pick a bone

If you feel a need to blame anyone, it’s most constructive to pick a bone with yourself.

“It would have been just as well to let a sleeping dog lie undisturbed,” advised Albert Goldberg, who never hesitated to pick a bone with L.A.’s most famous arts luminary of the time.

One wavelet of Internet tributes paid to Mr. Bowie after his death on Sunday recalled a trip he took to a hotel room, in 1983, to pick a bone with MTV.

The best way to pick a bone really right up to the last shred, inclusive, never was with knife and fork, anyway.

The Russian bear is luxuriously licking Napoleon's boots, and remarks, "This licking is giving me a mortal inclination to pick a bone."