"Futilely" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a dance-hall piano was jangling, and the raucous voice of the dance-master calling the figures came across to the Crow's Nest curiously like the barking of a distant dog. Suddenly the barking voice stopped, and the piano clamor ended futilely in an aimless tinkling. For climax a pistol-shot rang out, followed by a scattering volley. It was a precise commentary on the time and the place that neither of the two men in the head-quarters upper room gave heed ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... and struck futilely. But the ball caromed from the hard ground, hit Burns with a resounding thud, and bounced away. Clark broke for first, and Moore dashed for home. Like a tiger the little catcher pounced upon the ball, and, leaping back into line, blocked the sliding Moore three ...
— The Redheaded Outfield and Other Baseball Stories • Zane Grey
... world from behind the bar sinister, an object of scorn, contumely and forgetfulness; to be cut away from the love of women and the affection of men, the two strongest of human ties; to dream what might and should have been; to be proved guilty of a crime we did not commit; to be laughed at, to beg futilely, always subject to that mental conflict between love and hate, charity and envy. Yes; I can think of nothing which stabs so deeply as the finger of ridicule, unmerited. I am not referring to the children of kings, but to the forgotten by the ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... shutting off his breath. In quick rage he sprang at the man, who met him halfway, grappled him close by the throat, and with a deft twist threw him over on his back. Then the rope tightened mercilessly, while Buck struggled in a fury, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and his great chest panting futilely. Never in all his life had he been so vilely treated, and never in all his life had he been so angry. But his strength ebbed, his eyes glazed, and he knew nothing when the train was flagged and the two men threw him ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... away through the pale moonlight, Rasmunsen futilely puncturing the silence with his revolver—a thing that he handled with more celerity than cleverness. Thirty-six hours later the Indian made a police ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... creature was upon him. The man shrieked. The brute wrenched him from the body of the boy. Great fingers sunk into the man's flesh. Yellow fangs gaped close to his throat—he struggled, futilely—and when they closed, the soul of Alexis Paulvitch passed into the keeping of the demons who had ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the smallest thread whereby to unravel it. Down in his soul he felt the shame of the knowledge that he dared not. A dreamer, rushing toward the precipice, would rather fall dreaming than waken and struggle futilely. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... at Big Medicine, examined the end of his cigarette, and gave a lift of shoulder, which might mean anything or nothing, and so was irritating to a degree. He did not pursue the subject further, and so several belated retorts were left tickling futilely the tongues of the Happy Family—which does not ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... breathed fire, then exploded. In the brief flash of the blaster shot, Alan saw the steel glint of a robot only a hundred yards away, much nearer than he had thought. "Thank heaven for trees!" He stepped back, felt his foot catch in something, clutched futilely at some leaves and ...
— Survival Tactics • Al Sevcik
... rain drizzled on Amory looked futilely back at the stream of his life, all its glitterings and dirty shallows. To begin with, he was still afraid—not physically afraid any more, but afraid of people and prejudice and misery and monotony. Yet, deep in his bitter heart, he wondered if he was ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... was weeping for her rag child, and was for a high protective tariff against all foreign foolishness. Then doctors with the finest bedside manners and stop-watches were called in. One by one they chattered futilely about peptomanganate of iron and sea voyages and hypophosphites until their stop-watches showed that Bill Rendered was under the wire for show or place. Then, as men, they advised that the rag-doll be found as soon as possible and restored to its mourning ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... continuing to struggle futilely, Stella realised little except giving a glance at the hated faces of her captors. She heard Cateras's voice ordering the men forward, vibrant with Spanish oaths, and trembling yet with the fury which possessed him—but all else was a dim haze, out of which few ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... as did Barraclough; but what did resistance avail? The infamous Pierce, who had me on one side, twisted my arm in warning lest I should kick futilely against the pricks. ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... in a red tam-o’-shanter, but lake and summer cottages were mine alone. I landed and began at once my search for Morgan. There were many paths through the woods back of the cottages, and I followed several futilely before I at last found a small house snugly bid away in ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... contorted in a nervous tic each time his eyes swept by the clock hanging behind the bar. He glanced dispiritedly out the window at the perpetually cloudy sky and idly watched a rivulet of water race down the dirty pane. He loosened his collar and futilely mopped at his neck with the soggy handkerchief, then irritably flung ...
— Faithfully Yours • Lou Tabakow
... upon the shoulders of the Maccabee as he was dashing after the thousands. His face was black with terror for Laodice. He struggled to throw off Nathan, crying futilely against the uproar ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... his palace was intact, and that only the prisoner and three horses from his stable were missing, placed the whole guard under arrest—stormed futilely, while his hurrying swarm flocked to him through the dinning streets—and then, mad-angry and made reckless by his rage, rode with a hundred at his back to Howrah's palace, scattering the bee-swarm of inquisitive but so far ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... he made his way across some of the fallow land and some of the stubble fields that had yielded, alas! so futilely, such abundant harvest. His boyhood days came back to him, when he used to crush down the stubble with his bare feet. Every rod of the way revealed some memory. He went into the barn and climbed into the huge, airy loft. It smelled of straw and years of dust and ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... Futilely, of course; there was nothing in sight overhead. But these explosions did look like the hexynitrate stuff they put in small-arm bullets nowadays. A thirty-caliber bullet had the explosive effect of an old-style six-pound T.N.T. shell. Only, hexynitrate goes ...
— Morale - A Story of the War of 1941-43 • Murray Leinster
... with a girl I'd known ever since I was a kid—we'd almost been brought up together. And the first thing I did was to go and skid down the side of a ravine." He puffed futilely at his cigarette. "Blow! It's ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler |
