"Queer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her queer situation: hour after hour passed, and the first spasmodic impulse of womanly decorum—not to let the sun go down upon her present improper state—was quite controllable. She could regard the strange contingency that had arisen with something like philosophy. The day slipped by: ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... Fellows in Bristol are numbers, some Who so modish are grown, that they think plain sense cumbersome; And lest they should seem to be queer or ridiculous, They affect to believe neither ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... knock at the street-door; a very decided application of the queer, twisted knocker. Leslie roused herself: not a beggar's tap that; none of the janitors; and this was not Dr. Murdoch's or Dr. Ware's hour: the girl was accurate in taps and footsteps. Some one was shown ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... it consisted mainly of the vision of plenty of cigars and brandy and water and newspapers, and a cane-bottomed arm-chair of the right inclination, from which he could stretch his legs. Nevertheless it seemed to him he had never seen an interior that was so much an interior as this queer corridor-shaped drawing-room of his new-found kinswoman; he had never felt himself in the presence of so much organised privacy or of so many objects that spoke of habits and tastes. Most of the people he had hitherto known had no tastes; they ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... his beard, which was of iron-grey colour and reached down to his waist. His garb was composed of rags, tied to his body by the free use of rope. He once told my mother that he had more than once changed clothes with a scarecrow. Sometimes this queer person would never be seen by mortal man for months together, unless it were that I disturbed his solitude occasionally; but then, of course, I was only a boy. "Luke" had a bad name amongst us lads. I know people couldn't fairly ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... would just yell that way, not for anything in particular, but merely on account of a kind of devilish comfort he got out of it. I never could get into a sound sleep but he would fetch me out of bed, all in a cold sweat, with one of those dreadful war-whoops. A queer being—very queer being; no respect for anything or anybody. Sometimes he called me "Johnny." And he kept a fiddle, and a cat. He played execrably. This seemed to distress the cat, and so the cat would howl. Nobody could sleep where ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... construction,—a large arbor made of woven reeds and thatched with green branches. Within this fragile abode, he was able to make out through its bright curtains a long table, chairs, and an old-fashioned lamp hanging from the top... What a queer whim of these people who, having a house, chose to live ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... belief that somehow or other the moment that they dreaded, the moment that was always coming to block their happiness, could be evaded and shoved aside. Nothing mechanical like that was wholly true. Daddy had often used queer phrases that hinted at it: "Some day—A day is coming—A day will come"; and so forth. Their belief in a special Day when no one would say "Time" haunted them already. Yet, evidently this evening was not the momentous occasion; for when Tim mentioned that the clock was fast, ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... fire. Then the rite of removing the tea-table was majestically performed—the ceremonial that had so often jarred on Amherst's nerves. As she watched it, Justine had a vague sense of the immutability of the household routine—a queer awed feeling that, whatever happened, a machine so perfectly adjusted would work on inexorably, ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... continued—"I couldn't help it—on the way a queer loathing of the little village. The gaunt house-fronts obtruded themselves so obstinately, so self-satisfiedly, like anemic country parsons, with their eyes close together, giving me a mean, soulless stare. Every object testified to its lack of any ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... man he had noticed on a bench directly opposite to the one he had occupied sidling towards him. The fellow was ragged and trampish looking. There was a queer leer in his face and his eyes were fixed on ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... chipped ewers and tubs full of sweet basil, clove pinks, and marigolds, I can just see a corner of the palace turret, and the vague ultramarine of the hills beyond. The house, whose back goes sharp down into the ravine, is a queer up-and-down black place, whitewashed rooms, hung with the Raphaels and Francias and Peruginos, whom mine host regularly carries to the chief inn whenever a stranger is expected; and surrounded by old ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... Reaux in the next. The religiosity displayed is of a high temper of Christian Platonism, and we cannot, as we can elsewhere, say what the song says of something else, that "it certainly looks very queer." The knights and ladies do go to mass and vespers; but to say that they go punctually would be altogether erroneous, for Hircan makes wicked jokes on his and Parlamente's being late for the morning office, and, on one occasion at least, they keep the unhappy monks of the convent where they are staying ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... she cooed content, And bats ringed round, and daylight went; The gnarl, our seat, is wrenched and sunk, Prone that queer pocket in the trunk Where lay the key To ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... Queer things came into your head to say when you were talking with Norah, who had an aunt with the second sight, and told beautiful fairy tales herself, and even believed in fairies; Judith did not. The Everards gave Judith ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... seen fishes come swimming up wonderingly to gaze into the port. They would remain quite motionless until he stirred his head, and then they vanished instantly. Mr. Lake has a remarkable photograph which he took of a visiting fish, and Wilson tells of nurturing a queer flat crab for days in the crevice ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... perhaps, as well that their farewells were cut short. There was scarcely time for more than a few hurried words before the train moved out from the queer little station, and with his head out of the window, Aynesworth waved his hand to the black-frocked child with her pale, eager face already stained with tears—a lone, strange little figure, full of a sort of plaintive grace as she ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the bush. But I confess I was rather nonplussed with the second Jones. How the devil was I to begin? His waiting-room was full of people, and I hardly felt entitled to sit down and gas about one thing and the other till the chance offered of leading up to the Van Coorts. So I said I had some queer, shooting sensations in the chest. In five minutes he had me half-stripped and was pounding my midriff in. And the questions that man asked! He began with my grandparents, roamed through my childhood and youth, dissected my early manhood, and finally ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... the crooks are called by the country people "Devil's tooth-picks." A correspondent informs us that the queer old crook-packs represented in our illustration are still in use in North Devon. He adds: "The pack-horses were so accustomed to their position when travelling in line (going in double file) and so jealous of their respective places, that ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... His brother, the present Marquis, I have never met, but Mr. Tener, his present agent here, who passed some time in America several years ago, learning from him that I wished to see this place, very courteously wrote to me asking me to make his house my headquarters. I found my way through queer passages to a cheery little hall where my host met me, and taking me into a pleasant little parlour, enlivened by flowers, and a merrily blazing fire, presented me ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... avete pigliato quest' oggi?" was a question put from our one-horse cart, till then going at a great rate through the village of Somma, to a little old man, with a humpback, a sack, and a large shallow box. He was dressed in a queer costume, had a wolf's brush in his hat, and remarkably tight-fitting leather leggings. "Tre! fra altri una vipera meschia." "Oh! oh! aspetta," added we—we must see the viper. Upon which there was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... those repeated treble whistlings: they still distressed him with a mysterious unriddled summons, but Mike Terrier had told him that the secret of respectability is to ignore whatever you don't understand. Careful observation of this maxim had somewhat dulled the cry of that shrill queer music. It now caused only a faint pain in his mind. Still, he walked that way because the little meadow by the pond was agreeably soft underfoot. Also, when he walked close beside the water the voices were silent. That is worth noting, he said to himself. If you go directly at the heart of ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... bunch of chaparral over there," said Buck, "but it's an almighty queer way for road agents to go about a ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... following words—they are often misspelled: loving, using, till, until, queer, fulfil, speech, muscle, quite, scheme, success, barely, college, villain, salary, visitor, remedy, hurried, forty-four, enemies, twelfth, marriage, ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... Queer days indeed! And the threads of some men's lives were sadly tangled. Such desperadoes as Curly Bill were easy enough to read; just rough-and-tumble cow-boys who had taken to whisky and bad company. But behind the somber mask of John Ringo's face there lurked ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... in a moment, and we went on. Presently, the very queer small boy says, 'This is Gad's Hill we are coming to, where Falstaff went out to rob those ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... and clover— "What funny old markings: look here, They have scrawled the rocks all over: It's just where the door was: how queer!" ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... him the contents of this locket—a favour which had uniformly been denied. Now the opportunity was his without the asking. Nothing rewarded his curiosity save a lock of yellow hair, probably cut from the head of Rose. Queer fancy, he thought, for one girl to cherish the tresses of another. Suddenly he was struck by an idea that sent the blood throbbing to his temples. He examined the tress a second time. The bright hair growing upon his ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... said Chris, increasing the friction he was applying across the small of his back. "I shall be better soon. Only it's just as if I'd been hammered all over. But how queer that I ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... we had come so close to it that we could distinguish with ease what manner of land lay beyond the shore, and thus we found it to be of an abominable flatness, desolate beyond all that I could have imagined. Here and there it appeared to be covered with clumps of queer vegetation; though whether they were small trees or great bushes, I had no means of telling; but this I know, that they were like unto nothing which ever I had ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... should be hers; when Anne came down, she said one should be hers. Mine was the prettiest of the whole, the tallest and the most perfect in every part. Emily's was a grave-looking fellow, and we called him 'Gravey.' Anne's was a queer little thing, much like herself, and we called him 'Waiting-boy.' Branwell chose his, and called ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... decorum in exact keeping with the precise shade of his public status—is often the most delightfully unconventional, good-natured, unsophisticated, and even erratic being in the world, as soon as he has left the cares of his office behind him. Germany is the classic land of queer people. It is the land of Quintus Fixlein, Onkel Braesig, Leberecht Huehnchen, and the host of Fliegende Blatter worthies; it is the land of the beer-garden and the Kaffeekranzchen, of the Christmas-tree and the Whitsuntide ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... had to be found. At last they started. When Charlie stood near the great, dark, gaping mouth of the pit, and remembered that he had to go down there, he certainly felt as he afterwards described it, "very queer"—not afraid, ...
— Charlie Scott - or, There's Time Enough • Unknown
... is afraid, and weeps in the darkness. What has made the bed shake? "Mother, where are you? I am awake." "Hush, my Darling, I am here." "But, Mother, something so queer happened, the room shook." Boom! "Oh! What is it? What is the matter?" Boom! "Where is Father? I am so afraid." Boom! The child sobs and shrieks. The house trembles and ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington
... am rather ashamed to confess I am not as much impressed and overwhelmed as I ought to be! Dick took a note from Mr. Plumb to his nephew, Mr. Macklem, and he arranged to call for us at three. In the morning we drove to the Rapids and Whirlpool, and went up and down all sorts of queer places in queerer elevators. The river looked beautiful, a blue-green colour, and the whirlpool is mysteriously curious, where poor Captain Webb disappeared! In the afternoon the Macklems took us to the American ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh
... the West know queer little Brent Tor, that isolated church-crowned peak that stands up defiantly a mile or two from Lydford, seeming, as it were, a sentry watching the West for grim Dartmoor that rises twice its height behind it. Burnt Tor, they say, was the old name of ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various
... two persons Robin's glances for ever wandered. The laughing blue eyes of the girl, the queer little toss of her head which she gave in her unheard answers to her sober father, heartily pleased young Fitzooth, and in some way vaguely disturbed his memory. She was of about fifteen summers; and her hair was black as a winter's ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... the fishermen find what they call a "knob-fish" on one of their hooks, and I never knew what they meant until one day a small colony of five was brought ashore. Boltenia, the scientists call them, tall, queer-shaped things; a stalk six to eight inches in length, with a knob or oblong bulb-like body at the summit, looking exactly like the flower of a lady-slipper orchid and as delicately coloured. This is a member of that curious family ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... if we were right. Of course we Swallows never stop to eat, for we catch our food as we fly, but we did sometimes stop to rest. Just after we had crossed this great lake we alighted. It was then that a very queer thing happened, and this is really the story that I ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson
... overshadowed. The dear old boy saw my glance, and said, with a sad smile, 'Here, you see, I have a country!' And then he pointed to the foot of his bed, where I had not seen before a great map of the United States, as he had drawn it from memory, and which he had there to look upon as he lay. Quaint, queer old names were on it, in large letters: 'Indiana Territory,' 'Mississippi Territory,' and 'Louisiana Territory,' as I suppose our fathers learned such things: but the old fellow had patched in Texas, too; he had carried his western ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... he said, "if you made connections. If you'd been later than five minutes past seven, I was to keep dark. You've got seven minutes and a half to spare. Queer orders, but the big railroad boss, Woodbridge, ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... likely to be the most particular, as he hooked up what certainly looked very like the body and feet of a lizard. However, he said nothing, and minced up the remainder of his portion before he examined it. O'Grady made some queer faces at some of the things which caught his eye in the pot, but he said nothing, as he was too hungry ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... dug in his spurs and got ahead, leaning over to whisper to the corporal, who stepped back saluting. The carryall never stopped at all, the pony trotting along unconcernedly, and it was so dark beneath the top I could not see sign of anybody. It was a queer-looking outfit, but I had no doubt this would ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... She was quite herself by this time, but filled with amazement at Fairfax. What a queer compound he was, she thought, glancing over to where the youth stood. He was blushing as Sally helped him to remove the cobwebs from his clothing, and seemed unable to answer the chaff with which she and Robert were ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... it and put a wall around it, too. We folks of Sihasset don't like that; it shuts off the view of the house and lawn. Lawn's what makes things purty. He wuz a queer old mug—wanted to ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... the arm. He looked up. By the light of the moon he saw a boy standing before him. Such a queer boy he was, too. He had cloven feet, and his coat, if it was a coat, seemed to be made in the shape ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... it seems queer that I haven't been to see you ... but you'll understand, I couldn't. There was ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... That queer little dwarf, going about with a heavy basket, winding in and out among the people, helps not a little. You can hear his shrill cry above all the other sounds, "Pypen en tabac! Pypen ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... have queer neighbours," came at last, from Miss Strange's reluctant lips. "Didn't they hear or ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... been spoken of as Gypsy's particular aversion, was a queer old lady with green glasses, who lived opposite Mr. Breynton's, who felt herself particularly responsible for Gypsy's training, and gave her good advice, double measure, pressed down and running over. ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... over from Cleveland to Cincinnati, the last time, in a stage, I met a queer crowd. Such a corps, such a time, you never did see. I never was better amused in my life. We had a good team,—spanking horses, fine coaches, and one of them drivers you read of. Well, there was nine 'insiders,' and I don't believe there ever was a stage full of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... Clerk, or whatever you call it, of this Cathedral; your enjoying the reputation of having done such wonders with the choir; your choosing your society, and holding such an independent position in this queer old place; your gift of teaching (why, even Pussy, who don't like being taught, says there never was such a Master as you are!), and ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... just started across lots when he made a discovery that aroused his curiosity a little. There was a queer sort of light flickering beyond him. He quickly realized that some person must be walking the same way as he was, and carrying one of those useful little hand-electric torches, which he seemed to be moving this way and that in an ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... like a picture in a tailor's window. His servant-man, in a livery of brown and yellow, was holding the horses in a fine dog-cart. I asked Jimmy Faulds what his name was and he laughed and said it was Braelands of Braelands, and he should think I knew it and then he looked at me that queer, that I felt as if his eyes had told me of some calamity. 'What is he doing at Mistress Kilgour's?' I asked as soon as I could get myself together, and Jimmy answered, 'I suppose he is ordering Madame Braelands' millinery,' and then he snickered and laughed again, and I had hard ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... you again," she went on. "You came within an ace of being my husband. I might have belonged to you and counted your washing. It's queer, isn't ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... course of time there wandered that way a queer character, a clock-maker, who being fully instructed in the inner workings of time-tellers, and not having inherited the traditions of that village, did not regard this clock with the veneration accorded to ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... who was slightly behind his comrade in their queer progress back toward the shell hole near which the Polish lad had been seen to fall, observed his fellow sergeant ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... "get-up" of the Englishman as he was about to mount his noble steed and ride forth into the wilds. If I was amused by the crowd, I believe the crowd was greatly amused at my proceedings. Mine own familiar friend, I verily believe, would have passed me by on the other side, I cut so queer a figure. As usual on these occasions, I had sent forward my portmanteau, this time to Maros Vasarhely; but everything else I possessed I carried round about me and my horse somehow, and I am not a man "who ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... to have a look at it. The house is a mere cottage, only just room to swing two cats and a kitten—not a corner for any impotent genius to woo the drowsy god in," and here Amias gave a great laugh; "but there is a queer sort of garden room Logan has built which he calls his workshop, and part of it is partitioned off as a bedroom. It is a bit airy in the winter, he says, but simply perfect in the summer. You can sleep with your window ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... not from life, but from other books. And even granting that he carried out his plan with a reasonable degree of cleverness, the average reader is not sufficiently acquainted with Kerner and Platen and their long line of queer contemporaries to see the point, so he skips over this part of the work and turns at once to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... His glance wavered and a queer little wrinkle appeared between his eyes. He lowered his voice ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... was ajar. As David and Barbier were hanging together over a map of Paris which David had hunted out of his stores, Barbier suddenly threw up his head with a queer look. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... up the hill last night to call Doctor Haywood to her daughter Hepsey, did tell my wife that she had a look into the south room as he opened the door, and that there were queer things there, such as a brick furnace, all red with fire; and she did say, too, that she saw things like snakes, only thin like mist, twisting about in the air by the firelight, which I do hold to be her own ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... queer about thet guide?" asked the teamster, lowering his voice. "Did ye see how oneasy he was last night? Did it strike ye he left us in a hurry, kind of excited like, in spite of his ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... can pick it up," agreed Bud. "Anyhow, we'll take a ride over that way. What with cattle missing, and queer shots being fired behind your back, we're likely to be in for as lively a time as when we had ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... to economize, she took a house, a queer little stone building with a projecting roof, containing four small rooms, one on top of the other. The rooms were so tiny that when the big front door stood ajar it opened up almost all the little apartment dignified by ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... that? They swoop around and go just where they want to. Perhaps that is the way the angels fly; only of course the angels are much larger, and very much more particular about what they eat. Isn't it queer that all the gulls have eyes just alike—black and shiny and round, just like little shoe-buttons? How funnily they swim! They sit right down on the water as if it wasn't wet. Don't you wish you could do that? Look how they tuck up their pinky feet under them when they fly, and how ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... walked into that kind of thing. Now like me, he had worked for the Exploration Company a good few years and had been to all kinds of places prospecting. Torres Straits, the Gold Coast, Madagascar, Patagonia. We prospectors have to get around in queer corners and the life's a dull one. All monotony. But Somerfield had queer notions. He worked at the job because he could make more money than at anything else and that gave him a chance to keep his family in Ohio in comfort. He was mighty fond of his family. Besides, the job gave ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... who came from the mountains of Pistoia, and the Casentino, and heaven knows where, to keep their vigil in the church of the Nunziata, and sell their yarn and dried mushrooms at the Fierucola [the little Fair], as we call it. They make a queer show, with their paper lanterns, howling their hymns to the Virgin on this eve of her nativity—if you had the leisure to see them. No?—well, I have had enough of it myself, for there is wild work in the Piazza. One may happen to get a ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... precisely in such places that Bracciolini and his companions looked for the books that they wanted; what is still stranger, they always found in such queer places the exact books they were in search of. It was so, for example, when they recovered the books in the monastery of St. Gall; the books were not found where, Bracciolini admits, they ought to have been, on account of their excellence, ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... of the sacred rights of the Orthodox Church, and pretended (as is usual with all parties in going to war) that he was challenged to the fight, and that his cause was just. He then invoked the aid of Almighty Power. It was rather a queer thing for a warlike sovereign, entering upon an aggressive war to gratify ambition, to quote the words of David: "In thee, O Lord, have I trusted: let me ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... Quonab said, with surprise in his voice, "Deer!" Yes, truly, there was the record. A deer—a big one—had come wandering past; his keen nose soon apprised him of a strong, queer appeal near by. He had gone unsuspiciously toward it, sniffed and pawed the unaccountable and exciting nose medicine; then "snap!" and he had sprung a dozen feet, with that diabolic smell-thing hanging to his foot. Hop, hop, hop, the terrified deer had gone into a slashing windfall. Then the ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... he gives me to understand that it is the church which is on trial, not the minister, and that whether he comes or not depends on what kind of a church he finds it to be. This reversal of the ordinary course of things is a little queer; but I guess it is all right. At all events it will not do the church at Wheathedge any harm. Meanwhile until we get a final answer from Maurice Mapleson our pulpit is no longer in the market. For after our experience of ministerial coquetry I do not think there will be any inclination on ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... among the reeds; I sit and stare about; Queer slimy things crawl through the weeds, Put to a sullen rout. I paddle under cypress trees; All fearfully I peer Through oozy channels when the breeze Comes rustling ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... of course, abounds in nearly all, if not in all, the armies of Europe. It is peculiarly the soldier's and the sailor's vice, and some queer scenes have occurred directly under my own eyes here, which go to prove it. Take among others, the fact, that a whole guard, not long since, got drunk in the Faubourg St. Germain, and actually arrested people in the streets and confined them ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... pile up fortunes magnify the importance of their money. They imagine that every kindness, every ordinary courtesy shown them, is merely a bid for a slice of the cake. I’m disappointed in my grandfather. He was a splendid old man, though God knows he had his queer ways. I’ll bet a thousand dollars, if I have so much money in the world, that this scheme is yours, Pickering, and not his. It smacks of your ancient vindictiveness, and John Marshall Glenarm had none of that in his blood. That stipulation about my residence ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... "Boys are queer animals, lassie; we were prouder that Peter accepted our poor little tip than about the muirfowl we shot, though I had three brace and Sandie four. Highlanders are all gentlemen by birth, and be sure of this, Kit, it's only that breed which can manage boys and soldiers. ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... in silence. He was a curious wizened man, apparently over fifty years of age, with thin hands that looked as tough as wire. His nose was much sharper than is usual among these races, and he had a queer habit of holding his head sideways like a bird when he spoke, which, in addition to the humour that lurked in his eye, gave him a most comical appearance. Another strange thing about him was that he had a single white lock of hair among his black wool. At ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... other subjects than love are few, and almost exclusively descriptive. Our sense of the humorous gives us a delight in queer and odd characters, in which the Greeks probably would not have participated. Though they had an abundance of wit, and a keen perception of the ridiculous, no songs have reached us which are intended to please ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Abbe de Chateauneuf, saying she was in sore trouble. When the good man arrived, he thought it a matter of extreme unction, and was ushered into the room of the alleged invalid. Here he was duly presented with the infant that later was to write the "Philosophical Dictionary." It was as queer a case of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... women have told me that they find that after marriage they are not ticklish under the arms or on the breasts, though before marriage any tickling or touching in these regions, especially by a man, would make them jump or get hysterical or 'queer,' as they call it. Before coitus the sexual energy seems to be dissipated along all the nerve-channels and especially along the secondary sexual routes,—the breasts, nape of neck, eyebrows, lips, cheeks, armpits, and hair thereon, etc.,—but after marriage the surplus ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... M'Allister," I answered. He again looked at me keenly, with a queer smile on his face; and remarked, "Mon, I'm thinking you are that, and that you ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... Orso, "I can't say as much. He strikes me as a very queer individual, with his airs of ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... "It's queer how things always happen just right," said Prudy, still trembling from her fright. "You said, if I'd been wearing my calico, mother, I'd have been scorched. And you know it was only the littlest while ago I put on this blue delaine, to go ...
— Little Prudy's Dotty Dimple • Sophie May
... could remember anything. This had unfortunately been broken by a friend of Pennie's whilst the two girls were on a visit at Nearminster; and though it had not been her fault, Pennie felt as if she were responsible for the accident. She found out that her godmother had a great affection for the queer little mandarin, and it made her sorry whenever she went to Nearminster to see his place empty, and to think that he would never nod ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... St. Catharine, a very queer thing occurred, which we have not thought right to omit here on account of the instruction it contains. One of the ladies, in waiting on the princess whose name was Maria Garcia, often came to have some pious conversation with one of the holy religious, who was very averse to receiving ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... up through Redman's Dell, dank and dark with tall romantic trees, was left behind in another moment; and we were now traversing the homely and antique street of the little town, with its queer shops and solid steep-roofed residences. Up Church-street I contrived a peep at the old gray tower where the chimes hung; and as we turned the corner a glance at the 'Brandon Arms.' How very small and low that ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... made in 1497, Vespucci reached the coast of Honduras, and sailed into the Gulf of Mexico. Here he found, probably on the coast of Yucatan, a queer little sea village which reminded him of the great city of Venice ...
— Discoverers and Explorers • Edward R. Shaw
... cleared. It was impossible for him to frown for long on any subject. He was very sorry for 'old Pam.' His father's opinions and behaviour were too queer for words. He would be jolly worried if he had to stay long at home, like Pamela. But then he wasn't going to be long at home. He was going off to his artillery camp in two days, and the thought filled him with a restless and impatient delight. At the same ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... their first touch of the magic buttons the disappearing train took on a queer, unreal look, like a ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey
... giving me a queer look, and exchanging significant glances with two or three of his guests who were within earshot. "Si, senor, I can direct you to the house of Senor Ulloa. You mean Don Simon, ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... visitor. "I say, this is a queer country. I've been hankerin' arter a good dish of baked beans for a week, and ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... are on record instances of boys singing soprano in choirs until seventeen or even eighteen. The loss of control that accompanies the change of voice (with which we are all familiar because of having heard the queer alternations of squeaking and grumbling in which the adolescent boy so frequently indulges), is due to the fact that the larynx, vocal cords, et cetera, increase in size more rapidly than the muscles develop strength to manipulate them, and this rapid increase ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... queer idea it is to waste all that upon a thing that nobody will ever look at," said Dolly, her round eyes opening ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... artistic impropriety. But you will go to see this piece chiefly for the sake of Mr. EADIE's tour de force, for the thrill of the rather pleasant sensation (mingled with a slightly horrified suspicion of sacrilege) of seeing a queer resurrection, and for the fragrance of a touching little idyll of married friendship—one of the most enduring ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, April 12, 1916 • Various
... songs are taken from an admirable selection of sailor songs published by John Ashton. The names of the writers are not given, but their strong nautical flavour and queer composition indicate their origin. No landsman can ever imitate the sailor when the power of song or composition is on him. He puts his own funny sentiment and descriptive faculty into his work, which is ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... no one knew what was the matter. Of course the air smelled queer and made one's eyes smart. But after a while when the smoke grew so thick that it seemed like night-time and Mr. Merry Sun couldn't be seen at all, the Forest Folk thought it time to hold a meeting to consider what was best to do. They all decided to ask Billy Breeze to help them, and you can ...
— Little Jack Rabbit's Adventures • David Cory
... performed clumsily enough, as far as appearance went, I allow; but cleverly and confidently, though with leaders hardly within calling distance: and four snaffle-bits, and a pig-whip, being the only means of dictation and control possessed by the coachman. The more I see of these queer Whips the better I like them: it assuredly is impossible to conceive anything more uncoachmanlike than their outward man; but they grapple with the constantly occurring difficulties of their strange work hardily and ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... know of this root; the queer paisano (? ground woodpecker) which eats snakes, when wounded by a vibora de cascabel, runs into woods, digs up and eats a root of the agave, just like the mongoose; but more than that, goes back, polishes off his enemy, and eats him. This has been ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... of German, of French, and even of Italian, but never before has he been clothed complete in English dress. In the Harvard College Library is deposited the fruit of a slight effort in that direction, a diminutive volume dated two centuries back, the title page of which (agog with queer italics) ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... southern wall, where the afternoon light slept in the dreamiest, sweetest way. I sat down on an old stone, and looked away to the desolate salt-marshes and still, shining surface of the etang; and, as I did so, reflected that this was a queer little out-of-the-world corner to have been chosen, in the great dominions of either monarch, for that pompous interview which took place, in 1538, between Francis I. and Charles V. It was also not easy to perceive how Louis IX., when in 1248 and 1270 ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... over myself, and the more I thought of it, the stranger it seemed that anyone else, outside, should know. I began to wonder how it leaked out, for I understood that it was a strictly private affair. I asked Mr. Murtha and he told Mr. Dorgan. Mr. Dorgan at once guessed that there had been something queer. He looked about his rooms there, and, sure enough, they found the detectaphone concealed in the wall. I can't tell any more," she added, facing Carton and using her bewitching eyes to their best advantage. "I ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... to fight his way, never had a show. Sick and maimed and sore, he was being made much of, though he had been caught where the boys were forbidden to go. Things were queer, anyhow, and— ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... were on the skins, not on the men, and he did not appear to listen. He sat leaning forward, with a strange look on his face. Presently he got up, came over, and stroked the skins softly. A queer chuckling noise came ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... (qualification) 469. nonconformist; nondescript, character, original, nonesuch, nonsuch^, monster, prodigy, wonder, miracle, curiosity, flying fish, black sheep, black swan, lusus naturae [Lat.], rara avis [Lat.], queer fish; mongrel, random breed; half-caste, half-blood, half-breed; metis [Lat.], crossbreed, hybrid, mule, hinny, mulatto; tertium quid [Lat.], hermaphrodite. [Mythical animals] phoenix, chimera, hydra, sphinx, minotaur; griffin, griffon; centaur; saggittary^; kraken, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... said the Councillor to the Hostess, who came bustling towards him. "I've felt so queer all of a sudden; would you have the goodness to send for a hackney-coach to ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... imprinted it, with a stencil and black paint, on pepper-bags, and baskets of anatto, and cigar-boxes, and bales of all kinds of dutiable merchandise, in testimony that these commodities had paid the impost, and gone regularly through the office. Borne on such queer vehicle of fame, a knowledge of my existence, so far as a name conveys it, was carried where it had never been before, and, I hope, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... have a difficult time indeed determining just how much is biographical and how much belongs to the stock in trade of Elizabethan sonneteers. Brettville Jensen points out that if the sonnets are the expression of grief at the loss of his beloved, it is a queer contradiction that Sonnet 144, which voices his most poignant sorrow, should date from 1599, the year, according to Brandes, when Shakespeare's comedy ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... that Laundry. The confidences, he was aware, were common property of the visitors one after another, but he had the knowledge of his being trusted as not every Irishman would have been. A service of six months to the secretaryship established his reputation as the strange bird of a queer species: not much less quiet, honest, methodical, than an Englishman, and still impulsive, Irish still; a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the windows, and lit a cigarette. Presently a queer sound caused him to turn sharply. Lancaster was lying back, ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... Dumouriez had delivered up Camus and his companions with Beurnonville to the Austrians. After the advent of Napoleon, this incorruptible Republican became one of the most serviceable servants of the new master of France, and ended his career as an Imperial senator, with the queer title of Comte ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... visited an old "kastel" or two more in the neighborhood of Arnhem, and then following the Rhine where it winds among fields like a wide, twisted ribbon of silver worked into a fabric of green brocade. Its high waves, roughened by huge side-wheel steamers, spilt us into the Lek; and so, past queer little ferries and a great crowded lock or two, where Alb used his Club flag, we came straight to the fine old city of which one hears and knows more, somehow, than ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... up the hills behind the town to Sasso. It is a queer little cluster of gleaming white-washed houses that top the crest of a steep ridge; and, like many other Italian villages, it makes a brave show from a distance, though within it is full of evil smells and all uncleanness. But I found it had a church—a picturesquely ugly ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... with us save their pennies to send missionaries to tell these heathen who worship idols how very wrong and foolish it is to do so, and how very angry the true God is to have anything worshipped but himself." He said ours must be a very curious country, and he should like to visit it and see such queer people. I gave him my address and promised, if he would come to see me, to take him to a great missionary meeting where he would see the best and most religious people, all greatly concerned about the idolaters ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... time enough with her, for a bell rang, and away she skipped, looking back to nod and smile at the queer lady who had ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... walk!" roared old Joe in the ear-trumpet. And the queer thing is that old Peter did begin to get out; and not only began, but went on; and stood on the pavement; and then took Joe's arm; and the three went careering down ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... their outlandish apparel. They boast of being out of the fashion. They wear a queer hat. They ride in an odd carriage. By dint of perpetual application they would persuade the world that they are perfectly indifferent to public opinion. They are more proud of being "out of fashion" than others are of being in. They are utterly and universally disagreeable. Their rough ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... "The difficulty is that he won't name his price," he answered. "Don't understand him! Queer, shambling sort of fellow, all hair and eyes, with the scar of an old cut, or something, across one side of his face. Keeps looking at you as if he hated you! Showed me the machine readily enough; consented to every test even offered to let me take my stuff to the other ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... the photograph with a queer sense of participation in something he did not understand. He saw a broad, low forehead, masses of soft and slightly curly hair, eyes that looked beautifully and wistfully, out from beneath finely arched brows and a mouth that lacked nothing in humorous ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... mood in the least and his demeanor showed it. Her command had a funny little ripple in it—as of laughter suppressed. There were queer quirks at the corners of her ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... own perticular well-wrought row, That he's straddled for ages— Learnt its lay and its gages— His style may seem queer, but permit him to know, The likeliest, sprightliest, manner ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... evening Mr. Martin settled down by his study fire to his new purchases. First he took up the "Life and Legends." He read the saint's own Confession, and the Letter to Co-roticus, and looked through the translation of the Tripartite Life, with its queer mixture of Latin and English: "Prima feria venit Patricius ad Talleriam, where the regal assembly was, to Cairpre, the son of Niall." "Interrogat autem Patricius qua causa venit Conall, and Conall related the reason ...
— Saint Patrick - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... "That's queer!" he said. "They all sell coffee, tea, groceries, and that sort of thing. Big stores, ...
— Crowded Out o' Crofield - or, The Boy who made his Way • William O. Stoddard
... later I still hear him: "As for me, little and queer-shaped as I am, all the same I can carry a bin of two hundred pounds' weight to the warehouse, up the steps, and my feet in sabots. Once I had a ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... drop myself. Travelin' fills a feller's throat full of dust." He got up, lurching to the motion of the flying train, and started forward to the water cooler behind the car door. He had gone perhaps two-thirds of the way when Mr. Trimm felt a queer, grinding sensation beneath his feet; it was exactly as though the train were trying to go forward and back at the same time. Almost slowly, it seemed to him, the forward end of the car slued out of its straight course, at the same time tilting up. There was a grinding, roaring, grating sound, ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... can't tell you, my boy," he replied; "I don't think I ever heard such a queer noise before. If we were off the banks of Newfoundland, I should think it a fog-horn blowing somewhere about. But, we're several hundred miles to the southward of Cape Race and the night is too clear for fogs. It is one of those mysterious ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... not at all strange or frightened as I walked along between Sharley and Val, each holding one of my hands and chattering away about all we were going to do, though I had a queer, rather nice feeling as if I must be in a dream, it all seemed so pretty ...
— My New Home • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... believe it will come to that," said he, an odd note of confidence in his voice. "'Tain't likely, old friend, that God would see us safely through all we've had to tackle and then desert us in the end. Something's bound to turn up. I've a feeling,—a queer feeling,—that we're going to pull out of this all right. I know it looks mighty ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... an' ploughs a bit, an' chops The wood, an' does the needful to 'is crops. We does it soft, an' when 'e 'ears a row 'Is missus tells 'im it's the dog or cow. 'E sez that it's queer noises for a pup. An'—there'll be ructions when ole ...
— Digger Smith • C. J. Dennis
... near some place of man's abode;— For the old negro's confidence in creeping, With his two captives, by so queer a road, Shows that he thinks his friends have not been sleeping; A single cry would bring them all abroad: 'T is therefore better looking before leaping— And there, you see, this turn has brought us through, By Jove, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... who is Anne Ashton?" demanded the countess-dowager, with as much hauteur as so queer an old figure and face could put on, whilst Maude bent over ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... strange," said he, giving me another of his queer looks. "I fear you have undergone some strange mental change in your long sleep. But as I perceive that you do not understand me, I will explain matters to you. Last night, Master Salkeld, as you and your cousin ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... lime-stone in the furnace, not of much good in yourself, but of some service to help the smelting of that which is better,—so come along, old lady; my mind misgives me, that you have had more to do in making up this queer affair than you would have it supposed." The more Rebecca resisted, the more determined was Shanty; neither did he quit his hold of the old woman, until the whole party had entered the room, the door being shut, and his back set against it, where he kept his ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... The qualifications, says Horace Walpole, were drunkenness and a visit to Italy. The founders of it seem to have been jovial young men who had met each other abroad, where, with obsequious tutors and out of sight of domestic authority, they often learned some very queer lessons. But many of them learned more, and by degrees the Dilettante Club took not only to encouraging the opera in England, but to making really valuable archaeological researches in Greece and elsewhere. The intelligent youth had great opportunities ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... this extraordinary statement with a queer smile just hovering about the corners of his legal mouth. His employer looked at ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... know," answered Miss Manners, doubtfully, "it is rather too queer for my taste. Tricks are all very well, but when it comes to magic and visions I ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... Victor," replied the other. "I am the landlord of the 'Bon Copain.' An hour ago a man came into my cabaret. He was a queer, consumptive creature, with a churchyard cough that made you shiver. Some of my customers knew him by sight, told me that the man's name was Rateau, and that he was an habitue of the 'Liberte,' in the Rue Christine. Well; ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... an opposite window of the same inn, singing and playing upon the violoncello: I had not observed the circumstance, but my perrucchiere's distress was evident; he writhed and twisted about like a man pinched with the cholic, and pulled a hundred queer faces: at last—What is the matter, Ercolani, said I, are you not well? Mistress, replies the fellow, if that beast don't leave off soon, I shall run mad with rage, or else die; and so you'll see an honest Venetian lad killed ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... she said: 'I wouldn't choose to live in it. It's a queer place, and indeed I don't know the place ...
— The Aran Islands • John M. Synge
... was in a queer position; he did not know himself how he stood towards it. He had never had time to think seriously about it. He was not well enough educated, and he was too much absorbed by the difficulties of existence to be ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... just been hearing the whole story from her? She did those thirty-five miles in three hours? Jimminy Christmas! Say, she's a pippin! Bully girl! I knew that pie-face over at her school would queer the whole show. Say, Uncle Ath, I'd just like to put one over on her for fair. What did ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... O'Grady; "you've a queer taste. What do you think of it, miss?" added he to Augusta, "it's just under your nose." Furlong thought this rather personal, ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... there by a friend, to whose insistence I had yielded somewhat reluctantly; although he had assured me, and, I believe, with reason, that it was a house where the indirect, or Attic invitation greatly prevailed, in brief, a place where one met very queer people. The hostess was American, a charming woman, of unimpeachable antecedents; but her passion for society, which, while it should always be interesting, was not always equally reputable, had exposed her evenings to the suspicion of her ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... to han', Requestin' me to please be funny; But I a'n't made upon a plan Thet knows wut 's comin', gall or honey: Ther' 's times the world doos look so queer, Odd fancies come afore I call 'em; An' then agin, for half a year, No preacher 'thout ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... are marked!' he replied hotly, in his queer foreign jargon. 'In my last hand I had nothing. You doubled the stakes. Bah, sir, you ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... individual, and therefore some curious customs still prevail among the peasant and working classes in the Netherlands, especially in the Eastern provinces, for there the people are most primitive, and there it is that we find many queer old rhymes, apparently without any sense in them, but which must have had their origin in forgotten national or domestic events. A remnant of an old pagan custom of welcoming the summer is still to be seen in ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... "It does seem queer," agreed Dorothy, "but you know it is the rule that the girls must not bring large parcels into this house, unless they're willing to show what ...
— Dorothy Dainty at Glenmore • Amy Brooks
... but I didn't pay much attention. They inquired when Mr. Hazlehurst was coming home; I said I didn't know. The one with the curly hair said he guessed they knew more about the family than I did; and he looked queer ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... "There are some mighty queer men in the trade," said he, as he puffed his cigar. "I took an order from a man in Indiana, not long ago, for felt wads, Nos. 8 and 9, and for some cardboard. When I went to copy my orders I remembered ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... pause the other spoke. "It seems queer to hear you say such things. Yet you're not what I ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond |
