"Tomfoolery" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all," he muttered, with a touch of impatience in his voice. "And now, what about those tickets? I suppose, Basil, you're dying to see all this tomfoolery?" ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... out at some of his tomfoolery," conjectured the visitor, in a tone of virtuous conviction. "Johnny never would stick to anything long enough to succeed. I wonder how he manages to run his business here, and never be 'round to look ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... in the house o' God!" he snorted. "Why the very idy! Talk about them Pharisees an' Sadducees a-makin' the temple a den o' thieves! W'y, you're a-turnin' it into a theayter with your play-actin' tomfoolery! They'll be no blessin' on ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... headache," he said, rather as a child might complain to his elder, "for two days, and now it's suddenly gone. I never used to have headaches. But I've been irritated lately by some of the tomfoolery that's been going on. Don't tell your mother; I haven't said a word to her; but what do you take ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... secret of her vitality. We must find it for her,—distraction, a system of physical exercises, perhaps. But we must occupy the mind. Those Christian Scientists have an idea, you know,—not that I recommend their tomfoolery; but we must accomplish their results by scientific means." And he went away highly satisfied with his liberality ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... think that I'm Abe Silt's keeper. I ain't. Abe's old enough—and ought to be seaman enough—to look out for Abe Silt. What tomfoolery he packed into that chest is none o' my consarn. I l'arnt years ago that Moses an' them old fellers left the chief commandment out o' the Scriptures. That's 'Mind your own business.' Abe's business ain't mine. Here, ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... this great world state of ours seems to a Victorian Englishman. You regret all the old forms of representative government—their spectres still haunt the world, the voting councils and parliaments and all that eighteenth century tomfoolery You feel moved against our Pleasure Cities. I might have thought of that,—had I not been busy. But you will learn better. The people are mad with envy—they would be in sympathy with you. Even in the streets now, they clamour to destroy the Pleasure ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... is dismayed and moved to laughter at the faithfulness of the sketch! 'The devil guided my hand,' said the deaf painter to me, with mysterious gesticulations and a satirical yet good-natured wag of the head, such as he was wont to indulge in when in the midst of his genial tomfoolery." ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... blown enough wind in her to get up a hurricane, and I expect nothing else but he'll get the old machine so chock full that she'll blow back at him some day and burst his brains out, and all along of your tomfoolery. You're a pretty mother, you are! You'd better go and join some asylum for ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... impatiently. "I'm sick of all this damned tomfoolery. Get up, d'you hear?—unless you want me to take that pretty sword of yours and spank ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... subtle for the House of Commons. But careful preparation always involves this; and every man must prepare until he is able to think more clearly on his legs than sitting down. It was just the kind of speech which was wanted at a moment when the general air is rent with the rhodomontade and tomfoolery of Ulster. Applying to these wild harangues the destructively quiet wit of obiter dicta, Mr. Birrell made the Orangemen look very foolish and utterly ridiculous. Mr, Gladstone was one of Mr. Birrell's most attentive and cordial hearers. Mr. Birrell is going ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... view. In course, if ten foot snowbanks don't bother you at all, Er slosh 'nd mud 'nd drizzlin' rain, combined with a snowfall, It's just the most delightful spot this side o' heaven's dome— But I kind o' sorter reckon that I couldn't call it home. When you talk about that climate, it's all tomfoolery, Fer sunny ol' ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... pretty piece of tomfoolery. M. Heineffettermach estimates the number of printed volumes at more than a thousand millions; and a man cannot read more than a hundred and fifty thousand in his lifetime. So, just tell me what that word education means. For some it consists in knowing the name of Alexander's horse, of ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... of life is centered upon the dog. Cats, by the way, rarely suffer from excess of adulation. A cat possesses a very fair sense of the ridiculous, and will put her paw down kindly but firmly upon any nonsense of this kind. Dogs, however, seem to like it. They encourage their owners in the tomfoolery, and the consequence is that in the circles I am speaking of what "dear Fido" has done, does do, will do, won't do, can do, can't do, was doing, is doing, is going to do, shall do, shan't do, and is about to be going to have done is the continual theme ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... aghast. "That would take all summer! And besides, I made out all that tomfoolery last summer. I supposed you must have unwound all ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... him because her parents were poor, or because she was too kind hearted to say no. Anyway, it must have been horrid for her to know that he was rich enough to let her do anything she liked, but wouldn't let her do anything nice, because he was a Consistent Democrat, and didn't believe in show or "tomfoolery." ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... slowly, as I turned up the gas: "This is the last of this nonsense that shall ever take place under my roof. I regret I permitted myself to be a party to such tomfoolery. If there is anything in it—which I doubt—it is nothing of any good, and I WON'T HAVE IT AGAIN. That ...
— The Diary of a Nobody • George Grossmith and Weedon Grossmith
... must be rescued!" He broke off to use (I must confess) some very strong words upon Trant's design against Marmont and the tomfoolery, as he called it, which had taken me into Sabugal, and left a cloud of suspicion hanging over "the best scouting officer in my service; the only man of the lot, sir, who knows his business." Lord Wellington ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... to seem ignorant about it. Why, I wouldn't be surprised a bit ef you would try to make out that you wasn't anear any fire today. But that wouldn't do, Vermont—I'll give you a pointer on that now, so you won't attempt no such tomfoolery with me, for no boy like you ever comes into a town like New York is and don't save somebody from burning up—rescue 'em from a tall building when nobody else can get to 'em. And of course for doing this they get pushed right ahead into something fine, while us city fellows ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... of books, Mr. Leavitt has, and wants me to quit the store every afternoon about half past four and drink it with him. Think of that! And instead of havin' his supper at night he wants to call it dinner. Did you ever? Yes, Sir, that's the kind of tomfoolery I've been puttin' up with all these years, and tryin' to hide from the neighbors! Maybe you'll notice I always call him Mr. Leavitt? That's why; to cover up the fact that he's only—well, what they call him. And so, cousin or no cousin, I don't see how I'm goin' to bring myself to ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... "This is tomfoolery!" Mr. Chalker turned red, and looked very uncomfortable. "Stick to business. Payment in full. Those ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... beggar on horseback. Was is Solomon, though? Never mind. He couldn't ride. Never had a horse till he was grown up. But he said some uncommon wise things about having to do with such friends as T. B. So, Harry East, if you please, no more tomfoolery after to-day. You've got a whole skin, and a lieutenant's commission to make your way in the world with, and are troubled with no particular crotchets yourself that need ever get you into trouble. So just you keep clear of other people's. And if your friends must be mending the world, and ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... the men," said Mr. Thorne. "We lost two of our best hands this week—threw down their tools and quit, for some tomfoolery they wouldn't have noticed a month ago. The bosses irritate the men, and the men get fighting mad in a minute. Not one of them will bear the weight of a word, and I don't blame them. The work is hard enough in decent weather; they are dropping off sick every day. The night-shift boys ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... of tomfoolery you are up to doesn't matter. We needn't quarrel. I've another proposition to put before you—much more to your fancy, I think. You like this Mr. Randall ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... in the minority, against any such tomfoolery; yet, when the vote is given, it will be a punishable offence for them, and me, to work overtime? You actually mean that; how do ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... "What tomfoolery is this?" he demanded, looking angrily round. "You seem to forget, all of you, that you come here to work, and not to play. If you want to play you can go somewhere else. There!" So saying he passed into his private ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... good working to go to waste. But they all say it's unlucky, and full o' all kinds o' wicked, strange critters, ghosts and goblins, and gashly things that live underground to keep people from getting the treasure. I used to laugh to myself and say it was all tomfoolery, and old women's tales; but it's true enough, as I know ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... it was his duty to sacrifice himself to the interests of his children. She endeavoured to separate him from his friends and to make him forsake his party and his fidelity to his ideas. She made fun of what she called his tomfoolery, which prevented him from turning his position to account. Every day there were fresh attacks and reproaches until he was fairly haunted by them; it was the terrible battle of all that is most prosaic against the conscience of a Deputy of the Opposition. Finally, ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt
... want to know, Alfred Burton, is first how long this tomfoolery is to last, and secondly what it all means?" Ellen began, with her elbows upon the table and a reckless disregard of neighbors. "Haven't we lived for ten years, husband and wife, at Clematis Villa, and you as happy and ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... have been wiser—and she'd have had all the blame—and it's only what she's accustomed to—you—you! you, James North!—you must nonsensically go, and, by this extravagant piece of idiocy and sentimental tomfoolery, let everybody see how serious the whole affair was, and how deep it hurt you! and here in this awful place, alone—where you're half drowned to get to it and are willing to be wholly drowned to get away! Oh, don't talk to me! I won't hear it—it's just ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... conversation, and made obsolete by the human mind outgrowing the childishness that delights in the tales told by grownup children such as novelists and their like! An end to the silly confusion, under the one name of Art, of the tomfoolery and make-believe of our play-hours with the higher methods of teaching men to know themselves! Every artist an amateur, and a consequent return to the healthy old disposition to look on every man who makes art a means of money-getting as a vagabond not to be ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... should, and to step into the living which is fattening for you, then I must refuse to take any further responsibility for your future. Here is a thousand pounds; it is the money I had set aside for your college course. Use it for your musical tomfoolery if you insist, and then—get what living you can.' Which was severe but dignified, unpaternal yet patrician. But what does my governor do? That cantankerous, pig-headed old Philistine—God bless him!—he's got no sense of the ...
— Merely Mary Ann • Israel Zangwill
... uneatable—a staggering pretension. So, when the Prince of Wales's marriage was celebrated at Mentone by a dinner to the Mentonese, it was proposed to give them solid English fare—roast beef and plum pudding, and no tomfoolery. Here we have either pole of the Britannic folly. We will not eat the food of any foreigner; nor, when we have the chance, will we suffer him to eat of it himself. The same spirit inspired Miss Bird's American missionaries, who had come ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "This daring tomfoolery! If he'd come back to old Rosecrans with his story about a few pieces of artillery posted on a ridge, Rosy would want to know why the d——l he didn't find out what was ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... tomfoolery. I asked you to be my mistress, and then, at your suggestion, I asked you to be my wife; I really don't see what more I can do. You say you're very fond of me, and yet you want to be neither ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... "Tomfoolery, is it? Go up, thin, an' luk for yerself," cried Terry, who bounded up on deck again, and began to prepare for action. At this Jericho put on his nose an enormous pair of spectacles, and thus equipped climbed upon deck, followed closely by the melancholy Biler, who devoured a carrot ...
— The Lily and the Cross - A Tale of Acadia • James De Mille
... them all along, of course," said the foreman. "But I never paid any attention to them. I just quit, like Mr. Sinclair, when they started all that tomfoolery about wearing ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... that?" asked one of the ecstatic guests. At the bottom of his heart he was also wondering why the greybeards of the mess stood all this tomfoolery without protest. He had never been shipmates ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... a hand to such tomfoolery for one," replied Tommy. "I'm dead beat." He went and sat down doggedly on the main hatch. "You got us on; get us ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by tickling his nose with a straw. Camille sneezed, got up, and pronounced the joke a capital one. He liked Laurent on account of his tomfoolery, which made him laugh. He now roused his wife, who kept her eyes closed. When she had risen to her feet, and shaken her skirt, which was all crumpled, and covered with dry leaves, the party quitted ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... me yesterday," he went on, "that they are teaching a lot of this Radical tomfoolery in Oxford now; he says his son has come home stuffed with it, thinks agricultural labourers are underpaid and all the rest. ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... grandmother! A nice set of nincompoops the race will develop into if such fools as that get their way! We're soft enough as it is, Heaven knows. Why couldn't they hang the scoundrel as he deserved? That's the surest way of putting an end to savagery. But to stop the sport altogether! It would be tomfoolery!" ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... his hand on the butt of his revolver at his hip, meaning to whip out the weapon and fire before the miscreant had finished his high-sounding tomfoolery. His daughter had also grasped hers, intending to obey to the letter the command of her parent, when the Ghoojur chieftain abruptly paused in his speech, staggered for a moment, and then sank to the ground like a bundle of rags, with the breath of ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... sight? Cost a pretty sight o' the People's money, I know that. Tomfoolery, that's what it is; a set of dressed-up bullies dancin' quadrilles on 'orseback; that ain't military manoeuvrin'. It's sickenin' the way fools applaud such goins on. And cuttin off the Saracen's 'ed, too; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... property? And to have the whole blessed country terrorised, the police defied, and people's houses invaded with impunity by a gutter-bred brute of a cracksman is nothing short of a scandal and a shame! Call this sort of tomfoolery being protected by the police? God bless my soul! one might as well be in charge of a parcel of doddering old women and ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... the colonel says; if he wants to know why, tell him I ordered it. I'm not going to have this night spoiled by any tomfoolery of Talbot's, I don't care what he says. You hear me, Alec? Not a drop. Take out those half-empty bowls and don't you serve another thimbleful of anything until I say so." Here he turned to the young doctor, ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Wot is it then? Wot's the matter with you? Wot tomfoolery are you up to? Is it—" (Isaac's gross forehead flushed, his speech came thick through his stern lips.) "Is ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... with tomfoolery—no time for anything else. I've had so much to do that I've rather neglected Harry, and now he's too much for me. He knows that he's got me beat on education, but that's only the beginning of what he knows. Good fellow, you understand, but ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... some subtle ulterior motive. The body is going out because the mere fact of its doing so is a sure indication of nobility, probity, and rugged grandeur of character.'—'Very well, Vagula, have your own wayula! But I,' says the brain, 'flatly refuse to be mixed up in this tomfoolery. I shall go to sleep till it is over.' The brain then wraps itself up in its own convolutions, and falls into a dreamless slumber from which nothing can rouse it till the body has been ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... so drunk as not to know what you are doing. Enough of this tomfoolery," said the officer sternly, "or I will have you put under arrest in ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... "My tomfoolery came near to being the end of the poor dear," said Cousin 'Ratio, walking with us to the carriage, when we had taken leave of his wife. "I feel mighty bad about it, too, as you may suppose, for it was my fault in not reminding her of those ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... mountains and woods were all clean gone. I suppose it might be eight o'clock when I took the road, laden like a donkey. First there was that Bible, a book as big as your head, which I had let myself in for by my own tomfoolery. Then there was my gun, and knife, and lantern, and patent matches, all necessary. And then there was the real plant of the affair in hand, a mortal weight of gunpowder, a pair of dynamite fishing bombs, and two or three ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... shouting and jumping about for just ten seconds, and give me a chance to observe that I am your maiden aunt from Devonshire, all this tomfoolery can ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome
... the line on the 13th of this month, and as one of the uninitiated I went through the usual tomfoolery practised on that occasion. The affair has been too often described for me to say anything about it. I had the good luck to be ducked and shaved early, and of course took particular care to do my best in serving out the unhappy beggars ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... Bill Cameron, the owner of these ice-houses, that's who I am! And I know you, in spite of them tomfoolery dresses you've got on. You're boys ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... house I had fired. My most immediate problem was to get clothing. What to do with my face puzzled me. Then I saw in one of those little miscellaneous shops—news, sweets, toys, stationery, belated Christmas tomfoolery, and so forth—an array of masks and noses. I realised that problem was solved. In a flash I saw my course. I turned about, no longer aimless, and went—circuitously in order to avoid the busy ways, towards the back streets north of the Strand; for I remembered, though not very distinctly ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... and there was a head-splitting racket in the room, a storm of tomfoolery, a sort of cats' concert, with Vautrin as conductor of the orchestra, the latter keeping an eye the while on Eugene and Father Goriot. The wine seemed to have gone to their heads already. They leaned back in their chairs, looking at the general confusion with an air of gravity, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... got up and went out into the corridor, with the intention of not returning to the court. Let them do what they liked with him, he could take no more part in this awful and horrid tomfoolery. ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... amphigouri^, rhapsody; farrago &c (disorder) 59; betise [Fr.]; extravagance, romance; sciamachy^. sell, pun, verbal quibble, macaronic^. jargon, fustian, twaddle, gibberish &c (no meaning) 517; exaggeration &c 549; moonshine, stuff; mare's nest, quibble, self- delusion. vagary, tomfoolery, poppycock, mummery, monkey trick, boutade [Fr.], escapade. V. play the fool &c 499; talk nonsense, parler a tort et a travess [Fr.]; battre la campagne [Fr.]; hanemolia bazein [Gr.]; be absurd &c adj.. Adj. absurd, nonsensical, preposterous, egregious, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... stiffening I can give it. I fear that, after all, much of my neurotic temperament survives, and that I am far from that cool, calm precision which characterizes Murdoch or Pratt-Haldane. Otherwise, why should the tomfoolery which I have witnessed this evening have set my nerves thrilling so that even now I am all unstrung? My only comfort is that neither Wilson nor Miss Penclosa nor even Agatha could have possibly known ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... home he apologized to Jinny for that cut across her flanks by hanging the reins on the overhead hook, and letting her plod along at her own pleasure. He was saying to himself that he hoped he had done right to tell the child to hold her tongue. "It was just tomfoolery," he argued; "there was no sin about it, so confession wouldn't do her any good; on the contrary, it would hurt a girl's self-respect to have a man know she had tried to catch him. But what a donkey he was not to see.... Oh yes; I'm sure I'm right," ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... what tomfoolery has possessed you, mother, I'd like to know? What's the use of scarin' folks half to death? As if we hadn't had enough things happen ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond |
