Dictionary

anything for a quiet life en · X

Meanings

1. Said when reluctantly acceding to a demand in order to stop being pestered about it.
   • 'I perceive,' said John. 'Well, I saw I was in for it, and had nothing for it but to go through with it. Anything for a quiet life.' 1895, Charlotte Mary Yonge, Heartsease: Or, The Brother's Wife, page 7:
   • The king lives like any other landowner, on the produce of his own plantation, and the rent which his poor relations pay him in kind. Occasionally, when these fail him, he suggests how becoming it would be in his people if they were to bring him an offering of food, or even money, and they, mindful of the manner in which their liege lord attained his present dignity, murmur, "Anything for a quiet life," and hasten to stop his mouth. 1902, Basil Home Thomson, Savage Island, Chapter 3:
   • The temper of him! O, he was a man already was little Tommy Caffrey since he was out of pinnies. Edy told him no, no and to be off now with him and she told Cissy Caffrey not to give in to him. —You’re not my sister, naughty Tommy said. It’s my ball. But Cissy Caffrey told baby Boardman to look up, look up high at her finger and she snatched the ball quickly and threw it along the sand and Tommy after it in full career, having won the day. —Anything for a quiet life, laughed Ciss. 1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 1: Telemachus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part I [Telemachia], page 13: