"Curtness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Denver cradled the damaged Charley in his arms and made his way back to the living shack at the mine. Space Cops were just hustling in the last of the prisoners and making ready to return to civilization. Denver thanked them, but with brief curtness, for Charley's condition worried him. He went inside and tried to make his pet comfortable, wondering where one would look on the Moon for a veterinary competent ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... hands, in which he put a great force stealthily. Once, however, he had overcome that sort of agonizing hesitation sufficiently to tell me that he had no such intention, he became rather communicative—at least relatively to the former off-hand curtness of his speeches. The tone, too, was more amiable. He informed me that he intended to study and also to write. He went even so far as to tell me he had been to Stuttgart. Stuttgart, I was aware, was one of the revolutionary centres. The directing committee of one of the ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... said Hester. She spoke quickly and perhaps, with unusual curtness. At least it seemed so to Helen, who attributed the curtness to Hester's being hurt at being asked such a question. She let the subject drop and no further word passed between them until they ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... way," said Mary, and tingled with a rather feline pleasure to see that her curtness merely sharpened the ...
— Riders of the Silences • John Frederick
... curtness at which Weston could not take offense. "He can put in the evening that way if it's necessary. It will supple him, and I guess he needs it. I have a rig ready. You're coming ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... he, with equal curtness. 'You must try and be snug in a wrap-up on the floor to-night. More logs, Benny;' and additional wood was heaped down, while he brought forward a bundle of bear and buffalo skins, enough to blanket them all. ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... conclude?" said Rastignac, with that curtness of speech which to a prolix speaker is ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... till 12.30," remarked Peppermore, unperturbed by this curtness. "Perhaps by then you can give me more news, Mr. Superintendent? Murdered! The Mayor of Hathelsborough! Now that's something that's unique in the history of the town, I believe. I was looking over the records not so long since, and ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... is something contradictory about this man and his curtness invites. He seems to have accepted the presence of the newspaper man in an odd way, an uncity way. After a pause he gestures slightly with his pipe in his hand ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... practically turned a serious offense into a laughable blunder. Mrs. Weatherbee undoubtedly believed Jane. After listening to her, she had not asked either Norma or Judith a single question. Instead, she had closed the discussion with a curtness that was ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... stiffness, the skepticism and suspicion, the curtness which was close to rudeness, at first bewildered, then hurt and humiliated him, finally filling him with a resentment which was rapidly reaching a point where it needed only an uncivil word or act too much to produce ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... be a bit on edge. She snapped out her orders with a curtness that brought a jerkily quick response from forty waving Indian clubs. As she stood straight and slim in her gymnasium suit, her cheeks flushed with exercise, she looked quite as young as any of her pupils. But if she appeared young, she also ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... The curtness of the counter-question, and the cool, slow manner in which, as he put it, Mr. Grewgious moved his eyes from the fire to his companion's face, might at any other time have been exasperating. In his depression and exhaustion, Jasper merely opened ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... so little that I can hardly venture to make any remarks on the impression which I received from his conversation, with regard to the character of his mind. Notwithstanding his general reserve and curtness of speech, on two or three occasions he showed himself to possess quite a quick and vivid fancy, and even a certain share of humor. I have heard him tell stories remarkably well. One tale, especially, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... The curtness of retort roused Anna's latent antagonism. "It is," she said, in a hard voice that startled her as she heard it. Had she ever spoken so to any one before? She felt frightened, as though her very nature had changed without her knowing it...Feeling the girl's astonished gaze still on her, she continued: ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... sex. What have I done to bring this nonsense to pass? I make no pretence of understanding any sort of woman, much less Mary's sort, but why this charming indifference at one time, this indignant curtness at another? I'm in the air, I admit, but I'm here to stay as long as that familiar-mannered individual stays. I'd like Mary to understand it, whether she wishes to or not. Would you mind making the intimation? She ...
— Miss Gibbie Gault • Kate Langley Bosher
... now, I think," he said, with an immediate return to curtness. It steadied her as no other attitude on his ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... news-sheet, to make sure that he had read aright; his servant had folded it up and laid it aside on a shelf, he unfolded it with a hand which trembled; the same lines stared at him in the warm light of sunrise as in the faint glimmer of the floating wick. The very curtness and coldness of the announcement testified to its exactitude. He did not any longer doubt its truth; but there were no details, no explanations: he pondered on the possibilities of obtaining them; it was useless to seek them in the village or the ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... stir of revolutions, and which float on its surface until it swallows them up. All in him was like the mass—athletic, rude, coarse. He pleased them because he resembled them. His eloquence was like the loud clamour of the mob. His brief and decisive phrases had the martial curtness of command. His irresistible gestures gave impulse to his plebeian auditories. Ambition was his sole line of politics. Devoid of honour, principles, or morality, he only loved democracy because it was exciting. ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... Mrs. Maldon?" demanded Mr. Batchgrew with curtness, after he had snorted and sniffed. He remained standing near ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... coloured with rhetoric, and occasionally with poetic embellishment, but is otherwise terse and vigorous. The extreme curtness he cultivated often leads him into something bordering on obscurity. His habit of alluding to sources of information instead of being at the pains to describe them at length, while it adds to the neatness of his periods, detracts from its value to ourselves. ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... been there before," replied Loo, with a curtness so unusual as to make Miriam glance at him. "I have been there before, you know. It would be more interesting to hear your own impressions, which ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... pay you two thousand pounds on his wedding-day," said Mrs. Trent, with cruel curtness. "I know all about it. And I understand. Why should I be above making my profit out of him like other people? All right, Francis: I won't spoil your little game at present. And now ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Steve was returning, Beatrice and her aunt departed for a whirl in Florida, with a laconic invitation that Steve and his father-in-law follow them. Steve declined the invitation with alarming curtness. ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... George's curtness was accounted for by the fact that he had been afraid of saying too much, but Sylvia carelessly handed ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... distinguished presence, had come into the room looking at his watch from force of habit. And though his eyes rested upon his daughter with very evident pride and affection, the custom of quickly terminated interviews and the economy of precious time gave a sharp, decisive curtness to his manner. Every one who came in contact with him felt the impelling necessity of coming to the point as clearly and tersely as possible. Just now, with a "Hello, John, my boy," he held out his hand to Derby and shook his head negatively in answer to his wife's ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... Curtness in letter-writing does not necessarily indicate oddity. It often is the most judicious method of avoiding interminable correspondence. When one of Bishop Thorold's clergy wrote to beg leave of absence from his duties ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... accompanied it. Nobody is now left to think much of Bradshaw, but in 1654 he was an excellent representative of the class Carlyle was fond of describing as the alors celebre. Prompted by this desire, Milton must have written to Marvell hinting, as he well knew how to do, his surprise at the curtness of his friend's former communication, and Marvell's reply to this letter has come down to us. It is Marvell's glory that long before Paradise Lost he recognised the essential greatness of the blind secretary, and his letter is a fine example of the mode of humouring ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... Lestock's division), "likewise those five sail [Spanish] of the enemy that are astern of us. I have my orders to engage the Real, and you see I am bearing down for that purpose." The lieutenants remarked that he could do so with safety. To this he rejoined, with a curtness that testifies to the uneasiness of his mind, "I did not send for you to ask your opinions, but only to observe that not one of our ships is coming down to my assistance, in order to cut those five sail off, and in case those five sail should ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... the room—the big drum on the floor in the empty space where the exhorters stood, the dozen wooden benches and the possible score of people sitting on them, the dull kerosene lamps on the walls, lighting up the curtness of the texts. There were half a dozen men of the Duke's Own packed in a row like a formation, solid on their haunches; and three or four unshaven and loose-garmented, from crews in the Hooghly, who leaned well forwards ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... than to forbid it entirely. Emerson calls it language in the making, its crude, vital, material. It is often an effective school of moral description, a palliative for profanity, and expresses the natural craving for superlatives. Faults are hit off and condemned with the curtness sententiousness of proverbs devised by youth to sanctify itself and correct its own faults. The pedagogue objects that it violates good form and established usage, but why should the habits of hundreds of years ago control when they can not satisfy the needs of youth, which ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... he had won any hearts in Gueldersdorp. His curtness, his roughness, his harshness had been unfavourably commented upon many and many a time. Yet when he left them, how the people cheered! What volumes of roaring sound from lusty throats had bidden ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... of the same quality as Earle's or Hall's, but they went a different way to work. Where these compressed and cultivated a style which was staccato and epigrammatic, huddling all the traits of their subject in short sharp sentences that follow each other with all the brevity and curtness of items in a prescription, Addison and Steele observed a more artistic plan. They made, as it were, the prescription up, adding one ingredient after another slowly as the mixture dissolved. You are introduced to Sir Roger de Coverley, ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... chair across an open number of the illustrated London News. We looked, I believe, as casual and innocent as cherubim, but my conscience was very guilty, and it seemed to me, rightly or wrongly, that for the first time Fulton showed me a certain curtness of manner, as if he was not pleased at finding me so often ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris
... of a spider watching flies; he tried to be critical, cold, aloof. He listened as one set apart, and answered in monosyllables. But despite his own volition the monosyllables were accompanied by a smile that destroyed the effect of their curtness. The intimate charm of the domesticity subdued his logical antipathies. He knew that he was making a good impression among these women, that for them there was something romantic and exciting about ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... camp. From these purely ornamental occupations he had returned in a condition approximating to collapse, without desire and without hope. The invincible cheerfulness of unseen men chanting music-hall songs in the drenched night made no impression on him, nor the terrible staccato curtness of a N.C.O. mounting guard. Volition had gone out of him; his heart was as empty ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... assume the bovine stolidity which, though foreign to his real nature, the Canadian bushman occasionally adopts for diplomatic purposes. Thurston, however, still retained certain traits of the Insular Briton, including a curtness of speech and ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... objection, and that on the other hand you note when the power tone is lacking. In the first case you will need to reply with considerable force, whether you appeal to the mind or the heart of the prospect. But when his objection is stated in a powerless tone, even though it may be accompanied by curtness or bluster, you need not waste much force on your answering appeal to his mentality or ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... men felt very happy at parting, and both, after the manner of their kind, tried to conceal their real feelings by an exaggerated show of indifference. Thus it was that their farewells were brief, almost to curtness, and to the point; and it was only as Frobisher was actually on the door-step that Dick pushed into his friend's hands a parcel—the same parcel that had caught Frobisher's eye that morning. It was heavy, and ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... dear," said Alice. "I know it is. But that does not mend your foot," she said, with unusual curtness. And Marjorie saw that she still looked ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... your coat. My good sir, why didn't you let them help you to undress?" broke in the old man, with the curtness of the country doctor, who, as a rule, is ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... your Majesty," he said, with soldierly curtness. "I have long desired to surrender it to hands more worthy to govern ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... he chose. Then who so pleasing, thrifty, and satisfactory in every way as Elizabeth-Jane? Apart from her personal recommendations a reconciliation with his former friend Henchard would, in the natural course of things, flow from such a union. He therefore forgave the Mayor his curtness; and this morning on his way to the fair he had called at her house, where he learnt that she was staying at Miss Templeman's. A little stimulated at not finding her ready and waiting—so fanciful are ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... thick black hair had been handed down to her by some beautiful Minnehaha or Pocahontas. When first she was approached by timid, tentative questionings revealing this point of view, Betty felt hot and answered with unamiable curtness. No, there were no red Indians in New York. There had been no red Indians in her family. She had neither grandmothers nor aunts who were squaws, if they ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett |
