"Funny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grass? The earliest aviators were self-willed and diverse. As Captain Bertram Dickson remarked, when he was questioned concerning their enrolment for the national service, 'One man is a rich man; another man is an artist, or he is an actor; another man is a mechanic. They are funny fellows. You will get a certain number if you pay them well, because they are out for making money; you will get others who will do it for sport, and others who will do it for the advertisement.' The problem for the Government and for those who advised the Government was how ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... "That's funny," remarked Pike, "he's gone loony and talking of old chief Cajame of the Yaquis. He was hanged by the Mexican government for protesting against loot by the officials. A big man he was, nothing trifling about Cajame! That old Indian had eighty thousand ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... looking a sort of diabolically funny, "the harpooneer is a dark complexioned chap. He never eats dumplings, he don't—he eats nothing but steaks, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... angry with Columbus, and threatened to take his life if he did not command the ships to be turned back toward Spain, but his patience did not give out, nor was his faith one whit the less. He cheered the hearts of the men as best he could, often telling them droll, funny stories to distract their thoughts from the terrible dread ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... seeing you." She smiled. "You're a funny one. But kind of nice." Her lips brushed his and then she got up and left. Dalgetty went out the door and punched for a ...
— The Sensitive Man • Poul William Anderson
... that he wouldn't listen to a word against them. Wonder what he'll say now. I wouldn't be here at this moment, though, if it hadn't been for that fellow, 'Zebra,' as Bullen called him. Queer how things turn out in this funny old world! I only wish I knew just what that tattooing on my arm means, and what the Metai is, anyway. If I did, I might turn the knowledge to advantage. Hello! Something has been carried into those bushes,—the paymaster's ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... want to meet my friends," I said. "Friends are people yon go on being friends with without meeting them. That's the essence of true friendship, you know. Absence doesn't alter it. You keep on thinking of dear old Jack and what fun you used to have together at Cambridge; and then some day a funny old gentleman comes up to you in the street and says you don't remember him, and you pretend you know him quite well, and it's Jack all the time, and you wonder how he's got so old while you yourself have kept on being as young ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various
... "Funny! Whatever could have made the boy get up and go downtown at three in the morning, anyway?" she said. "Seems kind of queer, don't you think, Arethusa? Do you suppose he was ill and huntin' ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... funny! What are those mirrors there for?" asked the electrician in a tone of surprise, pointing to two small mirrors hanging in the window niche. They were placed at a height and at such a peculiar angle that no one could possibly see his ...
— The Lamp That Went Out • Augusta Groner
... thin, with a dark, wicked-looking face, and he has a nasty scar on the right cheek, slanting across it to the mouth. But the funny thing is, that with all his rags and drunkenness there is something of the gentleman about him. I don't like him, yet I can't dislike him. He's attractive in his own way from his very wickedness. But I'm sure,' finished Bell, with a vigorous nod, 'that he's a black-hearted Nero. He has done ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... could—"You shall see how I can humbug them all." That look opened my eyes completely to the farce that was acting before me, and entering into the spirit of the scene, I must own that I enjoyed it amazingly. The blacksmith was mesmerised by a look alone, and for half an hour went on in a most funny manner, keeping the spectators with their eyes open, and in convulsions of laughter. After a while, the professor left him to enjoy his mesmeric nap, and chose another subject, in the person of a man who had lectured a few nights before on the science ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... Davidson with vast contempt. "He don' know enough t' dodge a brick! I tells him th' assessment work is all done. He believes it, an' never looks t' see. I gets him fooled so easy it's shore funny." ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... awfully funny here this time. I wonder if it's all Cousin Grace that makes it so. Anyhow, she's just as different as different can be from Aunt Jane. And ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... on looking round to see if any one was coming, and the best of it was I was watching all the time, and she never knew it. I saw her put one piece of paper down on the window-sill; she was saying very funny things to herself. 'Meg shouldn't have done it; she wouldn't take my advice. Ah! she'll rue it some day, I well believe,' and all on like that. Of course Meg means mother, and I was just wondering what it was she was talking about, when the wind blew quite a puff, ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... a shrill whisper, "please let's listen. He's going to propose to her now, and you've no idea how funny he is when he proposes. Oh, don't be ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... boys' story-papers and was always being kept in for reading detective stories behind his desk. There was Tip Smith, destined by his freckles and red hair to be the buffoon in all our games, though he walked like a timid little old man and had a funny, cracked laugh. Tip worked hard in his father's grocery store every afternoon, and swept it out before school in the morning. Even his recreations were laborious. He collected cigarette cards and tin tobacco-tags indefatigably, and would sit for hours humped up over ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... plenty for me. Laws, I was so lonesome! You see, I was full of the knowledge and experience of seventy-two years; the deepest subject those young folks could strike was only a-b-c to me. And to hear them argue—oh, my! it would have been funny, if it hadn't been so pitiful. Well, I was so hungry for the ways and the sober talk I was used to, that I tried to ring in with the old people, but they wouldn't have it. They considered me a conceited young upstart, and ...
— Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven • Mark Twain
... told she might supply cheese of two kinds, and also cream, for the monsieur evidently was malade and could not swallow wine. The cream and the black bread were delicious; but still the horrors of Die hung about me, and I could only dispose of such a small amount, that Liotir waxed funny, and told me it would never do for me to die there, as there was not earth enough to scrape a grave in on the whole plain. Then, being a practical man, he declared he should like to contract for my keep, and thought he could afford to do it at very small cost to me, ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... became intimate, the Baron and I, through the two hussies. The Baron, like all bad lots, is very pleasant, a thoroughly jolly good fellow. Yes, he took my fancy, the old rascal. He could be so funny!—Well, enough of those reminiscences. We got to be like brothers. The scoundrel—quite Regency in his notions—tried indeed to deprave me altogether, preached Saint-Simonism as to women, and all sorts of lordly ideas; but, you see, I was fond enough of my girl to have married ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Pry with his umbrella, Daniel i' th' lions' den, ducks swimming across a river, a giantess who was a man shaved and dressed in women's clothes, a dog wi' five legs, and a stuffed mermaid—just what little lads would like. There was a man, besides, who played on a flute, and another singing funny songs. When I went outside into the street there was little Billy Yates, as used to play with Bobby, so I says, 'Come along, Billy, and I'll tek thee to the show.' When we got there we set down on a ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... I—I'll do anything! I'll talk! I'll make conversation! How old are you? That's what the Chinese ask. I used to have a Chinese cook, but he lost all my shirt studs, playing fan-tan. Can you play fan-tan? Two can't play, though. They have funny cards in this country, like the Spanish. Have you seen a bullfight yet? Don't do it. It's dull and brutal. The bull has no more ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... always on the wrong side. She was clever enough, as a rule, just to avoid getting into open trouble with the authorities, but under the surface she was a source of disturbance. She had a certain following of gigglers and slackers, who thought her escapades funny, and were ready to act chorus to her lead, and though she had never done anything specially outrageous, her reputation at headquarters was not good. Every teacher realized only too plainly that Netta was the firebrand ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... brevity is attractive, or his transparent goodness compensates for his other peculiarities, certainly he has a congregation; and if you polled that congregation, the one point on which all would agree, in addition to his eligibility or innocence, would be that the Rev. Gray Kidds was "so funny." ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... with the agility of a monkey, and has his arms round me. Then the merry couple turn my bed into a playground, where mother lies at their mercy. The baby-girl pulls my hair, and would take to sucking again, while Armand stands guard over my breast, as though defending his property. Their funny ways, their peals of laughter, are too much for me, and put sleep fairly ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... could be neglected with impunity. Both Mr and Mrs Brindley had evidently a humorous appreciation of crises, contretemps, and those collisions of circumstances which are usually called "junctures" for short. I could have imagined either of them saying to the other: "Here's a funny thing! The house is on fire!" And then yielding to laughter as they ran for buckets. Mrs Brindley, in particular, laughed now; she gazed at the table-cloth and laughed almost silently to herself; though it appeared ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... VICTORIA.—We have had "The Funny Frenchman" over here, at the Albambra, and now we have "The Calculating Frenchman," M. JACQUES INAUDI, who, last week, at a seance, exhibited his marvellous powers of addition, multiplication, subtraction, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 27, 1893 • Various
... Some funny incidents occur at these prolonged sittings. I remember one experienced old seal-hunter who told me that when he was a young man he was once out all night watching a blow-hole and got very sleepy—so sleepy, ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... with her handkerchief some water that had dropped from the vase. A great many of the ladies in church the Sunday before had fanned themselves in this same little languishing way; she remembered one or two funny old persons in Oldfields who gave themselves airs ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... boat. How it rained—G.'s hat ruined—but anything to be in Spain once more. The launch rolls and umbrellas drip, and we have hundreds of yards along splashing wet pier, G. balancing on timbers and wire cables to keep a little out of the mud—one umbrella for the two. Then a jog up the town in a funny little victoria with yellow oiled canvas curtains, past little gardens with great red flowers on one tree, and trumpet-shaped white flowers hanging on the next, past soldiers in khaki, and turbaned Moors huddled in their draperies. The Moors look ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... it? Gerrard rang me up, and I thought there was something funny going on. Are you from ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... "Funny thing about apples. My father used to keep 'em in barrels down in the basement. He used to say to me, 'Andrew,' he'd say, 'don't never put a sour apple in one of these barrels. 'Cause just one sour apple can spoil the whole derned lot.'" ...
— The Success Machine • Henry Slesar
... I am as courageous as the next. We've done some funny stunts together, Jack Darrow—you and I and the old professor. But this caps them all, I declare. It's a mystery to me how Mr. Henderson and Andy ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... railings while laughing on his way home. I once asked which of all the merry pictures in "Punch" referring to himself amused him the most, and he at once replied: "The little boy who has written 'No Popery' on a wall and is running away because he sees a policeman coming. I think that was very funny!"' Dr. Anderson says that Lord John was generous to a fault and easily moved to tears, and adds: 'I never knew any one more tender in illness or more anxious to help.' He states that Lord John told him that ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... much of Catholic triumphs, as of Protestant rebuffs. The follies, mistakes, and defeats of Anglican missions in particular—Helbeck's memory was stored with them. By his own confession he had made a Jesuit friend departing for the mission, promise to tell him any funny or discreditable tales that could be gathered as to their Anglican rivals in the same region. And while he repeated them for Williams's amusement, he laughed immoderately—he who laughed so seldom. The Jesuit too was convulsed—threw ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... unconscious of the emotions that lived near her. "I like to hear about other people's miseries. Were you rather a funny little boy?" ...
— Moor Fires • E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young
... doors. Eat all you can, all of you. Have you any profiles to take yet, Mr. Gamboge? I may make up my mind to set for mine before you leave us; I've always thought I should have it taken some time. In character? He! he! Mr. Little, you're so funny! But you'll excuse me this morning, as I had such a fright last night. I must go and take up ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... was very cunning. "That's funny. I've been with it just three weeks. Say, I bet I know who put up this job on you." He turned to his friends. "It was that darned Jim Hopkins. He's always up to a gag of ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... be certain to resent intrusions from another planet. I'm sure I don't blame them altogether when I recall those patronizing Jupitans.—And I'm told they are awfully jealous and distrustful even of one another, herding together for protection and governed by so many funny little tribal codes that what is right on one side of an imaginary boundary may be wrong on the other.—Ooma considers this survival of the group-soul most interesting, and intends to make it the subject of a paper. I mention it only to explain why we call ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... had answered with a satisfied little yawn. "Wasn't he too funny in that checked suit and awful green necktie? Poor old Percy! I suppose he can't help it. He ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... wanted to choke me off, you chose a funny way to do so. Surely it only needed this to determine anybody. If you, as a sane person, honestly believe there's a pinch of danger in that blessed place, then I certainly sleep there to-night, or else ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... to put a poke on him," said the little red cow. And everybody laughed—everybody except the Muley Cow. She saw nothing funny in the suggestion. She thought it silly; and she said as much, too: "Who ever heard of a Woodchuck wearing a poke about ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... exclaimed, with a funny grimace. "Do you mean next year? Before that distant time arrives some Colorado will fall in love with ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... "That's the funny part of it," laughed Holmes. "Every stone in it was paste, but Mrs. Robinson-Jones never let on for a minute. She paid her little ten thousand rather than have ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... skated pretty close to the edge. You know, it's funny, but when I'm out with Carter I feel like such a boob, not daring to eat this or that, or smoke or—or anything." Heresy this, from the three years' captain of L. A. High who had never considered any sacrifice worth a murmur which kept him fit for the ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... "Seems awful funny not to have any housework to do in the morning," Ma Briskow confessed, as they left the Ajax. "A hotel would spoil ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... on the part of the living Damascus blade that stood bolt-upright before her, struck Josephine as so funny that she laughed merrily, and bade him fancy it was only a fort he was attacking instead of the terrible Josephine; whom none but heroes feared, she ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... one women in this funny town account at home for money and things?" retorted Mrs. Belloc. "Nothing's easier. For instance, often these squabs do—or pretend to do—a little something in the way of work—a little canvassing or artists' model or anything you please. That helps them to explain ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... sense of the 'fist'. It's funny. With most men there's the instinct to clench the fist and hit. It's not so with me. I should want a knife or a pistol or something ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... himself the dissatisfaction of his employers by mounting a stump in the field, and keeping the farm hands from their work by little speeches in a jocose and sometimes also a serious vein. At the rude social frolics of the settlement he became an important person, telling funny, stories, mimicking the itinerant preachers who had happened to pass by, and making his mark at wrestling matches, too; for at the age of seventeen he had attained his full height, six feet four inches in his stockings, if he had any, and a terribly muscular clodhopper ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... to. I can ride anything. That funny saddle would do—see how big and high the horn is, good as the ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... night Glory had conquered a good deal of her pride. The grace of her humour was saving her. It was almost as if somebody else was doing servant's duty and she was looking on and laughing. After all it was very funny that she should be there, and what delicious thoughts it would bring later! Even Nell Gwynne sold oranges in the pit at first, and then some day when she had risen above ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... "Funny to see in yon," he said invitingly. "Never see any like 'em befo'. I strike light for you. Arter ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... his body, following, lays its lumbering length on the stairs. Happy fraternity! how useful is that body! His companion, laying his muddled head upon it, says it will serve for a pillow. "E'ke-hum-spose 'tis so? I reckon how I'm some-ec! eke!-somewhere or nowhere; aint we, Joe? It's a funny house, fellers," he continues to soliloquise, laying his arm affectionately over his companion's neck, and again yielding to the caprice ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... not less than a pint of raw arrack during the dinner hour, and, not unnaturally, finds himself at the end a trifle funny and venturesome. When preparing to take my departure he proposes that I give him a ride on the bicycle; nothing loath to humor him a little in return for his hospitality, I assist him to mount, and wheel ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... "Funny, ain't it? But he has. Thought I couldn't ride fast enough to keep up with him, maybe. He's gone on east, ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... but you can add a love poem from some school-book if you like," protested the inn-keeper. "The city girls are funny creatures. Sometimes they like the finger, other times the fist. Who knows the taste of your Liza! The waitresses of big cities are usually broad-minded and ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... something funny about other people's fathers. Mr. Manisty, of Vinings, who rode along Ley Street with his two tall, thin sons, as if he were actually proud of them; Mr. Batty, the Vicar of Barkingside, who called his daughter Isabel ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... our rooms to-night and give us some music just to celebrate this glorious event!" cried Fred, for Ned Lowe was quite a performer on the mandolin and usually had some very funny ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... buy lollypops with the pennies their uncle gave them. And then—Oh, yes, I mustn't forget Roly-Poly, the funny, fat, poodle dog who was always hiding things in holes in the ground, thinking they were bones, I guess. Sometimes he would even hide Aunt Lolly's spectacles and she would have the hardest work finding ...
— Daddy Takes Us Skating • Howard R. Garis
... out later that, in order to keep in Mr. Pulitzer's good graces, it was as necessary to avoid being too funny as it was to avoid being too dull, for, while the latter fault hurt his intellectual sensitiveness, the former involved, through the excessive laughter it produced, a degree of involuntary ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... Princess and her men who had first taken us prisoners; and the Princess's brother with her—and be dashed if I like his looks! So Sir John told his tale, and the Princess sent me along with Master Prosper's letter of release. And here's a funny thing now!" wound up Billy, glancing at me. "The Prince was willing enough your release should be sent, and even chose out that fellow Stephanu to come along with me. But something in his eye—I can't azackly describe it—warned me he had a sort of reason for thinking that 'twouldn't ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... are fond of making capital M's; and sometimes you follow it with a capital A. Then you practise a little upon a D, and perhaps back it up with a G. Of course it is the merest accident that these letters come together. It seems funny to you—very. And as a proof that they are made at random, you make a T or an R before them, and some other quite irrelevant ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... Ha, ha, ha!" It was so funny to see her scuttling and tripping and stumbling. "Courri! courri, Clemence! c'est pou to' vie! ha, ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... travelling ever since I can remember; we have been far, and seen a great many strange sights, and some such queer people!—There! that is our shepherd in Australia; isn't he funny? his name was Dirk. I tied that blue ribbon round his straw hat, that seems big enough for an umbrella. He looks as if he were laughing, doesn't he? That's because I was there when my father sketched him; and he made such droll faces, with his brown skin and his great grizzly moustaches, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... keenest interest and unbounded surprise. One very well-meaning person put down his knife and fork and said he was too surprised to eat any more breakfast; whereupon Hugh said, "You needn't be so very funny, because Sara doesn't understand ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... lot to more than Piegan. Their uniforms fitted as if they had grown into them; scarlet jackets buttoned to the throat, black riding-breeches with a yellow stripe running down the outer seam of each leg, and funny little round caps like the lid of a big baking-powder can set on one side of their heads, held there by a narrow strap that ran around the chin. But for all their comic-opera get-up, there was many a man that snickered ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... were domiciled. As his limping German did not give him confidence about the up-and-down variety of the Saxon dialect, he did not venture this afternoon to find his way by tram to the house. The blind German script in which his hosts' solicitous and minute instructions were couched, and the funny singsong of the natives talking blatantly about him, made him feel still more helpless. He sought refuge in an open droschke. He could then, too, enjoy ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... was. You can't fool me. Somebody warned that girl against me. The whole thing seems funny to me." (By funny he meant strange.) "You go away from my house for a dinner against my will—leave me in the lurch—and come home at one o'clock in the morning with faces that would sour milk, and now here you are all avoiding me ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... priori, why, if we have a uniform for our military service and another for our naval service, we may not have one for our diplomatic service. It has, indeed, been asserted by sundry orators dear to the galleries, as well as by various "funny-column" men, that such a uniform is that of a lackey; but this assertion loses force when one reflects on the solemn fact that "plain evening dress," which these partizans of Jeffersonian simplicity laud and magnify, and which is the only alternative to a ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... said Koku. "Hear bell, know bad mans hide in cave. I creep up an' watch!" His dramatic pause might have seemed funny at any other time but Tom ...
— Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope • Victor Appleton
... funny way gittin' on top of a hoss," said Curly. "Are you 'fraid the saddle's goin' to git away from you? Better be 'fraid 'bout ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... coffee, Dick, and what it tastes like. The white girls used to talk about it, and say how they longed for a cup. It seems, to me, funny to drink anything hot. I have never tasted anything but water, that I can remember, until you gave me ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... actors are ashamed of being funny?—Why, there are obvious reasons, and deep philosophical ones. The clown knows very well that the women are not in love with him, but with Hamlet, the fellow in the black cloak and plumed hat. Passion never laughs. The wit knows that his place is at ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... forgotten that I met Ethan while he was on a vacation from his work here, and roughing it. When I married him, I had hardly seen him in anything except his Navy flannel shirt, scrubby trousers, and funny blunt-toed shoes." ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... negro hovels that bordered our end of the town. Across the street, and on either side of us, there were rows of small boxlike frame houses built with narrow doorways, which opened from the sidewalk into funny little kitchens, where women, in soiled calico dresses, appeared to iron all day long. It was the poorer quarter of what is known in Richmond as "Church Hill," a portion of the city which had been ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... On the back of the forearm the olecranon process of the ulna is quite subcutaneous, and during extension of the elbow is in a line with the two condyles, while between it and the inner condyle lies the ulnar nerve, here known popularly as the "funny bone.'' From the olecranon process the finger may be run down the posterior border of the ulna, which is subcutaneous as far as the styloid process at the lower end. On the dorsum of the hand is a plexus of veins, deep to which the extensor tendons are seen on extending the fingers. When ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... ugly for us to act so! Why, ain't it funny, Mom, it sounds so easy to say abody should be kind and yet sometimes it's so hard to do it. When Aunt Rebecca comes next time I'm just goin' to see once if I ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... she stood her ground. "All the g-girls noticed him. He wasn't an ordinary peddler. He was just as smart and f-funny as could be." ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... on Vail, and they were as full of danger as a snake's. "You go to hell!" he said. "Singleton, you're the captain, d'ye hear? If Rich—if Richardson gets funny, put ...
— The After House • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... almost funny in a village that is being shelled. Things simply disappear. You are standing in an archway a little back from the road—a shriek of shrapnel. The windows are broken and the tiles rush clattering into the street, while little bullets and bits of shell jump like red-hot devils from side to ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... silence might lead him to suppose there was a nigger in your wood pile.' 'Oh, nonsense! But for thirty years my enemies and friends have been asking me questions about the Leaves: I'm tired of not answering questions.' It was very funny to see his face when he gave a humorous twist to the fling in his last phrase. Then he relaxed and added: 'Anyway I love Symonds. Who could fail to love a man who could write such a letter? I suppose he will yet have ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... centres around the new Leonora, so that even the scene where Sir Courtly is found making the most elaborate of toilets, with the assistance of a bevy of vocalists, does not exert the attraction to be found in the presence of Oldfield. The episode is all very funny, of course, and there is an appreciative titter when the fop defines the characteristics of ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... wish you were here to write up the funny things said and done. Rhoda De Garmo told them she wouldn't swear nor affirm, "but would tell them the truth," and they accepted that. When the Democrats said that my vote should not go in the box, one Republican said to the other, "What do you say, Marsh?" "I say put it in." "So do I," said ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... are foolish as that, then they have to spend a good lot to make up for getting a little. And the funny part of it is, the girls, who seem so wise, are the easiest fooled. Now, she acted like a real grown-up, but I'll bet my badge she would go along with the first person who offered her a hot pancake for breakfast. They ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... borne, good Christian, by some of the noblest of our race. I take it from you with a smile. I am an easiful old pagan, and I am not angry with you at all—you funny, little ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... that bright stone which fell out of the folds of your turban a few days ago,' she answered, playing with his finger; 'the little stone with all those funny marks upon it. I never saw ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... rough-coated horses, and how they came indoors, and what a noise they made all talking together in their big deep voices. They looked terrible men, so tall and brown and fierce, with their rough bristly beards; and they all spoke in such funny tones to her, as if they were trying to make their ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... greatly preferred gentlemen as inmates in spite of their also having their way—louder but sooner over—of laughing out at her. They pulled and pinched, they teased and tickled her; some of them even, as they termed it, shied things at her, and all of them thought it funny to call her by names having no resemblance to her own. The ladies on the other hand addressed her as "You poor pet" and scarcely touched her even to kiss her. But it was of the ladies she ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... SEREBRAKOFF. It is funny that everybody listens to Ivan and his old idiot of a mother, but the moment I open my lips you all begin to feel ill-treated. You can't even stand the sound of my voice. Even if I am hateful, even if I am a selfish tyrant, haven't I the ...
— Uncle Vanya • Anton Checkov
... "I know them both; and, as I have mentioned that your meeting with them seemed funny to me, I suppose I ought to tell you the reason. Some time ago a photographer in Walford, who has taken a portrait of me and also of Miss Putney and Miss Burton, took it into his head to print the three on one card and expose them for sale with a ridiculous ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton
... it with such sympathy and understanding, Crane must have done some remarkable listening in Boyville. The truth is, of course, he was a boy himself—"a wonderful boy," somebody called him—and was possessed of the boy mind. These tales are chiefly funny because they are so true —boy stories written for adults; a child, I suppose, would find them dull. In none of his tales is his curious understanding of human ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... supper, Porter," growled the man, and sank down on a chair close to the door. "No funny work now, mind you!" And he brandished the very stick Dave had ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... beautiful indifference as to whether people liked him or not. To most Athenians he was the town fool. Athens was a little city (only about one hundred fifty thousand), and everybody knew Socrates. The popular plays caricatured him; the topical songs misquoted him; the funny artists on the street-corners who modeled things in clay, while you ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... a great letter-writer, so if this one has funny fashions to it you must forgive both them and me. I write as I feel and must leave it so. The voyage has been good, and my poor old tub has behaved herself, kept afloat and done her best, bravely if a bit wheezingly, in some rather nasty seas. When we ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... part, I wasn't told anything about a great illness, but it was a very funny case at all events," she said. "It was about a woman, Celestine Dubois, as she was called, who had run a needle right into her hand while she was washing. It stopped there for seven years, for no doctor ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... their little cabins. He amused himself by rigging boats for his little boys or telling them stories of his adventures in China and the South Sea Islands, while his wife sat by him, listening and laughing at his funny tales. It was a charming room, that could not be equalled in the whole world. It was crammed full of Japanese sunshades and armour, miniature pagodas from India, bows and lances from Australia, nigger drums and dried flying fish, sugar cane and opium pipes. Papa, whose hair was growing thin at the ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... plenty of hard-boiled egg with the spinach. The baked potatoes were frosted with red pepper. There was mince pie. There was apple pie. There was pumpkin pie. There were nuts and raisins. There were gay gold-paper bonbons. And everywhere all through the house the funny blunt ...
— Fairy Prince and Other Stories • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... long figure in a long, loose coat of yellow frieze and a tall cap was standing in the very spot I loved best of all! I stole up a little nearer, and made out the face, which was utterly unknown to me, also very long and soft, with small reddish eyes, and a very funny nose; drawn out as long as a pod of peas, it positively over-hung the full lips; and these lips, quivering and forming a round O, were giving vent to a shrill little whistle, while the long fingers ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... with her hands upon Milly's shoulders, looked amusedly and kindly in her face. 'And,' said she, 'we must be very good friends—you funny creature, you and I. I'm allowed to be the most saucy old woman in Derbyshire—quite incorrigibly privileged; and nobody is ever affronted with me, so I say the most shocking ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... articles of luxury and an additional bottle of rum. We were very jolly, and very happy we thought ourselves, and blew all care to the winds. The passengers and the captain were making merry in the same way in the cabin, drinking toasts, and singing songs, and making speeches, and telling funny stories, so the cabin-boy told us as he came forward convulsed with laughter. The wind was fair and light, the sea was smooth, and no ship floating on the ocean could have appeared more free from danger. Suddenly there was ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... whispered Hamp. "It's a whole herd of deer, as sure as anything. They're not looking this way, but it's funny they haven't scented us. The wind is from the west, and blows ...
— The Camp in the Snow - Besiedged by Danger • William Murray Graydon
... excellent word. It was so funny when Lucy asked whether the thing chosen was animal, vegetable, or mineral? and Willy replied, "All three," for he explained in a whisper, there was always salt in hash, and salt was a mineral. "Have you all seen it?" questioned ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... the others had gone, and Mr. Sam said he was for giving up the fight, only to come out now with the truth would mean such a lot of explaining and a good many people would likely find it funny. Mr. Pierce came in later and we gave him ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... mention is Carlyle, seen by me several times at my brother's house, and two or three times at my own house. His talk was very racy and interesting, just like his writings, but he sometimes went on too long on the same subject. I remember a funny dinner at my brother's, where, amongst a few others, were Babbage and Lyell, both of whom liked to talk. Carlyle, however, silenced every one by haranguing during the whole dinner on the advantages of silence. After dinner Babbage, in his grimmest manner, thanked ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... a funny sensation to lie in bed in the jolting train, and Irene slept only in snatches, waking frequently to hear clanking of chains, shrieking of engines, shouting of officials at stations, and other disturbing noises. As dawn came creeping through the darkness she drew the curtain aside and looked ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... not yet. We were talking about the beginning. I have heard that some dealers in fine objects, quite mercenary people of course (my mother has an experience in that world), show sometimes an astonishing reluctance to part with some specimens, even at a good price. It must be very funny. It's just possible that the uncle and the aunt have been rolling in tears on the floor, amongst their oranges, or beating their heads against the walls from rage and despair. But I doubt it. And in any case Allegre is not the sort of person that gets into any vulgar trouble. And it's just possible ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... since I left you!' At that moment I slipped through the closing door, and as I ran across the snow, I heard the mother say,—'What shadow can that be, passing so quickly?' And Charlie answered with a merry laugh,—'Oh! mamma, I suppose it must be the funny shadow that has been playing such games with me all the time you were out.' As soon as the door was shut, I crept along the wall and looked in at the dining-room window. And I heard his mamma say, as she led him into the room, 'What an imagination the boy has!' ...
— Cross Purposes and The Shadows • George MacDonald
... he appeared to regard as an evil very unreal and far away—like the murrain upon Pharaoh's herds which one reads about in Exodus. But he was courteous and polite, doing the honours of his pasture with simplicity and ease. He took us to his chalet and gave us bowls of pure cold milk. It was a funny little wooden house, clean and dark. The sky peeped through its tiles, and if shepherds were not in the habit of sleeping soundly all night long, they might count the setting and rising stars without lifting their heads from the pillow. He ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... so we had the girl with us; and I caught reproachful glances if I was slow in answering my blind brother. She herself suspects him as a poseur, yet she judges me careless of his needs—which I should find funny, if it didn't make me furious! Just to see what Dierdre would do, and perhaps to provoke her, sometimes I didn't answer at all, but left her to explain our surroundings to Brian. I hardly thought she would respond to the silent challenge, but almost ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... perhaps——" She stopped short, then rushed on, "You know how queer mother is about cats—can't bear one in the room, and how they always fly out directly she comes in? Well, dogs are the same with Alister. He—he told me so himself. It seems funny to me, and I suppose to you, because we're so fond of all kinds of animals; but I don't really see why it should be any more extraordinary to have an antipathy for dogs than for cats, and no one thinks anything of it if ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... panted in every pause. "After being chosen last, and as a bowler-man! That's the cricketer for me, sir; by Jove, we must have another drink in his honor! Funny thing, asthma; your liquor affects your head no more than it does a man with a snake-bite; but it eases everything else, and sees you through. Doctors will tell you so, but you've got to ask 'em first; ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... whirling his arms, then suddenly grinned and, taking a tablet of black tobacco out of his pocket, bit a piece off with a funny show of ferocity. Another new hand—a man with shifty eyes and a yellow hatchet face, who had been listening open-mouthed in the shadow of the midship locker—observed in a squeaky voice:—"Well, it's a 'omeward trip, anyhow. Bad or good, I ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... queens and chambermaids, Jews and chimney-sweeps, lawyers and charleys, Spanish dons and Irish officers, rushed upon the stage. The little Spaniard was Almaviva, and fell into magnificent attitudes, with her sword and plume. Lord Squib was the old woman of Brentford, and very funny. Sir Lucius Grafton, Harlequin; and Darrell, Grimaldi. The prince and the count, without knowing it, figured as watchmen. Squib whispered Annesley that Sir Lucius O'Trigger might appear in character, but was prudent enough ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... "Such a funny little man has just gone out!" she exclaimed. "He had a handkerchief tied round his face as though he had been fighting. What lazy people!" she added, looking around. "I expected to find tea ready. Will you please tell me some more about motor-cars, ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... extremely good." "A birthday Budget,—many happy 'returns,'" he observed jocosely to PRINCE ARTHUR, "quite japing times!" And off he went for his holiday; and, weather permitting, as he reclines in his funny among the weeds, he will gently murmur, "Dulce est ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 23, 1892 • Various
... routine seems strange; but the Orban children were used to it, and had no realization of how different was life in their parents' old home. It did not seem at all funny even to the twins to have tea at five, and go to bed at half-past six or seven. They were generally very ready for sleep by then, ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... called "baccy" tabac! "And if yer wants a bit of bread yer awsks for pain, strewth!" He loved to hear the French gabble to him in their excited way; he never thought that reciprocally his talk was just as funny. The French matches earned unprintable names. But on the whole he admired sunny France with its squares of golden corn and vegetables, and when he passed a painted Crucifix with its cluster of flowering graves, he would say: "Golly, Bill, ain't it pretty? We oughter 'ave them at 'ome, ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... low-comedy Jew: "I vant my inderesd!" Calidorus of the Ps. and Phaedromus of the Cur. are but bleeding hearts dressed up in clothes. The milites gloriosi are all cartoons;[166] and the perpetually moralizing pedagogue Lydus of the Bac. becomes funny, instead of egregiously tedious, if acted ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... "Funny how he enlisted," Dale resumed after a moment. "He'd been tryin' to get in, but I kept him out. One night his mother sent him for a dime's worth of clothes-line—and he never came back. He's not bad, Mr. President; he's good—he ...
— The Angel of Lonesome Hill • Frederick Landis
... stuff grow so? I can tell you. I just brought down some of that funny dirt found in the barren spots on the hills yonder and put a good lot round the roots. It beats all creation how it sends the stuff into the air. The don said I'd kill it all, but I knowed better, for I had seen the wild stuff growing like fun all round the edges of ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... "if these pictures can be of any use to you in your business, I give them to you,—but without the frames. Oh! the frames are gilt, and besides, they are very funny; I will put—" ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... didn't have the solution myself until a few hours ago—it hit me all at once. Funny I never thought of it before; it's been right in sight all ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... fished out a funny old letter. It wasn't put into an envelope, it was just wrapped inside itself an' stuck fast with a gob o' some kind o' wax which had been broke before it was opened. The' had been a name on the outside, but it had been rubbed out. Inside at the beginning was the name "Rose Cottage, ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... in his decided way. "Maybe it didn't strike you as anything but funny—which it sure is. But yuh want to remember that the old girl has come a dickens of a long ways to do us some good. She's been laying awake nights thinking about how we'll get to calling her something nice: Angel of the Roundup, ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... hen-coop was a mighty conflagration. The fact that the point of the pencil was broken profoundly surprised me. We had a perfectly gorgeous time. It's a beastly shame that I missed my car. It is awfully funny that he should die. The saleslady pulled the washlady's hair. A cold bath is pretty nice of mornings. To go a little late is ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... an old story with Park, and Thurston's enthusiasm struck him as a bit funny. He perched upon a corner of the fence out of the way, and smoked cigarettes while he watched the cattle and shouted pleasantries to the men who prodded and swore and gesticulated at the wild-eyed huddle in the pens. Soon his turn ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... rhododendrons near the lake; "to me every stroll is still a voyage of exploration, and I shall be rather sorry when I begin to know exactly what I am going to see next. Now, I have never been this way before, and have no idea what is coming, so you must tell me, if you know. What a funny scent! I seem to know it, too. Why, what have ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... in and out everywhere among the spruce and the fields. Then look off in the distance. That is Hillsboro Bay. You passed through it this morning. Do you see the little islands out there? One is called St. Peter's and the other is called Governor's. It is a funny thing, but every man, woman and child on the Island knows them by name, yet I could wager a farm that not one in a thousand has ever set foot upon them. But it is a grand scene, ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... aunty, how funny! How could you suppose a serpent could get on board a sleeping-car, of all ...
— The Sleeping Car - A Farce • William D. Howells
... that, in the second place, Englishmen's temper is too imperial, or rather imperious, to make the idea of discussion on equal terms with the Irish at all acceptable. They are, in fact, so far from any such arrangement that—preposterous and even funny as it seems to the American mind—to say that an English statesman is carrying on any sort of communication with the representatives of the Irish people is to bring against him, in English eyes, a very damaging accusation. When a man like Mr. Matthew Arnold writes to the Times to contend that Englishmen ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... to Compiegne before I was married, about three years before the war. We went out and breakfasted at Compiegne with a great friend of ours, M. de St. M., a chamberlain or equerry of the Emperor. We breakfasted in a funny old-fashioned little hotel (with a very good cuisine) and drove in a big open break to the forest. There were a great many people riding, driving, and walking, officers of the garrison in uniform, members of the hunt in green and gold, and ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... it is probably a final coquetry, an appetizer before the repast. And women are so funny anyway! She probably thinks these delays and subterfuges are necessary to differentiate her from a cocotte. Or perhaps there is a physical necessity for stalling ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... company of how differently they are wont to go on at home,-one can, under such circumstances generally provoke a fit of merriment. To the traveler, every day is a day of adventures—frequently of rather funny adventures! ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... afraid of first," said Uncle Ezra, "and I didn't want to go into the scheme. But this young feller, Lieutenant Larson, he proved to me different. They can't fall. If your engine stops all you got to do is to come down like a feather. He used some funny word, but I can't think of it now. But it's safe—it's safer than farming, he claims. Most any time on a farm a bull may gore you, or a threshing engine blow up. But there's nothing like that ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... of Tke Nishimura, which in English say' Mr. Bamboo of the West Village. He most funny little boy in my kindergarten class. But he have such sweet heart. It all time speaking out nice thoughtfuls through his big round eyes, which no seem like Japanese eyes of ...
— Mr. Bamboo and the Honorable Little God - A Christmas Story • Fannie C. Macaulay
... him cheerful and some of which made him mildly sad. He soon got used to the idea, and did not find it awkward, except when he had to suppress the impulse to tell Henriette something which Lizette had said, or some funny incident which had happened in the home of the little family. Sometimes he found himself thinking that it was a shame to have to suppress these impulses. There must be something wrong, he thought, with a social system which made it necessary for him to hide a thing which was so obvious ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair
... front of the White House—all the grounds fill'd, and away out to the spacious sidewalks. I was there, as I took a notion to go—was in the rush inside with the crowd—surged along the passage-ways, the blue and other rooms, and through the great east room. Crowds of country people, some very funny. Fine music from the Marine band, off in a side place. I saw Mr. Lincoln, drest all in black, with white kid gloves and a claw-hammer coat, receiving, as in duty bound, shaking hands, looking very disconsolate, and as if he would give ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... bit like the rest of us," said Louis, "she never seems to seek her own pleasure, and yet the funny thing about it is, she's always happy. I can't ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... funny man Jerry Goldboy is!" said Jessie McTavish, as she sat that same evening sipping a pannikin of ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... thinking how funny it is that there should be a fashion about coming down to such a beautiful place ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... "The funny part of it is," resumed Max, shaking his head in a way rather odd for him, "that immediately after Roland received his two thousand in cash he disappeared from the scene. That was almost two years ago; and from that day nobody in Sagamore has ever had a peep at him. The ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... where we stopped for breakfast, I walked out on the platform sniffing at the keen thin air. When we crossed the Raton Mountains into New Mexico the sick boy got off at the first station, and I waved good-bye to him as the train pulled out. Then the mountains and the funny little adobe huts and the Pueblo Indians along the line ...
— The Young Forester • Zane Grey
... all the seventeen dogs that loaf around here in order. Yesterday she chased a big yellow dog, half St. Bernard, down the main sidewalk of the Ambulance. It was a very funny sight, for she was like a little round ball of fury and the poor dog was ...
— 'My Beloved Poilus' • Anonymous
... Don't you know the papers are full of it? Papa read it this morning at breakfast, and he laughed until he cried. Where is that Irishman who gets you into so many funny scrapes?" ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... Exhibition, sir!" said an official in a dazed manner. Then he added in an injured voice: "Funny gentleman, sir. Asked me to hold his horse, ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... but the old gobbler rather likes to quarrel. He is a vain bird, and it is funny to see him strut up and down, with his tail spread out, and his wings drawn down, his feathers ruffled, and his neck drawn back, and to hear him puff, and ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... you for an audience, do you know how I must address myself to the secretary? Listen to this book, it is funny: 'Ordinary toilet. The etiquette for the toilet is not very strict, but it is, however, in good taste to appear dressed as for a ceremonious call. For women, the toilet should be simple and the ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... with sleepless eye, I watched that wretched man, And since, I never dare to write As funny as I can." ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Englander relates a funny story of his youth, in which one of these triple-tiered foot-benches played an important part. When he was a boy a travelling show visited his native town, and though he was not permitted to go ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... he began awkwardly. "It just seemed funny to find a regular man's room in a household of women. I suppose it ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... funny Perlet is as the Englishwoman!... Why don't you laugh? Everyone else in the house is laughing. Laugh, dear!" ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... doubtless," he said, peering shipward. Then his eyes lit with a new discovery. "That's the New York Yacht Club pennant. Owner's aboard and I'm darned—I beg pardon—if it isn't Billy Saunderson's signal at the peak. Funny that they answered our hail when no one seems ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton |
