Ornery Quotes

I'm sorry, I says. Fer what? he says. Fer always bein ... you know ... so- Ungrateful? he says. Yeah, I says. Ornery? I guess so. Rude? Pig-headed? Violent? I ain't violent! Oh yes, you are. Very. But I like that in a woman. I laugh. Yer crazy, I says. I was fine till I met you, he says.

Don’t make a feller wait too long. A feller waiting on a gal can get ornery’er than a huntin’ dog that’s tree’d it’s squirrel.

Why couldn't my heart have picked him? Life would have been so much easier." "Because hearts are ornery, sneaky little bastards, designed to cause misery. They want what they want, and they don't give a damn about what would make life easier or harder for the heart's owner." Della snapped.

I’ve flown kites before and I know – sometimes they’re gone forever, and sometimes they’re just waiting in the middle of the road for you to rescue them. Kites can be lucky or they can be ornery. I’ve had both kinds, and a lucky kite is definitely worth chasing for.

I said, Well, looks like he's pretty ornery. I wonder where he gets it? "Jack just shrugged and kissed my cheek, and then whispered in my ear, He gets it from his mother.

Ain't you been listening? I'm YUSUKE URAMESHI... the same ornery dawg you've always known and loved. So I have a DEMON ANCESTOR! Big Deal! I'm still going To KICK Sensui's sorry butt! -Yusuke

Calm down? You shot me in the back, you son of a bitch. (Zarek) Boy, don’t you dare insult my mama, and you better stop and think about that one for a minute. I was a paid killer since I was old enough to hold a gun. Had I shot your dumb ass, you wouldn’t have a head right now. Having been shot in the back by a friend, I sure wouldn’t want to return that favor to anyone. Not even an ornery cuss like you. And why the hell would I hurt myself just to get to you anyway? Lord, boy, use your head. (Jess)

There's a line in the Bible about perfect love casting out fear. That I don't know about, but orneriness will do it every time.

All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty ornery lot. It's the way they're raised.

Unconditional parental love is the indespensible nutrient for the child's healthy emotional growth. The first task is to create space in the child's heart for the certainty that she is precisely the person the parents want and love. She does not have to do anything or be any different to earn that love - in fact, she cannot do anything, since that love cannot be won or lost...The child can be ornery, unpleasant, whiny, uncooperative, and plain rude, and the parent still lets her feel loved. Ways have to be found to convey the unacceptability of certain behaviors without making the child herself feel unaccepted. She has to be able to bring her unrest, her least likable characteristics to the parent and still receive the parent's absolutely satisfying, security-inducing unconditional love.

Low down dirty ornery rotten skunk of a cussed mule-headed soldier! What's he want with my book anyway? And what kind of a way is that to write a congratulations? I am so mad I could walk clear to that fort and take him on single handed.

No indeed, the world is just as concrete, ornery, vile and sublimely wonderful as before, only now I better understand my relation to it and it to me.

Well, there is rough old Albert, as ornery as any big brother a girl could have, putting his arm around Savannah and cooing to her like a repenting hound dog, and promising her she is not common nor shameful. I watched all this and thought you just never know sometimes what's in a man's heart. When you think he is all tough nails and boards he can be different on the inside. It makes me wonder about other men I know, too.

People don’t procrastinate just to be ornery or because they’re irrational. They procrastinate because it makes sense, given how vulnerable they feel to criticism, failure, and their own perfectionism.

I suppose she's right. It's like a metaphor for life: No one wants an ornery old goat, but we can't resist opening the door ayway. We can't keep from hoping.

The paleoclimate record shouts to us that, far from being self-stabilizing, the Earth's climate system is an ornery beast which overreacts even to small nudges.

And in case I’m feeling more ornery than usual, I have a little Post-it Note under my tightrope picture that reads, “Cruelty is cheap, easy, and chickenshit.” That’s also a touchstone of my spiritual beliefs.

Imagine a young Isaac Newton time-travelling from 1670s England to teach Harvard undergrads in 2017. After the time-jump, Newton still has an obsessive, paranoid personality, with Asperger’s syndrome, a bad stutter, unstable moods, and episodes of psychotic mania and depression. But now he’s subject to Harvard’s speech codes that prohibit any “disrespect for the dignity of others”; any violations will get him in trouble with Harvard’s Inquisition (the ‘Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion’). Newton also wants to publish Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, to explain the laws of motion governing the universe. But his literary agent explains that he can’t get a decent book deal until Newton builds his ‘author platform’ to include at least 20k Twitter followers – without provoking any backlash for airing his eccentric views on ancient Greek alchemy, Biblical cryptography, fiat currency, Jewish mysticism, or how to predict the exact date of the Apocalypse. Newton wouldn’t last long as a ‘public intellectual’ in modern American culture. Sooner or later, he would say ‘offensive’ things that get reported to Harvard and that get picked up by mainstream media as moral-outrage clickbait. His eccentric, ornery awkwardness would lead to swift expulsion from academia, social media, and publishing. Result? On the upside, he’d drive some traffic through Huffpost, Buzzfeed, and Jezebel, and people would have a fresh controversy to virtue-signal about on Facebook. On the downside, we wouldn’t have Newton’s Laws of Motion.

Brooke stared in surprise. “You brought me lunch?” “I was in the neighborhood.” She checked out the label on the bag. “DMK is twenty minutes from here.” “I was in that neighborhood, and now I’m here,” he said in exasperation. “Seriously, woman, you are impossible to feed.” He strode over and set the bag on her desk. “One cheeseburger with spicy chipotle ketchup and a side of sweet potato fries—chosen specifically for a certain spicy and sweet girl I know—and a green dill pickle for your eyes. So there.” He crossed his arms over his chest. Brooke studied him. “You seem very ornery right now.” “As a matter of fact, I am.” “Why?” “I don’t know,” he huffed. “Just . . . eat your Brooke Burger. Stop asking so many questions. Sometimes a guy just wants to buy a girl lunch. Any objections to that? Good. Enjoy your Sunday, Ms. Parker.” He strode out of her office, gone as quickly as he’d appeared. Brooke stared at the doorway and blinked.

You tell me that yes, I can do it. I know. And I may do it, if I so choose. You tell me that no, I cannot. I say, Oh? I shall do it, since you refuse!

I don't pretend to be a very educated man, except maybe educated in the heart, and in being able to feel for the sorrows and fears of every ornery fellow human being.

I've been ridiculed by silk-suited lawyers, jailed by ornery judges, and occasionally paid for services rendered. I never intended to be a hero, and I succeeded.

Mary Jane she set at the head of the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried chickens was—and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to force out compliments; and the people all knowed everything was tiptop, and said so—said 'How do you get biscuits to brown so nice?' and 'Where, for the land's sake, did you get these amaz'n pickles?' and all that kind of humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at a supper, you know.

She can be ornery now and then, vain for sure, petulant and impetuous, silly at times, ill disposed toward the help, even malicious and malevolent when angry, but, still, she has always been the one for me.

The Council aren’t limp-dicked idiots – they’re senile, old bastards.” “I was hoping you’d react more positively.” Gerald thumbed through a negotiating handbook that he’d summoned with his magic. There was nothing in it about dealing with ornery elves that were overly fond of fire.

Are you mentally ill? A gigolo? A terrorist?” “Blair, stop.” Megan put her hand on her friend’s arm. “And I already accused him of being a terrorist.” “And you believed him when he said no?” “Actually,” she mused, casting an ornery grin at him. “I don’t think he answered me.” “Tricky bastard, aren’t you?

I love you, Rosalind Kemp. You. The woman who is kind to lonely old ladies and ornery boys.

Fred’s ornery like that hound the two old-timers was looking at. They watch the dog lick his nuts and one says, “Boy I wish I could do that,” and the other says, “I doubt he’d much care for it.

Harold had become, over the past week, a connoisseur of silences. He was an expert at differentiating the particulars; was this a Tranquil Silence, marked by slow sighs and peaceful smiles? Or was it a Tired Silence, marked by ornery chair shifting? Or a Tense Silence, full of tight breaths and cautious glances?

Lucky Tyler: "Yeah, you're here, looking more like the preacher's wife come calling than an overnight alibi. Who's gonna believe I tumbled you?" The devil in him was kicking up his heels, goading him to say things he knew damn well would rub her the wrong way. But he felt he was justified in being ornery. He didn't particularly like her attitude either. Devon Haines:"What did you expect me to wear? A negligee?" Lucky Tyler: "I----

My path is made of poetry and music, characterized by rowdiness and sunflowers, and given life by everyone I have met along the way in this process of becoming human. (When I say "everyone," I don't mean just us ornery two-legged beings.)

Two things happen when you get to be old. One, you gather experience and knowledge. You learn from your mistakes, and thereby offer wisdom to others. The second thing that happens is that you grow forgetful, ornery and senile, and when you offer advice, well, you sometimes just don't know what you're talking about. Often it's hard for everyone-including me-to know the difference.

Other days, like any redneck, I'm proud, ornery, and defiant! Who the fuck am I to think that due to my political leanings, slightly above average intelligence, and genuine compassion for all of mankind I'm somehow better than the people around me? I mean, I am--but seriously, who am I to think that?

My, you ought to seen old Henry the Eight when he was in bloom. He was a blossom. He used to marry a new wife every day, and chop off her head next morning. And he would do it just as indifferent as if he was ordering up eggs. 'Fetch up Nell Gwynn,' he says. They fetch her up. Next morning, 'Chop off her head!' And they chop it off. 'Fetch up Jane Shore,' he says; and up she comes, Next morning, 'Chop off her head'—and they chop it off. 'Ring up Fair Rosamun.' Fair Rosamun answers the bell. Next morning, 'Chop off her head.' And he made every one of them tell him a tale every night; and he kept that up till he had hogged a thousand and one tales that way, and then he put them all in a book, and called it Domesday Book—which was a good name and stated the case. You don't know kings, Jim, but I know them; and this old rip of ourn is one of the cleanest I've struck in history. Well, Henry he takes a notion he wants to get up some trouble with this country. How does he go at it—give notice?—give the country a show? No. All of a sudden he heaves all the tea in Boston Harbor overboard, and whacks out a declaration of independence, and dares them to come on. That was his style—he never give anybody a chance. He had suspicions of his father, the Duke of Wellington. Well, what did he do? Ask him to show up? No—drownded him in a butt of mamsey, like a cat. S'pose people left money laying around where he was—what did he do? He collared it. S'pose he contracted to do a thing, and you paid him, and didn't set down there and see that he done it—what did he do? He always done the other thing. S'pose he opened his mouth—what then? If he didn't shut it up powerful quick he'd lose a lie every time. That's the kind of a bug Henry was; and if we'd a had him along 'stead of our kings he'd a fooled that town a heap worse than ourn done. I don't say that ourn is lambs, because they ain't, when you come right down to the cold facts; but they ain't nothing to that old ram, anyway. All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty ornery lot. It's the way they're raised.

Nothing seems to me more tragic than the pressures we put on artists to do what we think we'll like, and our refusal to prize what is most ornery and special about them.

[I am] just a common everyday man whose instincts are to be ornery, who's anxious to be right.

I like to think of myself as ahead of my time because I’m already cranky and ornery, and I’m working toward getting a lawn just so I can chase people off it.

Well, you never can tell with a twister. They are as mean, as ornery, and as unpredictable as an unhappy woman.

...five minutes later she and Keane walked out to his truck. He set the cat carrier carefully in the backseat like maybe it was a ticking bomb but made her smile when he hesitated and then locked a seatbelt around it. When he caught her watching, he shrugged. "She's just ornery enough to knock herself off the seat and die and then come back to haunt me, so I'm taking all necessary precautions.

The Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching—all about brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said it was a good sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and had such a powerful lot to say about faith and good works and free grace and preforeordestination, and I don’t know what all, that it did seem to me to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet.

Junior, stop being orner.” It’s what Mama used to say to us when we were little, and I say it to Junior out of habit. Daddy used to say it sometimes, too, until he said it to Randall one day and Randall started giggling, and then Daddy figured out Randall was laughing because it sounded like ‘horny’. About a year ago I figured out what it was supposed to be after coming across its parent on the vocabulary list for my English class with Miss Dedeaux: ‘ornery’. It made me wonder if there were other words Mama mashed like that. They used to pop up in my head sometime when I was doing the stupidest things: ‘tetrified’ when I was sweeping the kitchen and Daddy came in dripping beer and kicking chairs. ‘Belove’ when Manny was curling pleasure from me with his fingers in mid-swim in the pit. ‘Freegid’ when I was laying in bed in November, curled to the wall like I was going to burrow into another cover or I was making room for a body to lay behind me to make me warm.

Once we commit to action, the worst thing we can do is to stop. What will keep us from stopping? Plain old stubbornness. I like the idea of stubbornness because it’s less lofty than “tenacity” or “perseverance.” We don’t have to be heroes to be stubborn. We can just be pains in the butt. When we’re stubborn, there’s no quit in us. We’re mean. We’re mulish. We’re ornery. We’re in till the finish. We will sink our junkyard-dog teeth into Resistance’s ass and not let go, no matter how hard he kicks.

Prime numbah be like me—ornery and forspecial. It gotta be a numbah don’t nevvah divide even ’ceptin by one and its own-self. Two is prime, ’cause you can divide it by one an’ two, but it’s the only even numbah that’s prime. You c’n take out all the res’ dat’s even.

Mary Jane she set at the head of the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried chickens was—and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to force out compliments;

I wasn’t feeling so brash as I was before, but kind of ornery, and humble, and to blame, somehow—though I hadn’t done nothing. But that’s always the way; it don’t make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t got no sense, and just goes for him anyway.

J. D. Cone, when he came here from Oklahoma in 1948 to become a family practitioner, went on house calls with a thirty-eight pistol stuck into his belt after the sheriff told him it was always a good idea to be armed in case someone got a little ornery or disagreed with the diagnosis.

Watching love die: that’s an ornery armor-piercing bullet. When taking the kids to school, the laundry, and the dishes rain down on the last remaining coals of your romance like piss on a morning campfire. When all you’re left with is enough smoke to choke on. Then your heart is dead.

Curran was looking at her. Not in the same way he looked at me, but he was looking. An odd feeling flared in me, hot and angry, prickling my throat from the inside with hot sharp needles, and I realized it was jealousy. I guess there was a first time for everything. “Have you seen my father?” Lorelei asked. “How is he?” “I saw him last year,” Curran said. “He’s the same as always: tough and ornery.” I came to stand next to him. Lorelei raised her eyebrows. Her eyes widened, and a sheen of pale green rolled over her irises. “You must be the human Consort.” Yes, that’s me, the human invalid. “My name is Kate.” “Kate,” she repeated, as if tasting the word. “It is an honor to meet you.” Curran was smiling at her, that handsome hot smile that usually made my day better. Pushing Lorelei into the ocean wouldn’t be diplomatic, even if I really wanted to do it. “Likewise.

I’m going to have to watch every word I say around you.” “Impossible. You talk far too much to succeed at that.” “I’m not going to worry about you any longer, Karl Van der Vort. You’re feeling well enough to be ornery. It just serves to prove what a fine physician I am—even if I wear red shirtwaists.

I haven’t been out driving at this time of night in many years, much less in an unfamiliar area. These are the things that scare you as you get older. You understand night all too well, all its attendant meanings. You try to avoid it, work around it, keep it from entering your house. Your weary, ornery body tells you to stay up late, sleep less, keep the lights on, don’t go into the bedroom—if you have to sleep, sleep in your chair, at the table. Everything is about avoiding the night. Because of that, I suppose that I should be scared out here in the dark, but I am finally past that, I think. (p.204)

I soon saw, however, that Creed's obsession with death was typical of most of the children. This came out in their play. "Let's play funeral" was a favorite game at recess. To me, it seemed bizarre and mawkish play. All that saved it was the spontaneous creativity of the children and the fact that, unerringly, they caught the incongruities and absurdities of their elders. One child would be elected to be "dead" and would lay himself out on the ground, eyes closed, hands dutifully crossed across his chest. Another would be chosen to be the "preacher," all the rest, "mourners." I remember one day when Sam Houston Holcomb was the "corpse" and Creed Allen, always the class clown of the group, was elected "preacher." Creed, already at ten an accomplished mimic, was turning in an outstanding performance. I stood watching, half-hidden in the shado of the doorway. Creed (bellowing in stentorian tones): "You-all had better stop your meanness and I'll tell you for why. Praise the Lord! If you'uns don't stop being so defend ornery, you ain't never goin' gift to see Brother Holcomb on them streets paved with rubies and such-like, to give him the time of day, 'cause you'uns are goin' to be laid out on the coolin' board and then roasted in hellfire." The "congregation" shivered with delight, as if they were hearing a deliciously scary ghost story. The corpse opened one eye to see how his mourners were taking this blast; he sighed contentedly at their palpitations; wriggled right leg where a fly was tickling; adjusted grubby hands more comfortably across chest. Creed then grasped his right ear with his right hand and spat. Only there wasn't enough to make the stream impressive. So preacher paused, working his mouth vigorously, trying to collect more spit. Another pucker and heave. Ah! Better! Sermon now resumed: "Friends and neighbors, we air lookin' on Brother Holcombe's face for the last time." (Impressive pause.). "Praise the Lord! We ain't never goin' see him again in this life." (Impressive pause.). "Praise the Lord!" Small preacher was now really getting warmed up. He remembered something he must have heard at the last real funeral. Hearty spit first, more pulling of ear: "You air enjoyin' life now, folks. Me, I used to git pleasured and enjoy life too. But now that I've got religion, I don't enjoy life no more." At this point I retreated behind the door lest I betray my presence by laughing aloud.

What insanity causes a king abandon the comforts of his kingdom and willfully discard the privileges of royalty in order to save an ornery and rebellious people who have spent a lifetime rejecting him? We have yet to understand that such an action is nothing of insanity. Rather, it is everything of love.

So we poked along back home, and I warn’t feeling so brash as I was before, but kind of ornery, and humble, and to blame, somehow—though I hadn’t done nothing. But that’s always the way; it don’t make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t got no sense, and just goes for him anyway.

I dinna expect your thanks. ’Tis not why I stole ye away from Steafan.” She rolled her eyes, but this time with affection instead of annoyance. “Duh, I know that. You’re so darned honorable you’d never do anything for something as paltry as my thanks. It’s not just about thanks. I love you, you stubborn Highlander.” She cupped her hand over her mouth. The ornery thing had just blurted that which she had yet to fully admit to herself. Considering how much it hurt to have Darcy reject her physical advances, she was in no mood to bear his inevitable rejection of her heart. Mortified, she turned to run away. But his arms went around her. He hadn’t lied when he’d claimed to be quicker. “Do ye mean that, lass?” he asked, bending over her back, holding her. “No,” she lied, trying to pry his arms away. “I’m out of my mind. Don’t listen to a thing I say. Let me go.” “No. I willna. And I think a confession spoken in ire is more trustworthy than one spoken in calm.” He turned her around and lifted her face to his. “I love you, too, lass.” He kissed her.

Only now, when it is too late, do I long for Dearth. I was a misbegotten child of bad blood and bile, and I mistook my own orneriness for cleverness. I presumed to know what happiness was - something I could possess, like a marble, or a man. Something I could only find elsewhere. But just when I started to find it at home, I outfoxed myself and lost it forever.

The crowd started going crazy. Like even crazier than when Romeo got up from the hit. I was clinging to the railing, wondering if I would like prison, when Ivy sighed. "I swear. You have all the luck." Confused, I glanced around. Romeo was jogging toward us, helmet in his hands. Quickly, I glanced at the big screen and it was showing a wide shot of me clinging onto the rails and him running toward us. When he arrived, he slapped the guard on his back and said something in his ear. The guard looked at me and grinned and then walked away. Romeo stepped up to where I was. At the height I was at one the railing, for once I was taller than him. "You're killing me, Smalls," he said. "I had to interrupt a championship game to keep you from going to the slammer." "I was worried. You didn't get up." "And so you were just going to march out on the field and what?" God, he looked so… so incredible right then. His uniform stretched out over his wide shoulders and narrow waist. The pads strapped to his body made him look even stronger. He had grass stains on his knees, sweat in his hair, and ornery laughter in his sparkling blue eyes. I swear I'd never seen anyone equal parts of to-die-for good looks and boy-next-door troublemaker. "I was going to come out there and kiss it and make it better." He threw back his head and laughed, and the stadium erupted once more. I was aware that every moment between us was being broadcast like some reality TV show, but for once, I didn't care how many people were staring. This was our moment. And I was so damn happy he wasn't hurt. "So you're okay, then?" I asked. "Takes a lot more than a shady illegal attack to keep me down." Behind him, the players were getting back to the game, rushing out onto the field, and the coach was yelling out orders. "I'll just go back to my seat, then," I said. He rushed forward and grabbed me off the railing. The crown cheered when he slid me down his body and pressed his lips to mine. It wasn't a chaste kiss. It was the kind of kiss that made me blush when I watched it on TV. But I kissed him back anyway. I got lost in him. When he pulled back, I said, "By the way, You're totally kicking ass out there." He chuckled and put me back on the railing and kept one hand on my butt as I climbed back over. Back in the stands, I gripped the cold metal and gave him a small wave. He'd been walking backward toward his team, but then he changed direction and sprinted toward me. In one graceful leap, he was up on the wall and leaning over the railing. "Love you," he half-growled and pressed a swift kiss to my lips. "Next touchdown's for you.

Les,” he remarked, “have you ever noticed that a mediocre typist is very likely to express dissatisfaction with the typewriter? And that a poor golfer is always blaming a poor shot on his sorry golf clubs? You’ll also find that people with little skill in human relations are the ones who are always cussing human nature—and blaming all their troubles on the fact that other people are so ornery.

Time is the strangest substance known to man. You can’t see, touch, hear, smell, taste or avoid it. Time makes you stronger-minded but weaker-bodied, gradually transforming you from blushing grape to ornery, grouching raisin. Time is the most precious thing you have, yet you’re happiest when you’re wasting it. Time will outlive you, your offspring, your offspring’s robots and your offspring’s robots’ springs.

Make me crazy. Make me nuts! I don’t care as long as you’re here. With me. Letting me love you for the rest of our lives because I don’t want anyone else. If you want babies, I’ll give you a hundred and be there for each and every one.” He sucked in a deep breath before continuing,  “You make me crazy, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I love you, Rand. I love your orneriness and you strength and your beauty and your sweetness and your pass-

So the first thing is to create some space in the child’s heart of hearts for the certainty that she is precisely the person the parents want and love. She does not have to do anything, or be any different, to earn that love—in fact, she cannot do anything, because the love cannot be won and cannot be lost. It is not conditional. It is completely independent of the child’s behavior. It is just there, regardless of which side the child is acting from, “good” or “bad.” The child can be ornery, unpleasant, whiny, uncooperative and plain rude, and the parent still lets her feel loved.

I'm very visual, so I have a picture of a person on a tightrope hanging over my desk to remind me that working to stay open and at the same time to keep boundaries in place is worth the energy and risk. I actually used a Sharpie to write this across the balance bar: "Worthiness is my birthright." It's both a reminder to practice shame resilience and a touchstone of my spiritual beliefs. And in case I'm feeling more ornery than usual, I have a little Post-it Note under my tightrope picture that reads, "Cruelty is cheap, easy, and chickenshit." That's also a touchstone of my spiritual beliefs.

Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody a-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall.  The Shepherdsons done the same.  It was pretty ornery preaching — all about brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said it was a good sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and had such a powerful lot to say about faith and good works and free grace and preforeordestination, and I don’t know what all, that it did seem to me to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet.

In unfamiliar terrain, a plastic bag impaled on barbed wire is snapping in the breeze. Mules are skittish about that because they haven’t seen it before, and it reminds them of a predator. So the “muleteer” beats them there too. Eventually, when the mules tire of getting beaten, or are just fed up dealing with a less intelligent species, they use the tremendous power of their hind legs to kick out the tug chains and run away. For this, mules are known as “ornery.” In English we use the common phrase “stubborn as a mule,” a classic example of man ascribing stupidity to the beast instead of to himself.

She expected the ornery tiger to get mad and snarl at her, instead he did something much worse. One side of his lips curled up in smug satisfaction, and the bastard smirked at her. “I may no longer live in a time period where one person can actually own another person, but make no mistake, love, I do own you. Every little inch. Every breathy moan you give me when I’m playing with your pretty pussy. Every hungry kiss you give me when I’m buried deep inside you. Every beat of that stubborn heart that you swear doesn’t still love me, and every inch of that fierce soul of yours… They all belong to one person. Me.” - Gage

Humans never outgrow their need to connect with others, nor should they, but mature, truly individual people are not controlled by these needs. Becoming such a separate being takes the whole of a childhood, which in our times stretches to at least the end of the teenage years and perhaps beyond. We need to release a child from preoccupation with attachment so he can pursue the natural agenda of independent maturation. The secret to doing so is to make sure that the child does not need to work to get his needs met for contact and closeness, to find his bearings, to orient. Children need to have their attachment needs satiated; only then can a shift of energy occur toward individuation, the process of becoming a truly individual person. Only then is the child freed to venture forward, to grow emotionally. Attachment hunger is very much like physical hunger. The need for food never goes away, just as the child's need for attachment never ends. As parents we free the child from the pursuit of physical nurturance. We assume responsibility for feeding the child as well as providing a sense of security about the provision. No matter how much food a child has at the moment, if there is no sense of confidence in the supply, getting food will continue to be the top priority. A child is not free to proceed with his learning and his life until the food issues are taken care of, and we parents do that as a matter of course. Our duty ought to be equally transparent to us in satisfying the child's attachment hunger. In his book On Becoming a Person, the psychotherapist Carl Rogers describes a warm, caring attitude for which he adopted the phrase unconditional positive regard because, he said, “It has no conditions of worth attached to it.” This is a caring, wrote Rogers, “which is not possessive, which demands no personal gratification. It is an atmosphere which simply demonstrates I care; not I care for you if you behave thus and so.” Rogers was summing up the qualities of a good therapist in relation to her/his clients. Substitute parent for therapist and child for client, and we have an eloquent description of what is needed in a parent-child relationship. Unconditional parental love is the indispensable nutrient for the child's healthy emotional growth. The first task is to create space in the child's heart for the certainty that she is precisely the person the parents want and love. She does not have to do anything or be any different to earn that love — in fact, she cannot do anything, since that love cannot be won or lost. It is not conditional. It is just there, regardless of which side the child is acting from — “good” or “bad.” The child can be ornery, unpleasant, whiny, uncooperative, and plain rude, and the parent still lets her feel loved. Ways have to be found to convey the unacceptability of certain behaviors without making the child herself feel unaccepted. She has to be able to bring her unrest, her least likable characteristics to the parent and still receive the parent's absolutely satisfying, security-inducing unconditional love. A child needs to experience enough security, enough unconditional love, for the required shift of energy to occur. It's as if the brain says, “Thank you very much, that is what we needed, and now we can get on with the real task of development, with becoming a separate being. I don't have to keep hunting for fuel; my tank has been refilled, so now I can get on the road again.” Nothing could be more important in the developmental scheme of things.

It ain’t no crime in a prisoner to steal the thing he needs to get away with, Tom said; it’s his right; and so, as long as we was representing a prisoner, we had a perfect right to steal anything on this place we had the least use for, to get ourselves out of prison with. He said if we warn’t prisoners it would be a very different thing, and nobody but a mean ornery person would steal when he warn’t a prisoner. So we allowed we would steal everything there was that come handy. And yet he made a mighty fuss, one day, after that, when I stole a watermelon out of the nigger patch and eat it; and he made me go and give the niggers a dime, without telling them what it was for. Tom said that what he meant was, we could steal anything we needed. Well, I says, I needed the watermelon. But he said I didn’t need it to get out of prison with, there’s where the difference was. He said if I’d a wanted it to hide a knife in, and smuggle it to Jim to kill the seneskal with, it would a been all right. So I let it go at that, though I couldn’t see no advantage in my representing a prisoner, if I got to set down and chaw over a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like that, every time I see a chance to hog a watermelon.

My mother’s brother Johnny was a Vietnam vet, and he too had been wounded. He had spent a long time in a hospital and he understood more than most what I was going through. Or at least he thought he did, and I appreciated that--even if I didn’t act like it at first. Uncle Johnny started to visit every weekend. He’d come and sit with me to give my parents a little breather. After my dad won the battle over my medication, I was, as I said, a little more lucid. I was also a little more ornery. I wouldn’t let anyone turn on that little red radio. I didn’t even care if Sheryl Crow was telling me what was good. I was more aware of my pain. Just lying there and listening or doing anything at all hurt. My whole body hurt and everyone and everything was to blame. All I wanted to do was sit in silence with the door shut. Uncle Johnny obliged me for a while. He’d come in and sit down in the chair next to my bed. He sat and stared blankly right along with me. But after a while, he couldn’t handle that anymore. One day, on the verge of dying of boredom, Uncle Johnny had had enough. He turned to me and said sternly, “Noah, I’m not gonna sit in here like we’re in an oversized coffin. We’re either opening the door or we’re turning the TV on. Which one do you want?” I rolled my eyes and grumbled for a few minutes before answering, “All right. Turn on the TV.” Without hesitation Uncle Johnny shot up out of that chair and reached up to hit the power button on the TV mounted from the ceiling. No sooner had his butt hit the chair seat than he was right back up again. “Fuck that. I am opening the door, too, because I want it open.” He vigorously emphasized his intention so I didn’t protest. He marched over and swung that door open. I swear he might have even taken a deep breath as if it were fresh mountain air. Then he came back to his chair and sat down.

Behind the Fan by Author Caroline Walken Dottie stared at the flat white ceiling the tears subside replaced by a soft smile. All and all she has had a good life, not everyone was lucky enough to love that deeply. She remembered a time where she would catch him watching her. Nicky always looked at her with those dark, needy eyes, drinking her in. Dottie felt both exhilarated and alarmed by the emotion he evoked in her. She still recalls that first soft kiss, and then much later in the relationship, how good it felt entwined with him as dawn broke. In the beginning, it was a challenge to keep her head whenever he was near. Handsome and tall with an ornery twinkle in those soft brown eyes at all times. He was dangerous, and nothing she needed but everything she wanted. Dark hair, tall and broad-shouldered...the man was sin on earth to her. The old woman laid her head back; although weary, she resisted sleep having found comfort in her memories. Her mind tossed back his words, those that gave her solace in those early days after he passed. She expected them to fade over time until she no longer heard his voice within her. Instead, as she grew weaker, his words became stronger within her. Dottie wondered if anyone would believe their story and she regretted not having written it down before now. She feared her weary mind would never fully recall everything. It was a story of strength, one of love and partnership. Her girls could benefit from hearing it. Dottie turned to glance at her reflection; it was now deep in the night the city beyond her window slept. The woman in the glass bore silver hair and was thin, her eyes a watered version of their brilliance. Like her memory, she too had faded. She wondered if her family would see whom she had been or would they remain blinded by the frail being she had become. She had one more go left in her but after this; she was done. She had to make the most of this. To the unadorned walls she promised, “I am nearly ready Nicky, soon darling, very soon.

At that moment, the back door opened, and Great-grandfather wheeled himself outside. Slowly and carefully, Hannah stepped through the door behind him. Aunt Blythe followed, balancing a tray loaded with a pitcher of lemonade and five glasses. "Come along, you two," Hannah called. “Tarnation,” Andrew muttered. “Am I going to have to see that jackass today?” Without letting me help, he levered himself out of the chair with his cane. “I bet Hannah woke the old coot up just to make me miserable.” When we joined the others on the porch, Great-grandfather refused to look at us. Keeping his head down, he fidgeted with the blanket on his lap. “This is a fine way to greet me,” Andrew said. “Maybe he doesn’t recognize you.” Aunt Blythe bent down to peer into Great-grandfather’s face. “Your cousins are here, Father. Can you say hello to Hannah and Andrew?” “It’s my house,” he mumbled. “They can’t have it.” Andrew looked as if he wanted to give his cousin a punch in the nose, but Hannah intervened. “We know the house is yours, Edward,” she said. “Don’t worry, we haven’t come to take it back. Andrew and I have our own home.” Great-grandfather raised his head and stared at Hannah. “You never liked me. Neither did your brothers. I wasn’t welcome in this house when you lived here. Now it’s mine and you’re not welcome.” Ignoring Aunt Blythe’s protests, Great-grandfather wheeled himself toward the back door. “You and your Roosevelt,” he muttered before he disappeared. “Too bad you women ever got the vote.” “Please excuse Father,” Aunt Blythe said. “He’s having one of his bad days.” Andrew snorted. “All of Edward’s days have been bad, every blasted one of them.” Hannah rapped his fingers. “Don’t be so ornery, Andrew. What will Blythe think of you?” “I say what’s on my mind. Always have.” Andrew shot me a grin. “Isn’t that right, Drew?” Hannah frowned at her brother. “How on earth can Drew answer a question like that?” My aunt didn’t notice the warning tone in her cousin’s voice, but I did. From the look she gave Andrew, I was sure Hannah knew everything.

Though it’s best not to be born a chicken at all, it is especially bad luck to be born a cockerel. From the perspective of the poultry farmer, male chickens are useless. They can’t lay eggs, their meat is stringy, and they’re ornery to the hens that do all the hard work of putting food on our tables. Commercial hatcheries tend to treat male chicks like fabric cutoffs or scrap metal: the wasteful but necessary by-product of an industrial process. The sooner they can be disposed of—often they’re ground into animal feed—the better. But a costly problem has vexed egg farmers for millennia: It’s virtually impossible to tell the difference between male and female chickens until they’re four to six weeks old, when they begin to grow distinctive feathers and secondary sex characteristics like the rooster’s comb. Until then, they’re all just indistinguishable fluff balls that have to be housed and fed—at considerable expense. Somehow it took until the 1920s before anyone figured out a solution to this costly dilemma. The momentous discovery was made by a group of Japanese veterinary scientists, who realized that just inside the chick’s rear end there is a constellation of folds, marks, spots, and bumps that to the untrained eye appear arbitrary, but when properly read, can divulge the sex of a day-old bird. When this discovery was unveiled at the 1927 World Poultry Congress in Ottawa, it revolutionized the global hatchery industry and eventually lowered the price of eggs worldwide. The professional chicken sexer, equipped with a skill that took years to master, became one of the most valuable workers in agriculture. The best of the best were graduates of the two-year Zen-Nippon Chick Sexing School, whose standards were so rigorous that only 5 to 10 percent of students received accreditation. But those who did graduate earned as much as five hundred dollars a day and were shuttled around the world from hatchery to hatchery like top-flight business consultants. A diaspora of Japanese chicken sexers spilled across the globe. Chicken sexing is a delicate art, requiring Zen-like concentration and a brain surgeon’s dexterity. The bird is cradled in the left hand and given a gentle squeeze that causes it to evacuate its intestines (too tight and the intestines will turn inside out, killing the bird and rendering its gender irrelevant). With his thumb and forefinger, the sexer flips the bird over and parts a small flap on its hindquarters to expose the cloaca, a tiny vent where both the genitals and anus are situated, and peers deep inside. To do this properly, his fingernails have to be precisely trimmed. In the simple cases—the ones that the sexer can actually explain—he’s looking for a barely perceptible protuberance called the “bead,” about the size of a pinhead. If the bead is convex, the bird is a boy, and gets thrown to the left; concave or flat and it’s a girl, sent down a chute to the right.

It is a southern river town with some pretensions of being a city... And like every southern river town it has its canker.... The capital has its own orneriness, as pervading as the others, but it isn't the same sort. It never was a fun town. It is not a robust sin town. Its fleshpots have no real juice in them. Its vices are effete and heterodox, and its moral rot is a dry one. Though its people have come from all parts, yet they are not all sorts of people. They are very much of one sort. The ethic climate here nurtures an ancient, evil, shriveled thing. It is of the inhabitants of this city that the prophet spoke: Of those who do not have the faith And will not have the fun.

That all these leaders were temperamental and difficult mattered little to the fans who loved them. Goodman was called “an ornery SOB” by more than one sideman. His icy stare, “the Goodman ray,” was usually a prelude to termination. Miller was considered cold and distant. His demeanor kept his men at bay and uneasy. Dorsey could be openly combative. Some stories had it that he and his brother Jimmy sometimes settled disputes with fists in the old days of the Dorsey Brothers band. And Artie Shaw had serious bouts of nervous depression, walking out on his great 1939 band and escaping to Mexico.

Soon I began to realize that cultural camouflage also obscured the universality of emotional process in institutions. For example, frequently, the leaders of a church would come to me seeking techniques for dealing with a member of the staff or a member of the congregation who was acting obstreperously, who was ornery, and who intimidated everyone with his gruffness. I might say to them, “This is not a matter of technique; it’s a matter of taking a stand, telling this person he has to shape up or he cannot continue to remain a member of the community.” And the church leaders would respond, “But that’s not the Christian thing to do.” (Synagogue leaders also tolerate abusers for the same reason.) Overall, this long-range perspective brought me to the point of wondering if there were not some unwitting conspiracy within society itself to avoid recognizing the emotional variables that, for all their lack of concreteness, are far more influential in their effects on institutions than the more obvious data that society loves to measure. Perhaps data collection serves as a way of avoiding the emotional variables. After all, the denial of emotional process is evident in society at large. If, for example, we succeed in reducing the number of cigarettes smoked by our nation’s youth but do nothing to reduce the level of chronic anxiety throughout the nation, then the addiction will just take another form, and the same children who were vulnerable to one kind of addiction will become easy prey for the as-yet unimagined new temptation. It

Ledger is still in love with Abby,” he said with a sigh. “I can’t see any way that can have a happy ending.” Just like his own situation, he though. “Boone, well, he’s ornery enough that it will take a special woman to turn his head.

If it’s a draw between a baby and Henry, I’ll kick his ornery butt all the way to the fancy house in Jacksboro and tell him to stay there this time.” Appalled and uncertain how to react, Loretta said, “Fancy house?” “You don’t really think he goes there to get tobacco and coffee and the Godey’s Lady’s Book for us, do you?” Rachel touched Loretta’s shoulder. “Don’t look so woebegone. He leaves me alone for nigh on a month after. I consider it a blessing.” Loretta threw back her head and gave a weak laugh. “Uncle Henry visiting a fancy house? Oh, Aunt Rachel, I bet those ladies double their rates when they see the likes of him coming!” “No doubt,” Rachel said grimly.

Watching you and my daughter, seeing how you’ve survived things other women couldn’t--” She licked her lips. “That steel in your backbones came from your bringin’ up, from me. I’ve taught you to stand up and fight back. I’ve raised you proud. Lately, I’ve been staring into my looking glass, wondering where the old Rachel has got off to.” “Oh, Aunt Rachel, you’ve only done what you felt you had to for me and Amy.” Rachel nodded. “Yes. But there comes a time when a body must draw the line." She sighed and rolled her eyes, a reluctant smile tugging at her mouth. “If it’s a draw between a baby and Henry, I’ll kick his ornery butt all the way to the fancy house in Jacksboro and tell him to stay there this time.” Appalled and uncertain how to react, Loretta said, “Fancy house?” “You don’t really think he goes there to get tobacco and coffee and the Godey’s Lady’s Book for us, do you?” Rachel touched Loretta’s shoulder. “Don’t look so woebegone. He leaves me alone for nigh on a month after. I consider it a blessing.” Loretta threw back her head and gave a weak laugh. “Uncle Henry visiting a fancy house? Oh, Aunt Rachel, I bet those ladies double their rates when they see the likes of him coming!” “No doubt,” Rachel said grimly. “A lover, Henry ain’t. I’ve wasted a lot of years kowtowing to him. I don’t plan to waste any more. I can make it without a man. Just you watch me.” She pushed to her feet and extended Loretta a helping hand. “Come on, little mother. I’ll fix you some remedy for that rolling tummy.” “Oh, Aunt Rachel, do you think it’s for sure?” “Sure enough that we’d best start cutting out nightshirts. I got flannel tucked away in my barrel. That’ll make up nice.” Loretta smiled, and taking a deep breath, she passed a hand over her brow. “I am powerful pleased, Aunt Rachel!” “Just keep thinkin’ that way until I get Henry told.” “Do we have to tell him right now?” “Honey, if you go to upchucking of a morning before you can reach the privacy, he’s gonna know anyway. May as well light his fuse when we’re expecting the explosion.

Normal volunteers played the Responder in the Ultimatum Game twice, either after consuming a tryptophan-depleting drink (which lowers serotonin levels in the brain; see Chapter 7) or a control beverage.22 During the tryptophan depletion, Responders couldn’t accept a deal; they showed increased impulsivity and vindictiveness, which was predictable based on the change in tryptophan levels in their blood. This shows that reducing the molecule of contentment biochemically resulted in more impulsivity and spite behaviorally. Even giving tryptophan to an ornery dude can acutely improve his mood.

You’re a crafty old woman. You always try to win an argument by talkin’ about some funeral. You’re too ornery to die, and you know it.

ornery enough that they will not stay where the rule was laid down. In that I believe you will find the greatest hope for America’s future. —William S. Knudsen

I was just a kid then, probably not more than ten, though I can’t exactly remember. I didn’t know what all the fuss was about. The last thing I wanted back then was to marry some ornery, dirty-faced boy. So what she said didn’t bother me. I was perfectly content with my books.

Aaron, in preparation for the event, had been initiated by Lolly in the ways of the Kerry dances and had proved a pupil of stunning receptivity. Lolly suspected some genetic memory but wondered as well if her husband was yet another example of that breed that had flourished among the Danes and the Normans who, once arrived on Irish shores, became more Irish than the Irish—a historical phenomenon from which the English had exempted themselves in a somewhat ornery fashion.

Doing only what you want to do, or doing only those things that feel good or comfortable, is thinking more in-line with addiction. It’s best to think about what the right thing to do is, versus what is comfortable and easy.

I realize now that having high expectations and low acceptance is a formula for being discontented and irritable, a perfect mindset for repeated relapse.

love was an ornery creature that cared nothing for logic or what was fair.

ornery.

He was stubborn and combative and intensely playful; fiercely self-righteous and enormously sensitive to the needs of others; often inspiring, frequently ornery, never punctual, endlessly original, chronically cross-grained, and almost invariably a colossal pain in the ass.

We tell ourselves that our personalities are defined by our brilliance, curiosity, orneriness, and passion, not our panic, brain fog, or fatigue. We speak of strengths and weaknesses—it’s how we categorize everything—and we never get creative with these. We count among our strengths our strength, and among our weaknesses, our weakness, and the only radicality we can yield to this binary is to invert it, to count what is usually considered weak as maybe some other kind of strength.

The Academy Award set a pattern for Brennan, who had perfected a persona that could be crusty, ornery, and outspoken, but also charming, comical, and always in the service of the hero as companion, conscience, and counselor. Brennan

That was ornery.” Eden followed him around the house. “Ornery’s my middle name.

Travis nodded Beau’s way. “Meyers. Good to see you.” “McCoy.” Beau gave him a reluctant nod and draped his arm around Shay’s shoulders. The action was ornery and gutsier than she would’ve given Beau credit for. Just because she could, Shay let his arm rest there. Her eyes flickered to Travis, but he’d turned to watch the Silver Spurs. A shadow flickered across his jaw.

SOMETIME IN 1954, IRVING AND NORMAN PINCUS, APPROACHED WALTER Brennan about appearing in a series featuring a “West Virginia hillbilly family transplanted to California.” Having already invested his time in one pilot without results, Brennan rejected the idea of another, but Irving Pincus continued to press his case. After a year or so, Brennan said yes, claiming he did so “just to get the cuss off my neck.” But surely Pincus’s pitch that Brennan had an opportunity to make television history by starring in the first situation comedy to feature rural characters in an endearing format was persuasive. Brennan portrayed a character that was a distillation and domestication of his ornery and affectionate screen persona—deprived only of the malevolence on display in The Westerner, My Darling Clementine, and Brimstone.

And is her boy Anson as ornery as ever? I imagine he’s all grown up now, isn’t he?” Sarah nodded. “He’s grown a foot since he went away to war, and filled out some. He’s quite the handsome charmer now.” “Ohhhhh?” No one could inject such a depth of meaning into a single syllable and a lifted brow as her sister. “He tried flirting with me, but I indicated I wasn’t interested,” Sarah said loftily, pretending a great interest in brushing a cookie crumb off her bodice. “Though I imagine the Spinsters’ Club ladies will be.” “Why?” Milly said, ignoring Sarah’s second remark for the first. “Because of our Yankee doctor?” To her dismay, Sarah felt a blush spreading up her cheeks. “Of course not. I don’t know why you and Prissy keep trying to pair us off.” Milly only smiled. “We agreed to be friends,” Sarah said, “and then he didn’t even show up at the taffy pull, and hasn’t mentioned it since. Though I imagine it was because he was so busy taking care of all those sick folks,” she admitted, determined to be fair.

No, it’s not that. Or not just that,” Kat protested. “I don’t get along with them at all—one of them, anyway.” “Now let me guess—that would be your dark twin. Am I right?” Piper raised an eyebrow at her and Kat nodded. “Lock is really sweet. But Deep…we just can’t get along.” She looked down at her hands. “My parents divorced when I was twelve and my grandmother raised me but before then, they were constantly yelling and screaming at each other. I just…I don’t want to be stuck for life in a relationship like that and…” She looked up. “And I don’t even know why I’m telling you this when I just met you.” “That’s ‘cause I’m easy to talk to.” Piper smiled at her. “Everybody says so. I was a bartender back on Earth back before my men called me as a bride. Worked at a club in downtown Houston called Foolish Pride. I bet I listened to fifty sob stories a night and you know what? I kinda miss it.” “You’re good at it.” Kat smiled at her. “Did…do you have the same problem with your, uh, guys? Not that Deep and Lock are mine or anything,” she continued hurriedly. “I mean, we kind of all got stuck together by accident and now I’m having a really hard time getting away.” “Isn’t that just the way?” Piper nodded sympathetically. “As for dark twins—they’re always a problem. Ask any female on God’s green Earth who’s mated to one. They’re contrary and irritating and just plain ornery and yours seems to be worse than most.” “He certainly is,” Kat agreed, thinking of Deep’s tendency to get under her skin. “He’s sarcastic and moody and dark…” She sighed. “But he’s very protective, too. And loyal and gentle when he wants to be. And…” “And you’re really confused,” Piper finished for her. Kat nodded gratefully. “I really am. But I do know I don’t want to be bonded to anyone until I’m ready. And I am so far from being ready right now it isn’t funny.” “Then stay away from them tonight when the bonding fruit kicks in,” Piper said seriously. “Ask for a private room or lock yourself in the bathroom but whatever you do, don’t wind up between them or it’s gonna be game, set, and match. I promise you that.” “Okay,

What is it ye hope to gain from sharing my bed?” His voice stopped her. “You already have a bairn.” The creak of a stall door followed his question. Footsteps whispered on the packed-dirt floor. With her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw him as a towering shadow emerging into the broad aisle of the barn. He must have been checking on Rand. She frowned at his question. He made it sound like she had some ulterior motive besides being attracted to him. “I’m not sure what you mean,” she hedged. “You want to couple with me. Why?” She rolled her eyes; she’d understood that much of the question. It was the part where he seemed to have a problem with “sharing a bed” with her she didn’t get. Tamping down her offense was getting old. If he was going to be bold, she would be, too. “You’re easy on the eyes,” she clipped. “I’m attracted to you, and we’re married, so why not, right? Am I missing something here? Shouldn’t I be the one asking you why you don’t want to ‘couple’? Oh, wait, I did. And you wouldn’t give me a straight answer.” He moved closer, stopping a foot away, which meant his voice now came from high above her. “Are you a wanton woman?” The question had been dark. Dangerous. And it kicked her offense into full-on anger. “I’m knocked up and I want sex with my husband. If that makes a girl wanton, then I suppose I am. What of it?” She lifted her chin in challenge. “I’ll ask again. What is it ye hope to gain? The truth, Melanie.” Her heart sank to hear him call her by her given name, and this sudden edge of hostility confused her. It felt like he was accusing her of something, but what? She was also insanely aroused. Not only had her eyes adjusted to the dark well enough to see his serious and seriously handsome face, but his looming presence filled her with an irrational sense of security. Add to that his scent of leather and man, and her lips trembled for another kiss. She didn’t want to lash out any more. Anger released itself to the night like steam from a mug of cocoa. “Pleasure,” she whispered, her breasts reaching for him with her quickening breath. “That’s the truth. I want to feel your body under my hands. I want to feel you inside me as you make me your wife in more than just name. And I want pleasure for you, too. Especially for you. You’ve given up almost everything for me. Giving you pleasure is the only way I can think of to thank you.” He blinked with surprise. “I dinna expect your thanks. ’Tis not why I stole ye away from Steafan.” She rolled her eyes, but this time with affection instead of annoyance. “Duh, I know that. You’re so darned honorable you’d never do anything for something as paltry as my thanks. It’s not just about thanks. I love you, you stubborn Highlander.” She cupped her hand over her mouth. The ornery thing had just blurted that which she had yet to fully admit to herself. Considering how much it hurt to have Darcy reject her physical advances, she was in no mood to bear his inevitable rejection of her heart. Mortified, she turned to run away. But his arms went around her. He hadn’t lied when he’d claimed to be quicker. “Do ye mean that, lass?” he asked, bending over her back, holding her. “No,” she lied, trying to pry his arms away. “I’m out of my mind. Don’t listen to a thing I say. Let me go.” “No. I willna. And I think a confession spoken in ire is more trustworthy than one spoken in calm.” He turned her around and lifted her face to his. “I love you, too, lass.” He kissed her.

Put that down, you ornery old fool.” Melanie swatted at Darcy with a dishtowel, uncaring that her southern roots were showing. “Och, I’m neither auld nor foolish, and I dinna ken what ornery means,” he answered with a grin as he danced away with the pie that had been cooling on the windowsill. Curse the man’s long reach! “That’s a lie. If I’ve told you what ornery means once, I’ve told you a dozen times. The fact that you claim not to remember just proves how apt a description it is.

She shot him a look. "What?" he asked. "Where's my journal? I want to jot this down for posterity." Huh? He lifted a confused brow and she smirked, ornery light glinting in her amber brow. "You just spoke, like what? A whole four sentences? Not to mention there were a few adjectives thrown in there. That must be some sort of record. It should be memorialized accordingly, don't you think? She batted her lashed. Jesus, the woman was too much.

This time that ornery creature full-out belly laughed at me. But to my surprise, instead of “Neigh!” it came out as a loud “Hee-haw!

Day blame ornery youngins.

It is the images that enrage; many things drove the fanatics to their act, but it was cartoons they chose to fixate on. Drawings are handmade, the living sign of an ornery human intention, rearing up against a piety.

List: Ten Demoralizing Facts to Accept when Dealing With an Ornery Public 1.  You can’t tell them what to think. 2.  You have to work hard to lead them to a conclusion. 3.  You have to be careful, though, because while drawing a conclusion, they will use incriminating evidence you give them inadvertently, instead of only the information you want them to consider. Depending what you show them, they may perceive you as dopey, inauthentic, typical, low-rent, desperate, or unhip and therefore clueless. 4.  They have a built-in Bullshit Detector. Don’t even try to fool them. 5.  In the end, they don’t care about you. 6.  They really don’t want to know what you have to say. Even if they’re briefly interested, they’ll soon get distracted and forget you. 7.  All they want to know is, “What’s in it for me?” If it’s not enough, they move on. 8.  They’re so selfish and disinterested, they’ll forget everything good about you but hold onto bad stuff practically forever. 9.  Unfortunately, because you care about your restaurant very, very much, you overestimate how much other people care. 10.  They lie to you in focus groups.