"Straight off" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thing was that I might never hear at all from the firm, but go on hoping against hope, day after day, in a suspense which would be worse than knowing straight off that I had failed. However, I kept up appearances before my uncle, for I didn't want him to think it was no use waiting a little before he took me in hand himself. I spent several hours a day working up my arithmetic, making out imaginary invoices against every imaginable person, and generally ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... 'There's all the jolliness of the riding. And shooting's different. There's the cleverness of aiming well, and papa says that when a bird's killed straight off, it's the easiest ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth
... ago. But it isn't just a—little thing. A few days ago, Miss Sarah, when we took the train to go up north, I could scarcely wait for the engine to draw us there. I think I counted every click of the rails, I know I sang his name in my heart with every click. And then, when I wanted to walk straight off the steps of the car into his arms—when I . . . Why do you sit there and listen and not say that you loathe me as I do myself? I know that he is all man, but his work and my world—oh, when that terrible thing happened, and he came lurching toward me, instead of helping him, do you know ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... all through to the luxuriant end, down to the peals of the bells and the rejoicings in the evening. He ate several pieces of dry toast while he read, crumbling them quickly with his left hand, and when he had finished, drank his coffee straight off at one draught. Then he got up, still with the paper, sat down in the easy-chair nearest to the fire and read the whole thing through once more. Then he pushed the paper off his knee and ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... probability knew no other address than this at which to seek for Burchill when he was wanted; they would seek him there eventually and get no news. Luckily for himself, Barthorpe knew where he was to be found, and he went straight off up ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher
... money! For heaven's sake, though, do not go about playing the Don Quixote like this. It doesn't matter with me, but there are at least a dozen young women in Mr. Earles' waiting-room who would march you straight off to ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... [translating Cowley] I greatly enjoy. The dear old Abraham goes straight off into your beautiful lines. Of course he has not a scrap of modern impedimenta. You go through the customs at the frontier with a whistle and a smile. You have nothing to declare. The blessed old man by your side is himself a Roman to begin with, and you pass together as cheerfully as ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... paragraph maker of the Eastern Daily Press had never heard of Payne Collier, so he thought the last name should be printed with a small C, and wanting a heading for his paragraph he invented one straight off, and this is ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... and maintain three new Divisions of the Australian Imperial Force. One of these—the 3rd—was to be recruited in Australia and the other two—4th and 5th—found from personnel available in Egypt. By this decision Australia was committed to providing, straight off, a new formation of 20,000 men and, in addition, to increasing her monthly flow of reinforcements by 150 per cent., in order to adequately maintain the five divisions ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... was so grateful it was quite affecting, until the true state o' things was explained to them. It seemed to change 'em wonderful, an' after Mr. Macpherson had had three cups o' hot coffee an' four glasses o' brandy he took the chair at the indignation meeting, an' went straight off to sleep in it. They woke him up three times, but he was so cross about it that the ladies had to go away an' ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... like a bag of meal, and put across the field, with the whole kit and boodle after me. But I guess most of 'em must have tumbled down in hysterics, judgin' from the screechin', and I got up to the cab and away we went. Well, when we got to the house where I was to meet the gent, he began straight off to blow at me. 'What do you mean,' he yelled, 'bringin' my daughter in a bag?'—'It's the only way to do it, sir,' says I; 'they can't holler and they can't kick, and people passin' by don't know what you've got,' and so sayin' I untied the strings, ...
— The Stories of the Three Burglars • Frank Richard Stockton
... said Mr. Flexen. "It's an uncommonly good signature too. The 'Loud' is perfect. But the 'water' gives it away. The forger had evidently practised it a lot. In fact, he wrote the 'Loud' straight off. But the 'water' has no less than five distinct pauses in it—under the microscope, of course—where he paused to think, or perhaps to look at a genuine signature, the endorsement on the cheque ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... just what the late Mr. Tremayne said, and then he slammed the door and went straight off to the Rocky Mountains and shot bears; and I didn't see him again ...
— Belinda • A. A. Milne
... in after them and shutting the door, for there was no very lively traffic in the shop, "the young ladies is young like yourself, not to take too great a liberty, and you think as I'm old and old-fashioned. Just you tell the young ladies straight off, ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... you, Nell. You don't know a bit what's going to happen. You don't know where I'm going to take you, and what I'm going to do with you, you little innocent lamb in the wolf's grip. I want to eat you up, straight off. I shall be afraid up to the last moment that ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... dunno," said the old man sourly—and Ruth knew that tone so well! He always used it on hearing good news, lest he should be mistaken for genial—"I dunno why you couldn' ha' told us that straight off, without beatin' round the bush. ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Bessieres, Lannes—men as strong as bars of steel, which he cast into shape for his own ends. And here is a final proof that he was the child of God, created to be the soldier's father; for no one ever saw him as a lieutenant or a captain. He is a commandant straight off! Ah! yes, indeed! He did not look more than four-and-twenty, but he was an old general ever since the taking of Toulon, when he made a beginning by showing the rest that they knew nothing about handling cannon. Next thing he does, he tumbles ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... the intellectual reader that we went straight off to the pen above Stoneham Lock to see the anglers competing? Angling is the same ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... perfectly knew, was less like careful action than the immersion he enjoyed at home. The actual grand queerness was that to be faithful to Kate he had positively to take his eyes, his arms, his lips straight off her—he had to let her alone. He had to remember it was time to go to the palace—which in truth was a mercy, since the check was not less effectual than imperative. What it came to, fortunately, as yet, was that when he closed the door ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... "Duster's" establishment was a little square parlour, where boys repaired to eat ices and drink alarming quantities of Duster's famous home-made ginger-beer—a high explosive, which always sent the cork out with a bang, and to drink two bottles of which straight off would have been a risky business for any boy to attempt without first testing the staying power of his waistcoat-buttons, and putting several bags of sand in his jacket-pockets. In this parlour it was that the literary society assembled for their banquet; as many as could find room squeezing ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... here, men! If you want any more trouble we 're here to accommodate you. Fighting is our trade, and we don't mind working at it. But I wish to tell you right now, and straight off the handle, that you are simply making a parcel of fools of yourselves. Slavin has been killed, and nine out of ten among you are secretly glad of it. He was a curse to this camp, but because some of his friends and cronies—thugs, ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... she were no much bigger, she ses to me one day, when I were a bit scolded, she ses, "Never mind, Jim," she ses, "cheer up; you'll be a man o' some sort some day;" and I tell you, though I allus 'ad a hidea that way myself, when she said it I grow'd a hinch straight off. If yer believes in yourself, Master 'Arry, yer can do a lot, but if somebody else believes in yer there ain't nothink in the whole world what ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... in which the different parties had disappeared and come in sight again gave me every reason to decide in favour of the route the last arrivals had taken. I thanked these keen gentlemen for their strenuous ramble in the interests of the expedition, and went straight off to sleep. I dreamed of mountains and precipices all night, and woke up with Bjaaland whizzing down from the sky. I announced once more that I had made up my mind for the other course, and went ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... out Kitty. "He's going straight off to Africa—to-morrow! Celia, of course, will be buried out in India—her uncle has cabled him that he'll arrange everything. And Peter has had the chance of a returned berth in a boat that sails to-morrow, so he proposes to get his kit together and ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... always do,' answered he. 'It was too hot to sleep, so it was no use going to bed, and I walked straight off to the forest and bathed in one of those deep dark pools at the edge of the river. I have been there constantly for several months, but last night a strange thing happened. I was taking my last plunge, when I heard—sometimes from one side, ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... thing of all,' pursues Mr. Macey, 'is, as nobody took any notice on it but me, and they answered straight off "Yes," like as if it had been me saying "Amen" i' the right place, without ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... know one another. I've the highest respect for you, and if you'll excuse me saying so, I think you've some respect for me. My rule is always to be candid. I say what I mean and I mean what I say; and so, as I've quite made up my mind, I let you know straight off. I can't do it. I simply ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... "You talk straight off the reel, Wildwood," he said. "I believe you're honest. Go on with your little arrangement, and let's see how it pans out. I shan't make any move until after ten o'clock ...
— Andy the Acrobat • Peter T. Harkness
... well we rescued Mr. Joyce before it was dark," the sailor said to Stephen. "One night in those swamps is enough to lay any white man up with fever. That was why I was so anxious to get him away at once. I did not think that they would kill him straight off. If they had wanted him for the feast they would have cut off his head when they caught him. I expect they would have kept him for some other occasion; but I wanted to get him out of it before the mists began to rise from the swamps. ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... himself. He stretched in the red armchair and flung an arm round her. His hard blue eyes, his hard mouth, smiled; he felt that he could make a success of marriage, though the parson (as he called Edward) could not. Women, he reflected, were quite easy to manage. 'Just show them who's master straight off, and all's well.' Here was Hazel, radiant, soft, submissive, all the rough prickly husk gone since Sunday. Why had he behaved so strangely ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... o' Tom, eh?" said Mr. Tulliver, looking at Maggie with a twinkling eye. Then, in a lower voice, turning to Mr. Riley, as though Maggie couldn't hear, "She understands what one's talking about so as never was. And you should hear her read,—straight off, as if she knowed it all beforehand. And allays at her book! But it's bad—it's bad," Mr. Tulliver added sadly, checking this blamable exultation. "A woman's no business wi' being so clever; it'll turn to trouble, I doubt. But bless you!"—here the exultation was clearly recovering ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... to which he had added letters subsequently obtained. The letter was a signal blunder. Curll saw at once that it put the game in his hands. He was not going to tell lies to please the slippery P. T., or the short squat lawyer-clergyman. He had begun to see through the whole manoeuvre. He went straight off to the Lords' committee, told the whole story, and produced as a voucher the letters in which P. T. begged for secrecy. Curll's word was good for little by itself, but his story hung together and the letter confirmed it. And if, as now seemed clear, Curll was speaking the truth, the question remained, ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... will help you, for I have got him to promise. He will borrow a wheelbarrow, and all the things can be stacked away tidily into it, and he will take them straight off to Aunt Church's house with you immediately after dinner. You had best spend the afternoon with the old lady and encourage her all you can. It is a blessed relief to have two months of that debt wiped out, and I am very much obliged ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... telling me? He has done nothing so dreadful? When he goes and marries straight off a ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere
... must forever go in circles. With fine courage he had made straight off to toil up the high difficult paths of the ideal. Never had he consciously turned, nor even swerved. Yet here he was at length upon his old tracks, come again to the ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... was an open one, and while the day was warm and sunny, there was a lively breeze blowing straight off the lake. The veil persisted in blowing first into Betty's eyes, then into Bob's, and interfered to an amazing degree with their enjoyment of the scenery. Finally, as they rounded a curve and caught the full breath of the breeze, the veil ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... marry on, but it hurt him to make it, and I—stopped him. Then he said, 'I must beg your pardon over this, Miss Schlegel; I can't think what came over me last night.' And I said, 'Nor what over me; never mind.' And then we parted—at least, until I remembered that I had written straight off to tell you the night before, and that frightened him again. I asked him to send a telegram for me, for he knew you would be coming or something; and he tried to get hold of the motor, but Charles and Mr. Wilcox wanted it to go to the ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... successfully out. The phenomenon—Strether kept eyeing it as a phenomenon, an eminent case—was marked enough to be touched by the finger. He finally put his hand across the table and laid it on Chad's arm. "If you'll promise me—here on the spot and giving me your word of honour—to break straight off, you'll make the future the real right thing for all of us alike. You'll ease off the strain of this decent but none the less acute suspense in which I've for so many days been waiting for you, and let me turn in to rest. I shall leave you with my blessing and go to ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... good manners are. People will talk about it, of course; but they shall talk well of it, I am determined." And D'Artagnan, drawing by a gesture peculiar to himself his shoulder-belt over his shoulder, went straight off to M. Fouquet, who, after he had taken leave of his guests, was preparing to retire for the night and to sleep tranquilly after the ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... to you; Finucane," said the little gentleman, as he lifted his hat straight off his head, and replaced it most accurately, by way of salute. "Mr. Lorrequer, it is with sincere pleasure I make your acquaintance." Here Mr. Beamish bowed stiffly, in return to my salutation, and at the instant a kind of vague sensation crossed my mind, that those ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... work again straight off next day; and with high confidence, too, intimating with brutal cheerfulness that he should succeed this time. It took him and the other scavengers nine days to dig matter enough out of Joan's testimony and their own inventions to build ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain |
