STEAL SOMEONE'S THUNDER
Meaning:  To preempt; to draw attention away from someone else's achievements in favor of your own.
Origin:  English dramatist John Dennis invented a gadget for imitating the sound of thunder and introduced it in a play in the early 1700's. The play flopped. Soon after, Dennis noted that another play in the same theater was using his sound-effects device. He angrily exclaimed, "That's my thunder, by God; the villains will play my thunder, but not my play." The story got around London, and the phrase grew out of it.

PAY THROUGH THE NOSE
Meaning:  To pay a high price; to pay dearly.
Origin:  Comes from ninth-century Ireland. When the Danes conquered the Irish, They imposed an exorbitant Nose Tax on the islands inhabitants. They took a census (counting by noses) and levied oppressive sums on their victims, forcing them to pay by threatening to have their noses actually slit. Paying the tax was "paying through the nose."

HAPPY AS A CLAM
Meaning:  Blissfully happy; perfectly content
Origin:  The original phrase was, "happy as a clam at high tide." Why high tide? Because people can't dig clams then. They're "safe and happy" until low tide, when their breeding grounds are exposed. The saying was shortened through use.

CHARLEY HORSE
Meaning:  A muscle cramp
Origin:  In 1640, Charles I of England expanded the London police force. The new recruits were nicknamed "Charleys." There wasn't enough money to provide the new police with horses, so they patrolled on foot. They joked that their sore feet and legs came from riding"Charleys horse."
 

"Black Jack" Ketchum, murderer, before being hanged
"I'll be in hell before you've finished breakfast, boys... let her rip!"

The Countess Rouen, in a letter read by her attendant to her guests
"The Countess Rouen sends her compliments but begs to be excused. She is engaged in dying."

H. G. Wells, writer
"Go away.... I'm all right."

James Thurber, writer
"God bless... God damn..."

Lytton Strachery, writer
"If this is dying, I don't think much of it."

Sir Henry Stanley, explorer
"Four o'clock. How strange. So that is the time. Strange enough."

"Two Gun" Crowley, sitting on the electric chair
"You sons of bitches. Give my love to mother."

Henry Ward Beecher, preacher
"Now comes the mystery."

Max Bear, boxer
"Oh God, here I go."

Ludwig van Beethoven, composer
"Friends applaud, the Comedy is over."

Elizabeth I, queen of England
"All my possessions for a moment of time."

Chris Hubbock, newscaster who shot herself during braodcast
"And now, in keeping with Channel 40's policy of always bringing you the lastest in blood and guts, in living color, you're about to see another first---an attempted suicide."

Pablo Picasso
"Drink to me."

James Rodgers, murderer, before the firing squad, when asked if he had a final request
"Why yes---a bullet-proof vest."