, Juice

  Isaac Asimov (2004). “Second Foundation”, p.19, Spectra

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• To know the piano is to know the universe. To master the piano is to master the universe. The spectrum of piano sound acts as a prism through which all musical and non-musical sounds may be filtered. The grunts of sheep, the braying of mules, the popping of champagne corks, the sighs of unrequited love, not to mention the full lexicon of sounds available to all other instruments-including whistles, scrapes, bleatings, caresses, thuds, hoots, plus sweet and sour pluckings-fall within the sovereignty of this most bare and dissembling chameleon.

  Russell Sherman

  Sweet, Fall, Unrequited Love

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• I can't help but admire the structural linguists who have carved out for themselves a linguistic discipline based on the deterioration of written communication. Another case of men devoting their lives to studying more and more about less and less - filling volumes and libraries with the subtle linguistic analysis of the grunt.

  Daniel Keyes

  Men, Discipline, Library

  "Flowers for Algernon".

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• I have to mime at parties when everyone sings Happy Birthday... Mime or mumble and rumble and growl and grunt so deep that only moles, manta rays and mushrooms can hear me.

  Stephen Fry

  Party, Mushrooms, Rays

  Stephen Fry (2011). “Moab Is My Washpot”, p.78, Soho Press

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• When I was about 17, I didn't speak. English was like a foreign language. I'd just grunt. The only time I talked was when I said my lines on set. I didn't speak to any of the actors or anything. Then one day Alison from the Corrie press office started talking to me in the green room and I just decided to talk back. She ran upstairs to tell everyone that she'd just had a 10-minute conversation with me like it was the most unbelievable thing in the world. I just woke up one day and thought, 'I'm going to talk today'. I've really made up for lost time since.

  Jack P. Shepherd

  Talking, Speak English, Office

  Source: www.mirror.co.uk

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• Writing a song is almost like cheating-writing because you don't have to finish your sentences, you don't have to use any punctuation, no one's going to edit your work. It's so wide open. People just grunt and that's a song. You can kind of do anything.

  Mirah

  Cheating, Song, Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

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• All across America news organizations have been devoured by massive corporations, and allegiance to stockholders, the drive for higher share prices, and push for larger dividend returns trumps everything that the grunts in the newsrooms consider their missions.

  Laurie Garrett

  Organization, America, Corporations

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• No, I don't have to practice that grunt. You just do it. Once you're in character, you're in character. You don't sit there purposely thinking, Well, I'll grunt here, or I'll groan there.

  Clint Eastwood

  Character, Thinking, Practice

  "Clint Eastwood: What I've Learned" by Cal Fussman, www.esquire.com. December 15, 2008.

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• Personally, I love the cookie monster grunts. I like how they alienate listeners. We sound the way we sound. We're individuals. We don't all like the same music. Everybody contributes their own influences, style, and history.

  David Pajo

  Style, Monsters, Sound

  "Dead Child". Interview with Pitchfork, pitchfork.com. April 22, 2008.

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• You don't attack the grunts of Vietnam; you blame the theory behind the war. Nobody who fought in that war was at fault. It was the war itself that was at fault.

  James Hillman

  War, Vietnam, Faults

  Source: scottlondon.com

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• A God who counts minutes and pennies, a desperate sensual God, who grunts like a pig. A pig with golden wings, who falls and falls, always belly side up, ready for caresses, that’s him, our master. Come, kiss me.

  Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  Fall, Kissing, Pigs

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• Romance takes place in the middle distance. Romance is looking in at yourself through a window clouded with dew. Romance means leaving things out: where life grunts and shuffles, romance only sighs.

  Margaret Atwood

  Love, Distance, Mean

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• I’ll make Goyle do lines, it’ll kill him, he hates writing,” said Ron happily. He lowered his voice to Goyle’s low grunt and, screwing up his face in a look of pained concentration, mimed writing in midair. “I... must... not... look... like... a... baboon’s... backside.

  J. K. Rowling

  Hate, Writing, Voice

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