"Queer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... times more before it happened, in the resigned tones of a fatalist.... "Yet she knows I am not in my senses when I do that!" he exclaimed. "Well, I must walk about till I find her....Seize her, why didn't she know better than bring me into this disgrace!" he roared out. "She wasn't queer if I was. 'Tis like Susan to show such idiotic simplicity. Meek—that meekness has done me more harm than the ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... the very man who had sold him. The winner got up to take possession, but Lope stopped him, observing that he had only played for and lost the four quarters of his ass, which the winner was welcome to take, but he must leave him the tail. This queer demand made all present shout with laughter; and some of them, who were knowing in the law, were of opinion that his claim was unreasonable, for when a sheep or any other beast is sold, the tail is never ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... now; more of it is more than I want." He took another dram of whisky, and rambled on, between the puffs of his cigar, in his usual easy way. "I've not got your fine imagination, old boy; and I hope the next thing that happens will be the appearance of the workmen's boat. I suspect that queer fancy of yours has been running away with you while you were down here all by yourself. Come, now, what were you thinking of while I was up in the mizzen-top frightening ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... am reading with entertainment, two vols. in octavo, the Lives of Leland, Hearne, and Antony Wood.,(74) I do not know the author, but he is of Oxford. I think you should add that of your friend Brown Willis.(75) There is a queer piece on Freemasonry in one of the volumes, said to be written, on very slender authority, by Henry VI. with notes by Mr. Locke: a very odd conjunction! It says that Arts were brought from the East by Peter Gower. As I am sure you will ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... so uncommon a name as Campaspe," said Mr. Linden, with a queer little gesture of ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... have it if it was candy," promised Buddy, real politely, "only it isn't," and he looked at the queer red thing from all sides, and he couldn't make out what it was, and ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... yourself," said the bishop, "to look in that little place for a strong man like Robin." And all the time the spinner at the wheel sat grumbling and mumbling. It was a queer thread that was wound on the spool, but no one thought of that. It was Robin that they wanted, and they cared little what kind of thread an old woman in a ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... "It is queer Mr. Bangs should use this boat—after his quarrel with Captain Hadley and Mr. Shalley," ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... needs, the segregation of the physically defective or needy will encourage the cooeperation of children themselves in persuading parents to act intelligently for the child's sake. No child wants to remain "queer" or "dopey" or behind his peers. The city superintendent of schools for New York City has asked for laws compelling parents to permit operations and punishing them for neglecting to take steps, within their power, to remove physical defects ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... her in being queer. I don't like her to be queer." Mrs. Lorimer was not in the least queer herself, unless, indeed, it was queer to be startlingly lovely and girlish and appealing at forty-one, with a second husband and six children. She was not an especially motherly person ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... rock we scrambled, all of us ready to jump down on the other side, when Neddie Benson called on us to stop, and with a queer cry let himself fall back the way he had come. Fearing that he was injured, ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... letter in truth, and served its purpose well, though it was not as dust in the old gentleman's eyes. He called me into his bedroom and told me that my Uncle Grafton was coming at last. And seeing that I said nothing thereto, he gave me a queer look and bade me treat them as civilly as I knew how. "I well know thy temper, Richard," said he, "and I fear 'twill bring thee trouble enough in life. Try to control it, my lad; take an old man's advice and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "Plutarch" too, I remember, on those shelves. It seems queer to me now to think that I acquired pride and self-respect, the idea of a state and the germ of public spirit, in such a furtive fashion; queer, too, that it should rest with an old Greek, dead these eighteen hundred ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... us to the extent of a hundred thousand francs to start in business, if, as he says, you will marry me. He has queer ideas, has the worthy man.—Well, what do you say to it?" ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... a queer old town, with its innumerable soldiers and priests perambulating in all directions. The priests, in long black gowns and large black hats, have a solemn aspect; but the soldiers, walking lazily along, or guarding buildings that seem in no danger ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... we'll have a tramp round the parish, and visit some of the old fogies in their cottage. A mongrel sort, neither Welsh nor English; not so interesting as your queer-looking old people down at ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... see how they were getting on. MacShaughnassy thought they seemed queer, and was of opinion that they were breaking up. Speaking for myself, I can only say that a healthier-looking lot of beetles I never ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... were taking, he would have been greatly perturbed. Momentous thoughts rarely racked Mrs. Daney's placid and somewhat bovine brain, but once she became possessed with the notion that Nan Brent was the only human being possessed of undoubted power to create or suppress a scandal which some queer feminine intuition warned her impended, the more firmly did she become convinced that it was her Christian duty to call upon Nan Brent and strive to present the situation in a common-sense light to that erring ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... her, and victoriously lifting Dame Meregrett, so that her feet swung clear of the floor, Sire Edward said, again with that queer touch of fanatic gravity: "My dear, you are perfectly right. I was tempted, I grant you. But it was never reasonable that gentlefolk should cheat at their dicing. Therefore I whispered Roger Bulmer my final decision; and he is now loosing all my captives in the courtyard ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... particular episode closed. She believed that she had convinced him of that. And so she could not grasp the reason for that eleventh-hour summons. But she could see that a repetition of such incidents might put her in a queer light. Other folk might begin to wonder and inquire why Mr. Andrew Bush took such an "interest" in her—a mere stenographer. Well, she told herself, she did not care—so long as Jack Barrow's ears were not assailed by talk. She smiled at ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Frank sustained his character as a good and daring rider, to the admiration of Diana and Sir Hildebrand, and to the secret disappointment of his other kind kinsfolk, who had prophesied that he would certainly "be off at the first burst," chiefly for the reason that he had a queer, outlandish binding ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... Losely said, "Pshaw! Bella, pshaw! I was a fool, I dare say, and a sad dog, a very sad dog; but I had always the greatest regard for you, and always shall! Hillo, what's that? A knock at the door! Oh, by the by, a queer-looking man, in a white hat, called at the same time I did, to see you on private business, gave way to me, said he should come again; may I ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... we all collected before the door of the inn, and a queer group we must have made by the light of the moon, and a nice caricature, I thought to myself, our friend Mr. G—— would have made of us, had he ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... enabled us to see and follow the excessively minute particles and structures by which sexual reproduction is effected. Harvey's dictum was a step in advance when it was made, for previously the belief was current that living things were "bred" in all sorts of queer ways. It was supposed that the putrefying flesh of a dead animal actually was converted by a sudden process into maggots, and that rotten wood would breed, out of its own substance, ships' barnacles and even young geese and mice—an opinion ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... on singing, when he started again, all the way to the ranch and me wondering when I was going to go to sleep and fall off. I tried to make talk. Seen a queer looking fob he wore for his watch pocket. Asked him where he ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... store came a young woman in a queer bonnet, with a tambourine in her hand. "Huh!" said Scattergood, and stopped her. ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... acknowledged to have hit. One was intellectual; the other was moral. It was pure childishness to suggest that Froude had never heard of the peine forte et dure, and only invincible prejudice could have dictated such a sentence as "That Mr. Froude's law would be queer might be taken as a matter of course."* Still, it is true, and a serious misfortune, that Froude took very little interest in legal and constitutional questions. For, while they had not the same importance in the sixteenth century as they had in the seventeenth, they cannot ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... him. I do get mighty lonesome at spells. I'm just a woman—a real woman. I've heard tell of the other kind of women that gallivanted off like me and did queer things—the sort that become soldiers in armies, and sailors on ships. But those women are queer themselves. They're more like men than women; they look like men and they don't have ordinary women's needs. They don't want love, nor little children in their arms ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... The queer, misshapen figure striding along by Steel's side would have attracted attention anywhere; indeed, Hatherly Bell had been an attractive personality from his schooldays. A strange mixture of vanity and brilliant mental qualities, Bell had almost as many enemies as friends. He was morbidly ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... or who they were I cannot say. I do not know that they were men, but their insane shrieking in that queer unintelligible talk is significant. And that means of communication corresponds with the radio reception of which ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... Gideon, Mrs. Palmer and all said so. Gideon said I saved the day, but Palmer held me back, he wouldn't let me sing or dance. I heard him tell Gideon: "I'll have hell with that gilly kid, he thinks it a minstrel show; I got to hold him down or he'll queer the fake." I don't know what he meant, only he ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... a reflection on the manner of discharging one's duty! A queer construction indeed! Observe, he says, he saw no third-classman in the front rank. It was his duty to be sure about it, and if there was one there to transfer him to the rear, and myself to the front rank. In not doing so he neglected ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... to put another log on the 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, like ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... ago. M'ri wuz twenty-eight and Mart ten years older. It would hev ben a match as sure as preachin', but Eliza died and M'ri, she done her duty as she seen it. Sometimes I think folks is near-sighted about their duty. There is others as is queer-sighted. Bein' crossed hain't spiled M'ri though. She's kep' sweet through it all, but when a man don't git his own way, he's apt to curdle. Mart got sort of tart-tongued and cold feelin'. There wa'n't no reason why they couldn't a kep' on bein' friends, but Mart must ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... one pass by at the time, allow him to take one handful, but no more. Should any one attempt to fill his pockets, the money vanishes, and he is instantly assailed by a shower of boxes on the ear from invisible hands."[B] In the Netherlands, the "Gypnissen," "queer little women," lived in a castle which had been reared in a single night.[C] The Ainu have tales of the Poiyaumbe, a name which means literally "little beings residing on the soil" (Mr. Batchelor says that "little" is probably meant to express endearment or ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson
... Queer world. Can you be sure the next pair you meet walking together of a summer eve are as starry as they look? Lo, Constance and Miranda. Did the bride herself realize what a hunger of loneliness was hers? Or Anna and Irby, with Madame ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... travels to executants, and we name the favourite singers. After we have pretty well exhausted the list, and objected to this one as having a head voice, or to that as using the vibrato, or to the other as dwelling on an upper note ("queer sort of existence," says PULLER, gradually coming up, as it were to the surface to open his mouth for breath,—whereat Cousin JANE smiles, and Miss CASANOVA lazily nods approbation of the joke—while the rest of us ignore PULLER, putting him aside as not wanted just ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... it very queer that in so pretty a house, where almost everything was neat and well kept, the floors should be dirty and the beds not yet ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... to think all that talk was a silly yarn, too, Toby, but now I put a heap of stock in the same," declared the unusually tall and thin boy, who seemed to answer to the queer name of "Lil Artha;" he had evidently been dubbed so by his comrades as an undersized cub, and when shooting up later on had been unable to shake ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... fringe of sandy whisker about it. It does not do for anyone to call him that in his hearing, though, and that you may tie to. But worse than his whiskers, Mrs. Dr. dear, he is a very unreasonable man and has a great many queer ideas. He is an elder now and they say he is very religious; but I can well remember the time, Mrs. Dr. dear, twenty years ago, when he was caught pasturing his cow in the Lowbridge graveyard. Yes, indeed, I have not forgotten that, and I always think of it ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... 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! ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... push my boat 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 at ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... ways were often odd, and occasionally they were disagreeable. He had a custom of never locking his sleeping-room door. Of this he often boasted. When we were at the American House, Worcester, Mr. Cabot said upon his appearance in the morning: "A very queer thing happened to me last night. When I got up my clothes were missing. At last I opened the door, and there they were in the hall. I supposed that I had been robbed. But I am all right," taking his wallet from his pocket. I said: ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... He had a queer feeling that he had been a party to some horrible outrage. Yet all that had taken place was the whipping of an Indian girl. He tried to laugh away the weak sympathy ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... queer bone," he said to himself. "I wonder what animal it belonged to. It is too big to have been the bone of a horse or a cow. It is big enough to have belonged to an elephant. Well, no matter what it came from," he said, throwing ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre
... church circles that he says these outrageous things. If you could hear him read the burial service over some of our poor fellows as I have heard him, you'd know he lacked no reverence at all. He's queer,—he always has been about these social distinctions. You know and ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... more or less humorous review, and the programme for the next week discussed. After this tour of inspection I generally went to church, and the afternoon I almost invariably spent in my room over the packing-case. That is a period which many people give to letter-writing, and it is queer to recall the fact that, so far as I can remember, I had written only two letters in my life up to this period—one to a Sydney bookseller, whose address I got from Mr. Perkins, and one to Mr. Rawlence, the Sydney artist, to tell him of my present position, and to say that I had made a start upon ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... daylight again appeared ahead of the two girls and Ozma replaced her wand in the bosom of her gown. The last ten steps brought them to the surface, where they found themselves surrounded by such a throng of queer people that for a time they halted, speechless, and stared into ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... to her eyes. "Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, them 't knew you afore ever I was born say as 't you was the best master of a vessel 't ever sailed, and everybody knows 't you can sail this coast in the dark, an' though—though you did act queer a little while ago, I don't—don't like to have you call yourself a ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... snarled, his face close to the others, his eyes burning, his breath hot in Garth's blanched face, "you queer this deal with your infernal ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... something in 'em," Abe said. "I have heard many a queer story about dreams, and I reckon thar ain't many men as has lived out all thar lives in the plains as doubts thar's something in 'em. The Injins believe in 'em, and, though they ain't got no books to larn 'em, the Injins ain't fools in their own way. I have known a score of cases where dreams ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... underworld of London is full of strange anomalies and queer contradictions. When I survey it I become a victim ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... course of our dealings over the curiosities that my brother sent home from Burma, Mr. Levy and I became very good friends. When we had finished one of our deals we generally had a chat in the quaint little room behind his queer little shop in the old-world alley frequented by sailormen. On one of these occasions he mentioned that the cigar which he had given me was the brand which he always smoked; and the quality ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... also was due to the knowledge derived from the Indians, whose closeness to nature was supposed to give them excellent opportunities for wresting secrets from simples. This respect for the Indian school survives still, and affords a support to the queer practitioners who call themselves Indian Doctors. It was never strange, therefore, when a man who had received a liberal education turned his attention to questions which nowadays a layman would scarcely venture to discuss. He was not regarded as an ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... threw up a warning hand. As he spoke a queer thudding sound struck one dull note through the stillness of the house. He stood, bent forward, listening, absolutely breathless; then, on the other side of the wall, there rippled and rolled a something that was like the sound of ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... of Anglo-Saxon chronicle and song. He did not waste much time on the unhealthy productions of the courtiers of the time of Queen Elizabeth, but chose the ruder songs of the bards, whose hearts were pure even if their thoughts were sometimes crude, their speech blunt, and their metre queer. Who cannot find suggestions for a dozen of Field's poems in this single stanza from ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... the nearer they came to the foothills the slower and steadier became their advance. The mules and their attendants were kept well in the background and for the life of him Pike could not tell what that queer looking "pack" could be. Slowly, steadily, the Tonto skirmish line came on. Every moment brought them nearer to the mouth of the Pass. The sun was low down in the west and threw long shadows of the approaching foe before them. Little by little, ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... temper with all of his ten fingers, for it was irritating to have her refuse to understand. "If we took Mary Rose in here to live don't you s'pose all those up above," he jerked his thumb significantly toward the ceiling, "'d know it an' make trouble? God knows they make enough as it is. They're a queer lot of folks under this roof, Kate, and that's no lie. Folks—they're cranks!" explosively. "When one isn't findin' fault another is. When I've heat enough for ol' Mrs. Johnson it's too hot for Mrs. Bracken. Mrs. Schuneman on the first floor has ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... have such queer ideas," thought Queen Selina, as the chariot rapidly receded from sight. "As if that twopenny-halfpenny pendant of Miss Heritage's could—but the Court Godmother will be annoyed if I don't follow her advice—and it's best not to offend the old creature. I'll go up and ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... the ugly mugs of the world we see now and then a face made after the divine pattern. Then, a wonderful thing happens to us; the Blue Bird sings, the golden Splendour shines, and for a queer moment everything seems meaningless save our impulse to follow those fair forms, to follow them to the ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... jewel, is my niece, so her concerns are partly mine. All this catastrophe will be the work of a few minutes, for a friend of mine lets the furnished room to Count Steinbock where Valerie is at this moment taking coffee—a queer sort of coffee, but she calls it her coffee. So let us understand each other, Brazil!—I like Brazil, it is a hot country.—What is ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... Doyle; "but I'll see that your orders are carried out. It's a queer notion, so it is, to be sleeping in damp sheets. But a man like that ought to ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... "Aren't these queer beds, Mrs. Fisher?" the parson's wife was saying, peering into the shelves against the side of the wall, boarded up, with ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... through it for the second time, amplifying her notes. But this second time the Greek seemed more difficult, the philosophic argument more intricate than ever. She had had very little sleep for weeks, and her head ached in a queer way as though something inside it were strained very tight. It was plain that she had come to the end of her powers of work for the present—and she had calculated that only by not wasting a day, except for a week's holiday at ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... I supplied him with the implement and some tobacco, and he began to smoke. But he had not been at it long before he said, "Why, sergeant, this will never do! The place seems whirling round. Here, take the pipe, for I feel precious queer; but my tooth is much better, and after all you are not such a bad doctor." He gave me half a pint of rum, and for a long time I heard nothing more of ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... have now. They will try to enliven the commonplaceness of their tame daily lives by getting up memorial pageants where they can dress up as capitalists—some with high hats and umbrellas (borrowed from the museums), some as golfers or polo players, carrying the queer ancient implements. Beautiful girls will happily unbuckle their communist suits and dress up in old silken low-necks, hired from a costumer. Little boys will look on with awe as the procession goes by, and then hurry off to ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... wrong with Clay," he said. "If ever a fellow had a right to be happy—he has a queer look. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... division of the elements, the humors, the qualities and the senses was a commonplace of the physiological and medical science of the time. We have met it in Isaac Israeli (see above, p. 3), and it goes back to Aristotle and Galen and Hippocrates. The originality, though a queer one to be sure, of Gabirol is to bring the ethical qualities of man into relation with all these. The approximations are forced in every instance and often ludicrous. Instead of attempting to give a psychological analysis of the qualities in question, he lays stress on their physical basis in ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... childish effusiveness. Esther was never effusive; her manner was always quiet, delicate, and dignified, such as a child's can well be. And so even Pitt himself did not fully know how his little friend regarded him, though he had sometimes a queer approach to apprehension. It struck him now and then, the grave, absorbed look of Esther's beautiful eyes; occasionally he caught a flash of light in them, such as in nature only comes from heavily-charged clouds. Always she liked to do what he liked, and gave ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... down the square Italian garden—all had a certain fascination for her dreamy poetical nature. Then turning in at the high narrow doorway, whose threshold Mrs. Eccles, the housekeeper, had long ago given her free leave to cross, she would stroll through the deserted rooms, touching the queer spindle-legged furniture with gentle reverent fingers, gazing absorbedly at the dark rows of family portraits, and speculating always to herself what they had been like, these dead and gone Kynastons, who ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... they thought their daily dinner was secure. Anyhow the emotion that had issued in the pantomime was dead, though from sheer habit the pantomime went on. Probably some of the less educated among them thought there "might be something in it," and anyhow it was "as well to be on the safe side." The queer ceremony had got associated with the worship of Olympian Zeus, and with him you must reckon. Then perhaps your brother-in-law was the Ox-striker, and anyhow it was desirable that the women should go; some of the well-born girls had ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... about your Christmas A happy day to thee. And here's an arrow-head for you, And a piece of pottery queer, And here are herbs for medicine good, To make you ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... of them, anyway," I replied, beginning to feel troubled in my turn. "See here, Kelly, it's not my business, but you won't mind if I speak plainly, will you? The times are queer—you understand. Everybody is suspicious; everybody is under suspicion in these days. And I want to say that the young lady who sent that curious message to you is as clever as twenty men ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... done," said Mr. Dodge contritely, "an' no wonder, with that there saddle. They're a very queer lot, them crazy chaps. There's one on 'em up there who calls himself Abraham Lincoln, an' then there's another who thinks he's a telegraph wire an' hes messages runnin' up an' down him continally. These is new potatoes, sir—early rosers. There's no end to their cussed kinks. When I see ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... another queer dwarf type. The flowers seem much too large for the plants, being sometimes half a foot long. They are lily-shaped and rose pink or white, ...
— Gardening Indoors and Under Glass • F. F. Rockwell
... fellow, that you look so cross? Can't get 'em, eh? You should put 'em where you'll know where they are." A whisk of his tail and he flew up the tree. The lesson was lost upon the financier. At the office-door he met Bullion,—his face a trifle more ruddy, his eye with a colder glitter, and his queer eyebrow pointing with an ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... particularly; I have not noticed anything as sharply as I commonly do; my head has been a little queer, and I have been thinking over what we were talking about, and how near I came to solving the great problem which every day makes clear to such multitudes of people. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... we do," said Lucy. "Isn't it queer? Just two rooms and nothing in 'em at all! Oh, Bab, let's you and I bring some dishes up here and keep house! Here's a ...
— Jimmy, Lucy, and All • Sophie May
... honor, 'am no sayin' but he weel deserves it; but, Lord haud a care o' us, he's a queer one, yon." ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... understanding of these things, you will see that there really is nothing at all supernatural about much of the great body of wonderful experiences of men in all times which the "horse sense" man sneeringly dismisses as "queer" and "contrary to sense." You will see that these experiences are quite as natural as are those in which the ordinary five senses are employed—though they are super-physical. There is the greatest difference between supernatural and super-physical, ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... the queer, pathetic clinging of his mind to her as if it realized that she held his honour and Fanny's ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... 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
... a long point of land, and behind the point was a deep bay, where all sorts of things could be picked up, when the tide was low. In a cleft of the rock Firetop found a nest with four eggs in it. He and Firefly were sitting on top of the hill eating them, when Firefly saw a queer black spot part way down the cliff, ...
— The Cave Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... to do and good novels to read and they will get over it. History breeds queer ideas in children. They read of military heroes, kings and statesmen who commit awful deeds and are yet monuments of public honor. What a sweet hero is Raleigh, who was a farmer of piracy; what a grand Admiral was Drake; ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... gilding the yellow tufts and the motionless long leaves of the maize-field. When we were fairly off—the boat, in which we were seated, stretching many feet in the rear of the very small cart—the most anxious member of the party was the horse, for he had never carried such a queer load as this before, and the novelty of the sensation caused by the weight far behind completely upset his notions of propriety. His conduct was especially strange while going up-hill, for then he would ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... or a favor," she said, hastily. "I only wanted to say something"—she paused in great embarrassment—"but it's even more queer more unusual, than my ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... he said, "and his sloop was pitching her catheads under, this thing was washed upon a spare anchor, where it stuck. It's a queer flag. Can it have had any connection ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... forces begot queer alliances between party foes, lasting bitterness between party fellows. Even the Prohibitionists, who held the first convention, were riven into "narrow-gauge" and "broad-gauge," the latter in a rump convention incorporating a free-coinage ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... little hut, Babouscka was frightened at the splendor. There were Three Kings, with crowns on their heads, and the jewels on the Kings' breastplates sparkled like sunlight. Their heavy fur cloaks were white with the falling snow-flakes, and the queer humpy camels on which they rode looked white as milk in the snow-storm. The harness on the camels was decorated with gold, and plates of silver adorned the saddles. The saddlecloths were of the richest Eastern stuffs, and all the servants ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... mate," answered the landlord; "and there's some queer characters about this neighbourhood, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... "we had a queer point arise in that Aztec Street inquiry. The original dispute arose owing to a discussion between a crowd of people in a pub as to where Wych ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... the finest mathematician of his year, and there was much muttering and whispering in academic corners when he decided at last to go in for medicine. He said, "I want something practical," and that was all the explanation he ever gave to account for his queer change. He took a brilliant medical degree, and he decided to accept a professorship of Biology before attempting to practise. His reasons for being out on the North Sea in an autumn gale will ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... cried, looking bigger: And in did come the strangest figure! His queer long coat from heel to head Was half of yellow and half of red, And he himself was tall and thin, With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin, 60 With light loose hair, yet swarthy skin, No tuft on cheek, nor beard on chin, But lips where smiles went out and ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... even more fun, for it seemed so queer to Patty to sit at a table and eat, while at the same time she was flying through the country ...
— Patty Fairfield • Carolyn Wells
... state of disrepute that the whole establishment ought to be cleared out. I represented that I could make it efficient with a good First Assistant; and the other Assistants were kept. But the establishment was in a queer state. The Royal Warrant under the Sign Manual was sent on August 11th. It was understood that my occupation of office would commence on October 1st, but repairs and alterations of buildings would make it impossible for me to reside at Greenwich before the end of the year. On Oct. 1st ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... Bob answered. "I don't remember it, though. Everything looks queer and different in the storm. It's a regular ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... disordered fragments of countless scenes of adventure, love and tragedy, impatient of the same old situations, the familiar characters, the stale plots—she or the girl who is fired with a love for history, say, who wants to know all about the grand old, queer old Socrates, and then about his friends, and then about the times in which he lived, and then about the way in which they all lived, then about the Socratic legacy to the ages? Why, will that girl ever be done with the feast? Can you not see, looking ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... standing in the ripples, with a look of almost human disgust and astonishment on his intelligent face. He may have reasoned thus: "Surely I caught that otter. But stay, I must have been dreaming. 'Tis queer, though: I'm in the river instead of on the road to the farm." This, for Lutra, was perhaps the only noteworthy episode of ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... it queer that they use 'you-uns' in the singular number? Then why do you use 'you' in the singular number? I haven't heard you 'thou-ing' around here this evening. Just as grammatical in that respect as you are! And on the same principle, why do you say 'you were' to me instead of 'you was,' which would ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... a queer little figure of a man—short, tubby, with scanty red hair, and a brogue thick as pea-soup. Eccentric in most things, he was especially so in his dress, which he seemed to select on the principle of finding the most unfitting things to wear. Rumour ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... years I have tried and tried to make you fit in—but you wouldn't until—until last night. When it was right dark and still and everybody was sleeping, I went down into the old library—that's where Aunt Ann had the queer spell the day Miss Lowe came—the room is all dirty and full of ashes, for the chimney fell that afternoon; but right beside the fireplace there is an empty space on the wall that I've always saved ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... men, women and children moving towards the canning factory, a big brick building on the outskirts of the city. Eric had worked in that factory from the day he was seven. There is no need to tell you what he did there, for this is not the story of the canning factory Eric,—the queer, hating Eric who had waked up ...
— The Little House in the Fairy Wood • Ethel Cook Eliot
... "The thing may look queer on a small scale," said Blondet, "but on a large we call it finance. There are high-handed proceedings criminal between man and man that amount to nothing when spread out over any number of men, much as a drop ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... Mrs. Gratacap, lifting up her hands and eyes. "What did I say? You are his mother, an't you? There's no shame about it, I suppose. I hadn't a notion of putting you into a passion. I thought it mighty queer you didn't come in to see your own son when he's lying so low; and I said so,—that's all! But if you don't want to come, I don't want to force you. I can't put natural feelings in the hearts of people that haven't got them; it stands to reason I can't, and you needn't be flying ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Torgul's ship. With her one usable hand the Rover woman drew the fabric about the carving, muffling it except for the eyes. Those were large ovals deeply carved, and in them Ross saw a glitter. Jewels set there? Yet, he had a queer, shivery feeling that something more than gems occupied those sockets—that he had actually been regarded for an instant of time, ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... of blackened balcony all tapestried with heavy ingots of Indian corn, and spread out among the olives of the hillside, up which twists the rough bullock road protected by its vine trellis; and in the little farms, with queer hood-shaped double roofs (as if to pull over the face of the house when it blows hard), and pigeon towers which show that some day they must have been fortified, all about Florence; farms which I pass every day, with their sere trees ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... Love-Poems A Hottentot Flirt Kaffir Morals Individual Preference for—Cows, Bargaining for Brides Amorous Preferences Zulu Girls not Coy Charms and Poems A Kaffir Love-Story Lower than Beasts Colonies of Free Lovers A Lesson in Gallantry Not a Particle of Romance No Love Among Negroes A Queer Story Suicides Poetic Love on the Congo Black Love in Kamerun A Slave Coast Love-Story The Maiden who Always Refused African Story-Books The Five Suitors Tamba and the Princess The Sewing Match Baling out the Brook ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Gladstonians claim that the Land Commission reduced rents by 25 to 30 per cent. But here Mr. Logan is proving that the landlords are drawing more money than ever! They wish they could believe it. Valuation is a queer thing. It fluctuates in the most unaccountable way. What an increase shows is the prosperity of the tenant who is putting up buildings and making other improvements. Mr. Logan's third figures show a further increase. Look at the figures in the ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... friends. But in spite of every effort it was impossible to discover the slightest analogy between the writing of the anonymous letters and the impressions left on the blotting-pad of the duke. The countess and her assistants in this queer task, therefore, came to the conclusion that they would have to search in ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... just then a curious expression: his eyes wondering, his brows puckered, his thin lips shaping into their queer, twisted smile.... Funny (he found it) that a fellow could feel so comfortable and content in the company of a woman he didn't care a rap about, so ill at ease and out of sorts when with the mistress of his dreams! It didn't, ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance
... bowels out of that chest, and I reckon, you'll be lagged and scragged for it. (At these words ARETHUSA locks the door, and takes the key.) What's that? All still. There's something wrong about this room. Pew, my 'art of oak, you're queer to-night; brace up and carry on. Where's the tool? (Producing knife.) Ah, here she is; and now for the chest; and the gold; and rum—rum—rum. What! Open?... old clothes, by God!... He's done me; he's been before me; he's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... very moment a queer thing happened: a stream of women poured into the square and took their way down both sides of it, almost treading upon the toes of the men as they passed. And they ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... Creeks. The shepherds (white men) found him, "naked as he was born and with the hide half burned off him with the sun," rounding up imaginary snakes on a dusty clearing, one blazing hot day. The hut-keeper had some "quare" (queer) experiences with the doctor during the next three days and used, in after years, to tell of them, between the puffs of his pipe, calmly and solemnly and as if the story was rather to the doctor's ...
— On the Track • Henry Lawson
... a pretty queer book to read," he went on. "And there aren't any pictures to it, either. Most of us living up here have opened its covers, and some of us have read. But I guess Allan's read deeper than any of us. I'd say he's read deeper even than John Kars. It's for that reason I sold my interests ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... kvarono. Quarter (district) kvartalo. Quarterly trimonata. Quartern kvarono, kvaronujo. Quartet kvarteto. Quartz kvarco. Quash (repress) premegi. Quash (annul) senigi, nuligi. Quaver trilo. Quay surbordo, bordmarsxejo. Queen regxino. Queer stranga. Quell trankviligi. Quench (extinguish) estingi. Quench (thirst) kvietigi. Querulous malkontenta. Query demando. Query cxu? Quest sercxo. Quest informigxo. Question demando. Question demandi. Question (doubt) dubi. Questionable duba. Quibble cxikani. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... subterranean temple, sur- rounded with a circular gallery, or deambulatory, which expands it intervals into five square chapels. There are other things, of which I have but a con- fused memory: a great fortified keep; a queer little primitive chapel, hollowed out of the rock, beneath these later structures, and recommended to the visitor's attention as the confessional of Saint Tro- phimus, who shares with so many worthies the ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... the service of the King. These sea-wolves liked the place famously, and would have grievously resented the intrusion of the laced waistcoats of the provincial dandies or the scarlet jackets of the Chisholm Hunt. So the Skull and Spectacles went its own way, and a very queer way, too, unheeded ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... cried Saxe; "but it does seem queer. Why, we've got summer here, with flowers and bees and butterflies, and if we go down to that glacier, I suppose we can step ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... from here, you know—what you call it—from the diaphragm, and from both sides; it is like a bellows, going in and out," and she touched the portions referred to. "One does not sing from the chest,—that would make queer, harsh tones." She sang a few tones just to show ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... apparel, and, before breakfast, stepped across the road, and found Mr Titus Twist rubbing his eyes in his own gateway. Mutual salutations, and "compliments of the season," were exchanged in good neighbourly style, and then mine host exclaimed, "There's a box here for you, Master Wag, left by that queer little old gentleman. I'm sure he's cracked! In he comes here yesterday, just after dark, posting in his own carriage. Well, he orders up anything as we happened to have ready, and I sets him down to as good a dinner as ever any gentleman ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... said. "If he doesn't mean matrimony, it would be decent to exercise more discretion. There used to be some talk of Terry Beddow; that's completely ended. Queer the women men fall for, even the quietest of them! No one's sane any longer. Had three husbands already, hasn't she? Quite a crowd! One would scarcely have supposed that an exclusive chap like Taborley would have joined in the queue to make a fourth. And he could have ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... I thought the other fellows were not going to have much use for my queer notions. I thought they stood for me because Don is very nearly the most popular Scout in camp. I was kind of pleased when they chose me to come over to camp and extend the olive branch to you ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... its reputation, even through the driest of seasons. Once, however, it made real trouble. Over it stood a picturesque latticed well house. On one of the beams a pair of robins nested annually. In the middle of the third summer the water developed a queer flavor. It steadily grew stronger until one night the steam arising from a hot bath caused the pajama-clad head of the house to seize a flashlight and move hastily to the well house. One beam of light disclosed the horrid truth. Floating ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... portrait of Mr. Chase he stood off and admired the work. "Beautiful! Beautiful!" was his comment. Chase, who had irked under the queer companionship, retorted, "At least there's nothing ...
— Whistler Stories • Don C. Seitz
... Mac was always peculiar, and he cannot even grow up like other fellows. I don't understand him yet, and am sure he's got some plan in his head that no one suspects, unless it is Uncle Alec. Love makes us all cut queer capers, and I've an idea that the Don will distinguish himself in some uncommon way. So be prepared to applaud whatever it is. We owe him that, ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... westward, and although brilliant flashes of lightning several times lighted up the queer room, gleaming upon the gayly-painted lid of an Egyptian sarcophagus or throwing into horrid relief some anatomical specimen in one of the cases, the thunder crashed no more over the house. But its booming reached my ears from away upon a remote spur ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... theatrical chaps are so slippery—I won't trust anybody but you to tie the knot for me!" That, of course, was what Ascham would think he was wanted for. Granice, at the idea, broke into an audible laugh—a queer stage-laugh, like the cackle of a baffled villain in a melodrama. The absurdity, the unnaturalness of the sound abashed him, and he compressed his lips angrily. Would he take to ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... up her lips and gave him a queer look, but Luck had turned his attention to another letter, and she did not say what was in her mind. Annie-Many-Ponies, speaking theoretically, was good to have around to help Rosemary. In actual practice, however, ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... but he was very queer for a week and more before it," replied the man; "there was something bad over ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... these strangers from below—they ben a-actin' awful queer, ain't a-feared o' nothin' an' they ben goin' all over like a couple o' hounds. One of 'em's got on a badge of some sort," said Jameson, "didn't mean t' show it, I allow, but Hill, here, seen ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... and him readin' a book like a dead man without a civil word out of him! It's queer they'd be allowin' the sick ones to read books, when I'll bet it's the same lazy readin' in the house brought the half of them down with the consumption itself. (Raising his voice.) I'm thinking this whole shebang is a big, thievin' fake—and I've always ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... of the definite plan seething under his little wife's transformation coiffure. It had matured since her meeting on the railway-journey from Cape Town with an interesting personality. A big, brown-bearded Johannesburger, with light queer eyes, who had been reticent at first, but more interesting after his confidence had ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... often watched. Her body felt almost unnaturally strong, and she took powerful strokes; but it seemed as if her heart went out into them and left a vacant cavity within. More and more her life seemed boiling up into her head; queer fancies came to her, as, for instance, that she was an inverted thermometer with the mercury all ascending into a bulb at the top. She shook her head and the fancy cleared ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... answered, meeting his gaze steadily, yet with a queer kind of chill creeping over her at his ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... or his life," he answered. "He has wandered up and down the world, and I daresay he has made some queer acquaintances." ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that have a queer sound in nineteenth-century Massachusetts—were designed for the encouragement of special public service. Here are examples of ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... What queer cattle boys are!" exclaimed Mrs. Pecq, while they all laughed. "It can't be done, Mr. Frank; all the boxes are brim full, and you'll have to leave those fat books behind, for ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... theory; and as any thing was better than standing still, I was heartily glad to see the "Chieftain," a bonnie Scotch whaler, show us the road by entering a lead of water, and away we all went, working to windward. The sailing qualities of the naval Arctic ships threatened to be sadly eclipsed by queer-looking craft, like the "Truelove" and others. But steam came to the rescue, and after twelve hours' hard struggle we got the pendants again ahead of our enterprising and ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... was thus: In a corner of a front room, by a window, stood a high chest of drawers. On top of the chest stood a tin box, decorated with figures of queer people with queer flat parasols; a Chinese tea-box, in a word. The box had a lid. The lid was shut tight. But I knew what was in that gorgeous box and I coveted it. I was very little—I never could reach anything. There stood a chair suggestively near the chest. I ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... it bit Ada or him, they would probably die. For Marland had spent two summers on his papa's big ranch in Kansas, and he had been told over and over again, if he ever saw a snake to run away from it as fast as he could, and this snake just in front of him was making the queer little noise with the rattles at the end of his tail which Marland had heard enough about to be able ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... boy's looks; but they are a queer race. You must not trust him too much," continued Oswald, in an undertone, "until you have tried him, and are satisfied of his fidelity. They are very excitable, and capable of strong attachment if well treated. That I know, for I did a gipsy a good turn once, and it proved ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat |
