puff quotes

The pipe with solemn interposing puff, Makes half a sentence at a time enough; The dozing sages drop the drowsy strain, Then pause, and puffand speak, and pause again.

-William Cowper
  Poems,'Conversation', l.245^8.

Puffing is of various sorts; the principal are, the puff direct, the puff preliminary, the puff collateral, the puff collusive, and the puff oblique, or puff by implication.

- Richard Brinsley Sheridan
  Mr Puff.The Critic, act1, sc.2.

There was a poor poet named Clough, Whom his friends all united to puff, But the public, though dull, Had not such a skull As belonged to believers in Clough.

- Algernon Charles Swinburne
  Essays and Studies,'MatthewArnold'.