Chapter Queen's Weather to Quicksilver of Q by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

or “Hardi gagneur, hardi mangeur.” The opposite would certainly be true: A dawdle in one thing is a dawdle in all.
   The quick and dead. The living and the dead.

Quick Sticks (In). Without more ado; quickly. To cut one's stick (q.v.) is to start off, and to cut one's stick quickly is to start off immediately.

Quickly (Dame). Hostess of a tavern in Eastcheap. (Shakespeare: Henry IV., parts 1 and 2.)
   Mistress Quickly. Servant of all-work to Dr. Caius. She says: “I wash, wring, brew, bake, scour, dress meat and drink, make the beds, and do all myself.” She is the go-between of three suitors to Anne Page, and to prove her disinterestedness she says: “I would my master had Mistress Anne, or I would Master Slender had her, or in sooth I would Master Fenton had her. I will do what I can for them all three, for so I have promised; and I'll be as good as my word; but speciously for Master Fenton.” (Shakespeare: Merry Wives of Windsor.)

Quicksand is sand which shifts its place as if it were alive. (See Quick .)

Quickset is living hawthorn set in a hedge, instead of dead wood, hurdles, and palings. (See Quick .)

Quicksilver is argentum vivum (living silver) silver that moves about like a living thing. (Anglo-Saxon, cwicseolfor.)

“Swift as quicksilver
It courses through the natural gates
And alleys of the body.”
Shakespeare: Hamlet, i. 5.