"Batty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... M. B. quotes as a proverb—one of those without meaning—"As busy as Batty;" and says, "no one knows who Batty was." Surely, the inference that Batty was not a real personage in some distant age—that he was a mere myth—must be a non sequitur from the premises before us. Perhaps Mr. Batty was a person of notable industry—perhaps remarkable ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 33, June 15, 1850 • Various
... "but I am at liberty to say, sir, to you and the lady, that you'd best look out for Billings. He seems to be goin' batty. I heard him talking to himself, threatening harm to this lady. I don't know what ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... who has done a crime you got to figure on what he said and done last, so as to get a line on what he's going to do next; and when I come to study over that hired man had mostly said to me I remembered it was about Wyoming and ropes and cows—things like that. I knowed he was batty, like so many people is, about Western things—not that Western men is any different from anybody else, though a lot of people ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... Doctor, &c., "As lazy as Ludlum's dog, as leaned his head against a wall to bark." I venture to suggest that this is simply one of the large class of alliterative proverbs so common in every language, and often without meaning. In Devonshire they say as "Busy as Batty," but no one knows who "Batty" was. As I have mentioned The Doctor, &c., I may was well jot down two more odd sayings from the same old curiosity-shop:—"As proud as old COLE's dog which took the wall of a dung-CART, and got CRUSHED by the wheel." And, "As queer ...
— Notes & Queries No. 29, Saturday, May 18, 1850 • Various
... leaned against the stable and stared. "Rowdy Vaughan, there's times when even your friend can't disguise the fact that yuh act plumb batty. Yuh let Harry do yuh dirt that any other man'd 'a' killed him on bare suspicion uh doing; and yuh never told her when she asked yuh to! How yuh lent him money, and let him steal some ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower |
